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10 ü i â ï ï c e l e b r a t in g À- â street ro o tstlB Education •♦ Dialogue ♦ Independence , REUTERS/KEVIN la m a r q u e R EU T ER S/YU R I GRIPAS R EUTERS/JIM Y O U N G Pursuing torturers Portland attorney and former interrogator Travis Hall talks about what interrogation once was, and what it should be again BY ALEJANDRO QUERAL AND JOANNE ZUHL arlier this month, a federal appellate court ruled that former U.S. Attorney General John Ashscreft could be held personally responsible for the-wrongful detention of detainees in the war against terrorism. The move exposes Ashcroft to civil lawsuits, and comes on the heals of lawsuits filed against former Bush adminstration attorney John Yoo, author of some of the so-called torture memos. § And in August, U.S., Attorney General Eric Holder launched a S SSBRU r ? p o s s i b le ille g a l u s e o f Travis Hall, an attorney with Bateman Seidel law firm in Portland, is a member of the Amnesty International Working Group for the Counter Terrorist with Justice Campaign. r torture by CIA interrogators. These actions are the latest course , taken by the Obama administration and . civil libertarians in their pursuit of accountability in the detention and torture of suspects, and it takes another step closer in finding a resolution in the nation’s tragic exploration into torture. Travis Hall is a former Army interrogator and an associate with the law firm Bateman Seidel in Portland. He also practices military law, representing active duly, reserve, and National Guard service . members in adverse administrative proceedings and courts-martial. Hall also is a member of the Amnesty International Working Group for the Counter Terrorist with Justice Campaign. Prior to joining Bateman Seidel, Hall was a captain in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in the Army. He was a trained interrogator in military intelligence. In his six years with the JAG Corps, Hall x represented soldiers with the most complex legal challenges, including one of the soldiers charged in the case that later became the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary, “Taxi to the Dark Side. “ After 9/11, the Army assigned Hall as one of the legal planners for the invasion of Iraq, focusing on the reconstitution of the Iraq legal system. He was one of the first judge advocates deployed in Baghdad in 2003, and he conducted the initial surveys of the Iraqi • criminal courts, jails, and prisons. We started the conversation with Hall's own training and experience as an interrogator. . Travis Hall: When I went through interrogation school, it was just as the Cold War was winding down and counterinsurgency actions were starting to pick up and Bosnia was one of the first * modern campaigns that dealt with interrogation for a low intensity conflict that begin, with? We had years and years and involved cells yerses a large organized years of training, and they said essentially, armies. Initially, interrogation practice deals now we’re serious. The gloves are off; What, with training to exploit prisoners of war on we weren’t serious before? If you’re in a war the battlefield to provide intelligence to with the Soviet Union, I would think that commanders to take action. At the would be pretty serious, and the techniques interrogation school, the first week is spent that were sufficient to interrogate Soviet exclusively, eight hours a day, for the first prisoners of war seems to me to be ‘ five days, on the Geneva Conventions, and sufficient to interrogate al Qaida suspects. I you’re tested before you even conduct a don’t think the System was broke to begin mock interrogation, with regard to with. interrogating prisoners of war. And anybody J.Z.: Then why did they do this? Why did who deviated from those rules at the schpol they change the rules? was kicked out of the program; In fact, I specifically remember that there was a T.H.: I have a good reason why I think discussion about how torture is they changed it and some speculative counterproductive, principally because reasons, too. Just after 9 /111 went to an during the history of conflict, most ; intelligence law conference in Virginia, and individuals willingly cooperate without using then there was a topic about interrogation ..Jfrat .this gentleman gave. He wRS among the ier^f^^^num lje^o^reasons___ T h e second reaso n is th a t w ith th e rig h t in te r r o g a to r s m A fg h a n is ta n . W e ta lk e d an d had some conversations off to the side. And amount of stress, either physical or- he was present during some conversations psychological, a person is going to tell you with members of the intelligence what it is that they perceive is going to stop community, who right after 9/11 thought - the abuse, and that information may or may that the Army interrogators were a bunch of not be true, and oftentimes is completely Boy Scouts. If the perception was that Army inaccurate. ' interrogators were Boy Scouts the reason | Third, information obtained through was we created this mythos that al Qaida coercive techniques, you can’t use on the are super human and that the normal rules battlefield. Because you can’t rely on the of interrogation don’t work for zealots. But information, intelligence information has to I in every single conflict, the enemy are be corroborated by two sources before you portrayed as zealots. The Viet Coqg were can take any action on it. So information portrayed as zealots, the Japanese - and obtained Under duress is completely guess what: They all talked at a 90 percent worthless information. Maybe as an or more rate. interrogator you think you’re getting All of us-saw what happened on 9/11, and somewhere. In reality you’re wasting your we knew instinctively that the world as we time; And ènee you cross that line info knew it was going to change on some level. using coercive techniques, that individual is And there’s always an overreaction - the not going to willingly cooperate with you, pendulum swings too far the other period, or anybody else who wears the direction, but that’s why we have national uniform. leaders who are supposed to rein in that tendency to overreact and I think on the A.Q. Former vice president Dick Cheney executive level we just didn’t have those maintains that many lives were saved because personalities in office at the time. of these enhanced interrogation techniques. Do you believe any of that? J.Z.: You’ve said that pursuing accountability isn’t necessarily a professional T.H.: Absolutely not. The ACLU recently choice, that when it comes to torture and the received the CIA inspector general’s report Geneva Conventions, there’s an obligation in that debunked that. And Amnesty play. International, from a Freedom of Information Act request, it obtained other T.H.: When it comes to the convention memoranda that showed that those claims - against torture, which the U.S. signed and are just absolutely not true. And let’s for the ratified, and is the law of our land, it sake of argument say that through using requires mandatory investigation of torture, coercive-techniques that maybe they solved and if torture is substantiated, then one rifldle. Well, because this is such a prosecution is not discretionary. public country, where information is almost J.2.: Where does that responsibility lie, and impossible to suppress for a long period of time, how many more terrorists have w e what happens if it is not pursued? created through using coercive techniques, T.H.: The primary jurisdiction is thè because they now use th atas a propaganda country that has custody control of the tool. I think we’ve done more harm than. individual who allegedly tortured people. good. That s the nation that has the responsibility. Now, if a country refuses to investigate or - J.Z.: W t f impact is there that the legal cover (provided in thé torture memos) is merely prosecute, there is universal jurisdiction. Só theoretically, if some of these individuals poorly written legal arguments that don’t hold water and are not consistent with your own were to travel overseas and they were training? T.H.: Who said the system was broke to See TORTURE, page 11 Above, (left to right) former President George IU Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and former Vice President Dick Cheney, who commisioned legal opinions they claim provide legal cover for torture techniques; President Barack Obama, who has been reluctant to launch a full investigation into .torture practices; .,U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who in August launched a preliminary investigation into whether CIA operatives broke the law by using torture during interrogations. Joanne Z u h l is the m a n a g in g editor ofStreet Roots. S he a n d Alejandro Queral co-host “We The People”on K B O O 9 0 .7 FM . This interview aired on the show on Sept. 9. ' f .
