Understanding Detainee Behavior: Effective Intelligence Interviewing, Summaries of Japanese

Download Understanding Detainee Behavior: Effective Intelligence Interviewing and more Summaries Japanese in PDF only on Docsity! Intelligence Science Board INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES A Report from the Study on Educing Information April 2009 ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES v Contents Introduction......................................................................................................... 1   Intended Audience ......................................................................................................................2   Organization................................................................................................................................3   A Framework for Intelligence Interviewing ..................................................................................3   The Importance of an Operational Accord ..................................................................................5   Longer Term Goals .....................................................................................................................5   Section I Teaching Papers ................................................................................. 7   Persuasion .....................................................................................................................................9   How Can an Intelligence Interviewing Professional Persuade a High-Value Detainee to Provide Information?..............................................................................................9   Conventional Beliefs ...................................................................................................................9   Behavioral Science Perspectives..............................................................................................10   Why Might an Intelligence Interviewing Professional and Team Want to Understand Persuasion? ............................................................................................................................12   How Can Extremists Be Persuaded to Provide Information?....................................................12   How Might an Intelligence Interviewing Team Persuade a High-Value Detainee to Provide Useful Information? ............................................................................13   What Principles Guide Effective Persuasion?.......................................................................14   What Are “Core Concerns,” and How Do They Affect Persuasiveness? ..............................19   How Can an Intelligence Interviewing Professional Create an Environment for Persuading a High-Value Detainee to Provide Information? ..............................................22   How Have Intelligence Interviewing Professionals Put these Ideas into Practice?...............25   Will These Ideas Always Work?............................................................................................26   Key Points .................................................................................................................................27   Master Intelligence Interviewing Professionals Are Persuasive, Flexible, and Use a Dynamic Approach ............................................................................................27   Understanding Core Concerns Enhances Persuasion .........................................................27   The Custodial Environment Is Important...............................................................................27   Use Persuasion Thoughtfully and Wisely .............................................................................27   Areas of Operational Interest That Merit Further Research ......................................................28   Power............................................................................................................................................29   Who Has What Kinds of Power in Intelligence Interviewing?....................................................29   Conventional Beliefs .................................................................................................................29   Behavioral Science Perspectives..............................................................................................30   The Nature of Power Is Complex..........................................................................................30   What Are the Primary Sources of Power? ............................................................................30   What About Control as a Source of Power? .........................................................................32   How Can the High-Value Detainee and the Intelligence Interviewing Team Use Information Power? .....................................................................................................33   How Can the High-Value Detainee and the Intelligence Interviewing Team Use Relationship Power?....................................................................................................37   How Can the High-Value Detainee and the Intelligence Interviewing Team Use Fallback Power? ..........................................................................................................39   How Can the High-Value Detainee and the Intelligence Interviewing Team Use the Power of Incentives and Disincentives? ................................................................42   An Example of Combining Sources of Power .......................................................................44   Power Relationships May Change........................................................................................45   ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES vi What About Increasing Anxiety and Fear as a Source of Power? ........................................45   Key Points .................................................................................................................................46   Keep Assessing the Sources of Power for Both Parties .......................................................46   Areas of Potential Operational Interest That Merit Further Research .......................................46   Interests and Identities ...............................................................................................................49   What Might an Intelligence Interviewing Team Want to Understand About Interests and Identities? ..........................................................................................................49   Conventional Beliefs .................................................................................................................49   Behavioral Science Perspectives..............................................................................................50   What Exactly Are “Interests” and Why Are They Important? ................................................51   How Might an Intelligence Interviewing Team Learn the High-Value Detainee’s “Real” Interests? ...............................................................................................52   How Might the High-Value Detainee’s Likes and Dislikes Reveal His True Interests?.........53   What Is the Function of “Social Identities”? ..........................................................................55   What Is the Relevance of Understanding Interests and Social Identities to Meeting “Intelligence Requirements”? ............................................................................57   Key Points .................................................................................................................................57   Understand the Interests and Social Identities of Members of the Team .............................57   Look Underneath What the Detainee Says He Wants..........................................................57   Seek to Understand All the Detainee’s Interests and Identities ............................................58   Explore Topics Beyond the Intelligence Requirements ........................................................58   Areas of Potential Operational Interest That Merit Further Research .......................................58   Stress............................................................................................................................................60   What Is the Role of Stress in an Intelligence Interview? ...........................................................60   Conventional Beliefs .................................................................................................................60   Behavioral Science Perspectives..............................................................................................62   What Exactly Is Stress? ........................................................................................................62   What Does Research Tell Us About Stress in Interrogations? .............................................62   How Might a High-Value Detainee Experience Stress During Capture and Interviews? ......63   Does “Capture Shock” Cause High-Value Detainees to Reveal Information?......................63   How Can an Intelligence Interviewing Professional Use Various Sources of Stress? ..........65   How Does Stress Affect a High-Value Detainee’s Ability to Answer Questions? .................65   What Happens When Stress Is Decreased for a High-Value Detainee? ..............................67   How Does Stress Affect Intelligence Interviewing Professionals and Teams? .....................69   Key Points .................................................................................................................................70   “Stress” Has Many Dimensions ............................................................................................70   Re-examine Assumptions .....................................................................................................70   Consider and Plan for Stress-Related Issues Prior to an Interview ......................................70   Understand the Stress That Affects the Intelligence Interviewing Team ..............................71   Areas of Potential Operational Interest That Merit Further Research .......................................71   Resistances..................................................................................................................................73   How Can an Intelligence Interviewing Team View the Multiple Dimensions of “Resistances”? ................................................................................................................75   How Might an Intelligence Interviewing Team Analyze a High-Value Detainee’s Resistances? ....................................................................................................76   What Strategies Might Help an Intelligence Interviewing Team to Deal with Resistances? ...............................................................................................................77   What Strategies Might Move the High-Value Detainee Toward Providing Information? ......79   “Not Answering” May or May Not Be Resistance..................................................................80   “Resistance” Is Not a Unitary Concept..................................................................................80   Seek Ways to Avoid or Deal with Resistances Rather Than “Eliminate” Them....................81   ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES vii Memory.........................................................................................................................................82   What Is the Role of Memory in the Intelligence Interviewing Process? ....................................82   Conventional Beliefs .................................................................................................................82   Behavioral Science Perspectives..............................................................................................83   How Does Memory Work? ....................................................................................................83   Forgetting: How Does the Passage of Time Affect Memory? Do Some Memories Last Longer Than Others? If So, Why?..............................................................84   How Might Interviewing Tactics Enhance Accurate Recall? What Skills Are Effective? How Might One Know When to Use Them, and with Whom?.....................85   Framing and Suggestibility....................................................................................................86   How Might Stress Affect a High-Value Detainee’s Ability to Recall Information? .................87   Key Points .................................................................................................................................88   Changes in Detail Do Not Necessarily Imply Deception .......................................................88   High-Value Detainees’ Stories and Level of Detail Will Vary ................................................88   Questions Might Minimize Leading Information ....................................................................88   Cognitive Interviews Can Improve Recall .............................................................................89   Areas of Potential Operational Interest That Merit Further Research .......................................89   Section II Case Studies and Teaching Notes ................................................ 93   Introduction..................................................................................................................................95   Fourteen Days in Nairobi: The Interrogation of Mohammed Rasheed Daoud al-‘Owhali .......................................................................................................................99   The Nairobi Embassy Bombing.................................................................................................99   The Man Who Didn’t Fit In ......................................................................................................100   Interview and Investigation......................................................................................................102   Understanding the Context of the Interviews ..........................................................................104   Al-‘Owhali’s Story: From Radicalization to Action ...................................................................113   Al-'Owhali’s Timeline of the Nairobi Attacks............................................................................115   The “Tone” of the Intelligence Interviews ................................................................................117   The Revelation of Actionable Intelligence ...............................................................................118   Prosecution and Aftermath......................................................................................................119   Mohammed Rasheed Daoud al-‘Owhali: Case Study with Teaching Notes.........................124   Fourteen Days in Nairobi: The Interrogation of Mohammed Rasheed Daoud al-‘Owhali .....................................................................................................................126   The Nairobi Embassy Bombing...............................................................................................126   The Man Who Didn’t Fit In ......................................................................................................127   Interview and Investigation......................................................................................................129   Understanding the Context of the Interviews ..........................................................................134   Al-‘Owhali’s Story: From Radicalization to Action ...................................................................151   Al-'Owhali’s Timeline of the Nairobi Attacks............................................................................153   The “Tone” of the Intelligence Interviews ................................................................................155   The Revelation of Actionable Intelligence ...............................................................................157   Prosecution and Aftermath......................................................................................................157   The Man in the Snow White Cell ..............................................................................................161   Nguyen Tai..............................................................................................................................161   Early Nationalist ......................................................................................................................162   Moving South ..........................................................................................................................163   Capture ...................................................................................................................................164   Counter-Interrogation Strategy................................................................................................164   ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 2 2) Intelligence interviews with persons in custody are likely to be most effective if based on knowledge-based theory and analysis. The Phase II study brought together skilled interviewers, interrogators, former case officers, psychologists, law enforcement professionals, academic researchers, and negotiation experts. Over a period of two years, these professionals met to review cases and scientific research, learn from effective intelligence interviewers, and discuss strategies and practices. This booklet reflects one outcome of that research and those discussions,3 and captures suggestions for the future of what has increasingly come to be called “intelligence interviewing.” The study chair chose the term “intelligence interviewing” for Phase II for two reasons. First, “interrogation” may have different technical meanings in various defense and law enforcement settings. Second, as noted previously, “interrogation” now carries with it a range of (often highly coercive) stereotypes. “Intelligence interviewing,” by contrast, is a term not previously used in intelligence, military, or law enforcement settings. As used in this booklet, it signifies the gathering of useful and accurate information by professionals questioning detainees. The emphasis of this booklet is on non-coercive intelligence interviewing. The study chair has followed the arguments as to the moral, social, and possible military costs of coercive interrogations, as well as the debates about the possible utilitarian value – and limitations – of coercive interrogations. The chair was also aware of considerable success that skilled interviewers, using a systems approach, achieved through non-coercive interrogations of prisoners of war during World War II and in Vietnam, and in the 1990s and since 2001 with members of al-Qa’ida. This report reflects the contributors’ view that the United States and other democracies can benefit from exploring and learning more in the area of non-coercive intelligence interviewing.4 Intended Audience In recent years, U.S. Government organizations with interrogation responsibilities have operated programs that vary with regard to specific purposes, professionalism, ages of personnel, expected length of service of interrogators, and approved approaches and techniques. Some individuals and organizations distinguish among tactical, operational, and strategic interrogation. This booklet 3 See also Interrogation: World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq (Washington, DC: National Defense Intelligence College, September 2008). The book is also available on line at http://www.ndic.edu/press/12010.htm . 