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| Iraq |
| Experts: Saddam holds on to ego |
| 2003-12-17 |
| For a man whose name in Arabic means "he who confronts," Saddam Hussein went meekly into captivity. His failure to commit suicide the way Adolf Hitler did or to go down fighting U.S. soldiers the way his two sons did in July surprised many observers, who thought Saddam would fear humiliation more than the grave. But Iraq experts and political psychologists who have studied the fallen strongmanâs psyche say Saddam acted both out of a raw desire to survive and because he believes he can still influence his country and the Arab world. "He didnât put up a fight because he was trapped, and in his own mind, heâs too important to die," says Stanley Renshon, a professor of political science and psychology at the City University of New York. Like the ousted Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic, Renshon says, Saddam sees himself as a major historical figure. He refused entreaties from other Arab leaders in the spring to avert war by leaving Iraq and accepting exile. He appears to have believed the invasion would never occur, or that if it did, he could win or survive. Though he lost the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he portrayed that as a victory because U.S.-led forces stopped short of Baghdad and his regime survived. Now he may hope that an insurgency against the U.S. occupation will succeed. Though itâs hard to imagine Iraqis would ever clamor for his return, he retains support among the Arab Sunni Muslim minority that benefited during his long rule. Amatzia Baram, an Iraq expert and senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, says Saddam may expect that his supporters will kidnap U.S. soldiers or foreign hostages and try to trade them for his freedom. Alternatively, Saddam may hope to vindicate himself at a trial like the one in the Netherlands where for the past two years, Milosevic has defiantly defended his brutal record in the Balkans. Unless weapons searchers are successful, Saddam will surely argue that he never had the chemical or biological weapons his invaders claimed were there. And a trial could be an opportunity for Saddam to cast himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, an Arab nationalist who defied the United States. "Iâm sure he feels he can get a lot of mileage raising these slogans and banners," Baram says. "He still believes in these ideals and thinks he can rouse the Arab street." Saddamâs behavior in captivity so far is instructive. Initially disoriented and docile, he submitted to a humiliating physical examination but quickly began to recover. "Heâs going to revive under our care and feeding," says Phebe Marr, an American historian of Iraq. "He probably will try to bargain. Heâs a rational person and wants to save his life." Two former U.S. military intelligence interrogators say Saddam probably is in a windowless room, under constant surveillance and uncertain whether itâs day or night. If his questioners decide to insult him, they might send a woman to interrogate him. If they want to create rapport between him and his captors, they might have an older, respectful man lead the questioning... |
| Posted by:OMER ISHMAIL |
| #15 Good description of the drugs of choice, especially scope and amy. You will note that none of them are relaibel. It still takes a talented set of interrigators, well crafted questions, solid technique, and the things I described above. You will note that in my description, the questioning came AFTER the "giggle juice" was done with - trusting drugged testimony is only done under extreme circumstances, usually when time is not available to properly condition the subject. And even then, its still looked upon and treated as if it could be a lie. The best way to extract data is to get it voluntarily. And eventually they will get it. Took a year to get the best info out of the hard-cases at Gitmo. Saddam should go a bit quicker, if for no other reason than they have enough resources to give him the full treatment, unlike the ones in Gitmo. As for my disappearance, well, I was busy. Lets leave it at that. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2003-12-17 11:28:33 PM |
| #14 Everybody can be broken, if not, the method was wrong. I guess you don't want to hear about how the Soviets did it in 1946. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-12-17 7:07:57 PM |
| #13 *double take* Old Spook! Where have you been? I even posted an article once asking if you were still reading Rantburg and figured you were gone when it got no reply! |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-12-17 4:12:25 PM |
| #12 I, for one, am both fascinated and chastized. If my computgfrbv keybava svk,xcz will stop meltijfdj a I'll firewhf, off a letter immediv ad;kf to uh, um, I forgej owevnfda oi;wer y. |
