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American Morning

How Detainees Will Be Interrogated in Guantanamo Bay

Aired January 14, 2002 - 08:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A second group of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters is at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay this morning after being transported from Afghanistan. They are not prisoners of war, as we've told you before, but "unlawful participants," as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld calls them, and there are questions about how they will be interrogated as the U.S. tries to get information out of them.

Joining us now to talk about interrogation from Manchester, New Hampshire Kelly McCann, CNN security analyst and president of Crucible Security. Good morning. Thanks for being with us.

J. KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Hi, Anderson.

COOPER: I want to ask you, how -- these detainees have been called suicidal. They've been called extremely very, very, very dangerous. How do you go about interrogating suicidal want-to-be terrorists?

MCCANN: Well first, let me make sure that everyone understands that you know our treatment of these people will be much more humane than their treatment would have been of American soldiers had they fallen into their hands, so that needs to be stated right up front.

But secondly, you also have to understand that torture and pain have never been used to any great degree of effectiveness. Admiral Stockdale had told me when I was a young captain, still in the Marine Corps, that if you use too much pain, obviously, the information is in question because you'll say anything to make it stop.

If you use too little pain, then what happens is you actually instill confidence in the detainees' ability or the prisoner's ability to resist. Pain and torture are just not going to even be considered as an option. So --

COOPER: So how do you go about interrogating?

MCCANN: Well it's a -- it's a very carefully crafted technique. First they'll take total control of these prisoners, which they've got to do for security purposes anyway, and I think what you'll see them have done is strip them totally. They will have been showered. They will have undergone a full search, meaning a cavity search, to basically make sure they understand that the U.S. is in total control of them. COOPER: We've already heard reports that these prisoners have been -- have their head shaved. They've had their beards shaved. Is that -- is that for humiliation? What is that for?

MCCANN: Not humiliation. It's to take identity away, and it's not inhumane. It's also for security and hygiene. So I mean all of that is part of making sure that they don't have a touchstone that's comfortable to them. Once that's established, even better that they were moved to Guantanamo -- totally different scenery, totally different climate, unfamiliar surroundings, unfamiliar language, being Spanish spoken around them. So I mean, they're going to be very strictly enforced in silence and their time is going to be controlled ...

COOPER: So you want them to be disoriented. You want them to be scared. Is that what you're saying?

MCCANN: Well not scared so much as just totally out of touch, off balance, unstabilized. It's humane, but it reinforces that we are in total control, which in fact we are. The schedule with which they eat, what they get to eat, how much and when. The time they get woken up will be different each day. Just anything to keep them off balance.

We've got to be careful. There are so many different things in this environment, clandestine communications between prisoners, the ability for them to pass notes. Things like that are going to be very important.

COOPER: All right, that's all the time we have this morning. Thanks Kelly McCann.

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