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Educing
Information:
Interrogation
Art &
Science
This compilation of 10 articles on interrogation methods and their
efficacy comprises the first phase of a larger project sponsored by the
Intelligence Science Board, which was chartered in 2002 to advise
senior intelligence officials on scientific and technical issues of
importance to the Intelligence Community. Robert A. Fein, a member of
the Science Board, chaired the effort by what appears to have been a
truly high-powered team. Eleven individuals with security and
counterintelligence experience served on his "experts committee," drawn
chiefly from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and military
intelligence units. The project also enlisted an outside advisory
group, made up of three Harvard University professors (including the
distinguished historian and intelligence scholar Ernest May), two
college presidents, a scientist with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and
a Goldman Sachs vice president. The dozen authors of these articles
include forensic psychologists; a policy analyst; lawyers; a
"neuroscience thrust lead" (whatever that is); a computer scientist;
intelligence officers; a psychiatrist; experts in negotiation
practices; and engineers. Several have been or are affiliated with the
MITRE Corporation.
In producing this introductory volume, this body of experts has
provided a very good service and my hat's off to the board and its
authors for seriously pondering the weighty issues surrounding
interrogation. But readers must first be warned: this anthology is not
an easy read. Written, as it is, by a wide array of experts, it is
laden with footnotes and professional jargon. One chapter alone offers
525 notes of legalistic overkill by two young scholars from Harvard
University's School of Law. Beyond this challenge is the Orwellian,
repellent nature of the topic itself--the pulling-out-of-fingernails
connotation that the word "interrogation" carries. The extraction of
information from unwilling subjects is obviously an unpleasant matter.
It has also been hounded by controversy ever since the
exposès
at Abu Ghraib, which revealed questionable approaches adopted in 2003
by US military intelligence officers in their efforts to elicit
information from Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad.
The odd and esoteric title, Educing Information, is an attempt to
soften the topic for potential readers, but I doubt if it will
accomplish much more than to confuse library catalogers as well as
those searching for material on "interrogation," not "eduction." Since
this is, after all, a Department of Defense publication, acronyms in
the text are inevitable, and "educing information" is reduced to "EI"
throughout the book.
In sum, the articles point to a central finding, one not so much
confirmed by rigorous empirical inquiry as it is felt to be true by
professionals in the field (the "art" side of the subtitle, I suppose).
That conclusion: pain, coercion, and threats are unlikely to elicit
good information from a subject. (Got that, Jack Bauer?) As one writer
puts it, "The scientific community has never established that coercive
interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable
intelligence information." (130) The authors hedge their bets, however,
by suggesting repeatedly that more research needs to be done on this
question. (Any volunteers for these experiments?)
Here
Are the Scientific Reports
Included in This Book:
- The
Costs and Benefits of Interrogation
in the Struggle Against Terrorism by Robert Coulam
- Approaching
Truth: Behavioral Science
Lessons on Educing Information from Human Sources by Randy Borum
- Research
on Detection of Deception: What
We Know vs. What We Think We Know by Gary Hazlett
- Mechanical
Detection of Deception: A
Short Review by Kristin E. Heckman and Mark D. Happel
- KUBARK
Counterintelligence Interrogation
Review: Observations of an Interrogator – Lessons Learned and
Avenues for Further Research bySteven M. Kleinman
- Custodial
Interrogations: What We
Know,What We Do, and What We Can Learn from Law Enforcement Experiences
by Ariel Neuman and Daniel Salinas-Serrano
- Barriers
to Success: Critical Challenges
in Developing a New Educing Information Paradigm by Steven M.
Kleinman
- Negotiation
Theory and Practice:
Exploring Ideas to Aid Information Eduction by Daniel L.
Shapiro
- Negotiation
Theory and Educing
Information: Practical Concepts and Tools by M. P. Rowe
- Options
for Scientific Research on
Eduction Practices by Paul Lehner
Order
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