In line with a current national penchant for passing legislation without reading all the language, it might be acceptable to pass judgment on the Army Field Manual on Interrogation (Army FM 2-22.3, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTOR OPERATIONS) without actually bothering to read the September 2006 document. It would even be tempting, as the 384-page tome is not about to rival a Danielle Steel romance novel or Que-vintage Excel for Dummies book as a true page turner. However, assessing its value without reading it takes the kind of double standard that only a political being could manage with a straight face.
As a practitioner of many of the arts that this manual purports to frame and bound within a sphere of political delicacy inflamed by the events of Abu Ghraib, I rate it mostly useful for evaluators, overseers, and distant observers of interrogation and debriefing operations. For such panjandrums of the periphery, the manual does its job. It catalogues, in yeoman fashion, all the prohibitions against stepping out of line while also presenting an aspirational model of what the ideal intelligence collector should possess in personality traits, education, and mastery of coordination processes. The first two-thirds of the manual deal mainly with such intricacies, offering enough jargon and acronyms to deter political staffers and dilettantes from reading too intently while convincing them that it is, after all, a serious military document.
What does this manual do for the collector, however? Not much at all. Eventually, it recounts standard interrogation techniques, such as file-and-dossier, Mutt-and-Jeff, rapid fire, and "We know all" -- none of which have changed substantially in a half century. This particular manual does a little more justice to the art of drawing intelligence from willing and unwilling sources by discussing the value of elicitation and the importance of building rapport. While interrogators and debriefers must learn these points in order to succeed, in the past, much of this knowledge was passed down like tribal ritual uttered only before trusted stalwarts over the battlefield campfire. So there is value in the manual. And it spells out most clearly the roles of all who interact with enemy prisoners of war, detainees, and other potential human intelligence sources. A key point is that military police serving as prisoner handlers and wardens are never to assume interrogation-related tasks, such as "softening up" the people in their custody prior to a questioning session. Nor is anyone ever to be allowed to treat such people inhumanely or to interact with them out of view and earshot of assigned military custodians. While this material may appease politicians looking for reassurance that America does not sanction prisoner abuse, none of it is new. The same rules have been in place for generations. This manual only draws more emphasis to them.
On the whole, the manual is a compendium of do-not instructions and laundry lists of coordination mandates and prohibitions geared more for commanders seeking to bring their intelligence collectors up on charges of misconduct than for intelligence gatherers seeking instructional material. This may be good in that the manual does serve a purpose. But no one will learn the craft of interviewing people and deriving intelligence from the interview by reading this manual alone. It would be like expecting to learn how to drive by paging through the vehicle code.
- Nick Catrantzos
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Nick Catrantzos + Tom Goff
- All Secure
- NICK CATRANTZOS is the lead author of the All Secure website and is the emeritus security director for a large public organization. He has also managed security aspects of corporate takeovers, response to international hostage situations, and finding and keeping secrets. He has been board certified in security management, licensed as a private investigator, and certified as an incident commander. He worked as a case officer for a discreet branch of public service. He protected stealth technology at Lockheed and, later, as a consulting security director for both Kroll and Control Risks, he assisted executives with workplace violence cases and with protecting VIPs and critical assets globally in volatile areas. Nick's partner, TOM GOFF, was a captain in the Military Police Corps, U.S. Army Reserve and has a law degree from the University of California at Davis. He is a former reporter for Fortune Magazine, was senior editor at New York Magazine and Esquire, and has provided crisis and communications counsel to senior executives at Fortune 500 companies, including Lockheed, ARCO, Microsoft, Nissan, and Sony Pictures.