4 During Phases I and II, contributors could find no studies that compare the results of “coercive” interrogations with those of non-coercive intelligence interviews. It is also difficult to imagine how such studies might be conducted in a scientifically valid, let alone morally acceptable, manner. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 3 may be of interest to the full range of persons involved with interrogation and intelligence interviewing. However, it is written primarily for individuals concerned with “high-value” detainees and those who focus mainly on strategic interrogation. Organization The first section of this booklet contains six papers on topics central to interrogation and intelligence interviewing: persuasion, power, interests and identities, stress, resistances, and memory. Each paper reviews some conventional beliefs as well as current behavioral science perspectives about the topic. Since a short booklet could not encompass all “conventional beliefs,” the papers refer only to those described in U.S. Army Field Manual, 2.22-3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations. These papers also do not include complete literature reviews, but instead draw on behavioral science theory, articles, and books in each area. Each paper includes some key points and questions for future research. The papers are drawn solely from open source materials. The second section presents two brief case studies. The first case reports on a 14-day interrogation of Mohammed Rashed Daoud al-‘Owhali, a key participant in the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, on August 7, 1998. The second case describes the interrogation of a senior North Vietnamese intelligence officer during the Vietnam War. The case studies include short teaching notes. The cases are meant to be read in the context of the six papers. While military, law enforcement, and intelligence organizations have produced various kinds of after-action reports on interrogations, “thick” cases for analysis and teaching are rare to non-existent. These cases and notes therefore illustrate only a few possible approaches to developing teaching materials for intelligence interviewing professionals. A Framework for Intelligence Interviewing Discussions of interrogation often involve consideration of “techniques.” For example, FM 2-22.3 describes seventeen approved techniques for interrogation. This booklet is meant to provoke discussion of a somewhat different framework, especially in the context of high-value detainees in custody. Intelligence interviewing, as described here, is based on four related ideas: 1) consideration of the multiple contexts in which intelligence interviews occur 2) a team approach ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 4 3) the team’s constant need to widen and deepen its knowledge about each detainee and his5 circumstances 4) the importance of developing an “operational accord” with the detainee Intelligence interviewing, if done professionally and with the benefit of current and emerging knowledge, occurs in context. Context includes the physical environment or setting in which the detained person resides and in which interviews take place. It also includes the interpersonal environment established by the interviewer and the intelligence interviewing team. Further, context encompasses the informational environment; it includes all the facts and perspectives about the detainee possessed by the intelligence interviewing team. All this calls for an “integrated systems” perspective. The expectation that an interrogator could walk into a room with a high-value detainee and simply employ “techniques” to gain accurate and important information significantly underestimates the complexity of effective intelligence interviews. Ideally, an interviewer will know everything that is affecting the detainee inside and outside the interviewing room. What have guards been saying to him? What are his relationships with other detainees? What discussions has he had with them? What information is known, or being developed, about the detainee and the accuracy of his statements? The interviewing “framework” suggested in this booklet incorporates both the physical setting and the overall plan for working with a particular detainee. The framework also includes ongoing observation and assessment of a detainee’s stress levels, sources of power, interests, identities, memory, and resistances. In this framework, observations from the team (and consultants) aid the interviewer to create a productive interpersonal environment with the detainee. Interactions with others – guards, other officials, collaborating detainees – and the living conditions within the detention environment likewise may contribute to the detainee’s willingness to furnish information. As interviews and interactions take place, information from other intelligence systems is immediately provided to the team. Communications intercepts, and immediate efforts to verify the detainee’s statements and to follow up on leads, increase the “information power” of the team. Information power in turn aids interviewers to develop a productive operational accord with the detainee. This integrated systems approach may increase the likelihood that the detainee will provide useful and accurate information and also that he will provide more of the information that he has. 5 For simplicity this document uses male pronouns to refer to detainees and to intelligence interviewing professionals. There is of course no implication that only men are or will be detainees, or that only men are or will serve as interrogators and intelligence interviewing professionals. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES Section I Teaching Papers ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 9 Persuasion How Can an Intelligence Interviewing Professional Persuade a High-Value Detainee to Provide Information? The central challenge facing intelligence interviewing professionals is to obtain accurate, timely, and useful intelligence from detainees. A companion challenge is “completeness” – to gather as much of the useful information known by each detainee as reasonably possible. Highly effective intelligence interviewers constantly seek the most promising means – tangible or intangible – to persuade a particular detainee to provide information. However, many feel that their ability to persuade just “comes naturally” to them – that these skills are difficult to understand fully, or to study, or teach to others. Behavioral science research on persuasion, changing minds, and understanding core concerns helps to explain the effectiveness of skilled intelligence interviewers. Behavioral science research may also be used to suggest practical ideas, both in terms of practice and research. There are, of course, no formulas or quick solutions to the challenges of persuasion: Persuading a detainee to provide useful information requires planning, commitment, and on-going objective assessment. Conventional Beliefs Historically, a segment of the interrogator community has focused on using some level of psychological, emotional, and physical force to “gain” the detainee’s cooperation. Others have employed a variety of imaginative “ploys” or “tricks” to achieve the same outcome. Army Field Manual 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations, defines interrogation as follows: 1-20. Interrogation is the systematic effort to procure information to answer specific collection requirements by direct and indirect questioning techniques of a person who is in the custody of the forces conducting the questioning. The Field Manual outlines two primary categories of techniques: control and rapport. It then describes an array of approaches designed to establish and maintain one or both of these elements (with emphasis on maintaining control at all times). Underlying all these approaches is the effort to undermine the detainee’s interest in resisting while encouraging cooperation: ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 12 Why Might an Intelligence Interviewing Professional and Team Want to Understand Persuasion? Many detainees are willing to provide some information, and some of this information may have value. However, detainees will less commonly reveal information they consider especially valuable: information that prevents the next attack, leads to the head of their organization, or directly implicates the detainee or his family. This is particularly true if the detainee believes the intelligence interviewing team does not know what valuable information he holds. Ulrich Straus notes in his book, The Anguish of Surrender3: “Silence is by far the best weapon a prisoner determined to divulge no information can wield. It seems clear, however, that virtually none of the Japanese POWs availed themselves of it.”   It follows that the first challenge facing many intelligence interviewing teams is to move the detainee from silence to providing a little information to providing more information. There is a second vital challenge: that of “completeness.” Ideally, the team would persuade the detainee to provide all or most of the important information he holds. These goals may not be achievable or practical with every detainee. However, persuasion can often open doorways: a) through careful planning to seek specific information and b) serendipitously and incidentally. How Can Extremists Be Persuaded to Provide Information? Convincing people to change their minds is rarely easy. Intelligence interviewing teams may deal with detainees who have deeply held extremist beliefs, and many experts have suggested that such ideas are difficult to change. However, the team’s goal is to obtain useful information, not to convert the detainee to a new belief system. The team therefore might focus first on assessing the detainee’s interests (what does he really want, compared with what he may be saying) and sources of power (what kinds of strengths and influence may he have). The objective here is to start by building an operational accord* (see Interests and Identities and * “Operational accord” denotes a special “working” or “professional” relationship between the interviewer and the high-value detainee. It is characterized by the detainee’s willingness to supply accurate information, at least some of the time, in response to the interviewer’s questions. The concept also implies that the interviewer has an individualized and effective strategy for interactions with the detainee. Once an operational accord develops, it may allow an intelligence interviewer to engage with, challenge, and debate with the detainee, or agree with him if appropriate, without shutting down the relationship or causing the loss of important information. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 13 Power). The team would also focus on ways of avoiding or dealing with resistances (see Resistances). Over time – several hours to several days – a persuasive interviewer may lead the detainee to develop enough doubt about the ideas and preconceptions he brings to the interview that the detainee becomes amenable to persuasion and provides useful answers to questions. In addition, in the context of these discussions, the interviewer may pick up incidental and unexpected information. While altering fundamental values and ideas may not necessarily be the goal, almost any interaction with a detainee is likely to influence a detainee’s beliefs in some way. Some of these shifts may be very helpful. Take a detainee who views all Americans as bigoted, uneducated, and ignorant of Islam. Then consider an American intelligence interviewing professional whose family came from the detainee’s region of the world. Imagine that the interviewer is fluent in Arabic. He also is happy to exchange ideas and stories about family, religion, and sports, and he does all this, conversationally and nondefensively. Even if the intelligence interviewing professional does not use these conversations primarily to change values and ideas, this type of interaction may create chinks in the defensive armor of even a highly resistant detainee – and may begin to change the rigid thinking that steels the detainee against any sort of accord with an “ignorant enemy.” It is these subtle shifts in thinking that may nudge a detainee toward providing information. Therefore, each interaction with a detainee might best be carefully thought out and implemented. Unintended, contradictory messages – for example, a guard’s snide comments to a detainee – could quickly damage an operational accord (see Interests and Identities). How Might an Intelligence Interviewing Team Persuade a High-Value Detainee to Provide Useful Information? As in all aspects of intelligence interviewing, no one strategy or “approach” will prove effective with all detainees. Intelligence interviewing professionals and teams can benefit from thinking about an individualized “persuasion framework” for each detainee. A detainee’s susceptibility to persuasion, and the persuasion framework that is most likely to succeed, depend on many factors, including: • The overall context of the intelligence interviewing environment, including a carefully designed detention and living environment, the timing of interactions, and the food, reading materials, etc., made available to the detainee An intelligence interviewing team works to develop and support an environment that gives the interviewer(s) opportunities to develop an operational accord with a detainee. The team seeks to provide information to the interviewer, and analyzes what the detainee says and how he behaves. The intelligence interviewing team works to provide and support a physical context and an interpersonal context that promote productive discussions with the detainee. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 14 • The treatment the detainee experiences from all persons with whom he interacts, including prison guards, intelligence interviewing professionals, translators, and other detainees (if any) • The individuals with whom the detainee talks, both inside and outside the intelligence interviewing room • The extent to which an intelligence interviewing professional and the detainee can identify and explore shared social identities and mutual interests (see Interests and Identities) • The methods the intelligence interviewing team uses to manage sources of power and to avoid or deal with resistances (see Power and Resistances) • The detainee’s ability and willingness to consider perspectives other than his own • The detainee’s intellectual capacity and curiosity • The range of beliefs and views to which the detainee was exposed while growing up While the intelligence interviewing team might try to understand the last three factors on this list and take them into account, they are largely outside of the team’s control. In contrast, the team might strive to influence the first five factors with careful planning. The team might plan which topics to discuss, and also how certain interactions might affect a detainee’s attitudes, behavior, and emotions. The way a detainee feels about his situation, and those around him, can greatly impact the amount and value of the information he provides. What Principles Guide Effective Persuasion? Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist, formulated six principles of persuasion after conducting experiments and studying highly persuasive people and the tactics they used when interacting with others. These principles* are: • Liking • Authority • Reciprocity • Commitment/Consistency • Social Validation (Proof) • Scarcity4 * See Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion for a more in-depth description of these principles and the research behind them. