Pentagon bans SERE interrogation techniques - Yahoo! News

Pentagon bans SERE interrogation techniques - Yahoo! News: "Pentagon bans SERE interrogation techniques

Wed Oct 15, 3:54 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon has revised a directive on detainee interrogations to specifically prohibit the use of techniques developed for a pilot survival training program from Chinese torture methods, officials said Wednesday.

Critics charge that the so-called SERE techniques served as the basis for coercive interrogation practices that spread after the September 11 attacks to military detention centers in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq.

'Use of SERE techniques against a person in the custody or effective control of the Department of Defense or detained in a DoD facility is prohibited,' the October 9 directive on detainee interrogation says.

SERE, which stands for survival, evasion, resistance and escape, is a program developed by the US military after the Korean War to help downed pilots and other military personnel survive captivity.

Part of the training involves teaching pilots how to resist torture by exposing them to the harsh techniques used on US captives during the 1950-53 war.

New techniques were incorporated into the training with each new war.

They included waterboarding, immersion, forced nudity, isolation, slaps to the face and belly, stress positions, sleep disruption and"