December 10, 2002: Army Memo Shows SERE Techniques Approved for Use against Guantanamo Prisoners

An Army memorandum released to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 2006 (see January 12, 2006) will refer to the “SERE INTERROGATION SOP” (standard operating procedure) for Guantanamo. SERE refers to “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape,” a classified military program originally designed to teach US soldiers how to resist torture, and subsequently “reverse-engineered” for use in subjecting US prisoners to harsh interrogation and torture (see December 2001, January 2002 and After, and July 2002). The memo, which is heavily redacted, shows that torture techniques used in SERE training may have been authorized in a memo to military personnel at Guantanamo. [American Civil Liberties Union, 1/12/2006]