Assessing the Obama Standard for Interrogations: An Analysis of Army Field Manual 2-22.3

Abstract

On 22 January 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that banned harsh interrogations and restricted legal methods to those listed in Army Field Manual 2-22.3. However, there remain concerns that the field manual may fail to prevent the continued abuse and torture of detainees. This study reexamines the leading social–psychological explanations for torture at Abu Ghraib to determine whether the manual appears sufficient to prevent future torture. Findings suggest that it has significantly curtailed future risks; however, in order to help ensure that U.S. soldiers’ treatment of foreign detainees is consistently humane, additional steps should be taken.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by The University of Alabama's Research Grants Committee.

Notes

1. Phillip Carter, “The Road to Abu Ghraib,” The Washington Monthly 36(111) (2004), pp. 20–29; James R. Schlesinger et al., “Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Operations,” in Steven Strasser, ed., The Abu Ghraib Investigations (New York: Public Affairs LLC, 2004).

2. Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Stjepan G. Mestrovic, The Trials of Abu Ghraib: An Expert Witness Account of Shame and Honor (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007); Antonio M. Taguba, “Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade,” 2004. Available at http://www.npr.org/iraq/2004/prison_abuse_report.pdf

3. “Executive Order: Ensuring Lawful Interrogations.” The White House. 22 January 2009. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/EnsuringLawfulInterrogations/

4. Ibid.

5. Dan Froomkin, “Return to Moral High Ground,” The Washington Post. 23 January 2009. Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2009/01/23/BL2009012302209.html

6. Josh Gerstein, “Why the Gitmo Policies may not Change,” Politico. 23 January 2009. Available at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17841.html

7. Lara Jakes and Pamela Hess, “Sources: Obama Ready to End Harsh Interrogations,” Associated Press. 16 January 2009. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-8272176,00.html

8. Gerstein, “Why the Gitmo Policies may not Change.”

9. “Abu Ghraib GI: I'm No Bad Apple,” Associated Press. 2 June 2005. Available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/02/iraq/main699154.shtml; Nick Childs, “Abu Ghraib Fallout Continues,” BBC News. 15 January 2005. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4176643.stm

10. Adam Lankford, Human Killing Machines: Systematic Indoctrination in Iran, Nazi Germany, Al Qaeda, and Abu Ghraib (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009); Mestrovic, The Trials of Abu Ghraib; Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (New York: Random House, 2007).

11. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper-Collins Publishers, Inc., 1998); Jerry Burger, “Replicating Milgram,” Psychological Science. December 2007. Available at http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2264; Robert Johnson, “Institutions and the Promotion of Violence,” in Anne Campbell and John J. Gibbs, eds., Violent Transactions: The Limits of Personality (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986); Fred E. Katz, Confronting Evil: Two Journeys (New York: State University of New York Press, 2004); Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,” Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology 67(1963), pp. 371–378; Ervin Staub, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); James Waller, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Philip Zimbardo, “Pathology of Imprisonment,” Society 9(6) (1972), pp. 4–8.

12. Michelle Brown, “‘Setting the Conditions’ for Abu Ghraib: The Prison Nation Abroad,” American Quarterly 57(3) (2005), pp. 973–998; Carter, “The Road to Abu Ghraib”; George R. Fay, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.” 2004. Available at http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/reports/ar15-6/AR15-6.pdf; Seymour Hersh, “Chain of Command: How the Department of Defense Mishandled the Disaster at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker. 2004. Available at http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/17/040517fa_fact2; Gregory Hooks and Clay Mosher, “Outrages Against Personal Dignity: Rationalizing Abuse and Torture in the War on Terror,” Social Forces 83(4) (2005), pp. 1627–1646; Derek S. Jeffreys, “Eliminating All Empathy: Personalism and the ‘War on Terror,’” Logos 9(3) (2006), pp. 16–44; Anthony R. Jones, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.” 2004. Available at http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/reports/ar15-6/AR15-6.pdf; Lankford, Human Killing Machines; Schlesinger, “Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Operations”; David L. Strauss, “Breakdown in the Gray Room: Recent Turns in the Image War,” in Meron Benvenisti, ed., Abu Ghraib: The Politics of Torture (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2004); Fareed Zakaria, “Pssst … Nobody Loves a Torturer; Ask any American Soldier in Iraq when the General Population really Turned against the United States and He will say, ‘Abu Ghraib.’” 2005. Available at http://www.newsweek.com/id/51176; Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect.

13. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995).

14. Lankford, Human Killing Machines.

15. Staub, The Roots of Evil, p. 245.

16. Grossman, On Killing; Rod Powers, “Air Force Makes Significant Changes to Basic Training.” 5 November 2005. Available at http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforcejoin/a/basicchanges.htm?terms=basic+training; Rod Powers, “Basic Training is Smarter, Not Softer.” 9 September 2006. Available at http://usmilitary.about.com/od/armyjoin/a/basicinterview_2.htm; Thom Shanker, “With Eye on Iraq, Army Pushes Revamped Basic Training,” New York Times. 4 August 2004. Available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E3DF143CF937A3575BC0A9629C8B63&sec

17. Johnson, “Institutions and the Promotion of Violence.”

18. “Bound for Glory—Warrior Ethos,” U.S. Army. 2007. Available at http://www.goarmy.com/glory/warrior_ethos.jsp

19. Shanker, “With Eye on Iraq, Army Pushes Revamped Basic Training.”

20. Zakaria, “Pssst … Nobody Loves a Torturer.”

21. “The Law of Armed Conflict: Basic Knowledge.” The International Committee of the Red Cross. June 2002. Available at http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/5P8EX4/$File/LAW1_final.pdf

22. Osha Gray Davidson, “Contract to Torture,” Salon. 9 August 2004. Available at http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/08/09/abu_ghraib/index.html

23. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” U.S. Army. 2006. Available at http://www.army.mil/institution/armypublicaffairs/pdf/fm2-22-3.pd, pp. 20–22. Page numbers are based on the 384-page document and do not reflect sectional divisions.

24. Ibid., pp. 21–22.

25. “Bound for Glory—Warrior Ethos.”

26. Mark Danner, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror (New York: The New York Review of Books, 2004); Zakaria, “Pssst … Nobody Loves a Torturer.”

27. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” p. 22.

28. Ibid., pp. 22–23.

29. Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience.”

30. Burger, “Replicating Milgram.”

31. Herbert Kelman, “The Social Context of Torture,” in Ronald D. Crelinsten and Alex P. Schmid, eds., The Politics of Pain: Torturers and Their Masters (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995); Staub, The Roots of Evil.

32. Brown, “‘Setting the Conditions’ for Abu Ghraib”; Hersh, “Chain of Command”; Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect.

33. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” p. iv.

34. Ibid., p. 96.

35. It's important to point out that there were specific authorizations for harsh interrogation measures and specific memos redefining “torture” as only constituting the most serious acts of physical and psychological violence. However, the key point here is that leaders got what they specifically authorized and more. Because of the indirect authorizations and established social norms that promoted an aggressive approach to interrogation, low-level personnel carried out acts in excess of what they were formally authorized to do. And this is a danger that may persist.

36. Mike Allen and Dana Priest, “Memo on Torture Draws Focus to Bush,” The Washington Post. 9 June 2004. Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26401-2004Jun8.html

37. Dan Froomkin, “Cheney's ‘Dark Side’ Is Showing,” The Washington Post. 7 November 2005. Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/11/07/BL2005110700793_pf.html

38. Hersh, “Chain of Command.”

39. Eric Lichtblau, “Gonzales Speaks Against Torture During Hearing,” New York Times. 7 January 2005. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/07/politics/07gonzales.html

40. Danner, Torture and Truth; Fay, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade”; Taguba, “Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade.”

41. Craig R. Whitney, “Introduction,” in Steven Strasser, ed., The Abu Ghraib Investigations (New York: Public Affairs LLC, 2004).

42. Roy F. Baumeister, Evil: Inside Human Cruelty and Violence (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1997); Johnson, “Institutions and the Promotion of Violence.”