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 17 as offering a drink of water with a meal. When a detainee begins to feel the pull to reciprocate, he may have little to offer in exchange other than the information he holds. Commitment/Consistency Almost all people wish to appear consistent in their words, beliefs, attitudes, and deeds. Especially if they have openly committed themselves to a position, most people tend to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with that position – to do otherwise may suggest a person is unsure of himself, or even worse, untrustworthy. The drive to be, and to seem, consistent may even lead people to act in ways clearly contrary to what they would see as their best interests. Aware of this tendency, persuasion professionals – from academics such as social psychologists, behavioral economists, and negotiation experts to salespersons and con artists – often seek to induce people to take an initial position consistent with the behavior the professional will later request. An intelligence interviewing professional would therefore try to move a detainee toward a cooperative interaction, or at least not a wholly resistant one. He might also try to forestall an overt declaration of commitment to an uncompromising position. For example, an interviewer might find it useful to deter a detainee from stating aloud that he is unreservedly dedicated to jihad. One way to do this might be to change the subject: the detainee will have an opportunity to discuss jihad in the future, but first the intelligence interviewing professional would like a chance to talk with the detainee as a person, discussing family, studies, sports, etc. Illustration: The Difficulty of “Backing Down” Soon after capture a detainee moderately committed to jihad sought to demonstrate his status by “confessing” that he had sworn ba’yat to UBL, when in reality he had made no such commitment. The detainee later came to form an operational accord with the intelligence interviewing professional, and bonded with other detainees who were less extreme in their views. Over time – especially as he saw how fellow detainees who expressed their less radical beliefs received benefits ranging from better living conditions to being sent home – the detainee began to doubt the wisdom of his initial false statements. Despite his misgivings, however, he struggled with how he could now possibly change his story – he had consistently talked to the other detainees, and behaved throughout the interrogation sessions, as if he were wholeheartedly committed to al-Qa’ida’s cause. Social Validation (Social Proof) Social proof occurs when individuals look to other people to determine how to think and behave. This psychological phenomenon most often occurs in ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 18 unfamiliar and uncertain situations when people find it difficult or impossible to determine appropriate behavior. This situation often creates a feeling of discomfort, and causes people to look for a quick way to “fit in” and feel comfortable once again: “Should I wear slacks or a dress?” “Should I accept an alcoholic drink or not?” In these circumstances people often assume that the others around them know more about the situation and the appropriate response, and therefore imitate what they see the others doing. Everything is relative. Like an airplane pilot landing in the dark, we want runway lights on either side of us, guiding us to the place where we can touch down our wheels.” (Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational) Social proof is especially influential under two conditions, both of which can apply in a custodial setting: • Uncertainty – When a person is unsure of his surroundings and when the situation is ambiguous, he may be more inclined to pay attention to the actions of others and to accept those actions as correct. • Similarity – People are more inclined to follow the lead of others who seem similar to themselves. This principle can have an especially strong effect on detainees who are new to a particular custodial setting and have never been detained before. Here the importance of the interviewer’s confederates becomes apparent. The interviewing team might pay careful attention to who shares the detainee’s environment and the detainee’s possible interactions with others. This principle of social proof also explains the power behind informing a detainee, or casually letting him know, that many other detainees have already provided information of value. The persuasive power of “social proof” increases even further if the interviewer can offer examples of multiple detainees, particularly those who are “famous” or admired, who have provided intelligence of value. For example, mentioning to a detainee that a well-known terrorist leader revealed the attack that had been planned in city X might subtly influence the detainee to provide more useful information. Scarcity People typically perceive things that are rare or difficult to obtain as more valuable than items that are plentiful. They also respond to losses (for example, the loss of freedoms) by wanting the lost item more than before. Scarcity of a desirable item may invoke a feeling of yearning, and the thought “I must have that.” An intelligence interviewing professional might influence a detainee to provide information by using both tangible and intangible incentives that the ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 19 detainee perceives as “scarce.” The interviewer can enhance scarcity by using “deadline” tactics. The scarcity principle operates most powerfully when something may become newly scarce, for example, the detainee might no longer receive the special meals he has been given all along. The idea of scarcity may also arise when one has to compete with others. For example, “The USG is willing to cut a deal with you so that you can see and talk with your family via videoconference, but they can offer this to only five detainees over the next couple of days.” “Scarcity” activates emotions that may blur clear thinking; many people find it difficult to steel themselves against this tactic. As with all behavioral tactics, the intelligence interviewing professional must follow through, on time, with any promised reward; otherwise effectiveness diminishes. What Are “Core Concerns,” and How Do They Affect Persuasiveness? Daniel Shapiro, a psychologist and negotiations expert, and Roger Fisher, also a negotiations expert, have described five “core concerns,” believed to apply to all persons to varying degrees.6 They are: • Appreciation • Affiliation • Autonomy • Status • Role Planning carefully to understand and respond appropriately to a detainee’s needs in each of the five core areas could help an intelligence interviewing professional persuade a detainee to provide information (see Power). It is likely that each detainee will have stronger needs in some areas than others. For instance, one detainee may have a strong desire to feel respected, for example, as an elder with wisdom. Another may have a strong need to feel a sense of companionship with people who understand him. All five core concerns might be continuously assessed for each detainee, as they can change over time. Appreciation People often feel appreciated when they learn someone understands their point of view. Appreciation may be communicated verbally or by actions such as giving something (which also may lead to some reciprocity). To enhance this feeling, an intelligence interviewing professional can communicate through actions and words that he empathizes with many of the detainee’s experiences, thoughts, and feelings. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 22 The interviewer can therefore enhance his ability to persuade by acknowledging the detainee’s more desirable roles, as well as by thinking carefully about the roles that he himself and the other members of the intelligence interviewing team might convey (see Interests and Identities, on “cross-cutting identities”). Japanese POWs hardly knew what to make of the “nice” way they were treated. “Weren’t the interrogators still the enemy?” The enemy’s unwillingness to assume the proper “enemy role” made it difficult for the prisoner to adopt the correct role prescribed by the Bushido code. (Ulrich Straus, The Anguish of Surrender). How Can an Intelligence Interviewing Professional Create an Environment for Persuading a High-Value Detainee to Provide Information? Research by psychologist Howard Gardner suggests that it is easier to change people’s beliefs when the individuals find themselves in a new environment, are surrounded by peers with new ideas, or encounter “luminous” personalities.7 All of these elements come into play when working with detainees, and skillful intelligence interviewing professionals can apply them in a well-thought-out, well- controlled, long-term custodial setting. How Might the Custodial Environment Aid Efforts at Persuasion? The overall detention environment plays an essential role in the success (or failure) of intelligence interviewing. The experience of Japanese prisoners of war (POWs) during World War II (see box) highlights the importance of considering how a detainee might have viewed his world prior to detention, and how the conditions of detention could influence his beliefs. Ishii Shuji, one of the few Japanese survivors of the Battle of Iwo Jima, wrote a memoir of his experiences. His account exemplifies how a detainee’s perspective might shift, and even shift unusually quickly, when encountering a new, unexpected environment. According to Ulrich Straus: “A sense of relief overcame Ishii when he saw that the POW camp already held dozens of his countrymen. Shame would be a little easier to endure when shared. In his memoir, Ishii went on rapturously about the cleanliness of the field hospital, the clean drinking water, soap, medicines, and his soft bed, while only hours before he had been starving and drinking his own urine simply to survive. Now he had food in quantities he could only have dreamed about earlier in the day. Then he smoked his first cigarette as a prisoner, a moment lovingly described. Truly, as Ishii wrote later, it was the ‘difference between heaven and hell’.” ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 23 As noted, intelligence interviewing teams might help shape the detention environment. Before conducting an intelligence interview the team might explore: • What environment would help persuade a detainee to tell what he knows? o Should all detainees be placed in a specified environment, or would an individually designed environment increase the chances of success with this particular person? • Which guards, intelligence interviewing professionals, interpreters, debriefers, imams – and which clan, tribe, or family members (if any) – might be permitted to interact with this detainee? Which individuals is this detainee likely to find most appealing, or “luminous,” so that they can increase the possibility of persuasion? • If this detainee is permitted to interact with other detainees, who should the other detainees be? o How might it affect this detainee if he were placed with others who formerly held beliefs similar to his, but have now somewhat modified their views? In a 2008 article in the Los Angeles Times, “Fighting terrorism with terrorists,” Joshua Kurlantzick reported that Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Singapore, Malaysia, Jordan, Yemen, and the Netherlands have launched “deradicalization” programs in an effort to convince jihadists to change their radical perceptions of their religion. Saudi Arabia’s program reportedly offers shorter jail sentences to militants who agree to undergo intense classroom sessions designed to convince them that Islam does not condone terror. Kurlantzick cites General David Petraeus, then commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, as stating that the Saudi initiative may be one reason for the recent sharp decline in the number of foreign fighters coming into Iraq.8 The International Crisis Group reported in November 2007: One Indonesian initiative, focused on prisoners involved in terrorism, has won praise for its success in persuading about two dozen members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and a few members of other jihadi organisations to cooperate with the police. Key elements are getting to know individual prisoners and responding to their specific concerns, often relating to economic needs of their families, as well as constant communication and attention. One premise is that if through kindness, police can change the jihadi assumption that government officials are by definition thought (anti-Islamic), the prisoners may begin to question other deeply-held tenets. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 24 Once prisoners show a willingness to accept police assistance, they are exposed to religious arguments against some forms of jihad by scholars whose credentials within the movement are unimpeachable. Some have then accepted that attacks on civilians, such as the first and second Bali bombings and the Australian embassy bombing, were wrong. The economic aid, however, is ultimately more important than religious arguments in changing prisoner attitudes.9 How Can a Team Identify Persuasive Arguments? Someone who can share information in a way that “resonates” with another person is more likely to be effective in influencing that person’s thinking. To enhance persuasiveness, the intelligence interviewing team might seek to identify which ideas and which interviewer(s) might resonate with a particular detainee. Intelligence interviewing professionals may find it helpful to engage in perspective-taking exercises, such as “stepping into the detainee’s shoes,” observing the situation from different points of view (“mine,” “his,” “fly on the wall”), and reversing roles and role-playing among the members of the intelligence interviewing team. A team might routinely assess the known and likely circumstances of the detainee’s upbringing and recent life experiences in order to tailor the persuasion framework around them. The team might explore such questions as: • Was the detainee born into a family with extremist beliefs? If not, when and how did he acquire his radical religious or other motivations? o Did he (and possibly his peers) take an apparently unwavering route to his current beliefs and circumstances? o Which leaders, doctrine, dogma, and social groups appear to have influenced and motivated him? • Did the detainee experience profoundly important events such as a family member’s death “at the hands of the enemy,” a diaspora existence, chronic poverty, or life in a totalitarian or police state? The results of such perspective-taking exercises can enhance the team’s understanding of who might meet with the detainee and what demeanor and questioning style(s) to use during the interaction. The interviewing team might also evaluate a range of interview formats and discussion topics, as well as the use of famous metaphors, inspiring catch phrases, and references to religiously significant literature. In addition, the team might consider the most effective format for presenting information, based on estimates of how the detainee best processes information. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 27 backward, and emotional conflict will occur throughout the process. Future research might help to determine how to apply these principles to intelligence interviewing more effectively. Key Points Master Intelligence Interviewing Professionals Are Persuasive, Flexible, and Use a Dynamic Approach Intelligence interviewers constantly seek just the right means to persuade each individual detainee to provide useful information. Many ideas may inform the persuasion process, for example, using the principles of “liking,” “authority,” “reciprocity,” “commitment/consistency,” “social proof,” and “scarcity.” An intelligence interviewing professional is likely to increase his effectiveness by systematically using these principles in ways appropriate to each individual detainee, on the basis of an individually planned “persuasion framework.” These principles may help both to gather information of value and also to elicit more complete information from each detainee. Understanding Core Concerns Enhances Persuasion Like all people, detainees have needs. Understanding what is important to a detainee, and appropriately responding to a detainee’s core emotional concerns, can increase the likelihood of persuading the detainee to provide information. The strength of each core concern varies from detainee to detainee; core concerns include needs to feel appreciated, affiliated, autonomous, and acknowledged for status and important roles. The Custodial Environment Is Important The detention context is likely to play a key role in the success or failure of persuasion. Research suggests that it is easier to influence people who find themselves in a new and fairly ambiguous environment, who are surrounded by people similar to themselves, and who encounter people capable of delivering a message that resonates. It therefore may be worth considering how to craft a carefully designed environment that considers factors such as the timing of interactions, the treatment a detainee receives from guards, and the import of every discussion the detainee has with anyone in his environment. Use Persuasion Thoughtfully and Wisely A “persuasion framework” might best be used with caution, with on-going review, and in the context of a team approach. Constant assessment of interviewing strategies, review of hypotheses about what a detainee knows, and vigilance about potential misunderstandings are essential if an intelligence interviewing ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 28 professional is to gather accurate intelligence information from detainees. This is especially true for increasing the likelihood of gathering complete information. Intelligence interviewing professionals and teams might also continuously review the possibility of false confessions and false information. In addition to attempts to deceive (see Resistances), detainees may make false statements if they believe or know what information the interviewer wants or expects to hear. Behavioral science research in the field of police interrogation has raised awareness that highly persuasive tactics may lead innocent persons to “confess” to acts they did not commit. While intelligence interviews are primarily intended to gather information on a variety of topics rather than to obtain admissions of guilt, the findings offer relevant parallels. Research shows that both guilty and innocent persons are more likely to confess to a crime when the interrogator presents false evidence. Another inducement is the use of “minimization” tactics, for example, normalizing the actions of the accused – “Look, everyone has stolen something at some point” – and implying that a confession will lead to reduced charges. Research suggests that certain populations of people, such as juveniles and persons of limited intelligence, seem especially vulnerable to making false confessions. In addition, people under duress may manufacture information to reduce the pressure on them or to stop pain. Areas of Operational Interest That Merit Further Research • What might be effective ways for intelligence interviewing professionals to deal with extreme beliefs expressed by the detainee? • To what extent are each of the principles of persuasion, the core emotional concerns, and our ideas of how and why people change their perceptions, valid across cultures? How might principles of persuasion apply differently, if at all, for women, children, or other “non-traditional” detainees? How do these principles apply, in practice, to detainees from various different cultures? • What might be learned from former POWs about how the conditions and treatment experienced in detention influenced their beliefs and perspectives? What interviewing strategies and conditions do they believe might have motivated them to provide more information to their captors? • What is the most effective way to “plant seeds” between sessions (i.e., give the detainee something to think about at the conclusion of a meeting so he is more likely to provide more information at the next meeting)? • What might be learned from cases where detainees provided useful information after initially refusing to engage in any dialogue or to respond meaningfully to questions, and cases where detainees stopped providing information after earlier offering some of what they knew? ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 29 Power Who Has What Kinds of Power in Intelligence Interviewing? Even though captivity would seem to place a detainee in a relatively helpless position, both the intelligence interviewing team and the detainee have various kinds of power in the intelligence interviewing process. The sources of power for each side may also be similar, although they will differ from individual to individual and from context to context. Effective ways of using various kinds of power may also differ for detainees and intelligence interviewing teams. No single type of power, or way of exerting it, will inevitably lead to a particular desired result, so the topic merits careful analysis. Conventional Beliefs In essence, the conventional view suggests that the interrogator must work to exhibit irresistible power by exerting constant control over the detainee. Several common beliefs about power appear to have informed the manner in which many interrogations with persons in custody have been conducted. These include: • Interrogators hold all the power. • Control is synonymous with power. • Control must be overt and maintained. • Power implies the threat of negative consequences. When two or more people interact, the term “power” is generally used to describe the capacity to influence another person. By contrast, the term “control” in interpersonal contexts usually pertains to the capacity to restrain, direct, or dominate another person. The revised Army Field Manual 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations, reflects the emphasis on control in current interrogation doctrine. For example: 1-10. During the approach phase, the HUMINT collector establishes the conditions of control and rapport to gain the cooperation of the source and to facilitate information collection. 8-7. Each approach is different, but all approaches have the following in common. They establish and maintain control over the source and the collection effort. This does not equate to physical control. Rather, it means that the HUMINT collector directs the conversation to cover the topics that are of interest to him. In a very basic sense, the HUMINT collector is in ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 32 Research about negotiation practice suggests that simply knowing you have an excellent fallback position will on average make you a more successful negotiator. In negotiation theory a fallback position is known as a BATNA: the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. In this booklet, a fallback position means an alternative plan or action – for the detainee or intelligence interviewing professional – that is perceived to be or might become available. • The power of incentives and disincentives: Incentives serve as rewards or potential rewards for desired behavior. In addition to tangible incentives, such as better food or more comfortable living quarters, there are intangibles, such as engaging in conversation with a lonely detainee or simply behaving courteously. Obviously, there are tangible and intangible disincentives as well, such as withdrawing comfort items or ignoring a detainee who very much enjoys talking. Each of these is discussed in more detail below. What About Control as a Source of Power? The list above does not specify “control” as a source of power. As noted, conventional thinking about control suggests that the intelligence interviewing professional must always exert direct and overt control over the detainee. However, behavioral science findings indicate that an intelligence interviewing professional may actually lose some power by focusing too much on control. For example, attempting continuous dominance, and causing the detainee to feel as if he has little or no control over what he discusses (at a time when he has no control over where he sleeps, what he is given to eat, and when and where he may go) may make the detainee more resistant. Crafting an interpersonal environment in an intelligence interview where the detainee feels as if he has some control may in fact increase the likelihood of an operational accord,∗ and in turn decrease resistances (see Resistances). Letting a detainee believe that he is controlling the conversation may sometimes be helpful in another way: an expert interviewer may pick up useful information this way. Skilled intelligence interviewers report that they have been able to assess the intellectual level of the detainee and perhaps his education, to “take the measure of the man,” and to learn a good deal about his interests and what he knows, when the detainee thinks he is in charge of the discussion. ∗ Operational accord” denotes a special “working” or “professional” relationship between the interviewer and the high-value detainee. It is characterized by the detainee’s willingness to supply accurate information, at least some of the time, in response to the interviewer’s questions. The concept also implies that the interviewer has an individualized and effective strategy for interactions with the detainee. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 33 Contemporary research in behavioral economics, social psychology, and the theory of negotiations may help intelligence interviewing teams to reassess earlier thinking about “control.” The concepts of “autonomy” and “reciprocity” provide examples of useful ideas in this context (see Persuasion). How Can the High-Value Detainee and the Intelligence Interviewing Team Use Information Power? Information power involves not only possessing information, but also understanding how to use that information to good advantage. This could mean withholding the information completely or for a given time, “sharing” inaccurate information, or using information (accurate or not) to influence the other party’s perceptions, behavior, or ability to remember. Detainee No matter what approaches the intelligence interviewing team takes, a detainee has some control over the information he possesses. Obviously, a detainee who knows that his most important information has a short shelf life may recognize that he need only outlast the intelligence interviewing professional for a relatively short period. A detainee with a plan for resistance may understand that he has considerable power. Such a plan might be based on prior training or designed in anticipation of capture or in response to detention. The detainee has a number of information-based ploys available. They include presenting a layered resistance strategy by offering successive cover stories; employing bits of deception, perhaps mixed with fantasy and random bits of truth; responding to questions with elaborate disinformation or misleading stories; or casting blame on others. The detainee may make demonstrably false admissions of guilt to create difficulties for the captor by throwing all the detainee’s responses into question. The detainee may provide partial and incomplete information that his captors already know, or feign loss of consciousness, physical illness, mental illness, or loss of memory. Many of these tactics might also be characterized as resistance techniques (see Resistances). Case Example of Layered Resistance After an initial interrogation and physical beating by South Vietnamese security personnel, Tai shifted to a fallback position to avoid being forced to reveal the location and identities of his personnel in the area. He “admitted” [falsely] to being a newly infiltrated captain from North Vietnam. When the interrogation became more intense, he “confessed” [falsely] that he was really a covert military intelligence agent sent to South Vietnam to establish a legal identity and cover legend before being sent on to France for his ultimate espionage assignment (which he claimed to have not yet been fully briefed on). ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 34 Each time he shifted to a new fallback story, Tai made an initial show of resistance and pretended to give in only when his interrogator “forced” him to make an admission. He did this to play on the interrogator’s ego by making him think that he had “cracked” his subject’s story and to divert attention from the information that Tai wanted to protect – such as the location of his headquarters, the identity of his communist contacts, and his own identity and position.12 If the detainee has information about the United States, can use a concealed skill in English or another language, or has a keen understanding of the nature of memory, he may be able to use this information power to manipulate the intelligence interviewing team and individual interviewers. For example, a detainee who is skilled in building relationships by using intangible incentives (see below) may deliberately seek to build credibility with an intelligence interviewing professional, while sharing only unimportant information. He may occasionally cooperate a little but may follow an overall strategy of prolonging the time the intelligence interviewing team invests in trying to draw information from him, an unproductive source. He may attempt to shape the course of questioning by providing seemingly constructive, but ultimately dead-end or minimally useful leads. And he may accomplish all of this in a likable and plausible way that keeps the intelligence interviewing professional from recognizing what is happening. In most cases an intelligence interviewing team can only estimate a detainee’s knowledgeability. The estimate may not be correct. The detainee may have very detailed information about a particular topic – a depth of information – that is not known to the intelligence interviewing team. The detainee may also have substantial information in areas unknown to the intelligence interviewing team. For example, the team may know the detainee was involved with certain activities in country X, but may not know enough even to suspect that the detainee was involved in planning operations against U.S. interests in country Y with operatives from country Z. This latter point is one of the primary reasons for seeking to build a strong operational accord with the detainee. Such an accord may enable the intelligence interviewing professional to discover – perhaps serendipitously, and well beyond the “intelligence requirements” (IRs) – the depth and breadth of the detainee’s knowledge. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 37 people being held in the same facility. This information might have even greater impact if the detainee comes to believe that others have been talking about him. By the same token, an interviewer may plan carefully to surprise the detainee with a critical piece of information. It may be the case that some intelligence interviewers intuitively have an extraordinary sense of timing. Expert interviewers recount many stories where they contrived to present a bolt from the blue in a way that led the detainee to tell a great deal. Expert intelligence interviewing professionals report that they plan carefully how as well as when to use information. For example, an interviewer may know relatively little about a detainee, or may believe things about the detainee that turn out not to be true. In such cases, sharing bits of information to make it appear as if much is known may turn out to be helpful, but this should be done with skill and careful timing to keep the detainee from recognizing a bluff. Simply confronting the detainee with piles of paper that supposedly contain “intelligence” about him is unlikely to convince the detainee that the intelligence interviewing professional already “knows all” and that resistance is useless. Skill is also needed to avoid altering the detainee’s memories (see Memory) and under some circumstances to avoid alerting the detainee to answers that the interviewer might expect or desire. How Can the High-Value Detainee and the Intelligence Interviewing Team Use Relationship Power? Together with the power of information, relationship power plays an especially important role in intelligence interviewing. On-going behavioral science research reveals more and more about how to build a relationship, and the power that lies within that connection. For example, potentially useful research addresses topics such as the perception of attractiveness, believability, and trustworthiness. In particular, neuroscientists are learning more about how emotions are communicated between people. These communications may not be consciously understood by any of the parties during the interview itself, but nevertheless they occur, and may have an important impact in intelligence interviewing. Detainee The detainee, like the intelligence interviewing professional, may use the power of persuasion and “relationship-building.” Some high-value detainees may be charismatic, charming, interesting, and attractive. They may come from influential and cosmopolitan families, have confidence in their personal presence and abilities, and be unusually skilled in manipulating others. They may be very intelligent, well educated, and adept at engaging people in conversation about topics of their choosing. Thus, just as the intelligence interviewing professional ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 38 may draw on his attractive qualities in seeking to disarm a resistant source, these same qualities may serve a detainee in somewhat disarming an interviewer. A detainee who believes in the justice of his cause might evoke moral authority. For instance, he might try to induce guilt, shame, or defensiveness in the intelligence interviewing professional by discussing the alleged misbehavior of the U.S. Government toward his homeland or by recounting vividly the loss of a family member as a result of American military operations. A female detainee, or a detainee who is unusually young or very old, might strategically use the beliefs of the intelligence interviewing team about gender or age. Humans are by nature susceptible to persuasion, even when they do not want to be (see Persuasion). A highly persuasive detainee may cause an intelligence interviewing professional to lose objectivity, whether or not he recognizes the detainee’s behavior as manipulative. The intelligence interviewing team and a systematic vetting process may play essential roles in such situations by helping an individual interviewer to retain a balanced perspective. Intelligence Interviewing Team Just as a persuasive detainee may exert some influence over an interviewer, the intelligence interviewing professional can also use persuasiveness with an unwilling detainee. Consider a detainee who is determined to remain silent indefinitely, but becomes intrigued by an interviewer who frequently visits his holding area, bringing the detainee his favorite foods. The interviewer also seems familiar with literature that is important to the detainee, and asks the detainee to explain some famous passages. In addition, the interviewer appears to appreciate the detainee’s broader culture and seems eager to learn more. Over days, and perhaps weeks, the detainee might find himself wishing to engage with that interviewer. Further assume that the intelligence interviewing professional is adept at persuasion (see Persuasion and also Resistances) and works to meet the detainee’s most important “core concerns” (see Persuasion). For example, if “status” is important to the detainee the interviewer might ask the detainee to talk about his successes. This seemingly small gesture may mean a great deal to the detainee, and quite possibly draw him into a conversation. By the same token, an interviewer might adopt a high rank for himself, thus “affirming” the importance of the detainee, and also possibly accruing some power of legitimate authority for the interviewer. