Diary of an interrogator

[RPankn]

Diary of an interrogator: After a tough day's questioning, a relaxing evening of jail-roof golf

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
09 May 2004


Civilian interrogators relaxed after grilling prisoners by perfecting their golf swing on the roof of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to the extraordinary diary kept by one.

Among the golfers is a civilian accused by a US Army report of being "directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse" at the prison. The diary also reveals the pressure on interrogators and the extremely right-wing views of some.

Joe Ryan, a former Green Beret working in Abu Ghraib for CACI International, a defence IT contractor, had been keeping the diary for a conservative talk-show radio station in Minneapolis, KSTP 1500 [What a surprise! KSTP is owned by Clear Channel!]. The diary was posted on the station's website until, Mr Ryan said, military authorities requested its removal. On 25 April, Mr Ryan wrote: "We have foreign fighters from Morocco, Syria, Jordan, and other countries detained here. They are not sponsored by their respective countries to come here, but it is due to their individual choices, be it religious or stupidity ... I got to take the rest of the day off after our long booth time. This gave us a nice evening after dinner to head to the roof and play a round of golf.

"Scott Norman, Jeff Mouton, Steve Hattabaugh, Steve Stefanowicz, and I all took turns trying to hit balls over the back wall and on to the highway. Since the club is a left-handed 3 iron, I had an unfair advantage and missed a dump truck by only about 10 feet ... We do what we can to make it fun here."

Mr Stefanowicz, 35, a former naval reserve officer also employed by Arlington-based CACI International as an interrogator, became a reservist in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 2001. A CACI official said last week that Mr Stefanowicz was "by all accounts doing a d**n fine job". But Major General Antonio Taguba, who carried out an investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, believed Mr Stefanowicz was one of the people "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib".

He recommended Mr Stefanowicz "be fired from his army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by 'setting conditions' which were neither authorised nor in accordance with army regulations. He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse."

Mr Stefanowicz's mother, Jean Campbell, confirmed to reporters last week that her son was still in Iraq.

A copy of Mr Ryan's diary was obtained by the blogger Billmon (www.billmon.org). While there is no mention of abuse in the diary and nothing to suggest Mr Ryan was involved, he does talk of the pressure to get intelligence.

"I was at work until 3.30 in the morning because we got hold of some intelligence ... to directly support the Marines in Al Fallujah The Marines wanted to hit one of the houses I had reported on, but wanted more ... I went back in on the [prisoner] who gave me the initial information."

Elsewhere he says: "'Wild' Bill Armstrong is one of our interrogators. Bill is married with five kids and a devout Christian, father, and husband ... Politically, Bill makes [the right wing radio host] Rush Limbaugh look like a flaming liberal."

9 May 2004 06:06


Link: news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=519434

[RPankn]

Here's excerpts from the sick bastard's...I mean Joe Ryan's...diary:

For those of you who do not know my military and civilian background, let me give a little bio to maybe clarify how I look at things while I am here.
I was in Air Force Junior ROTC in high school and went to University of Colorado for two years on Air Force ROTC scholarship [Isn't it ironic that Ryan went to UoC on the AF and is now involved in a scandal resulting, in part, from sexual abuse of detainees]. I decided that Aerospace Engineering was not for me and left college.

I enlisted into the Army as a PFC for an interrogator position with an airborne slot. My language wish list consisted of Russian, German, or Spanish. In the army's omnipotence, they chose to send me to the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, DC to learn Swahili. My first assignment was with 3rd Special Forces Group where I was in-processed a whole 13 days prior to going on my first deployment with a team to Uganda. I have spent time in 10 African countries with the teams and earned my "S" identifier after completion of selection and qualifying course for weapons specialist (18B), but was never released by MI branch since I was one of two Swahili linguists in the army, so carried the 18B as a secondary specialty. I went through the DOD Strategic Debriefer Course, Israeli Interrogation Course, and the SCAN Course. In 1994, I went into Haiti with two SF teams into La Cayes on the southern peninsula. After securing our objective, we were informed the invasion was canceled. This meant no further reinforcements for 28 days and forever resentful to the philandering president. In Haiti I performed more than 80 interrogations and conducted the force protection assessments.

Since MI Branch would not release me, I reclassified to 98C (Signals Intelligence Analyst) so I could advance my career. So a Swahili linguist was sent to Korea for a year upon completion of the school. The blessing is that I met my wonderful wife in 98C school and spent the year in Korea with her. I was in charge of the two Trojan Spirit systems for the 2nd Infantry Division.

Needing a desk to try on for size, I went to work for the National Security Agency for the last 17 month of my active duty. As the only military person in the department and the only one to have spent time in Eastern Africa, I had four civilians making MUCH more money than I working for me during the height of the Sudanese civil war.

I wanted to move to Colorado or back to California when I got out of the military. My wife was from Minnesota. Due to typical martial negotiations, we moved to Minnesota, which as usual, the wife made a great decision[Apparently she didn't when she chose a husband; sorry couldn't resist]. I left the army and finished my degree in Political Science while working as a security technician supervisor for the St Paul Companies. I have since moved on to manage workers' compensation claims for the county employees in Minnesota.

A week before Thanksgiving of 2003, I found out that I was facing a potential recall to active duty after enjoying civilian life for 5 years since I was former special forces. In order to avoid going back to active duty, I signed on with a defense contractor and am now over here as an interrogator. [Well, well, well. Another chickenhawk.]


Link: billmon.org/archives/001450.html


From LSI's webpage [SCAN course]:

SCAN by LSI, developed by Avinoam Sapir, is the most effective technique available for obtaining information and detecting deception from statements of witnesses or suspects. SCAN (sometimes known as Statement Analysis) is an essential tool for law enforcement personnel, investigators, social service personnel, and anyone else who needs to obtain information from written material. LSI provides SCAN training throughout the US and Canada, and also in Mexico, the UK, Israel, Australia, and other countries.[/b]


Anyone every heard of the "Israeli Interrogation Course"?

[Ropegun]

I want to know how one gets assigned to a Special Forces Group when one is but a PFC.