Walls, Glendale - short clip - Self-PolicingInterrogators

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-	By the time we had made it to Afghanistan,	0:00
	we'd been briefed that these were Al Qaeda	0:02
	and Taliban fighters.	0:05
	That's when they started telling us	0:08
	about different exceptions.	0:09
	The fact that there... Any prisoners caught,	0:12
	were not considered prisoners of war.	0:14
	They were actually considered persons under US custody.	0:16
	That way they stay out of the Geneva conventions.	0:20
Walls	And did they tell you what the difference would be	0:22
	in terms of how you interrogate them?	0:25
-	Basically the interrogations would be the same	0:29
	as far as questioning.	0:31
	They did let us know that there was a little bit more leeway	0:33
	as far as any kind of handling of the prisoners.	0:38
Walls	What does that mean?	0:42
-	Basically like, one of the things we were allowed to do	0:44
	is we could make them do pushups or something like that,	0:47
	which we wouldn't be able to do with the prisoner of war.	0:50
	We still weren't allowed to like assault the prisoners	0:54
	or anything like that.	0:56
	Like not physically beat them or anything	0:57
	but as far as making them stand up the whole time,	1:00
	or whatever we need to do during the interrogation.	1:05
Walls	And was there anybody who supervised?	1:08
	Like if somebody went too far	1:11
	in the way they treated a prisoner,	1:13
	then was there anybody that would say,	1:14
	you've gone too far in this.	1:16
-	Well, whenever we did the interrogation,	1:20
	it was only two interrogators with an interpreter,	1:22
	and then the prisoner.	1:25
	I know later on, not in Afghanistan	1:27
	but when we did the same job out in Iraq,	1:31
	most of those places have like cameras set up.	1:35
	That way they could see whatever was going on.	1:38
	But that time in Afghanistan, we had...	1:40
	There was nothing higher.	1:43
	It was up to the interrogators	1:44
	to police themselves basically.	1:46
	For example, one of the guys I worked with,	1:48
	basically I had interrogated the guy three times,	1:51
	and at that point, they...	1:55
	I kept saying that he was innocent.	1:59
	Like I felt the guy had nothing to lie to us about,	2:01
	and I was told by my superiors at the time that,	2:04
	"you're being too nice with these guys.	2:08
	"You need to get in there, you need to be harsher,	2:11
	"you need to be rougher."	2:13
	And that was something I definitely wasn't comfortable with,	2:15
	but I tried it,	2:19
	and eventually led.	2:20
Walls	I can try it.
-	One of the things I did was,	2:24
	I actually grabbed the guy by his shirt,	2:26
	and then I just kinda walked him around the room.	2:30
	Just kinda let them know, I'm the guy in charge,	2:32
	I'm the one who got to talk to.	2:34
	It's against my nature to be physical with anybody.	2:38
	But, so I tried it and the same results.	2:42
	I mean, I still maintain he's innocent at this point. But..	2:46

Item Info

Title:

Walls, Glendale - short clip - Self-PolicingInterrogators

Date:

July 27, 2015

Interviewer:

Honigsberg, Peter Jan

Interviewee:

Walls, Glendale

Role:

Description:

This interview may include descriptions of violence.
Interrogator, Bagram
Glendale Walls, male, age 33, was a military intelligence interrogator at Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan. He was accused of using abusive interrogation techniques and charged with assaulting and mistreating a detainee, Dilawar of Yakubi, an Afghan taxi driver, who later died at the prison.
Description was provided by Witness to Guantanamo.

Subject:

United States

Format:

oral histories

Language:

English

Extent:

1:14:53

Digital Collection:

Witness to Guantanamo

Source Collection:

Witness to Guantanamo Video Collection, 2009-2017

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Rights Note:

Unless otherwise noted, copyright is held by Peter Hongisberg. Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license, you are free to use and share these materials subject to the following conditions: You must attribute Peter Hongisberg as the rights holder. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. You may not distribute any modifications to the materials. For other uses, including commercial uses, please contact Rubenstein Library at http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/ask.

Identifier:

2b429c0b1abe2c8036283c0c23fbe78c
witnesstoguantanamo
ark:/87924/r4ws8r56b
6c3b0d73-f9fd-49ac-bd2a-f83fa0acf1f3

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4ws8r56b

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Walls, Glendale - short clip - Self-PolicingInterrogators

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