Bloggers' Roundtable With Gen. Douglas M. Stone

And since we've now run, you know, a few hundred through this program, we are over-the-top encouraged that two things are present. We are able to determine the guys that don't really give a shit about the Koran in the first place -- they're using it as a discipline -- those guys are beginning to fall into the category of irreconcilables, and that's helpful to me. I want to know who they are. They're like rotten eggs, you know, hiding in the Easter basket, so that's very helpful.

Then it's also equally helpful to have guys who come out and say, "I didn't know that. Now that I know that, I'm going to change my life." And we poly them. You'd be -- interesting to know, because we were trying to figure out if they're messing with us. But we are convinced that they have made a significant change. Now you're not talking about, you know, radicals going to choir boys, but you're talking about radicals that won't use the Koran without -- for violence without a very clear understanding that they're damned if they do.

And that brings in the counseling psychologist. We've got more counseling psychologists going on for, you know, all kinds of problems associated with that than you can imagine. So it is a tragedy that the religion has been used by the extremists to control an illiterate -- and to do discipline an illiterate population, but that is what we're finding. And again, I'm encouraged that we've been able to turn it around. All my interrogators understand this. We meet with them every single week, and they are far more culturally sensitive than they have ever been.

I -- it is the first thing that I do in the morning -- first official thing I do in the morning is go through every one of the interrogation reports. So we do 500 or so per week, and we've now got them categorized by various categories like this one. We're learning from the detainees, and we are able, I think -- I think you'd be encouraged to know -- if you were over here working here now, you would be encouraged to know that you would be a part of this process: the early identification of who the extremists are, where they got that extremism, and now be able to refer them to the -- you know, it's a different task force; they started the task force, 300 leadership, who takes them, along with this assessment, and drives a specific program against it so they'll get a six-week program aimed at certain things.

So interrogation is absolutely vital. It is -- I could not be doing what we're doing if we didn't have the level of interrogation, and I most assuredly couldn't be doing it if the interrogators didn't understand what, I think -- and frankly, and heretofore they have not understood, that is the motivations behind why these guys are here in the first place.

Q: Thank you, sir.

Holt: Jarred Fishman.

Q: Yes, sir. Thank you for your time. I have a two-part question. First is, the Sunni political parties have -- oftentimes their foremost complaint is their number of Sunni captives and/or people who are being held by the coalition and Iraqi forces. Have you seen some kind of a trend where they're saying, okay, we see the efforts you guys are making to try to release them, and that's why they're coming back into the government and having more of a reconciliation effort. Have you seen any of that kind of on the ground?

Stone: (Laughs.) You know, I love this question. I'm going to give you the true answer, and you can pick up the phone and call General Petraeus and he'll tell you. General Petraeus said to me -- when Vice President Tariq Hashimi was on the fence, you know, he's pulling out -- he said, "You go over and you talk to this guy," and I did. And I've been an associate of his since I've been here; you know, Dr. Omar Jabouri (sp), who is, you know, in (books?). These are the Sunni guys, and I have met with them now many, many times. And what I did to Tariq is I took over and I showed him a video of all the programs, and then I said to him, "Listen, you know, we are going to work together, you and I, at Ramadan, and we'll announce Lion's Paw." Lion's Paw is an operation which we did announce and we announced it between he and I.

And I said, "In return for that, I'm going to do exactly what I'm going to do anyway, but in return for that, you can say that you understood it and that you endorse it and that we'll work today and you'll stay inside the government and, you know, you'll do your best."

And Tariq has been every single day of Ramadan to one of the releases, to the pledging guarantor ceremonies. He has given the most eloquent, the most -- just incredibly moving presentations to these guys, saying: "Listen, I understand that what you did was done for a reason. What I am telling you is what the coalition forces are doing for you, what General Stone is doing for you in the youth education, these are things that we are not even doing for own people. And you have to help us do that."

I mean, if I could play for you the recordings -- and I -- I'm tempted to do it because he's been filming them all for himself, and I'm sure if you could get on the Islamic news, you would find him. But if you saw the key messages that he has been giving, they are over the top. And so, I haven't seen the boss yet, he's -- you know, he's working his way home. But I do -- I always brief him for about an hour on all our programs and everything we're doing. And Friday I'm taking in with me, you know, the quotes from Vice President Hashimi, the -- I'm taking in a brand new program that he's created for referrals for these guys.