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Pentagon bans SERE interrogation techniques
Washington (AFP) Oct 15, 2008 The Pentagon has revised a directive on detainee interrogations to specifically prohibit the use of techniques developed for a pilot survival training program from Chinese torture methods, officials said Wednesday. Critics charge that the so-called SERE techniques served as the basis for coercive interrogation practices that spread after the September 11 attacks to military detention centers in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq. "Use of SERE techniques against a person in the custody or effective control of the Department of Defense or detained in a DoD facility is prohibited," the October 9 directive on detainee interrogation says. SERE, which stands for survival, evasion, resistance and escape, is a program developed by the US military after the Korean War to help downed pilots and other military personnel survive captivity. Part of the training involves teaching pilots how to resist torture by exposing them to the harsh techniques used on US captives during the 1950-53 war. New techniques were incorporated into the training with each new war. They included waterboarding, immersion, forced nudity, isolation, slaps to the face and belly, stress positions, sleep disruption and sensory deprivation. For a period after the Gulf War, they also included sexual assault but that was dropped following complaints that the training went too far. A US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said those practices were not permitted under the Defense Department's previous two year old directive on detainee interrogations. But the explicit SERE prohibition was included in the recently updated version "just to make clear this is not authorized." Other changes would bar interrogations of detainees in Defense Department custody by other US government agencies, foreign government or contractors unless they are monitored and adhere to the military's rules. At a hearing last month, Senator Carl Levin said top Pentagon officials sought advice on detainee "exploitation" from leaders of the SERE program as early as December 2001. In 2003, the office that runs the SERE programs sent a team to Iraq to provide "interrogrator support" to a special operations unit, according to the testimony. "We had the choice of getting smarter or getting tougher, and unfortunately, we chose the latter," said Colonel Steven Kleinman, who led the team. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
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