User:George Swan/sandbox/United States Army Field Manual on interrogation
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The United States Army Field Manual on interrogation instructs military interrogators how to conduct effective interrogations while conforming with U.S. and international law. The Field Manual was sometimes known by the code FM 34-52. The most recent revision was renamed Field Manual FM 2-22.3, "Human Intelligence Collector Operations.
Interrogations during the "global war on terror"
During the American war on terror the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld issued "extended interrogation techniques", that went farther than those authorized in the Army field manual. The extended techniques stimulated debate, both within the Bush administration, and outside it. And various revisions of the extended techniques were issued.
Rumsfeld intended the extended techniques to be used only on the captives the United States classified as "illegal combatants". But extended interrogation techniques were adopted in Iraq, even though captives there were entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions. General Geoffrey Miller, who was then the director of interrogation of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, and some of his staff were sent to Iraq to help transfer their interrogation experience. Military Intelligence troops who had been using extended techniques in Afghanistan, notably Captain Carolyn Wood.
General Ricardo Sanchez, the CO of American forces in Iraq, after input from Miller and his team, and from Captain Wood, issued his own set of extended techniques.
On April 28, 2005 Rumsfeld announced that the Army would be revising the manual. The revised manual would have spelled out more clearly which interrogation techniques were prohibited.
On July 25, 2005 Senator John McCain tabled an amendment to the a military spending bill, intended to restrict all US government interrogators from using interrogation techniques not authorized in the Army field manual.
On October 20, 2005 Vice President Dick Cheney met with McCain to try to convince him to agree that his amendment should only apply to military interrogators. Cheney wanted to continue to allow civilian interrogators, working for US intelligence agencies, to use more extended interrogation techniques. McCain did not agree.
Plans to revise the manual to allow extended techniques
On April 28, 2005 Rumsfeld announced that the Army would be revising the manual. The revised manual would have spelled out more clearly which interrogation techniques were prohibited.
On December 14, 2005, the New York Times reported that the Army Field Manual had been rewritten by the Pentagon. Previously, the manual's interrogation techniques section could be read freely on the internet. But the new edition's includes 10 classified pages in the interrogation technique section, leaving the public clueless about what the government considers not to be torture. [1]
On June 5 2006 the Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon's revisions will remove the proscription against "humiliating and degrading treatment", and other proscriptions from article 3 of the third Geneva Convention.[2] [3] The LA Times reports that the State Department has argued against the revisions because of the effect it will have on the world's opinion of the United States.
See also
Online versions
- .html version of FM 34-52, circa May 8, 1987
- .pdf version of FM 34-52, circa September 28, 1992
- .pdf version of Field Manual FM 2-22.3, "Human Intelligence Collector Operations.", circa September 6, 2006 (supercedes Field Manual 34-52.)