The Tortured Lives of Interrogators - washingtonpost.com

The Tortured Lives of Interrogators - washingtonpost.com: "CHICAGO -- The American interrogator was afraid. Of what and why, he couldn't say. He was riding the L train in Chicago, and his throat was closing.

In Iraq, when Tony Lagouranis interrogated suspects, fear was his friend, his weapon. He saw it seep, dark and shameful, through the crotch of a man's pants as a dog closed in, barking. He smelled it in prisoners' sweat, a smoky odor, like a pot of lentils burning. He had touched fear, too, felt it in their fingers, their chilled skin trembling.

But on this evening, Lagouranis was back in Illinois, taking the train to a bar. His girlfriend thought he was a hero. His best friend hung out with him, watching reruns of 'Hawaii Five-O.' And yet he felt afraid.

'I tortured people,' said Lagouranis, 37, who was a military intelligence specialist in Iraq from January 2004 until January 2005. 'You have to twist your mind up so much to justify doing that.'

Being an interrogator, Lagouranis discovered, can be torture. At first, he was eager to try coercive techniques. In training at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., instructors stressed the Geneva Conventions, he recalled, while classmates privately admired Israeli and British methods. 'The British were tough,' Lagouranis said. 'They seemed like real interrogators.'

But interrogators for countries that pride themselves on adhering to the rule of law, such as Britain, the United States and Israel, operate in a moral war zone. They are on the front lines in fighting terrorism, crucial for intelligence-gathering. Yet they use methods that conflict with their societies' values." Read complete post here.