The Tortured Lives of Interrogators

[maddezmom]

The Tortured Lives of Interrogators
Veterans of Iraq, N. Ireland and Mideast Share Stark Memories

By Laura Blumenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 4, 2007; Page A01

CHICAGO -- The American interrogator was afraid. Of what and why, he couldn't say. He was riding the L train in Chicago, and his throat was closing.

In Iraq, when Tony Lagouranis interrogated suspects, fear was his friend, his weapon. He saw it seep, dark and shameful, through the crotch of a man's pants as a dog closed in, barking. He smelled it in prisoners' sweat, a smoky odor, like a pot of lentils burning. He had touched fear, too, felt it in their fingers, their chilled skin trembling.

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"I tortured people," said Lagouranis, 37, who was a military intelligence specialist in Iraq from January 2004 until January 2005. "You have to twist your mind up so much to justify doing that."

~snip~

The border between coercion and torture is often in dispute, and the U.S. government is debating it now. The Bush administration is nearing completion of a new executive order setting secret rules for CIA interrogation that may ban waterboarding, a practice that simulates drowning. Last September, President Bush endorsed an "alternative set of procedures," which he described as "tough," for questioning high-level detainees. And in Iraq last month, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander, warned troops that the military does not sanction "torture or other expedient methods to obtain information."

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060301121.html?hpid=topnews