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 39   Hanns Scharff represents perhaps the best-known example of successful expertise with building and using relationship power by meeting POWs’ “core concerns.” A man of enormous social intelligence, he was able to put prisoners at ease by treating them with dignity and respect, and to draw them into apparently casual conversations from which he drew a great deal of information. Those who provided information included many Allied officers who had been taught not to “talk.” How Can the High-Value Detainee and the Intelligence Interviewing Team Use Fallback Power? Detainee Believing that he has a fallback position can greatly strengthen a detainee’s will and ability to resist. A detainee may believe that he can avoid engaging with the interviewer if he is prepared not to talk at all and is willing to remain in custody indefinitely. He may explicitly recognize this as a source of power. In the most extreme situation, a detainee who is prepared to die, or is willing to provoke others to kill him, has extraordinary power in intelligence interviewing. A detainee’s beliefs might even make death appear an attractive or desirable option. Such a detainee might believe that by committing suicide, or refusing medical treatment and food and water until the point of death, he would not only achieve martyrdom but also mobilize comrades or potential recruits and influence public opinion against his captors. These “alternatives” might appear irrational to the captor and make complete sense to the detainee. In another situation, a newly captured detainee may believe he need only withhold information or maintain a deceptive cover story for several days, until a planned attack is carried out. His strategy is to keep silent for a few days and then talk a little if he must. However, if the detainee comes to believe that the intelligence interviewing team already knows of the attack plan, this fallback position may become less attractive, thus lessening this source of power. Intelligence Interviewing Team An awareness of having alternatives when going into an interview may increase the intelligence interviewing professional’s self-confidence and effectiveness. In contrast to the “imminent catastrophe scenario” sometimes portrayed in movies and on television (see box below), an intelligence interviewing team often does have alternative sources if a particular detainee refuses to provide information. These sources might include other detainees and different kinds of intelligence, such as SIGINT. This kind of power can also provide leverage for the interviewing team even if the detainee only believes the intelligence interviewing ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 42 Q. Should an unusual case drive all the discussions of rules, training, research, and future capacity of U.S. Government intelligence interviewing/interrogation? Developing the future of intelligence interviewing around a rare, imminent catastrophe scenario does not make sense. The United States has another alternative: in a situation where a threat of catastrophe is immediate, and highly credible, and all the questions above have been considered, U.S. law should authorize the President to order personally whatever actions are deemed reasonable and necessary under the circumstances. The legal authority for such discretionary action could include the provision that any such Presidential order should ultimately be made public, perhaps after a specified period of time, to permit judgment by the court of public opinion. Both long- and short-term interests of the United States suggest shifting focus away from the imminent catastrophe scenario. Far more productive for ensuring national security would be discussions about how the U.S. Government can develop the knowledge and capacity to become a world leader in non-coercive intelligence interviewing. The future might include a vigorous research program about intelligence interviewing, an integrated systems approach involving multiple sources of intelligence, and the development of a professional cadre of intelligence interviewers. How Can the High-Value Detainee and the Intelligence Interviewing Team Use the Power of Incentives and Disincentives? Detainee A detainee can use both incentives and disincentives to some extent. Given the realities of captivity, these are likely to be primarily intangible. At the simplest level, the detainee might explicitly use information as an incentive in a bargain: “I’ll tell you about the safe house if you get me a better mattress.” Some detainees might offer or agree to a deal that would permit contact with or benefit family members. More generally, the detainee might use his own behavior as an incentive or disincentive. For example, a skillfully manipulative detainee might use his interpersonal style and his ability to arouse emotion in another person in either a gratifying or a punitive way. He could make it obvious that he will only talk if the intelligence interviewing professional stays away from certain topics, or addresses him respectfully. Alternatively, he might simply act in such an unlikable fashion that no one wants to talk with him. Or he might make believable threats against translators and others, especially if the interview takes place in a context where the detainee is well known and can wield power and cause fear even while detained.   ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 43 In the well-known case of a high-ranking North Vietnamese captive, Nguyen Tai, interrogators arranged for other detainees to confront Tai and to identify him. Here is what happened: “Tai continued to maintain his cover story, and his attitude toward his confronters was so threatening (when combined with his past reputation) that he thoroughly terrified his accusers, one of whom reportedly committed suicide shortly afterward.” Merle L. Pribbenow, “The Man in the Snow White Cell,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 48, No. 1. [Appended to this document as a case study.] Intelligence Interviewing Team Intelligence interviewing professionals may have a greater range of options than does the detainee. The thoughtful use of incentives offers several kinds of influence in intelligence interviewing. One use depends on the importance of reciprocity in human interaction (see Persuasion). In brief, when an individual receives something from another (a gift, a gesture of support), a sense of obligation may arise that leads that individual to want to give something back. Recent research suggests that such a response may be “hard wired” into the human nervous system and that it may not be consciously understood. This response therefore can be difficult to resist. A detainee who has been meticulously searched and monitored may own nothing in detention and may value even small offerings or gestures. Since he often has only information to give in exchange, it is easy to understand the potential power of this kind of incentive in intelligence interviewing. Reciprocity may be important in another way. If a particularly likable intelligence interviewing professional relieves some of the distress caused by capture and detention, a resultant sharp reduction of fear and anxiety might itself prompt some degree of operational accord with a detainee (see Stress and Resistances). The intelligence interviewing team might also use incentives to encourage and reward potentially cooperative behavior on the part of the detainee. This may be done intangibly or tangibly. It should, however, be done on an individualized basis, and in a way consistent with the values and interests of a given detainee and of his culture. For example, a detainee who is particularly sensitive to moral authority might be insulted by the suggestion that an “enemy” could buy his cooperation by offering him creature comforts. Even the idea of “making a deal” is likely to vary considerably from culture to culture. The intelligence interviewing professional may also use a range of disincentives to enhance the apparent negative consequences of resisting. For example, he may withdraw intangible or tangible incentives given for cooperative behaviors, increase the time a detainee must spend in his cell, or limit the detainee’s access ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 44 to others. In addition, the mere ability of the intelligence interviewing team to employ disincentives may remind the detainee that he has little control over his environment, conditions, and activities, and this may decrease his sense of having a fallback position. An Example of Combining Sources of Power U.S. interrogators in the Pacific during World War II achieved remarkable success in obtaining not only information, but also some assistance, from Japanese prisoners of war (POWs). The skills used by these interrogators illustrate the sources of power described above, applied in ways that appeared to benefit the prisoners as well as their captors. Using Many Sources of Power with Japanese Prisoners of War At the beginning of World War II, Americans considered the Japanese and the Japanese language almost impossible to understand. They viewed Japanese soldiers as skillful, incomprehensible, and ruthless enemies who would fight to the death – Japanese leaders were willing to train and use suicide bombers. Some descriptions at the time characterized the Japanese as almost inhuman. Japanese military discipline was extraordinarily strict and often abusive. Soldiers and officers knew that their leaders expected them to commit suicide rather than be captured. They were taught that they would bring dishonor on their families and country if they survived captivity; moreover, many believed that Americans would torture and kill prisoners. Many prisoners were malnourished, ill, or injured at the time of capture. Among the U.S. interrogators were a few Caucasians who had lived in Japan and who cherished Japanese culture, and thousands of Nisei (people of Japanese ancestry who were the first generation to be born outside Japan). These interrogators initially used relationship power and information power: they treated the POWs with respect, providing medical care, food, and friendly conversations about their hometowns and local culture. Most Japanese soldiers had not expected or experienced such treatment. Interrogators such as Otis Cary and Sherwood Moran also were intuitively able to use the power of a fallback position in an extraordinarily effective way. Captured Japanese soldiers were initially very anxious and fearful about what would happen to them. They believed they could “never go home again” and many assumed they had no “fallback position” except death. Instead, they were offered a very powerful incentive: a “chance to build a new Japan.” This new and completely different fallback position served the interests of both the United States and the POWs. The POWs also gained some sense of control over their lives: an increased sense of “autonomy.” ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 47 • What affects a detainee’s perception of his own power and the interviewers’ power? How does a detainee’s physical, mental, and emotional condition influence these perceptions? • When and how might overt attempts at “control” enhance or undermine building an effective operational accord? • How might use of different sources of power affect a particular detainee in a given situation? o When might relationship-based power be most effective? • How might an intelligence interviewing team “match” a proposed “interviewing framework” (the plan for working with a particular detainee, in a particular physical setting) to what is known about a detainee? • How might intelligence interviewing teams assess the relative influence of various sources of power (both the interviewer’s and the detainee’s) with respect to different kinds of information? o Which sources of power have been most helpful in collecting unexpected, serendipitous, and incidental information? o Which sources of power may be best for discovering all or a great deal of the information that a detainee might have (“complete information”) as distinguished from just a name, a date, or other discrete facts? • What can be discovered about using different sources of power in sequence? About the timing of the use of information known to the intelligence interviewing team? About the use of surprise? • How might the review of successful intelligence interviewing cases broaden, extend, and further define the list of sources of power used by intelligence interviewing teams and detainees in various different contexts? • How might intelligence interviewing teams consider various sources of power – both the interviewer’s and the detainee’s – in planning to interview a particular female detainee? Or in making a plan to interview a very young, very old, or very sick detainee, or a detainee who had been held by other countries, or a detainee of an unusual, multi-cultural background? • Which sources of power would be most useful if the intelligence interviewing team wishes to encourage the detainee to return to his country, or to recruit him as an informant? • How is moral authority understood, and what is known about the power of moral authority in different contexts and in different cultures? ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 48 • How might the intelligence interviewing profession and the IC community develop as many sources of power as possible – in order to complicate the task of those who might offer resistance training to adversaries? • Might certain intelligence interviewing professionals be effective with only certain kinds of power and specific detainees? o Might a particular source of power be available to an intelligence interviewing team only in a certain time frame or context? o Might that source of power be developed only in a certain context, or in a certain time frame, or with certain intelligence interviewing professionals? ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 49 Interests and Identities What Might an Intelligence Interviewing Team Want to Understand About Interests and Identities? Every person has multiple interests, social identities, and constituencies. Knowledge of a detainee’s different interests and social identities may guide a strategy for developing an operational accord,* and help persuade the detainee to provide useful information – including useful information that was not anticipated. It may also be helpful for the intelligence interviewing team to analyze their own interests and social identities in order to maintain focus and objectivity, deal with stresses – and to find ways to connect with individual detainees. Conventional Beliefs Since the times of Sun Tzu, effective military leaders and political negotiators have considered it essential to ”know the enemy,” especially in times of war. As Sun Tzu taught, simply pursuing one’s own interests, without understanding the interests of the adversary, limits one’s ability to anticipate what the adversary will do, and to influence, confound, or convert the adversary. This principle applies in all interactions where the parties may have conflicting goals. Most interrogators realize that the more they can know about a detainee, the better. In preparing for an interview, these professionals might ask: “How can I get this person to talk to me? How much does he know and how will I know if he is telling me the truth?” They seek biographic information: name(s), languages spoken, various kinds of social and political status; details about capture; allegations about what the person may have done; and estimates of knowledgeability. These may be hard data from reliable channels, or soft data obtained from the screening process. Interrogators recognize that they often begin their task with limited and sometimes questionable information and only a rough idea of the detainee’s knowledgeability. * “Operational accord” denotes a special “working” or “professional” relationship between the interviewer and the high-value detainee. It is characterized by the detainee’s willingness to supply accurate information, at least some of the time, in response to the interviewer’s questions. The concept also implies that the interviewer has an individualized and effective strategy for interactions with the detainee. Once an operational accord develops, it may allow an intelligence interviewer to engage with, challenge, and debate with the detainee, or agree with him if appropriate, without shutting down the relationship or causing the loss of important information. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 52 • Gather intelligence of value, whether directly in response to questions or serendipitously and incidentally Imagine a detainee who repeatedly states he wants to kill all Americans and constantly insults his interviewer. The intelligence interviewer might assume that the detainee’s sole interest is to kill his enemies, and therefore might decide that such a detainee is “too radicalized” ever to respond to persuasion. This assumption could cause the interviewer and guards to treat the detainee dismissively, to engage only on the topic of struggle and hate, to ignore the detainee, or to be hostile in return. While this may be a normal human reaction when dealing with a highly resistant person, it might only feed the detainee’s hatred of Americans and strengthen his views of himself as an adversary and his resistances. Thus, this normal human reaction might well undermine the intelligence interviewing professional’s primary interest: to obtain accurate information. In such a situation an intelligence interviewing professional might step back and ask, “What other interests might this detainee have?” For example, the detainee may have been revered and feared by many followers prior to detention. Perhaps the detainee’s hostile statements reflect an underlying core interest: his desire that others recognize him as powerful and important and treat him accordingly. After discovering this, the intelligence interviewing professional may choose to treat the detainee, at times, as a very important person in order to respond to a “core concern” (see Persuasion). This might well meet one of the detainee’s interests, perhaps lower his resistances – and help the interviewer to meet his own primary interest. How Might an Intelligence Interviewing Team Learn the High-Value Detainee’s “Real” Interests? The intelligence interviewing team can discover at least some of the detainee’s interests by thorough preparation prior to an interview, including meticulous review of all-source intelligence about a detainee. However, third-party information may or may not be adequate, as sources may be aware of only a small range of another person’s true interests and connections. Therefore, the intelligence interviewing team must use skillful listening and observation techniques, as well as broad lines of questioning and discussion. By attending to a detainee’s past and present words and behavior, the team can begin to develop hypotheses about a detainee’s interests and then continue to reassess and evaluate these over time. Detainees have an array of interests, some of which are easily identified and are useful in building an operational accord. One way to identify interests is to lower barriers through “small talk.” Topics such as food, health, parenthood and children, sports and sport teams bring people together everywhere. In fact, research suggests that many societies, cultures, and tribes have a deeply ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 53 respected custom of talking about serious topics only after considerable time spent in casual conversation and perhaps eating meals or drinking tea together. What might the intelligence interviewing team observe once the detainee begins to engage in a dialogue? To learn the detainee’s true interests the team must pay close attention to: • What the detainee says he wants, and the “positions” he takes. Of course, he may not acknowledge his “real interests;” his stated “positions” might be different from his real interests. • How he acts with respect to what he wants or does not want, and how he seeks and interprets information. • Whether he is helpful or reticent about various topics and people. Intelligence interviewing teams can usually discover several dimensions of a detainee’s interests to explore. These may include things he wants and things he enjoys. As one example, all detainees have some physical interests. They include medical care for self and family; overcoming illness, injury, or disabilities; physical fitness and sports (and in some cultures, dance); food; and sleep. A detainee may enjoy discussing different parts of a given city or area, the