What U.S. Interrogators Learned from TV

An American soldier describes how he and fellow interrogators in Iraq were influenced by harsh techniques gleaned from hit series like '24.'
By Jessica Bennett
Newsweek
Feb. 28, 2007

Feb. 27, 2007 - Jack Bauer, the fictional federal agent in the hit American TV show "24," gets what he wants—and does whatever it takes to get it. Whether he must beat, suffocate, electrocute, drug or engage in psychological abuse, he will unravel whatever terror plot imperils the United States. He's even used torture on his own brother. Less well known, however, is how TV series like these have captured the imagination of American soldiers in Iraq.

According to the New York-based group Human Rights First, the vivid depiction of these tactics in primetime shows like "24" are influencing U.S. troops abroad—and presenting a major challenge for military training academies. "It's become clear that this show has unintended consequences in that it informs young soldiers about these techniques, and it gives the false impression that they work," says David Danzig, a torture expert at the nonprofit organization, which has just launched a campaign called Primetime Torture to change the way abusive interrogation tactics are shown on TV. "That's a real problem because there are young soldiers out in the field who are imitating this stuff."

The Pentagon told NEWSWEEK last week that it didn't know anything about the tactics used on "24," nor had it heard the allegations of their impact. "Humane treatment of detainees is and always has been the [U.S. Department of Defense] standard," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros. But former U.S. Army specialist Tony Lagouranis, who left the military with an honorable discharge in 2005 and has since spoken out about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners there, says the use of tactics like those featured on TV was common during his 2004-2005 Iraqi tour. According to Lagouranis, his unit tried out similar tactics after watching torture scenes on television and DVD. He has since teamed up with Human Rights First, and recently met with the producers of "24" as part of an effort to have them be more "responsible" in their portrayal of torture scenes. Kiefer Sutherland, who plays Jack Bauer, has since said publicly that he'd be willing to talk to West Point cadets about the wrongful use of torture. Lagouranis spoke with NEWSWEEK's Jessica Bennett. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How common were shows like “24” while you were in Iraq?
Tony Lagouranis: There were TVs everywhere in Iraq, so people were watching movies and television all the time. I don't know if it was specifically “24,” because I hadn't watched it back then, but I do remember remarking all the time that it was just so common to see interrogation scenes. And they all seemed to have a common theme, that the interrogator would establish power over the detainee and then establish a threat that would make the detainee break—maybe the threat of torture, maybe actual torture.

And soldiers would mimic that?
They were. Interrogators didn't have guidance from the military on what to do because we were told that the Geneva Conventions didn't apply any more. So our training was obsolete, and we were encouraged to be creative. We turned to television and movies to look for ways of interrogating. I can say that I saw that with myself, also. I would adopt the posture of the television or movie interrogator, thinking that establishing that simple power arrangement, establishing absolute power over the detainee, would force him to break.

What kinds of television-type torture were soldiers actually imitating?
Mock executions and mock electrocution, stress positions, isolation, hypothermia. Threatening to execute family members or rape detainees' wives and things like that.

What sort of training did you go through when learning how to interrogate?
We had some classroom training, we'd get Power Point presentations on what interrogation should be, but then we'd spend maybe a minute in the interrogation booth with a role player who was an instructor and we'd interrogate. And mostly we were judged on the form of our questions, whether or not we moved from question to question logically. It really didn't have to do with breaking the prisoner. It didn't have to do with coercion or reproaches, which in Iraq is pretty much all you did. So we really weren't trained at all for the mission we had in Iraq.

And that's where television came into play?
The approaches that we were taught we could use, but we were encouraged to use more extreme tactics. We didn't have training in the more extreme tactics so people turned to television to learn what those might be.

It must be easy to watch those shoes and think everything will go smoothly—Jack Bauer always seems to get what he wants. How realistic is that?
[“24”] portrays Jack Bauer as this loose cannon who's operating outside the law but is doing what's necessary to save Los Angeles from a nuclear bomb. The message really is that everyone will break, at some point. But it's not as easy as they make it look. The point is that what he's doing is not an effective technique for gaining intelligence, and his success rate isn't lifelike at all. [Plus] the tactics he uses are completely illegal, under U.S. and international law.

How much more complicated is interrogation than what we see on TV?
The idea with interrogation is that you want the guy to give you a stream of information, you just want him to talk and keep talking. If you're using torture, I can make you confess to a crime you didn't commit. But what I want in an interrogation is for you to give me tons and tons of information that I can use to check against the other information you've given me to verify what you're saying. And I want details, I want contacts, and I want to be able to come to you tomorrow, too, and ask you more questions. If I'm torturing you, especially in a ticking-time-bomb scenario, you're going to give me false information, and I'm going to have to go out and check that information and come back to you, and then you're going to give me false information again until I stop torturing you.

So, essentially, torture encourages a person to tell you whatever you want to hear.
Exactly.

So why can't people recognize these shows as fiction?
They do, to an extent. But at the same time, when you are a new interrogator and you're standing in the interrogation booth, you want to posture yourself as someone like Jack Bauer. You wonder, what's the posture of the interrogator? And you model yourself after what you've seen.

What sort of influence is television torture having on the general public?
I speak about torture and interrogation in different forums, and people always bring up the ticking-time- bomb scenario and specifically “24” as examples for why we need to legalize torture. I don't think they understand what the ticking-time-bomb scenario really entails. It's something that you could say doesn't happen, or, as is the case in Iraq, it happens all the time. Bombs go off all the time and kill American soldiers every day in Iraq, and everyone potentially might know where a bomb is placed. So you could use that justification to torture everyone. That's just a meaningless argument, but [people were] getting that argument from the FBI, the CIA or the military, [they were] getting it from the media.

You went out to Los Angeles to meet with the producers of “24” to talk about this issue. Do they bear a moral responsibility here?
The reality is that “24” is a TV show and people should be able to distinguish the difference. I can't fault them because they're creating art, and the military is responsible for training. But we were simply asking them to think responsibly about what they're doing, and perhaps try to portray this a little bit more realistically.