The New York Times has revealed military trainers at Guantanamo Bay based an entire interrogation class on Chinese techniques used on US prisoners during the Korean War. The techniques have long been considered forms of torture, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” “exposure,” “semi-starvation,” “exploitation of wounds.” Some of the intended effects include “Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator,” “Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist” and “Reduces Prisoner to ‘Animal Level’ Concerns.” The methods were also seen as widely ineffective, having obtained mostly false confessions. The techniques were outlined in a chart from a 1957 Air Force study entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War.” Some of the methods were used on Guantanamo prisoners until Congress banned the use of coercion in 2005.