important characteristics of different clans, his tastes and dislikes in food, and activities and skills important to him while he was growing up (for example, different kinds of musical instruments or kites, or playing or not playing on a certain sports team). The historical record shows that conversations of this kind helped U.S. interrogators to make a connection with German and Japanese POWs during World War II and with North Vietnamese agents and soldiers in the Vietnam conflict. How Might the High-Value Detainee’s Likes and Dislikes Reveal His True Interests? Identifying a detainee’s real interests can be a complex and fluid task. Some detainees may sometimes speak openly and truthfully about what they want. Others may attempt to conceal their true interests in order to influence how they are viewed by the intelligence interviewing team, by their fellow detainees, or by constituencies back home. For example, to gain respect from his peers or his captors, or to maintain his reputation among his comrades after repatriation or death, a detainee might state that he is prepared to die in detention when he also would like to be able to give up the fight and go home. Discovering the detainee’s real interests poses a challenge to the interviewing team, because many detainees may take positions that are different from their underlying interests. For example, a detainee might take the position that he wishes to deal only with a particular intelligence interviewing professional, when ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 54 his real interest is to be treated respectfully or to talk to someone in his own age group. A detainee might take the position that he will not discuss a particular geographic region, when his underlying interest is not to expose a family member who resides in that area. In addition, a detainee may or may not consciously understand or acknowledge all of his own interests, yet these interests may still significantly influence his actions. This is especially true for interests that have emotional importance. For example, a detainee may not realize how much he would like to be “recognized” as an honorable man or as an expert in some area. Yet if he receives such recognition he might be far more willing to engage in conversation and share some or all of the information the intelligence interviewing professional seeks. Further complicating the task of ascertaining real interests is that the detainee’s interests may or may not remain stable over time. Interests can change (although often slowly) with the introduction of new information, or as the detainee gains experience in detention. Such changes may benefit the intelligence interviewing professional. For example, skilled interviewers have described the importance of offering a telephone call back to family, talking at length about the medical problems of the detainee or his children, or bringing the detainee a favorite food from his home region. An expert interviewer has also noted the importance of having the necessary knowledge to engage in serious discussions of the detainee’s technical achievements. This helped to turn the detainee’s attention back toward a more desirable social identity and interests. Similarly, a detainee’s interests may vary with context. A detainee may act differently (perhaps dramatically so) when encountering different intelligence interviewing professionals, when interacting with different sets of peers, or when living in a different environment among different people. This may happen in part because of the detainee’s various “social identities” (see below). A detainee’s interests may or may not be consistent with each other, and may conflict. For example, prior to detention a detainee might have wanted both to stay at home with his family and to fight on behalf of his group and his leaders. As a parent, a detainee may want medical care for his child, but at the same time, as a member of an insurgent cell, he may want to conceal the child’s existence or whereabouts. These conflicting interests provide various opportunities for the intelligence interviewing professional to explore. For instance, even though a detainee may still have interests related to his role in an insurgent group and his relationship with the group’s leadership, the intelligence interviewing professional may decide to work with the detainee’s wish to return home in an effort to deal with resistance to sharing information. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 57 may facilitate accord and decrease resistances. This process, technically called decategorization, may lead the detainee to see the intelligence interviewing professional as an individual who shares his likes and dislikes, rather than primarily as a member of an adversary group. In short, knowledge of a detainee’s social identities, and the associated constituencies, gives the intelligence interviewing team key insights into a detainee’s possible interests, his loyalties, and what lies behind his resistances. Cross-cutting identities provide a possible path toward less adversarial communication (see Persuasion). What Is the Relevance of Understanding Interests and Social Identities to Meeting “Intelligence Requirements”? Intelligence requirements (IRs) are important, since they provide guidance on what the larger intelligence community and policy makers wish to know from a particular detainee or group of detainees. However, focusing too soon or too narrowly on IRs may be a poor tactic for working with a detainee. Clearly, a resistant detainee is not likely to be instantly forthcoming with specific answers to specific IR questions asked by an interviewer he does not know, especially if the detainee comes from a culture that values small talk and discussions of common interests. For this reason alone, the team might plan wider conversations that take account of the detainee’s interests and social identities. IRs also may narrow the scope of what an intelligence interviewing professional discusses with a detainee, and much vital information may become lost in a sea of “unknown unknowns.” This notion makes sense to most people, but in times of urgency those who manage intelligence interviewing operations – and consumers of the intelligence collected – may press interviewers to think one- dimensionally about detainees and “just answer the IR” (see box on “The “detainee’s information” is not a simple concept” in Power). Key Points Understand the Interests and Social Identities of Members of the Team Intelligence interviewing professionals might continually keep an eye on their own interests and social identities to help in maintaining a calm and objective focus, to help in dealing with their own stresses, and to help in finding ways to build an operational accord with the detainee. Look Underneath What the Detainee Says He Wants Intelligence interviewing professionals and teams might continually assess each detainee’s interests over time, in different settings, and with different people; search all-source intelligence for clues about his interests prior to detention; and ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 58 not allow what a detainee says to solidify assumptions about what he truly wants. It is important to consider that a detainee may not consciously recognize all the interests that drive him. A statement such as “All I want is to get out of here” might actually include the idea that “I want to talk to people who treat me with the respect that I deserve.” Recognizing and responding to an underlying interest may increase the detainee’s willingness to talk more frankly with the interviewer. Seek to Understand All the Detainee’s Interests and Identities Even if the intelligence interviewing team knows little about the detainee as an individual, awareness of the various social groups with which he identifies may be a source of operationally relevant information and may present a starting point for conversation. Simply discussing a detainee’s interests and social groups is not likely to create a sufficient basis for an operational accord. An intelligence interviewing professional and team need to identify as many of the detainee’s interests as possible in order to recognize cross-cutting identities that potentially align with the team’s own knowledge and skills. If the interviewer can plausibly present himself as a “colleague,” the detainee may begin to acknowledge some commonalities with the interviewer, which in turn can help to decrease resistances and enhance the interviewer’s ability to persuade (see Resistances and Persuasion). Explore Topics Beyond the Intelligence Requirements A detainee may possess information of great value that falls outside the scope of stated IRs. Understanding the range of the detainee’s interests and identities can indicate additional fruitful areas for questioning. For example, knowing that an avid sports fan attended a particular match could provide an opportunity to find out about who was on the team in that place at that time, about road conditions or water shortages in the area, or about the mood of the residents. Thoughtful efforts to explore interests and identities can result in discovery of serendipitous and incidental information of great value, and can provide valuable information on how to persuade the detainee in future interviews (see Persuasion). Areas of Potential Operational Interest That Merit Further Research • How might link and social analysis methodologies be used to help an intelligence interviewing team understand a detainee’s social identities and constituencies on the basis of his interests, and vice versa? • What sort of backstopping (e.g., documentation, photographs, terminology, professional memberships and affiliations) might an intelligence interviewing professional find useful to present a fabricated cross-cutting identity as a real one? ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 59 • How does ignoring an undesirable social identity (e.g., “a warrior”) affect resistances? • What more can be learned about the relationship between interests and “resistance points” (see Resistances)? That is, what can the interviewing team learn by observing points where the detainee is reticent or silent? • How can an analysis of “interests” enhance different sources of power in interviewing, and perhaps foster an operational accord with the detainee (see Power)? • How might analysis of social identities be used to plan ways of helping a detainee remember events (see Memory)? • How can explicit understanding of the interests and social identities of members of the intelligence interviewing team help in maintaining objectivity, in building an operational accord, and in learning the various kinds of information a detainee may have? ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 62 • High levels of stress may cause the detainee to break: to escape from unbearable stress into a posture of compliance and complete or near- complete “cooperation.” In the extreme view, the relentless pressure exerted by the interrogator’s pointed, rapid-fire questioning, combined with fatigue from long interrogations, varying degrees of sleep deprivation, stress positions, and the inherently stressful nature of detention and of uncertainty about the future, ultimately causes the detainee to cooperate unconditionally. Behavioral Science Perspectives Research findings about the effects of stress raise doubts about the accuracy, and utility, of these conventional beliefs. No systematic studies of stress in interrogations with terrorism detainees have been found. However, several ideas from behavioral science might guide intelligence interviewing teams of the future in how they consider, and choose to use, stress in the course of their interactions with detainees. What Exactly Is Stress? Although behavioral scientists have extensively studied the nature and effects of stress, a universally accepted definition remains elusive. At a fundamental level, stress involves some manner of disruption in homeostasis: the process by which humans regulate their internal environment (e.g., thoughts, emotions, physiological arousal) to maintain a stable and constant state. Stress itself is not inherently negative. In fact, people experience certain stressors as generally positive and motivating. Consider the examples of moving to a different city to start a desirable job, or feeling productively busy on an interesting task. Psychologists refer to this type of stress as eustress. However, when most people discuss “stress” in a day-to-day context they mean distress: stress that is perceived as negative and uncomfortable. Even eustress, despite its positive and even motivating effects, can be taxing to a person’s system. What Does Research Tell Us About Stress in Interrogations? Although some view stress as an important source of leverage in interrogation, no research has been found on the relationships between different kinds of stressors and interrogation outcomes. Available research on the effects of stress on a person in detention has focused primarily on developing counter-strategies (e.g., resistance training). In the 1950s and 1960s U.S. scientists studied the role of stress in the so-called communist model of interrogation: a hostile form of interrogation that sought to debilitate the detainees through physical and psychological pressure and sleep deprivation. The researchers concluded that the purpose of applying these ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 63 stressors was to gain compliance and produce confessions. Compliance in this context refers to the detainee’s willingness to defer to, or agree with, an interrogator, but not necessarily to provide accurate or useful information. This research also led to the design of the SERE program, discussed below. By contrast, no scientific studies could be found that systematically examined the uses of stress in an intelligence interview, where the goal is to gather accurate and useful information. Therefore, little is known scientifically about the potentially constructive roles that different types of stress may play in generating accurate intelligence, as distinguished from producing compliance. How Might a High-Value Detainee Experience Stress During Capture and Interviews? Individuals vary in what they perceive as stressful or as uncomfortable. How a particular detainee perceives his situation, and the previous experiences and beliefs he brings to that situation, may determine what he finds motivating, de- motivating, energizing, or debilitating. That being said, being confined is inherently stressful and can be frightening to most people. Meeting with an intelligence interviewer, even one who approaches the interaction in a conversational tone, is potentially stressful for some detainees (although not others) and can provoke anxiety. Simply being asked to provide information, even rudimentary information about identity and current well-being, may be stressful for some detainees. Levels of stress in an interrogation or interview can therefore range from mild to extreme. Does “Capture Shock” Cause High-Value Detainees to Reveal Information? Most people initially experience heightened distress when detained. This is a reasonable response to encountering the unexpected and uncertain nature of capture, the discomfort of being held against one’s will, and the loss of the ability to forecast, and control, events. The nature and intensity of that initial stress – often referred to as capture shock – may vary considerably among detainees depending on their perceptions of the experience, their coping skills, and their general preparation for such an experience. Some anecdotal evidence suggests that certain detainees do provide intelligence information during the “capture shock” phase or in the immediate relief from the shock of capture. In a military setting, tactical intelligence may result when interviewers collect pieces of information from several different individuals shortly after they are captured. However, the rate at which this “capture shock” occurs, which detainees experience it under what conditions, and how to use this potentially important time are unknown. In particular, research is needed as to the relevance of capture shock to intelligence interviews of high-value detainees.   ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 64 U.S. Army Captain John A. Burden, a Japanese language officer who led the first combat intelligence team on Guadalcanal and in other South Pacific battles during World War II, provided a firsthand account of POW operations in the South Pacific area. In the after-action report detailing his experiences on Guadalcanal, he described the attitude of Japanese POWs as falling into three distinct phases. During the first, immediately after capture, Japanese soldiers were terrified of being tortured or killed. Burden indicated that this fear did not result from Japanese military propaganda, but from personal experience: most Japanese soldiers on Guadalcanal had served two or more years in China, and may have believed that Chinese guerillas never took prisoners or that they tortured captives or put them to death. Burden concluded, “After spending two or more years training under these conditions it is only natural the Japanese troops should assume that such a fate was to be expected, regardless of who the opponent was.” After 24 to 48 hours of detention, the second phase set in. The Japanese soldiers realized they would not be tortured or killed, and were surprised by the good treatment and food they received. As a result, their “fear changed into gratitude” and they were “filled with a desire to reciprocate.” Burden noted the Japanese soldiers “talked freely” and their information was “usually reliable.” He described this as the most effective phase for interrogation. The third phase began after 10 days to two weeks of detention. During this stage, detainees grew accustomed to the food and good treatment and became “mentally lazy.” As a result, information was harder to get and proved less reliable.14 Detainees who have received training in what to do if captured (resistance training), who have been previously detained under similar circumstances, have themselves detained people, or have given a great deal of thought to how they could manage detention may feel less stress upon capture than those without such training, experience, or forethought. Their sense of familiarity with the detention environment and their ideas about how to act may lower the initial level of stress. In addition, some detainees may have become accustomed to hardship as a result of difficult living conditions, physical injury, or serious, protracted deprivation, while others have known greater comfort. These previous experiences are likely to influence how detention is experienced. Thus, while there may indeed be overall patterns of stress reactions related to detention, these patterns and how they affect cooperation could vary depending upon the types of people being detained, their lives prior to detention, their expectations about what they will face in captivity, and their real interests (see Interests and Identities). Without knowing a given individual’s history or training or interests, an intelligence interviewing team may find it difficult to anticipate how ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 67 “Breaking” The concept of breaking a detainee – which some imagine as a culminating point when the detainee “surrenders” and permanently ceases all efforts to resist – appears to be a false premise that profoundly misrepresents the nature of human interactions and decision making. It also indicates a serious lack of understanding of how memory works (see Memory). Those who operate on the basis of this concept risk missing valuable information the detainee may possess, let alone the possibility of persuading the detainee to provide “complete” information (see Persuasion). More useful concepts may be those of steps forward, also known as moments of progress, or specific breakthroughs. A step forward occurs when the intelligence interviewing professional can elicit useful, accurate information from the detainee through carefully designed questions and persuasion, and by creating a social and environmental context that makes deliberate – and accidental – disclosures more likely. “Learned Helplessness” In the past several years, some have suggested that inducing a state of “learned helplessness” in a detainee will cause him to become more “cooperative.” There appear to be several problems with this idea. First, no studies of learned helplessness could be identified that speak directly or indirectly to the context of intelligence interviewing. Second, it is difficult to understand how intelligence interviewing professionals could intentionally create a state of learned helplessness in all detainees and, even if they could, why they would want to do so.16 It is hard to believe that detainees who experience learned helplessness would or could provide accurate and complete intelligence information. In fact, inducing learned helplessness may – by definition – be worse than useless. If a detainee does not believe his statements and actions will affect his situation or cause his treatment to improve or worsen, what motivates him to tell the truth? He may simply fabricate an answer to satisfy the intelligence interviewing professional, or he may withdraw and become unresponsive. In addition, a learned belief that his actions or inaction are meaningless may override the detainee’s previous expectation that his behavior will matter. This might make it more difficult to use the skills of intelligence interviewing (see Persuasion and Power). What Happens When Stress Is Decreased for a High-Value Detainee? Experienced interviewing professionals often provide anecdotes suggesting they can effectively lessen as well as deepen sources of stress in an intelligence interview. They may do this deliberately, in ways consistent with their goals and the detainee’s current situation. For example, many interviewing professionals ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 68 speak of the effectiveness of using the “good cop/bad cop” approach with a detainee. (The theory suggests that reduction in stress associated with the “good cop” may motivate a detainee to talk.) Social science research suggests that reducing stress levels can have several possible effects: 1. A detainee who is committed to not divulging information may feel bolstered in his resistance to the intelligence interviewing professional once the stress level is reduced. He may believe that he has less to worry about and therefore can focus on not responding to, or on deceiving, the interviewer. 2. As stressing stimuli decrease, a detainee may feel less need to devote energy to self-monitoring and “defending.” He may also feel somewhat grateful (as when the “good cop” takes over the questioning from the “bad cop”). When he has less stress to cope with, the detainee may relax his defenses somewhat and be more receptive to other sources of influence. The relief may cause him to convey information – knowingly or unknowingly. 3. Repeatedly increasing and decreasing distressing stimuli may cause a detainee to build some tolerance or immunity to his distress reaction. As a person’s coping resources are alternately taxed and then relaxed, the overall reserve of coping power may build or strengthen over time. This has been likened to the way our muscles get stronger: by progressive overload, followed by recovery. Increasing, then decreasing, the stress on a resistant detainee may therefore have the effect of increasing his power to resist. Because stress is often a matter of perception, the intelligence interviewing professional must consider how the detainee may interpret (or think about) the changed stress. What one person experiences as causing or decreasing distress may be seen differently by another. For example, Army colonel Larry Guarino described the efforts of his North Vietnamese captors to increase POWs’ stress levels by making one of them empty all the toilet cans: “Ron Storz inherited the chore from me, and it did have one thing on the plus side – it gave him an excellent opportunity to talk to some prisoners who were hard to reach. Storz did a great job, pretending he was talking to the guards, while passing information…”17 Furthermore, a detainee may have certain beliefs and perceptions about the extent to which the intelligence interviewing professional can control a stressful situation. For example, an experienced intelligence interviewing professional interviewed a senior Iraqi engineer who had knowledge of high-level planning documents. In the course of their conversations, the interviewer showed concern for the detainee’s worry about his family, and was able to arrange for the detainee to make telephone calls to check on his family’s health and welfare. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 69 This helped convince the detainee that the interviewer was an important person, and also decreased some of the stress (in this case, anxiety) that the detainee was experiencing. The interviewer also allowed the engineer to retain a photograph of his family that he had always carried with him. The interviewer’s actions contributed to building an accord with the detainee, who ultimately provided valuable information. Conversely, a detainee who believes the intelligence interviewing professional is the source of some stress may develop negative feelings and attributions. An initially cooperative detainee was concerned about his cleanliness and personal hygiene. He came to believe that his interrogator was responsible for his limited opportunities to shower in detention. (In fact, the interrogator had tried to get permission for the detainee to shower more often, but had failed.) Over a several-week period, the accord that the interrogator had developed with the detainee vanished and the detainee retreated into sullen silence. These observations suggest the importance of the environment and context within which intelligence interviewing professionals and teams operate. To the extent possible, an intelligence interviewing environment might be designed so that the intelligence interviewing team can systematically deal with stressors that may affect a given detainee (see Persuasion). How Does Stress Affect Intelligence Interviewing Professionals and Teams? Consideration of stress in custodial intelligence interviewing might not center only on the detainee, but might also encompass the situation, experiences, and working conditions of the intelligence interviewing team itself. No behavioral science research has been found that examines the effects of stress on intelligence interviewing professionals, yet these professionals experience serious stresses from many sources. These sources may include unreasonable expectations from senior leaders, time pressure, dangerous and uncomfortable living and working conditions, illness, limited knowledge about the background and behaviors of detainees, protracted hostility from detainees and host populations, the loss of comrades, and conflicts with peers and persons from other organizations interested in a detainee, to name just a few. Under such circumstances, some custodians, including interrogators, have treated detainees in ways that violate the norms of acceptable behavior. While such behaviors have had obvious and well-publicized effects on detainees, their long-term effects on custodians and interrogators are less well understood. There are anecdotal reports of long-term deleterious psychological effects on interrogators who followed direction to engage in behaviors that they believed “crossed the line” in interrogations. Some have experienced crises of faith and conscience. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 72 • How might intelligence interviewing professionals and teams identify and respond to symptoms of increasing stress in a detainee? • How might stress affect intelligence interviewing professionals and teams, and how might this stress be alleviated or otherwise managed? o What might be done to increase the effectiveness of interviewers and teams who are working under serious stress? ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 73 Resistances What Might an Intelligence Interviewing Team Wish to Know About Resistances2*? In custodial intelligence interviews, a high-value detainee may, at least initially, be unwilling to provide information. While preparing to interview a detainee, an intelligence interviewing team may benefit from constructing plans to understand and manage resistances. Behavioral science research on resistances suggests promising ways to analyze reticence and to respond to detainees who hesitate to engage in any dialogue, or who appear unwilling to share information at particular times or on certain issues. Conventional Beliefs The over-arching term “resistance” has sometimes been applied to any apparent motivation or action to withhold information in an interrogation. Some interrogators have viewed “resistance” as if it were a single barrier – one that they needed to “break” (see Stress). Language in the revised Army Field Manual 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations, acknowledges that this is not always the case, but seems to offer little guidance as to how an interrogator might seek to approach a detainee who is sophisticated in withholding pockets of information: 8.75. …The HUMINT collector must also be aware of the fact that a source can begin to cooperate in certain areas while continuing to resist strongly in other areas. The HUMINT collector should recognize the reason for refusal, overcome the objection, and stress the benefit of cooperating (reinforce the approach)…. Some interrogators believe that the capacity to resist cooperating with an interrogator comes from the detainee’s “willpower.” According to this belief, the interrogator must therefore overcome that willpower before the detainee will comply with the interrogator’s demands and requests. Other interrogators see resistance as a set of responses, techniques, and skills that detainees have been trained to exhibit. The revised Army Field Manual provides this guidance: * The term “resistance” suggests that resistance is a single barrier, and one that needs to be overcome or “broken.” This teaching paper uses the term “resistances” to reflect the many types and multi-layered complexions of resistances that are sometimes used by detainees. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 74 8-77 …most interrogation sources (90 percent or more) cooperate in response to the direct approach. Unfortunately, those sources who have the placement and access to make them high priority sources are also the ones with the highest degree of security awareness. A source who uses counter- interrogation techniques such as delaying, trying to control the conversation, or interrogating the HUMINT collector himself may— • Be an intelligence trained soldier. • Be survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (SERE) trained. • Be a terrorist. • Have been a detainee or previously incarcerated. While the Army Field Manual advises interrogators to be aware of potential resistance, it seems to offer few suggestions on how to identify and work with the many types of resistances they are likely to encounter, or to consider that some behavior that looks like resistance may in fact not be resistance at all (see Memory). 8-19. …The HUMINT collector will continue to use direct questions as long as the source is answering the questions in a truthful manner. When the source refuses to answer, avoids answering, or falsely answers a pertinent question, the HUMINT collector will begin an alternate approach strategy. 8.76. If a cooperative source balks at answering a specific line of questions, the HUMINT collector must assess the reason for the refusal. The HUMINT collector may have arrived at a topic that the source finds particularly sensitive. Other reasons that might cause a source to stop answering questions are fatigue or unfamiliarity with the new topic. If this topic is critical, the HUMINT collector may have to reinforce the previously successful approach or may have to use a different approach. Finally, the manual suggests an assumption that dealing with resistance is a relatively easy task, and that all sources will eventually cooperate. 8-74. Each source has a point where he will begin to cooperate and answer questions. 4-46. A commander normally must prioritize HUMINT collections and DOCEX…. If documents and human sources are determined to be equally likely of [sic] containing priority information, human sources are normally exploited first due to— • …The fact that an individual’s resistance is easier to bypass immediately after undergoing a significant traumatic experience (capture). Capture thrusts them into an unfamiliar environment over ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 77 below); it is important for the team to try to identify these by asking questions such as those above.   “The Man in the Snow White Cell” (the second case study in this booklet) tells the very unusual story of long-term resistance by a high-level North Vietnamese detainee, Nguyen Tai. A 2001 article in the Saigon Times Magazine added a vignette to the story of Tai’s detention, “Tai spent several days thinking of a word to reply to enquirers automatically so that he could not be ‘trapped.’ Finally, he chose the word ‘forget’ for his answers. He was asked about the list of his leaders, the espionage base, the communications network, and his father's name, but he always said, ‘Forget.’” It appears that Tai planned carefully to use the word forget, rejecting other possible words. Forget was very simple; he would not have to think under duress. And the word would not easily be used against him if he or the questions were misquoted or quoted out of context. What Strategies Might Help an Intelligence Interviewing Team to Deal with Resistances? Research in social psychology has revealed strategies that may diminish a person’s resistances. Psychologists, behavioral economists, and others have documented the powers of using relationship, persuasion, and incentives to move people toward a position or behavior (see Interests and Identities, Persuasion and Power). Research also indicates that an intelligence interviewing professional could craft influence strategies and tactics that avoid, reduce, or eliminate a person’s resistances. They include: • “Sidestepping” resistance – The intelligence interviewing professional can redefine the transaction from one in which he explicitly tries to push the detainee to “cooperate,” to one in which he tries to influence the detainee to collaborate with him in pursuing a common goal. This was part of what happened with the Japanese POWs in WWII when they were interrogated by men who appreciated and cared about the Japanese people and Japanese culture (see Power). ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 78   A master intelligence interviewing professional who knew a great deal about the detainee’s religion assumed the role of a student/recent convert to Islam who wanted to join with the “teacher” (the detainee) to understand more about Islam. The interviewer asked, “Would you help me understand what religious doctrine you have followed that allows for attacks against others?” He later followed up by asking about any doctrine in Islam that permits attacks against fellow Muslims. This “sidestepping” decreased the detainee’s resistances to discussing his religion and other beliefs, and allowed the interviewer to ask questions that led the detainee to explore broader interpretations of his religion that he had not previously considered. • Addressing resistance directly – In an intelligence interviewing context, resistance can be like the proverbial elephant in the room. Sometimes it is useful for an intelligence interviewing professional to acknowledge it, openly express understanding of it, and talk about it directly. For example, the interviewer might preface a statement or an offer by saying: “You’re not going to like this,” or “You’re going to find the next thing I tell you hard to believe.” • Addressing resistance indirectly – An intelligence interviewing professional can sometimes avoid a detainee’s resistance in a more indirect way by removing a detainee’s “need” to resist. The interviewer might accomplish this by bolstering a detainee’s sense of competence and self-esteem20 or by casting the detainee in a different (non-adversarial) social role, such as that of a professional or expert. For example, an intelligence interviewing professional might say to an engineer: “I’ve learned more from you than from other people who are considered experts. Could you please explain to me….” • Distracting or disrupting resistance – Because resistance works best when the detainee is fully focused on resisting, the intelligence interviewing professional might use distraction to get the detainee off balance, divert his attention, and then ask a question. In one instance, an intelligence interviewing professional formally concluded a session but then, as the detainee was leaving the room, asked him in his native language (which the detainee did not know the interviewer spoke) for the name of a senior operative. The detainee, startled by hearing his own language and somewhat off guard because the session officially was “over,” blurted out the answer. • Consuming resistance – Resistance requires mental and emotional energy. Most people have only limited reserves of energy to resist the interviewer as well as regulate and control themselves. If the intelligence interviewing team can find ways to consume these reserves while preserving the detainee’s ability to think clearly and recall important ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 79 information (see Stress), the detainee may have less energy remaining for resistance. For example, a detained senior military officer resisted any real discussion by rattling off a long series of questions in rapid-fire succession. The intelligence interviewing professional slowly and deliberately answered each one in turn, until the detainee essentially ran out of questions. • Using the resistance – Just as some forms of martial arts use an attacker’s momentum against him, an intelligence interviewing professional might use the force of a detainee’s resistance to introduce a proposed discussion. For example, an intelligence interviewing professional might introduce a proposal by saying: “I might have something that could help you, but I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it.” What Strategies Might Move the High-Value Detainee Toward Providing Information? In pondering how to foster discussion that leads to useful information, an intelligence interviewing professional might consider some of the “tried and true” tactics of persuasion and influence that derive from extensive social science research (although this research was not done in the context of interrogation). At least six basic principles underlie potentially successful tactics (see more detailed discussions in Persuasion and Power). • Liking – People tend to be more easily and strongly influenced by people they like, including those whom they view as attractive, similar to them, friendly, and appreciative. • Authority – People are more likely to be influenced by the arguments of a person whom they perceive as an authority or an expert, especially on the topic under discussion. • Reciprocity – People are predisposed to give something to those from whom they have already received or expect to receive something, whether tangible or intangible. • Commitment and Consistency – People like to think that their beliefs, statements, and actions are mutually consistent. Persuasive overtures may have greater effect when presented as harmonizing with a detainee’s beliefs (especially beliefs that the detainee has stated aloud). • Social Validation or Social Proof – People are more likely to be influenced to take a particular action if they know that other people (especially a large number of people or people who are very much like them) have also chosen to take that action. • Scarcity – People tend to view something that is plentiful or easily attainable as less desirable than something scarce or rare. Incentives may ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 82 Memory What Is the Role of Memory in the Intelligence Interviewing Process? Behavioral science research suggests that memory may be a more complicated phenomenon than most interrogators have assumed in the past. A fuller understanding of the cognitive processes involved in memory may enable the intelligence interviewing team to assess more accurately whether a detainee genuinely “does not remember” or is withholding information. Such an understanding may also enable the team to help detainees recall information more accurately and completely. Conventional Beliefs Many interrogators and analysts assume that detainees, under most conditions, can accurately recall information related to dates, places, actions, and people in reasonably robust detail. When a detainee reports inaccurately – or claims to have an incomplete memory about a given topic – interrogators may interpret this as evidence of unreadiness or unwillingness to provide information. In other words, they identify resistance, rather than capacity to remember, as the central problem (see Resistances). As a result, they may concentrate their efforts on dealing with resistance, and miss opportunities to work with a detainee to help him remember important information. Army Field Manual 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations, which the U.S. military has adopted as its primary guidance on detainee interviewing, makes no reference to memory in relation to the detainee’s ability to recall information of potential intelligence value. Current interrogation training simply emphasizes proper questioning techniques to ensure that the interrogator can collect actionable intelligence. According to the Field Manual, “good questioning techniques enable the HUMINT collector to obtain accurate and pertinent information and to extract the maximum amount of information in the minimum amount of time.” This statement implies that most detainees have a strong ability for accurate recall and that expert questioning by the interrogator can effectively elicit remembered information. The Field Manual does, however, recognize that poorly designed questions can lead to erroneous answers by undermining the detainee’s ability to think, recall, and respond clearly. For example, it cautions against the use of: ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 83 • Leading Questions (questions that require a “yes” or “no” answer rather than a narrative response; e.g., “Did you meet the leader?”). Leading questions encourage a detainee, particularly one who is frightened or trying to curry favor, to give the answer that he thinks the HUMINT collector wants to hear. • Compound Questions (two questions asked at the same time; e.g., “When you met the leader, was he carrying a gun or a knife?”) Compound questions are easy to misunderstand and may confuse the detainee. They also allow the detainee to provide incomplete answers. • Vague Questions (questions that do not include sufficient detail for the detainee to understand exactly what the HUMINT collector is asking; e.g., “What do you know about the leader?”) This type of question may also confuse and/or mislead the detainee. Behavioral Science Perspectives Cognitive science research illuminates both the powers of memory and its fragilities. Topics of particular relevance to intelligence interviewing include (1) strategies to enhance memory, which depend on an understanding of how and why people forget, (2) framing questions in order to reduce suggestibility, and (3) the potential impact of stress on memory (see also Stress). How Does Memory Work? Human memory has both impressive capacities and delicate vulnerabilities. Cognitive researchers describe memory as having “fragile power.” In other words, human memory for gist (i.e., general concepts) can be quite good, whereas memory for details is often fallible and vulnerable to suggestion, alteration, or forgetting. For example, an individual may remember the quality, character, and overall content of a conversation at a meeting, but at the same time make several errors with regard to who said what. Another error can occur in what is known as source monitoring.* Errors in source monitoring mean that a person may retain a memory, but forget or misattribute the source of that memory – and, therefore, the information. For example, a memory may have originated in a daydream, a story that the person had told or had heard, a movie, photo, or book – or a real event. Memories are real in that humans create images and retain representations in their “mind’s-eye,” but a “real” memory is not necessarily accurate. Moreover, humans are often poor judges of the accuracy of their own memory. Considerable research has shown no relationship between confidence and * This should not be confused with the detainee or source being questioned. ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 84 accuracy: a person may be quite confident that a memory is accurate when in fact it is not. People process information in stages, on a dynamic continuum: perception and attention  encoding  consolidation and association  storage  retrieval. These stages are interdependent. Attention, for example, affects retrieval, and vice-versa. Consequently, what we attend to (what we pay attention to) in our environment has an influence on what and how we encode (store), and ultimately what we remember. Important to the concept of the information processing continuum is that there is significant variability in how individuals function at each of these stages. For example, individuals suffering from anxiety or defensiveness actually attend to information in their environment differently than those who are less anxious. In short, personality and context affect what information is attended to in the first place, how it is associated with other information, and thus how it is remembered. In addition, imagine two detainees who received the same training in making explosives: one has little background in chemistry, while the other has an undergraduate degree in the subject. The detainee with a scientific background is likely to associate and consolidate many more details of the chemical processes involved and to remember them later. Therefore, an intelligence interviewing team might expect vast differences in the amount of detail these two detainees could provide about the same training. Forgetting: How Does the Passage of Time Affect Memory? Do Some Memories Last Longer Than Others? If So, Why? Memory decays over time without use, but not all memories decay at the same rate. Furthermore, there are multiple memory systems (sensory, motor, declarative, episodic). Once retrieved, information apparently becomes easier to retrieve again, thus slowing decay. The mere act of retrieving a memory is a memory modifier, and in this way memory is dynamic. Facts and episodes, once remembered, assist the retrieval of some information while hindering the retrieval of other information. Thus, while many believe that changes in details when repeating a particular story may signal an effort to deceive, the intelligence interviewing team can in fact expect that an individual’s story will change slightly with each telling, as new details become activated for retrieval. Small changes in a detainee’s story might indicate that the detainee is recalling information with increasing accuracy rather than attempting to deceive. Many believe that memory is directly related to an individual’s general intelligence level and/or how hard the person tries to remember specific information. Actually, the availability of a memory is largely independent of the ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 87 less able to remember events that he experienced when he was in different mood-states, such as being excited or calm. Thus, although internal mood-state can become a cue to information associated with that mood, retrieval of information may be impaired when the mood is incongruent with the memory. How Might Stress Affect a High-Value Detainee’s Ability to Recall Information? In the past, many interrogators mistakenly believed that increased levels of stress (i.e., distress) have minor or no negative consequences for memory and, further, that high levels of stress can actually facilitate the retrieval process (see Stress). In fact, stress is a complex concept and is not well understood empirically as it applies to the intelligence interviewing environment. However, research in cognitive science does show quite clearly that high levels of stress do affect memory, and generally do not enhance it. Behavioral research also suggests that memory suffers when a person is “multi- tasking” and that any type of stressor – physical, mental, or emotional – may add to a person’s “cognitive load.” Under stress, mental resources that a person could use for accurate and detailed retrieval may be diverted to processing information about the stressor. For example, the more stress students experience before and during a difficult exam, the more poorly they usually perform. Distractions introduced during the exam may further detract from optimal performance. Similarly, a detainee will probably have more difficulty accurately and fully recalling the details of a conversation he had overheard between fellow terrorists if he cannot take his mind off his belief that his family is in danger. The Effects of Highly Stressful Situations on Memory According to a report published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, "Contrary to the popular conception that most people would never forget the face of a clearly seen individual who had physically confronted them and threatened them for more than 30 minutes, a large number of subjects in this study were unable to correctly identify their perpetrator.” Five hundred and nine recruited participants took part in the project, which involved four separate but similar studies. Participants were active duty military personnel enrolled in SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) training, where the nature of the stressful conditions is patterned after those reported by military personnel who had been prisoners of war (POWs). The SERE training includes food and sleep deprivation for 48 hours followed by simulated, yet very realistic, interrogations. The interrogations were either “high stress” (including physical confrontation) or “low stress” (during which the interrogator attempted to trick the subject into revealing information). ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 88 Twenty-four hours after release from the mock POW camp, the participants were asked to identify their interrogator and/or guard from either a live “line up” or from photographs. Over half of participants in low-stress interrogations were better able to identify their captors than participants in high-stress interrogations. Highlighting the complicated nature of stress and memory, however, many individuals from the high- and low-stress interrogations were equally able to recognize their captors, and a minority of participants in high-stress interrogations were better able to remember their captors compared to participants in low-stress interrogations.21   Key Points Changes in Detail Do Not Necessarily Imply Deception Research on memory suggests that intelligence interviewing professionals should not automatically interpret alterations in memory content as attempts to deceive. Changes in the details of a detainee’s story might be a byproduct of the elaborative nature of memory retrieval. High-Value Detainees’ Stories and Level of Detail Will Vary People often remember the same situation very differently. These differences are due to many factors, to include individuals’ level of interest in and familiarity with a specific topic, their skill in recalling information, and how they are asked to recall the information. Therefore, intelligence interviewing professionals might expect that two sources who attended the same meeting would report some similar but also some different memories. While general themes are likely to be consistent, detailed information will probably vary. Questions Might Minimize Leading Information Research suggests that an intelligence interviewing professional might seek to include as little leading information as possible in his initial questions. Each bit of information presented to the detainee activates networks of information potentially available for retrieval. But when parts of given memories become activated, the detainee may misinterpret his sense of familiarity with that information as evidence that he has an accurate memory of a first-hand experience. The interviewer’s efforts to “fill in” information gaps might well contaminate details of information and possibly subsequent retrieval. Insights into the nature of primed information and suggestibility indicate that intelligence interviewing professionals might also try to be judicious in how they employ such questioning techniques as repeated questions (designed to check the detainee’s veracity) and rapid fire questions. Under certain conditions, each ISB Study on Educing Information INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING: TEACHING PAPERS AND CASE STUDIES 89 technique has the potential to undermine accurate recall. To protect against alterations of memory content, intelligence interviewers might cast a “wide net” (e.g., “Tell me how you got here”) before narrowing in on specific topics (“Identify every person you saw at the safe house you ran”). Cognitive Interviews Can Improve Recall The Cognitive Interview has empirical support as a method for enhancing recall and has been widely used for enhancing the accuracy of eyewitness memory. This style of interview helps by utilizing many of the techniques mentioned above, such as cueing, prompting, and helping the detainee recall the context of the event. The Cognitive Interview asks four specific questions, some about linear sequences, others about contextual associations: 1. Tell me everything you can remember about the event, including what you saw, heard, touched, smelled, and tasted. (Context Reinstatement) 2. If I were an observer of the event, tell me what I would have seen (smelled, etc.). (Change of Perspective). 3. Tell me everything that happened, only this time go in reverse order. (Alteration of Sequence). 4. Try hard to tell me everything you can remember about the event, and don’t leave anything out. (Increased Effort and Reiteration). Areas of Potential Operational Interest That Merit Further Research • How can the Cognitive Interview be adapted for a detainee population? What other questioning protocols might be employed to foster accurate and detailed recall? • How might environmental conditions (the conditions of confinement and of intelligence interviewing) be designed to promote accurate and detailed recall? • What visual, auditory, or kinesthetic cues might be introduced to foster memory but not induce false memories? For example, do music, tastes, or smells have an effect on memory? o If so, what kinds of music, food, tastes, and smells, for which persons, in what situations, under what conditions, might enhance memory? • How might the circumstances and emotional context in which the detainee acquired the information that is being sought be estimated and assessed?