UK paper, the Telegraph reports on a recent study from sociologist Alfred Biderman, titled ‘Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War.’ This studied garnered media attention today as it was revealed that US interrogators’ training was based on Chinese methods of interrogation proven to be ineffective.

Telegraph reporter Tim Shipman writes:

American military trainers gave a class to camp interrogators in 2002 on how to use “sleep deprivation”, “exposure” and other “torture” methods to reduce captives to “animals” and obtain information.

But it has emerged that the techniques presented in the class were copied word-for-word from a 1957 US Air Force study which focused on Chinese techniques – that did not work.

The study by sociologist Alfred Biderman, Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War commented on methods that led to false confessions and “brainwashing.”

…

Mr Biderman’s article described “one form of torture” used by the Chinese as forcing prisoners to stand “for exceedingly long periods” in conditions of “extreme cold”

It also detailed how “semi-starvation”, the “exploitation of wounds” and “filthy, infested surroundings” could reduce a prisoner to “animal level concerns.”

The Guantanamo Bay interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani, suspected of being the intended 20th hijacker during the September 11 attacks, is known to have included sleep deprivation and exposure to cold.

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