Interrogate Or Torture?

Good news, maybe, out of Gen. Patreaus today:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The top U.S. commander in Iraq said he believes he knows who kidnapped three U.S. soldiers last weekend and that at least two of them are still alive, the Army Times newspaper reported.

"We know who that guy is," Gen. David Petraeus said in an interview posted Saturday on the Army Times Web site. He did not give the man's name but described him as "sort of an affiliate of al-Qaida. He's the big player down in that area. We've tangled with him before." ...

"As of this morning, we thought there were at least two that were probably still alive," he said. "At one point in time there was a sense that one of them might have died, but again we just don't know."

Let's' pray they are alive and that a combination of field intelligence and field strength gets them home soon.

And speaking of field intelligence, the AP report also says:

An Iraqi army intelligence officer involved in the search for the kidnapped U.S. soldiers told The Associated Press that two men detained during the sweep have confessed that they took part in the attack.

The two captives said there were 13 men involved in the assault and they split into two groups afterward, with the ringleader taking the kidnapped soldiers with his band of men. The two men said they did not know where the soldiers had been taken, according to the Iraqi intelligence officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

The two men also told U.S. forces the location of the weapons cache used in the attack. The U.S. military later confiscated a large number of weapons at the site, the intelligence officer said.

With three of our men held and in very, very grave danger, do you care what methods were used to extract information from the two captured men? Well, I do. I do very much. I want the methods used to be very, very EFFECTIVE. And that's it.

I don't care any more about these two scums than a I about Mohammed Atta. If giving them a hot bath and a gourmet meal would get the information we need from them, by all means, turn on the water and the stove. If blasting Tiny Tim at high volume 24/7 through cracked speakers does it, crank up the volume.

And if more is required, so be it. I trust our military leaders to make the right choice, and I pray that it works.