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| Terror suspect Jose Padilla arrived in Miami last year after three years and seven months in a naval brig long periods of
isolation and sensory deprivation were used to get him to talk about Al Qaeda. Alan Diaz/AP/file |
US Gov't broke Padilla through intense isolation, say experts
Despite warnings, officials used 43 months of severe isolation to force Jose Padilla to tell all he knew about Al Qaeda.
from the August 14, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
Those who haven't experienced solitary confinement can imagine that life locked in a small space would be inconvenient and boring. But according to a broad range of experts who have studied the issue, isolation can be psychologically devastating. Extreme isolation, in concert with other coercive techniques, can literally drive a person insane, these experts say. And that makes it a potential instrument of torture, they add.
Interrogators say the whole point of an interrogation is to overcome a detainee's will to resist. Some try to build rapport. Others prefer a tougher approach.
"These are interrogations, they are not job interviews. So there has to be a certain amount of unpleasantness about it," says David DeBatto, a retired Army counter-intelligence agent and former interrogator. "You have to set the tone and the atmosphere. Some of that can include sensory deprivation, which means [the subject] is in a closed room, there is no sound, and he stays in there for various amounts of time." At that point, the interrogator must make a crucial judgment. "The question is: How long is too long? Is it a day? Is it a week? Is it a month?" Mr. DeBatto says.
When then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved isolation as an aggressive interrogation technique for use at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Defense Department lawyers included a warning. "This technique is not known to have been generally used for interrogation purposes for longer than 30 days," the April 2003 memo reads in part. Longer than that required Mr. Rumsfeld's approval.
By April 2003, Padilla had already spent 10 months in isolation at the brig. Ultimately, he was housed in the same cell, alone in his wing, for three years and seven months, according to court documents.
"I'm not a psychologist, but if he is not profoundly psychologically disturbed from that experience then he is a stronger man than me," says Steven Kleinman, a retired US Air Force Reserve colonel and former interrogator.
Padilla was visited by a military psychologist upon his arrival at the Charleston brig in early June 2002. The brief screening report says Padilla was not experiencing any mental-health concerns. But he didn't see another psychologist again for nearly two years, according to a report filed by psychologist Patricia Zapf of New York, who examined Padilla and his brig records at the request of Padilla's lawyers in his ongoing trial.
When the screening reports resumed in mid-2004, Padilla's mood is described as "anxious" and later as "elevated." There is no indication that he was given a full psychological evaluation, Ms. Zapf's report says. "In my opinion, it appears unusual that someone held in solitary confinement for upwards of three years would not have undergone a more thorough and regular evaluation of [his] mental state." The new Army Field Manual bars the use of isolation to achieve psychological disorientation through sensory deprivation. "Sensory deprivation is defined as an arranged situation causing significant psychological distress due to a prolonged absence, or significant reduction, of the usual external stimuli and perceptual opportunities," the manual states. "Sensory deprivation may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and anti-social behavior. Detainees will not be subject to sensory deprivation."
Despite the tough words, the field manual offers only a general prohibition. So-called coercive interrogation methods – including isolation – have been specially authorized for certain units in the military and the Central Intelligence Agency.
The technique is not new. The Soviets used isolation and sensory deprivation to identify and discredit political dissidents. US prisoners of war confessed to nonexistent war crimes in the Korean War after similar treatment.
Fear of "brainwashing" prompted the CIA and Defense Department to underwrite research in the 1950s and '60s into the impact of isolation and sensory deprivation. The findings were included in a 1963 CIA handbook, later declassified. The book discusses the possible use of such techniques, including isolation. But it warns of the "profound moral objection" of applying "duress past the point of irreversible psychological damage."
That's what happened in Padilla's case, says Grassian. "It is clear from examining Mr. Padilla that that limit was surpassed."
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