We had a lot of fun pretending to be their friends while gathering information and working with ODA 515 and 561. I miss those days.
I remember one time when we were on the lookout for Muqtada Al Sadr and his lieutenants we were talking with this Iman and the guy stared at me the whole time while my TL was asking him questions. Later in the conversation he looked at me and said "You have many Arabic qualities. Where are you from?" I responded "I am a large part native American." He said "Ah, I see." then told us where we could find one of Sadr's Henchmen which led to an early morning raid with the 25th ID and ODA 515.I'd love to hear more of what you can share about those days!
I'd love to hear more of what you can share about those days!
I almost forgot the ODA teams had a Marine recon unit attached to them (or simply working along side them) as well. Great group of guys.Back in my rifle platoon commander days I would roll up insurgents in Iraq without any HET support which made tactical questioning much less effective. It turned out, however, that one of our Iraqi Army soldiers used to be a Republican Guard interrogator. He told me the best way to get information out of a prisoner was to strip them down, make them sit naked on a bottle of Pepsi, and beat them with sticks. He would hit them with a rebar if he thought they were lying and smack them with a broom stick if he thought they were telling the truth. Meanwhile they have a Pepsi bottle up their butt lest we forget step one of the doctrinal Iraqi intelligence collection cycle. I wasn’t that sold on his interrogation system to be honest, but boy would those prisoners sing when he whipped that Pepsi bottle out of his backpack. Much to his disappointment, all of our detainees opted for American detention and were willing to offer any and all information they had to avoid taking a ride on a Pepsi-cola rectal pogo stick.
Agree.And the things it does to the people doing the interrogations are not pretty either. Unless they're total sadistic psychopaths.
To clarify: I am agreeing with "things it does to people doing the interrogation aren't pretty" -- purely ancedotal.Agree.
I disagree to an extent.How much is that 'info' though...
Been tortured. At a point you'd tell the interrogator whatever you think makes them stop, just so you can breathe a minute.
I highly question and oppose that thought material extracted via torture is good intel.
And the things it does to the people doing the interrogations are not pretty either. Unless they're total sadistic psychopaths.