7. Major general Geoffrey Miller, Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez, and Interrogation Techniques

Major General Geoffrey Miller, Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez, and Interrogation Techniques

 

Major General Geoffrey Miller was a fast favorite of Donald Rumsfeld due to his tactics that he used at Guantanamo Bay, a prison camp.  It was Miller that implemented harsher techniques for interrogation on the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, which normally housed the higher profile or valued prisoners for the US.   As a prison of high classification security, it was not an open door for the press or attorneys, this prison was extremely high clearance. Though Major General Miller would state that the prisoners were treated in a very humane way, we now know that they prisoners were subjected to the extreme opposite. 

Donald Rumsfeld, as mentioned above, found the usefulness of Miller's interrogation methods and gave approval for their use at Abu Ghraib.  Approval branched into the use of the stress position which also included the fetal positions. It was on November 27 of 2002 when a report was released by Rumsfeld which gave the authorization for extreme techniques in the interrogation process.  This is in the form of a classified document and included approved actions which did not limit to solitary confinement, sensory disorientation, stress positions, undermine self confidence, and even more harsher techniques.  Rumsfeld went farther and sent Miller, himself, to implement the techniques at Abu Ghraib, in order to give the added push to obtain more intelligence. 

It was Miller's arrival into Iraq that changed the way that the Military Intelligence Police conducted the actual interrogations.  General Ricardo Sanchez would issue a memo which outlines the approval of extreme interrogation techniques to be used and the use of the hard techniques would now become normal protocol.  The prisoners were constantly naked and often would have sandbag covering their entire head.