Scarborough falsely compared harsh interrogations to military training programs

During the April 22 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough asserted that, with the exception of waterboarding, interrogation techniques, such as "sleep deprivation and working on phobias," used against detainees, are no different from those used in U.S. military training programs. However, as Media Matters for America has noted, officials familiar with both the techniques used in harsh interrogations and those used in military training programs have said that such a comparison is false; those who undergo certain interrogation techniques in such training programs are aware that there are safeguards, and know they can stop the training immediately if necessary.

Scarborough stated: "[W]hat was done to these prisoners, for the most part, from what we've seen in the newspapers -- sleep deprivation and working on phobias, jamming 6-foot-4 guys into little boxes to see if they're claustrophobic -- we do that to our own Army members and Air Force members." Scarborough added: "We send them out to POW training. I would hear these stories -- I heard them a decade ago and everybody would sit around and laugh and say this is -- they teach you how to get around your phobias in case you're there." However, according to a recently released May 2005 Office of Legal Counsel memo by Steven G. Bradbury, the Bush administration's principal deputy assistant attorney general at the time, individuals undergoing the U.S. military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training are "obviously in a very different situation from detainees undergoing interrogation; SERE trainees know it is part of a training program, not a real-life interrogation regime, they presumably know it will last only a short time, and they presumably have assurances that they will not be significantly harmed by the training."

Moreover, a report released on April 22 by the Senate Armed Services Committee states that "[t]here are fundamental differences between a SERE school exercise and a real world interrogation":

(U) SERE school techniques are designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our enemies. There are fundamental differences between a SERE school exercise and a real world interrogation. At SERE school, students are subject to an extensive medical and psychological pre-screening prior to being subjected to physical and psychological pressures. The schools impose strict limits on the frequency, duration, and/or intensity of certain techniques. Psychologists are present throughout SERE training to intervene should the need arise and to help students come with associated stress. And SERE school is voluntary; students are even given a special phrase they can use to immediately stop the techniques from being used against them.

(U) Neither those differences, nor the serious legal concerns that had been registered, stopped the Secretary of Defense from approving the use of the aggressive techniques against detainees.

The report also included an email written by senior Army SERE psychologist Lt. Col. Morgan Banks to personnel at Guantánamo Bay:

Because of the danger involved, very few SERE instructors are allowed to actually use physical pressures. It is extremely easy for U.S. Army instructors, training U. S. Army soldiers, to get out of hand, and to injure students. The training, from the point of the student, appears to be chaotic and out of control. In reality, everything that is occurring [in SERE school] is very carefully monitored and paced; no one is acting on their own during training. Even with all these safeguards, injuries and accidents do happen. The risk with real detainees is increased exponentially.

From the April 22 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

DONNY DEUTSCH (CNBC host): Jon, don't we all know what happened? And you set it up best, that September 10th --

JON MEACHAM (Newsweek editor): Yeah.

DEUTSCH: -- we were one country; on September 12th, we were a different country. And we all know that if you said to everybody in this country, "OK, if by waterboarding one terrorist, you could save your brother. Would you do it?" We all know the answer to that. And that was the tenor of this country.

So, without an investigation, and, Joe, help me out here or disagree with me, don't we all kind of know that we walked into that gray emotional and legal area -- and obviously, these are things that people are taught in U.S. military training techniques, so there's a precedence there. Don't we kind of know what went down?

SCARBOROUGH: Well, you know and, Donny, I think as we move forward, I hope we can separate out so-called torture -- what's being defined as torture right now. You're exactly right.

Other than waterboarding, what was done to these prisoners, for the most part, from what we've seen in the newspapers -- sleep deprivation and working on phobias, jamming 6-foot-4 guys into little boxes to see if they're claustrophobic -- we do that to our own Army members and Air Force members. We send them out to POW training.

I would hear these stories -- I heard them a decade ago and everybody would sit around and laugh and say this is -- they teach you how to get around your phobias in case you're there.

I think we need to separate those things with waterboarding. And I personally -- you know, Jon Meacham, something that I've heard -- Tom Ricks talks about it when he comes on the show -- I hear from some agencies that 100 people died while in captivity in these type of prisons. I don't know whether that's the truth or not. I would like to know, though.

And there's -- I think you're exactly right. I think we have these investigations, we clear the air, but we need to be focused and rational about it and not emotional.