Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

move, but defecate and urinate on themselves. Nor can they
lie down except on the frigid ground…. And thus coerced they
say that what is false is true, choosing to die once rather than
to endure more torture. As a result of these false and coerced
confessions not only do those making confessions perish, but
so do the innocent people named by them…. [M]any of those
who are newly cited to appear [before the inquisitors], hearing
of the torments and trials of those who are detained…assert that
what is false is true; in which assertions they accuse not only
themselves but other innocent people, that they may avoid the
above mentioned pains…. Those who thus confess afterward
reveal to their close friends that those things that they said to the
inquisitors are not true, but rather false, and they confessed out
of imminent danger. 16
Sadly, the conditions described above, although 800 years in the past, are
direct antecedents of conditions experienced by Iraqi prisoners confined in Abu
Ghraib prison during 2003 and 2004, and perhaps by other prisoners in U.S.
custody. The results of interrogations conducted under these conditions were just
as unreliable as those in the 13th century. Why, in the 21st century, with all our
accumulated knowledge about how human beings think and interact and function,
are we still repeating costly medieval mistakes “The problem,” according to Dr.
Robert Coulam, “is that…there is little systematic knowledge available to tell
us ‘what works’ in interrogation. We do not know what methods or processes
of interrogation best protect the nation’s security (emphasis in the original).” In
essence, this is why Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art in is so
important and timely. Its conclusions demonstrate that the entire field of educing
information needs critical reexamination; there are no easy answers or generic
solutions when it comes to understanding these highly complex behaviors.
Especially pertinent, since it confounds conventional wisdom and much of
historical practice, is Dr. Borum’s finding that “There is little or no research to
indicate whether [coercive] techniques succeed…. [B]ut the preponderance of
reports seems to weigh against their effectiveness…. Psychological theory…and
related research suggest that coercion or pressure can actually increase a source’s
resistance and determination not to comply (emphasis in the original).” Regarding
behavioral indicators of veracity, Dr. Gary Hazlett concludes “We do not really
know what we think we know. Overall, knowledge of behavioral indicators that
might assist in the detection of deception is very limited (emphasis in the original).”
Wide-ranging mechanical and chemical approaches to educing information, once
thought to be a promising panacea, have not lived up to earlier expectations. Over
seventy years after the introduction of the so-called “lie-detector,” Drs. Kristin
Heckman and Mark Happel contend that “despite the polygraph’s shortcomings,
there is currently no viable technical alternative to polygraphy.”
16
Given, 64, extracted from Jean-Marie Vidal, Un Inquisiteur jugé par ses “victimes”: Jean Galand
et les Carcassonnais (1285-1286) (Paris, 1903).
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