Fmr Army Interrogator: "90 percent of the people...in my opinion innocent"

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10895199/


Tactics of Interrogation
Jan. 16: Hardball's Chris Matthews interviews former Army Specialist Tony Lagouranis. He served as an interrogator in Iraq from 2004 to 2005, two of those months he was stationed at the Abu Ghraib prison.


Tactics of Interrogation
Former Army specialist discusses his experience as an interrogator in Iraq

<snip>

TONY LAGOURANIS, FMR. ARMY INTERROGATOR: Well, first of all, I‘d like to say that 90 percent of the people that I saw were in my opinion innocent. And that was a pretty common figure that interrogators came up with that I spoke to.

MATTHEWS: How did we capture them? Or why did we capture them?

LAGOURANIS: Often people are captured when they find a weapons cash, for instance, maybe hidden in a canal or hidden in a building. And they don‘t know who the weapons belong to, so they just will go around and arrest people in the proximity of that cash for questioning.

But they end up getting accused of maintaining that weapons cash. That‘s just one way that people get arrested. I could give you specific instances.

MATTHEWS: And most of them are Iraqis?

LAGOURANIS: Most of them. The vast majority of them are Iraqis. Yes.

MATTHEWS: And when we bring them in, they just start rubber hosing them or start assuming their guilty? Or what‘s the approach we take to prisoners?

LAGOURANIS: Well, it depended on where you were. I recall one unit, they told me that everybody who comes into that prison, everyone who is arrested is guilty. And they really would only release people if there was overwhelming evidence that they hadn‘t...

MATTHEWS: So you had to prove your innocence?

LAGOURANIS: Exactly. Right. Often I had to prove their innocence. But the units who were responsible for releasing them or sending them up to Abu Ghraib wouldn‘t often listen to our recommendations.

read the rest @ link

And the truth will set you free....

[Christa]

1. That was an amazing interview nt.

[jeanarrett]

2. MSNBC needs to do some proofreading. It's "cache" not "cash."

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. But it is pronounced 'cash' not 'ca-shay' as so many idiots do

because of the spelling.

Even when they get it right, they can't get it right.

[LynnTheDem]

3. But we're AMERICANS BY GOD! We can do anything we want and

it is right and holy. We're the GOOD GUYS. If you're not AMERICAN BY GOD then, innocent or not, you are subhuman so it's ok for us GOOD AMERICANS BY GOD to do whatever we want.

Gee...sorta sounds just like the GOOD GERMANS circa 1930s, don't it.

Rightwingnuts; stupidest most immoral MFers on the planet.

[napi21]

4. Yes, I saw that interview too! I guess the Army & Marines did too!

Yesterday one of the TV shows had clips from those two military groups, denying what Lagourans had said, and demanding, if he had information about any violations of the rules, he must come to them so they can investigate!