Gitmo, Chinese interrogation skills linked

WASHINGTON, July 2 (UPI) -- U.S. military trainers based interrogation classes on 1950s techniques used by Chinese Communists the U.S. government labeled as torture, documents indicate.

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, trainers may not have known a chart they used was copied from a 1957 Air Force study of techniques -- long described by the United States as torture -- Chinese Communists employed during the Korean War to obtain confessions, often false, from U.S. prisoners, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Documents outlining the coercive measures used at Guantanamo were made public in June during a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting, but committee investigators weren't aware of the source, the Times said. An independent expert pointed out the link to the Air Force study and accompanying article to the Times.

After reviewing the material, committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D- Mich., said "every American would be shocked" by the chart's origin. "What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions."

A Defense Department spokesman said he couldn't comment on the chart.

"I can't speculate on previous decisions that may have been made prior to current (Defense Department) policy on interrogations," U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder told the Times. "I can tell you that current (department) policy is clear -- we treat all detainees humanely."