| Posted by: .com 2003-12-17 2:26:26 PM |
| #11 There is also the question of reliability of information obtained from someone who is un-der the influence of an intoxicant. Since virtually anything that emits from Saddam's mouth will be unreliable, I don't see this as a big problem. Now, if he starts talking about pink elephants and compliments you on the "original Dali clock" in your office, it's a sign you *might* need to reduce the dosage just a bit... |
| Posted by: snellenr 2003-12-17 2:21:28 PM |
| #10 Sir or Madam: Pardon my naivety, what is the composition of âgiggle juiceâ? The âtruth serum â known to American physicians for a very long-time. Medically, it is an "ultra-short-acting barbi-turate (drug) that produces general anaesthesia, used for narco-analysis in psychiatric dis-orders.â brand named, Pentothal Sodium Technically induces unconsciousness lasting 30 to 60 inhibits the Central Nervous Sys-tem CNS, slightly decreases the heart pressure, heart rate & depresses the respiratory cen-tre . A common believe, as stated in movies (like true lies) & some novels, is when anyone is injected by Pentothal Sodium, he can't tell nothing but the truth but that is not true. When Pentothal sodium is taken in a sub-clinical dose, i.e., less than that causes unconscious-ness, it makes the person more communicative, no hesitation as it suppresses the inhibitory system. The United States Supreme Court in 1963, deciding that a truth serum-induced confes-sion was unconstitutionally coerced. More recently, state courts have found truth serum-induced testimony to be scientifically unreliable and inadmissible. Scopolamine is an another drug is used in mind control especially in South America (really high rate by Columbia paramilitary groups) by the criminals to make others do things without their knowledge (People wake up only to find that hey have written out cheques for their entire bank balances by the time they come to their senses they find that all their money has been cashed) The victim doesn't realise what he had done while he was unconscious and is not even able to identify his assailants as the person losses memory during the period the drug was taken. Scopolamine is a colourless odourless, somewhat tasteless so it can be incorporated with ease in water, beverages with ease in sufficient quantity than that used in the prescrip-tions as it is used as decongestant & in motion sickness disease and the victim does automatically what you ask him to do. Then there is, âthe Amytal interviewâ has been known to American physicians for a long time. Amytal is the trade name of a drug belonging to the same family as Nembutal, Seconal, and Pentothal. Its generic name is amobarbital . It is a barbiturate, which means when taken in adequate doses induces drowsiness and sleep. During an Amytal interview, the physician administers small amounts of the drug, by vein, every few minutes. The procedure usually takes about an hour. The patient is drowsy and slurred of speech, but awake -- the so-called "twilight state" for the duration of the interview. Intravenous Amytal causes a feeling of relaxation, warmth, and closeness to the inter-viewer; while in this state, the patient is questioned. Other intravenous drugs, like Valium or Ativan, are sometimes used in this kind of pro-cedure. For our purposes, these medicines should be considered essentially identical to IV Amytal, because they produce these same effects on the patient. The amobarbital interview was in vogue around the 1930's and 40's, though at that time it was not usually performed to verify or recover forgotten memories. Rather, medically used doctors employed the procedure to examine the unconscious, or to do psychotherapy (for example, to treat "shell shock"). The dominant theory then, held by many physicians, was that people under Amytal could not possibly lie. This theory was reflected in the col-orful name "truth serum" given to the drug. While all knowledge is not wisdom, one attribute of good science is its sincere attempt to disprove its own theories. This was tried to verify the belief that people will always tell the truth under Amytal - that is, patients were tested to see if they could indulge in tell falsehood during Amytal interviews. They effectively did. During such interviews, could people deliberately at-tempt to deceive an interviewer? They could. Could they report false or exaggerated symptoms of psychological disorders? Again, they could. Withhold information? Yes. In time, other studies revealed more information. They showed that during Amytal inter-views, patients demonstrated a distorted sense of time, show memory disturbances, and had difficulty evaluating and selecting