When soldiers are brought to the mock prison, already sleep-deprived and hungry from a week on the run, they are isolated in rows of small pens too small to fully recline or stand up. They are kept awake for days, moved about with bags on their heads, stripped naked and interrogated using techniques to provoke humiliation and shame.
"They had me remove my clothes" in the interrogation room, the Ranger said. A bag was put over his head, and a woman began speaking. " 'You are fat,'" he remembered her saying. "'You have the smallest dick I have ever seen.'" He called the experience "humiliating and degrading."
Instructors at the SERE school pour water over the hooded prisoners, creating the sensation of suffocation. "If you have ever had a bag on your head and somebody pours water on it," the Ranger recalled, "it is real hard to breathe."
Stress positions -- a term so often cited in investigations of wartime detainee abuse it has nearly entered common lexicon -- are often employed at SERE school. Soldiers are forced into a squatting position with both palms facing up, or an excruciating half crouch with arms extended out straight, called the Iron Man. After a while, "Your legs go numb. Your knees go numb. Your feet tingle," the Ranger said. "It feels like fire. Eventually, you can't hold yourself up."
Mock prisoners at SERE school get kicked and slapped with an open hand. They are forced to "low crawl" through mud and dirt at the fake prison and get constant "PT," or physical training -- exercise -- to wear them out. Without access to a bathroom, prisoners urinate and defecate in their clothes.
In addition to sexual humiliation, psychological duress is a big part of the program and comes in a variety of flavors, including an overall assault on a soldier's values. Mock interrogators desecrated an American flag, stepped on a copy of the Constitution, and "kicked the Bible around," the Ranger said -- an echo of the abuse of the Koran alleged at Guantánamo. Soldiers were ridiculed for their lack of knowledge of the Constitution and U.S. history. "They begin to preach propaganda and attack your institutional base," the Ranger said. "Everything about SERE school is a mind fuck."
Those physical and mental techniques mirror the treatment of some detainees at Abu Ghraib. The shocking photos from Abu Ghraib show prisoners stripped naked, with bags on their heads and forced into stress positions, like crouching for long periods or holding heavy boxes. Prisoners were regularly PT'd, or exercised by military police, to tire them out. Some were taken outside the prison and forced to low-crawl through the mud, according to military police statements.
Somewhat less is known about the details of the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo. But what is known -- including the statement of the interrogation chief and the interrogation logs of al-Kahtani -- reveal many striking parallels with what happened in Iraq. "[But] for the lack of a camera, it would sure look like Abu Ghraib," said Lt. Gen. Schmidt, according to a transcript of a conversation he had with an Army inspector general who was conducting his own, separate review of the treatment of prisoners in Cuba.
And, in turn, what happened to Kahtani also looks a lot like what happens at SERE school. Kahtani's sleep was often limited to four hours between his 18-to-20-hour interrogations. He was repeatedly humiliated: forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, accused of being a homosexual, forced to wear women's underwear and perform "dog tricks" on a leash -- treatment later found to be "degrading and abusive" in a military investigation. He was hooded. Denied access to a latrine, Kahtani urinated in his pants and was frequently exercised. Kahtani had water poured on his head. His logs also show interrogators "ridiculing" him for being unfamiliar with parts of the Koran.
The parallels between the SERE course and Guantánamo are remarkable, with the important exception of duration. So great are the psychological burdens of that final week of captivity training at SERE school, graduates are given a week off afterward to recuperate while they are carefully monitored by military mental health professionals. Kahtani was interrogated for up to 20 hours 48 times over eight weeks. As of April 2006, his name still appeared on a list released by the Department of Defense of prisoners who remain at Guantánamo.
Schmidt's report concludes that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantánamo, should be "admonished" and "held accountable" for Kahtani's treatment. Miller's commanding officer later rejected a punishment. By then Miller and the SERE techniques had both already moved to Abu Ghraib. This despite the unnamed interrogation chief's cryptic comment in the sworn statement that both he and Maj. Gen. Miller "didn't believe the [SERE] techniques were appropriate."
About the writer
Mark Benjamin is a national correspondent for Salon based in Washington, D.C.
Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)
Salon Directory (browse by topic)