Skill versus Brutality in Interrogation: Lessons from Israel for American Policy
In: Intelligence and national security, Band 28, Heft 4, S. 566-590
ISSN: 1743-9019
This article reviews the central tenets of selection, training, doctrine, and organization in Israeli interrogation to suggest how the United States might learn from the Israeli experience. There is relatively little in the open literature on these particular issues of training and approach in Israel. The contrast between Israeli and US approaches raises questions about the effectiveness of US interrogation and suggests how the US might better use skill and cunning toward an effective, legal, and ethical American policy on interrogation. By themselves, professionalism and skill do not prevent torture, but they can provide an effective alternative to it. A change in American policy is essential, to counter pressures in Congress and elsewhere to sanction the use of torture in response to new terrorist threats. Adapted from the source document.