Samantha Newbery

Interrogation, intelligence and security: Controversial British Techniques

Interrogation, Intelligence and Security examines the origins and effects of a group of interrogation techniques known as the ‘five techniques’. Through its in-depth analysis the book reveals how British forces came to use these controversial methods. Focusing on the British colony of Aden (1963–67), the height of ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland (1971), and the conflict in Iraq (2003), the book explores the use of hooding to restrict vision, white noise, stress positions, limited sleep and a limited diet. There are clear parallels between these three case studies and the use of controversial interrogation techniques today. Readers will be able to make informed judgements about whether, on the basis of the results of these cases, interrogation techniques that might be described as torture can be justified. This book will be of particular interest to security professionals, academics and members of the public interested in the torture debate, intelligence, the military, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, foreign policy and law enforcement.

Interrogation, Intelligence and the Issue of Human Rights

When internment was introduced in Northern Ireland on 9 August 1971, the Stormont and British Governments received immediate criticism for the move from within the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Condemnation widened as reports of ill-treatment at the hands of the security forces during arrest, whilst in custody and employed in conjunction with interrogation reached the public domain. After arrest prisoners were first questioned by the police to confirm the right person had been arrested and to establish whether they should be questioned with a view to preferring a criminal charge, whether they should be transferred to an interrogation centre for secondary interrogation with the aim of eliciting intelligence, or, if unsuitable for either of these, be released. In addition to secondary interrogation, 14 men were interrogated ‘in-depth’. The Royal Ulster Constabulary’s Special Branch selected these men for exposure to the exceptional ‘five techniques’ of wall-standing, hooding, white noise, limited sleep and a diet of bread and water at the ‘special interrogation centre’ at Ballykelly airfield on the grounds that they were ‘thought to possess considerable knowledge of the IRA but . . . were considered unlikely toIn 2008, Samantha Newbery, then a PhD student, discovered a hitherto confidential document: ‘Confidential: UK Eyes Only. Annex A: Intelligence gained from interrogations in Northern Ireland’ (DEFE 13/958, The National Archives (TNA)). It details the British Army’s notorious interrogations of IRA suspects that led to the eventual banning of the ‘five techniques’ that violated the UK’s international treaty obligation prohibiting the use of torture and ‘inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’. Having decided that the document – Intelligence gained from should be put in the public domain, she invited me, along with the eminent lawyer, Philippe Sands and Brian Stuart, a former Secretary to the British Joint Intelligence Committee, to contribute commentaries. I concluded that even if the document was accurate in both what it stated and in what it left out, that use of the ‘five techniques’ (tantamount to torture) was unjustified, since the normalisation and institutionalisation of torture is far worse than failing to obtain the information thus gained. Whether or not this joint paper will make a difference to UK policy concerning the use of torture remains an open question; whether or not it should is not. This piece is an example of how my book on torture, deliberately written for a public readership, has made it possible for me to make interventions in practical policy, or at least to attempt to, whether in occasional writing for eg The Chartist and the web-based Open Democracy, or directly for activist groups, eg my ‘Ethical Opinion’ for Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, Report: Holding Health to Ransom: GSS Interrogation and Extortion of Palestinian Patients at Erez Crossing (2008).

Methods for researching interrogation and torture

Methods for improving knowledge and understanding of the distressing subject of interrogation techniques that might be described as torture deserve to be discussed. A review of the book Interrogation, Intelligence and Security was published in this journal. It claimed that this book, which asks how interrogation techniques that might be described as torture came to be used and with what results in three case studies, ‘does not really deal with the ethical issues involved’.1 The claims made by this book review must be contested. It was claimed that ‘[f ]ocusing too narrowly on specific cases can result in missing a more complete picture.’2 To the contrary, researching specific cases in depth can improve our understanding of how and why interrogation techniques that might meet the definitions of torture provided by law are used. Focusing on case studies does not preclude identification of the wider facilitating structures that allow or cause prisoners to be treated this way. With an understanding of the environment, decisions, guidelines (or lack thereof ), training and other facilitating and motivating factors that led to the techniques being used comes an understanding of why they were used. For example, sight deprivation was used to aid interrogation at a Temporary Detention Facility in Basra in September 2003 while beatings were instead motivated by revenge.3 Research has also revealed facilitating factors present in this case such as the institutional forgetting of the 1972 ban on certain techniques.4 The claim that the case study approach means it is difficult to address how controversial techniques came to be used is somewhat contradicted by the more accurate claim that these research methods did produce discussions of how the techniques ‘came to be used in the absence of proper authorisation’.5 Neither does the case study approach preclude the production of informed commentary on what is justifiable or effective. Indeed, addressing a case in depth allows for a wide range of immediate and long-lasting effects to be identified. It is possible to acknowledge that such techniques can be illegal, unethical and unjustified whilst also seeking to evaluate them on the basis of their effects. US President Donald Trump’s comments on waterboarding demonstrate that torture is still viewed as a potential source of intelligence.6 It is precisely this, combined with their objectionable character, that gives value to identifying the results of previous uses of controversial techniques so as to inform future policies on interrogation, guidelines and training. It has been implied that torture being ‘absolutely prohibited in any circumstances’ by law – George W. Bush’s lawyers’ manipulation of that prohibition aside – means that practices that might meet a legal definition of torture should not be discussed.7 Judging legality, however, is not necessarily synonymous with judging ethics. For example, it does not always follow that if something is not expressly prohibited in law it is therefore permissible.8 When ethical issues are defined as ‘questions about how we ought to live and what we ought to do’ it is hard to see how identifying why controversial interrogation techniques were used and with what results is an approach that gives ‘minimal consideration of the ethical debate as to whether the techniques should ever have been used.’9

Torture-free cyberspace – a human right

Definitions of torture range from the emotive to the legal. The media sometimes uses the term in a loose or informal sense – for example, to refer to the pain felt when ones sports team loses a crucial game. This dangerous practice detracts from the severity of torture as defined in law. When international human rights instruments describe the treatment of prisoners as torture, they are referring to severe suffering. News reports also use the term in a non-legal, informal sense to refer to the effects of cyber-bullying. In some instances cyber-bullying can meet the severity-of-suffering aspect of the legal definition of torture, as we will examine.

The UK, interrogation and Iraq, 2003–2008

Abstract The UK’s interrogation operations during the conflict in Iraq (2003–2008) are often portrayed by the media as involving significant amounts of mistreatment. This article demonstrates that these practices are not necessarily representative of the UK’s interrogation operations across this conflict. In doing so it contributes to the limited literature on the practice of interrogation and on the UK’s combat operations in Iraq. The UK’s interrogation capability, and therefore its intelligence-gathering capability, is shown to have rested primarily with the military’s Joint Forward Interrogation Team (JFIT). The JFIT suffered from limitations to the number, training and experience of its interrogators and interpreters. It is argued that maintaining a permanent, higher level of preparedness for interrogation by the British armed forces is desirable.