General Says Less Coercion of Captives Yields Better Data: "American interrogators working in Iraq have obtained as much as 50 percent more high-value intelligence since a series of coercive practices like hooding, stripping and sleep deprivation were banned, a senior American official said Monday.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the American commander in charge of detentions and interrogations, said that the number of 'high-value' intelligence reports drawn from interrogations of Iraqi prisoners had increased by more than half on a monthly basis since January. That was when American officials first disclosed that they were investigating abuses of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American military police and intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib."
So all those harsh tactics actually were counter to their stated purpose, apart from being completely immoral and disgusting abuses of human rights, and any rights that a civilized country might think of upholding.
- posted by geoff @ #