Enhancing Interrogation: Advancing a New Agenda

摘要

Within two days of his inauguration, fulfilling a campaign pledge to end abusive interrogation practices, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that revoked all previous Bush Administration 'executive directives, orders, and regulations' dealing with detainee interrogation. Also overturned by the order were any previous 'interpretations of the law governing interrogation' emanating from the Bush Administration's Department of Justice. The order established Army Field Manual (FM) 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations, as the new standard for conducting intelligence interrogations, applicable to all agencies of the US government, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Specifically, the executive order prohibits 'any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation that is not authorized by and listed in FM 2-22.3.' The adoption of the Army Field Manual as the broad standard for intelligence interrogation had its origin in passage of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. The act made Army Field Manual 34-52, Intelligence Interrogation, the predecessor document to FM 2-22.3 (published in September 2006), the legal template for all Department of Defense interrogation procedures. Beginning in 2007, Congress pushed to extend that authority to the other elements of the intelligence community. This effort culminated in language included in section 327 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, stipulating that all intelligence interrogation methods would conform to those authorized in FM 2-22.3.3.