Interrogations Faked at Guantanamo, Witness Says

Reuters | April 29 2005

Authorities at Guantanamo Bay staged interrogations of detainees for visiting politicians and generals to give the impression that valuable intelligence was regularly being gathered, according to a former Army translator at the camp.

Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar told CBS television show 60 Minutes that he believes "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the camp were terrorists and that little information was obtained from them.

"Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an interrogation ... a mock interrogation, basically," Saar told the program, to air on Sunday.

"They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative. They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information," he said, calling it "a fictitious world" created for the visitors.

Saar worked at Guantanamo from December 2002 to June 2003.

The Defense Department did not immediately return calls seeking comment. CBS said the Army declined comment.

Saar also recalled interrogation techniques he witnessed at Guantanamo, including one previously reported incident where a female officer behaved in an overtly sexual fashion while interrogating a devout Muslim, at one point smearing ink which she told the detainee was her menstrual blood on his face.