Psyche, Science, and Society

PHR letter to Defense Secretary Gates

June 4th, 2007

Physicians for Human Rights, in the wake of the OIG report,  has sent a letter to Defense Secretary Gates drawing out the implications of the report and asking for major changes in DoD policies regarding interrogations. As they describe it on their web site:

In a letter sent on May 31, 2007, to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, PHR responds to the recently declassified Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report, “Review of DoD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse.” In the report, the OIG details how interrogation techniques used in recent years by the military were developed using techniques from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program, a module designed to train military personnel in how to resist torture when captured by a ruthless enemy. The PHR letter calls on Secretary Gates to specifically ban techniques developed from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape program, to establish ethical guidelines for all health professionals involved in interrogations, and to declassify and release all additional materials pertaining to these matters.

The letter is a nice summary of the implications of the OIG report. They go on to discuss some positive changes in DoD policy since the OIG report was initially released in classified form:

However, these guidelines continue to call on military psychologists to play a central role in interrogations by BSCTs, fail to bind health professionals to their ethical obligations to “first do no harm,” and place clinicians in the Military Intelligence chain of command rather than within the Medical Department. This is a dangerous role to impose on mental health experts, one that led to the misappropriation of SERE psychological expertise in the first place, as documented by the OIG and others.

They go on to request additional changes in DoD policy:

PHR, therefore, respectfully urges you to take the following actions:

1. Fully implement the OIG’s recommendation to “preclude the use of Survival, Evasion, esistance, and Escape physical and psychological coercion techniques” in all interrogations. (Id, p. 29-30.) This includes rescission of Appendix M of the new Army Field Manual and specific rohibition, by name, of each of the known SERE-based methods and their equivalents.

2. Abolish the BSCTs and rescind the June 6, 2006 Department of Defense Instruction(Medical program Support for Detainee Operations), which established guidelines for the BSCTs and other health personnel. Establish new unambigious guidelines holding all health care professionals, regardless of their designated role or assignment, to the well-established health professional principle to prevent, avoid and minimize harm.

3. In the interest of transparency reflected in the declassification of the OIG Report, declassify and release all other documents shedding light on US interrogation policy and practices, including but not limited to SERE-based methods.

Entry Filed under: APA, Guantanamo, Interrogation, Psychology, Torture, US Troops, War Crimes