43. Brown, “‘Setting the Conditions’ for Abu Ghraib.”

44. Hersh, “Chain of Command.”

45. Johnson, “Institutions and the Promotion of Violence”; George Victor, Hitler: The Pathology of Evil (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, Inc., 1998); Waller, Becoming Evil.

46. Baumeister, Evil, p. 268.

47. Danner, Torture and Truth, p. 19.

48. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations.”

49. Ibid., p. 97.

50. Ibid., pp. 97–98.

51. Ibid., p. 99.

52. Ibid.

53. Hersh, “Chain of Command”; Lankford, Human Killing Machines; Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect.

54. Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect, p. 362.

55. Baumeister, Evil; Johnson, “Institutions and the Promotion of Violence”; Staub, The Roots of Evil; Waller, Becoming Evil.

56. Jones, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade,” p. 16.

57. “FM 2–22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” p. 97.

58. Zakaria, “Pssst … Nobody Loves a Torturer.”

59. “The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland,” National Intelligence Estimate. 2007. Available at http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20070717_release.pdf

60. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” p. 20.

61. Nathan J. Gordon and William L. Fleisher, Effective Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques (Boston: Academic Press, 2006); Gisli Gudjonsson, The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions (West Sussex, England: Wiley, 2003).

62. Alan Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003).

63. Ibid.

64. Paul Aussaresses, The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Algeria 1955–1957 (New York: Enigma Books, 2004).

65. Taguba, “Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade,” p. 19.

66. Greg Miller, “Departing CIA Chief Hayden Defends Interrogations,” Los Angeles Times. 16 January 2009. Available at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-cia16-2009jan16,0,649749.story

67. “One Third Support ‘Some Torture,’” BBC News. 19 October 2006. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6063386.stm

68. Jones, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade”; Lankford, Human Killing Machines; Zakaria, “Pssst … Nobody Loves a Torturer”; Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect.

69. Hersh, “Chain of Command”; Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect.

70. Adam Hochschild, “What's in a Word? Torture,” New York Times, Late Edition East Coast. 23 May 2004; Zakaria, “Pssst … Nobody Loves a Torturer.”

71. Johnson, “Institutions and the Promotion of Violence”; Waller, Becoming Evil.

72. John Tierney, “Hot Seat Grows Lukewarm Under Capital's Fog of War,” The New York Times, Late Edition East Coast, 20 May 2004.

73. Lankford, Human Killing Machines; Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect.

74. Jones, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade,” p. 16.

75. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” p. 90.

76. Mestrovic, The Trials of Abu Ghraib.

77. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” p. 93.

78. Ibid., p. 90.

79. Danner, Torture and Truth.

80. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” p. 98.

81. Ibid., p. 94.

82. Baumeister, Evil; Johnson, “Institutions and the Promotion of Violence”; Staub, The Roots of Evil; Waller, Becoming Evil.

83. Fay, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade”; Hooks and Mosher, “Outrages Against Personal Dignity”; Jeffreys, “Eliminating All Empathy”; Schlesinger, “Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Operations”; Strauss, “Breakdown in the Gray Room”; Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect.

84. Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect, p. 414.

85. Ibid., p. 414.

86. Fay, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade”; Schlesinger, “Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Operations.”

87. Lankford, Human Killing Machines.

88. Fay, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade,” p. 44.

89. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations.”

90. Ibid., p. 96.

91. Robert Johnson, Death Work: A Study of the Modern Execution Process (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998).

92. “FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” p. 150.

93. Ibid., p. 150.

94. Ibid., p. 150.

95. Ibid., p. 148–149.

96. Brown, “‘Setting the Conditions’ for Abu Ghraib”; Carter, “The Road to Abu Ghraib”; Fay, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade”; Hersh, “Chain of Command”; Hooks and Mosher, “Outrages Against Personal Dignity”; Jeffreys, “Eliminating All Empathy”; Jones, “AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade”; Lankford, Human Killing Machines; Schlesinger, “Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Operations”; Strauss, “Breakdown in the Gray Room”; Zakaria, “Pssst … Nobody Loves a Torturer”; Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect.

97. “Bound for Glory—Warrior Ethos.”