Intelligence officers read between enemy lines

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan -- When she arrived in Afghanistan in December, Marie, 21, had never interrogated a prisoner. The only indication that she might have some aptitude for it, she said, was her success in extracting secrets from her sisters while growing up in Michigan.

"I always found out what I was getting for Christmas," she said.

Many of the al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners held here are Muslim extremists reluctant to make eye contact with a woman, let alone sell out their cause to one. Yet Marie, an Army interrogator, has loosened the tongues of dozens of detainees, including a senior al-Qaida operative. Her approach, like Marie herself, is both disarming and icily direct.

"The hardest thing I've had to do is be nice to these people," she said. "You go in there, bring them coffee, trying to make them think you're their friend. They're not my friend."

The machinery of war clamors continuously here at America's forward base in Afghanistan, as armored vehicles and Chinook helicopters rumble and explosions echo off the surrounding hills. But Marie is part of another operation at Bagram that goes about its business in virtual silence.

In a boarded-up warehouse ringed with barbed wire, she and other U.S. interrogators seek to pry information from captured al-Qaida and Taliban operatives.

As military operations go, interrogating prisoners and poring over documents are generally not the stuff of which heroes are made. But the war on terrorism is unlike any other war in its dependence on intelligence, and the interrogators and "document exploitation" teams in Afghanistan occupy a crucial front.

Those involved generally aren't allowed to tell even their families what they do. Most of those interviewed for this story asked that their full names not be disclosed. No access was granted to prisoners, and officials discussed only in general terms the information gleaned from interrogations.

Tics transcend culture

Interrogators begin learning the art of unlocking an enemy's secrets at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. Recruits are taught dozens of techniques, ranging from displays of violent temper designed to heighten a detainee's anxiety to gentle approaches -- questions about personal life and other comfortable subjects -- meant to soothe a prisoner on the verge of panic.

They also become experts at reading body language and facial expression -- tics hard-wired into human nature -- that tend to transcend culture. Looking up and to the left while answering a question, for instance, is a sign of "visual construction," Chris said, an evasive gesture that usually means the speaker is about to fabricate a scene.

Bagram is the initial stop for prisoners. Its detention center, and another at a U.S. base at Kandahar, is designed to hold prisoners for a few months at most.

About 170 people are in custody at the two facilities; 460 have been sent to the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for in-depth questioning by the CIA and FBI.

At a workstation in the low-slung detention building, Chris manages a team of dozens of interrogators and analysts. He ranks incoming prisoners by how much they are presumed to know and assigns interrogators based tly on their effectiveness and how their personalities match that of prisoners.

Marie, who has sandy blond hair and stands about 5 feet tall, "couldn't scare somebody," Chris said.

But Marie "thinks with a logic that is unstoppable," Chris said. And she is frequently assigned to handle high-level prisoners partly because she is the last person they expect to confront.

Not every interrogation ends in success. Al-Qaida taught members to resist interrogation. But most, interrogators say, are confused, scared and motivated by self-interest.

"Some have had their choice of words for me," she said. "But when they realize that where they travel next depends on the opinion of a woman, not only does that put them in their place, it scares the bejesus out of them."