Lapdances Against Terrorism

Is Donald Rumsfeld running things at the Pentagon, or is it Lil Kim?

An AP report by Paisley Dodds notes a number of unorthodox interrogation tactics that female interrogators have used on the detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay: sexual touching and wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear.

Umm ... Where do we sign up for interrogation? And is there interrogation in the champagne room?

Many of the allegations come from Sgt. Erik Saar, an Arabic translator -- he is not a Muslim or of Arab descent -- who worked at the camp and witnessed more than 20 interrogations.

In a soon-to-be-released book for Penguin Press, Saar relates one specific interrogation of a 21-year-old Saudi detainee. As he tells it, the woman doing the questioning was frustrated. She had worn a tight-fitting T-shirt and rubbed her breasts against the detainee's back, and still he wasn't cooperating.

AP reports:

"The interrogator asked a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash.

"Strict interpretation of Islamic law forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean.

"'The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her, he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength,' says the draft, stamped 'Secret.' The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Saar writes."

The New York Times' Maureen Dowd weighs in on the developments with "Torture Chicks Gone Wild":

"However the Bush White House is redefining torture these days, the point is this: Such behavior degrades the women who are doing it, the men they are doing it to, and the country they are doing it for.

"There's nothing wrong with trying to squeeze information out of detainees. But isn't it simply more effective to throw them in isolation and try to build some sort of relationship?

"I doubt that the thong tease works as well on inmates at Gitmo as it did on Bill Clinton in the Oval Office."