An officer who said no to torture

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103421778

Officer 'Unpopular' For Opposing Interrogations

All Things Considered, April 23, 2009 · An Air Force interrogator tried to stop the harsh techniques he witnessed in Iraq when he went there in 2003. But his efforts to halt abusive interrogations were rebuffed and, in his words, made him "the most unpopular officer" in Iraq.

Col. Steven Kleinman, an Air Force reservist and experienced intelligence officer, was mentioned in a report issued Wednesday by the Senate Armed Services on the abusive treatment of terrorism detainees.

The committee report mentions officials who went along with methods of questioning that some say amounted to torture. But it also mentions officers such as Kleinman, who was a lieutenant colonel at the time he tried to stop the use of those techniques.

Kleinman spoke with NPR's Robert Siegel about the situation he encountered when he was chosen to lead a team of interrogators questioning Iraqi insurgents during the early part of the war. He says he did not know until he arrived in Iraq that he would be witnessing an interrogation strategy that U.S. military personnel were trained to resist, in a program known as "SERE," to avoid techniques that produced bad intelligence.

Here are excerpts of that conversation:

[Senator]

1. What we need is a president to do the same. n/t