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Who in Whitehall approved 'gloves-off' interrogation after 9/11?
The Gibson inquiry into mistreatment of detainees is uncomfortable reading for former intelligence officers and ministers
Ian Cobain
snip
Twelve years later I found myself with the British forces moving through Basra, clearing out pockets of opposition, sometimes dying in the process. At Saddam Hussein's palace on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, I turned a corner and came across a long row of Iraqi prisoners. They had hoods over their heads, their hands were plasti-cuffed behind their backs and they were kneeling bolt-upright in the sun.
An hour later I returned: the prisoners were still there, kneeling in the same positions.
Later that day a couple of army medics sidled up and confided that they had just been called upon to revive a prisoner who was being interrogated in a basement by British troops. There were a few prisoners down there, they explained, it smelt of vomit and shit and blood, and whatever was happening had caused one man to lose consciousness. The medics were clearly unsettled.
It is difficult, at times, for reporters in war zones to comprehend what is happening in front of them. A clearer view, the elusive "big picture", can be grasped sometimes only from a distance, or after the passage of time.
But even then it was clear to me that there must be a reason for the different approaches to prisoner-handling between 1991 and 2003. In time, I could see that the reason involved not just issues around the training and preparedness of British troops, but instructions and signals passing down through the chain of command.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/20/peter-gibson-inquiry-torture-interrogation
Ian Cobain
snip
Twelve years later I found myself with the British forces moving through Basra, clearing out pockets of opposition, sometimes dying in the process. At Saddam Hussein's palace on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, I turned a corner and came across a long row of Iraqi prisoners. They had hoods over their heads, their hands were plasti-cuffed behind their backs and they were kneeling bolt-upright in the sun.
An hour later I returned: the prisoners were still there, kneeling in the same positions.
Later that day a couple of army medics sidled up and confided that they had just been called upon to revive a prisoner who was being interrogated in a basement by British troops. There were a few prisoners down there, they explained, it smelt of vomit and shit and blood, and whatever was happening had caused one man to lose consciousness. The medics were clearly unsettled.
It is difficult, at times, for reporters in war zones to comprehend what is happening in front of them. A clearer view, the elusive "big picture", can be grasped sometimes only from a distance, or after the passage of time.
But even then it was clear to me that there must be a reason for the different approaches to prisoner-handling between 1991 and 2003. In time, I could see that the reason involved not just issues around the training and preparedness of British troops, but instructions and signals passing down through the chain of command.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/20/peter-gibson-inquiry-torture-interrogation
4 replies
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