thoughts. In addition, under Amytal, patients' claims about details of their histories--events, places, names, dates -- are untrustworthy. Further, these investigations noted that the drug also makes patients vulnerable to either accidental or deliberate suggestions from the inter-viewer. Finally, and most importantly, patients under Amytal fail to reliably discriminate between reality and fantasy. Courts have held intense skeptical views of efforts to "enhance" or "refresh" the memo-ries of participants in trials. There is also the question of reliability of information obtained from someone who is un-der the influence of an intoxicant. Heedful clinicians have supported these concerns of the judiciary; have warned that memories retrieved in an Amytal-induced trance are likely to be a mixture of fact and fantasy, in a mixture, that cannot be correctly verified without external verification. This point about external verification is important. It means that statements made under Amytal must be reliably confirmed. If they are not, they can-not be considered more truthful than any other statements. |
| Posted by: OMER ISHMAIL 2003-12-17 1:26:48 PM |
| #9 God oldSpook... that is scary. Remind me to never piss you off :). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2003-12-17 12:52:30 PM |
| #8 OldSpook, thy handle is apropos... |
| Posted by: Raj 2003-12-17 12:43:03 PM |
| #7 Spook: Thanks for the explanation of how this stuff works . . . I think. If I have trouble falling asleep tonight, it'll be your fault. |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-12-17 12:24:13 PM |
| #6 Me, too--and I'm glad he's on our side! |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-12-17 11:31:37 AM |
| #5 I really love reading OldSpook's entries! |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2003-12-17 10:53:02 AM |
| #4 Let the ROK interogators have him. He'd be singing the Hallaulah COurse in 1st Soprano in an hour. |
| Posted by: alaskasoldier 2003-12-17 10:03:03 AM |
| #3 "Saddam probably is in a windowless room, under constant surveillance and uncertain whether itâs day or night" I already posted as much. Time disorientation will be a big thing. So will changes in his diet. Well lit 24*7. Minimal detail in his cell - no windows, probably all stainless steel and clinical white. If they had time, they will put in furniture that is white plastic and molded to the walls. And it will be *dead silent*. You think Barney is bad - thing about not hearing ANYTHING, in an environment where you dont see much of anything. Once they get him healthy (to where the stress will not kill him), they will begin the process. They will do things like wake him at 3 AM, tellhim its 9 AM and serve him breakfast. Then 2 hours later they will serve him lunch, telling him it is noon. Then 12 hours later they will offer him dinner selling him it is 5PM. Repeat this, and be sure to interrupt his sleep patterns and the diurnal rhythms the body tends to form. Thats when he gets a pretty rough treatment: the so-called "Giggle juice". BUT - they dont question him. They juice him and sit there staring him down. In total silence. Do that a few times at odd intervals. Then start standard interrogation, Mutt and Jeff style. Once he shows signs of resistance, move on to other interrogation tactics, but maintain the time disorientation. ALso, there is "spatial" disorientation, where he can be made to think he is in another country. You put the sack over his head, walk him out as if you are putting him on a jet, let him "overhear" he is being taken to some other country for interrogation, fly him in ciricles for a few hours, and bring him back to a different part of the interrogation facility, and have a room set up as if it were in that other country (Russia, France, etc). Interrogate him there as if by a third party with whom he can give "dirt" to make a deal. Etc. Saddam will evenually break. Its just a matter of time. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2003-12-17 9:49:24 AM |
| #2 5 acres of sovereign American territory. Then some goof will claim that the protections afforded under the US Constitution apply, and so Saddam is entitled to a lawyer. There's already a line up of idiots willing to defend Saddam. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2003-12-17 9:13:10 AM |
| #1 Saddam probably is in a windowless room Wouldn't one of the safest places to put this joker be on an aircraft carrier out to sea? There's no way his supporters could find him and spring him; there's no way he could escape. There's also no diplomatic dealings needed with any government since he'd be on 5 acres of sovereign American territory. Or do you think he's still in Iraq somewhere? |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-12-17 7:03:05 AM |