Psyche, Science, and Society

Democracy Now! on psychologists and US torture, again

Democracy Now! on Monday covered the recent Vanity Fair article on the two psychologists, Mitchell and Jessen, who designed the CIA’s torture techniques that framed the US’s Standard Operating Procedure for interrogations. My friend and colleague Brad Olson was also on the show.

An excerpt:

AMY GOODMAN: Last year, Democracy Now! hosted a debate on the role of psychologists in military interrogations. We included Dr. Gerald Koocher, then the president of the American Psychological Association, still a powerhouse behind the scenes. This is some of what he had to say about the issue of psychologists involved in interrogations at Guantanamo.

GERALD KOOCHER: We don’t, as a professional association, tell our members that they can’t work for a given employer. Obviously there are some people who don’t think that psychologists should assist in the military at all. That’s a political preference and a social statement, but there are many very beneficial things that psychologists have done in the military. One example is that the lead officer sent in to help clean up Guantanamo Bay was a psychologist, a US Army colonel, who was sent in to help to clean up the abuses as soon as they were reported. There’s another APA member, a civilian employee of the Navy, who was sent to Guantanamo and was one of the first people to file complaints with his superiors about things that he observed down there, and he reportedly brought about some changes.I wish I had the assurance that Jane Mayer and that Dr. Reisner apparently have that there are APA members doing bad things at Guantanamo or elsewhere, because any time I have asked these journalists or other people who are making these assertions for names so that APA could investigate its members who might be allegedly involved in them, no names have ever been forthcoming.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Gerald Koocher, former president of the American Psychological Association, still very active in the APA. Katherine Eban?

KATHERINE EBAN: Well, you don’t make an ethics policy by citing a few positive examples. There has been an army or military line and an APA line that are surprisingly similar, which is that psychologists make interrogations safer and more effective. But what my reporting found is that the interrogations they make safer are the interrogations that had been made more dangerous. In other words, you take some very dangerous methods, like reverse-engineered SERE tactics — it’s basically like letting a tiger loose in the interrogation booth, and then you get in an animal trainer to make sure that the animal doesn’t go crazy, but why did you put the tiger in the booth in the first place? In other words, psychologists were initially used in the SERE program in order to prevent against behavioral drift. So what the military is saying and what the APA is saying is, psychologists can play that role in interrogations, but those are the interrogations in which these reverse-engineered SERE tactics are being used. Now, presumably, if you didn’t use those tactics, you wouldn’t need psychologists to safeguard them.

And:

KATHERINE EBAN: It is a memo drafted by JTF-GTMO, the task force I just talked about, and it is a SERE SOP, standard operating procedure, how to standardize the use of these coercive tactics in interrogation, and it basically — and it came about a week on the heels of Rumsfeld approving the most coercive tactics, and it lists a category of approaches to interrogations, and they include degradation, manhandling, omnipotence tactics, insults, slaps, walling, hooding, and how to use those dangerous tactics safely.

AMY GOODMAN: You write, “In a bizarre mixture of solicitude and sadism, the memo details how to calibrate the infliction of harm. It dictates that the ‘[insult] slap will be initiated no more than 12–14 inches (or one shoulder width) from the detainee’s face … to preclude any tendency to wind up or uppercut.’ And interrogators are advised that, when stripping off a prisoner’s clothes, ‘tearing motions shall be downward to prevent pulling the detainee off balance.’ In short, the sere-inspired interrogations would be violent. And therefore, psychologists were needed to help make these more dangerous interrogations safer.”

KATHERINE EBAN: Right. To me, this is — it really exposes the military’s argument that psychologists are needed to make interrogations safer and more effective. What they were needed for is to oversee the use of these tactics so that they did not get out of hand and result in the death of detainees.

AMY GOODMAN: What if psychologists didn’t participate? The doctors won’t participate. Psychiatrists won’t participate. What if psychologists said no?

KATHERINE EBAN: It would be very interesting to see what happens. Perhaps the military would need to shift tactics. But the problem is — and to go back to some of the questions you asked Brad Olson — the military has long been the largest employer of psychologists. We’re talking about a jobs program. I mean, the relationship is long and deep. So there are certainly psychologists who feel that they are serving their country by being in the interrogation booth.

Unfortunately, in addition to her excellent reporting, reporter Eban also missed the significance of much of what she investigated.  She was so taken up by”the most coercive techniques,” such as waterboarding, that she seems to believe that the slightly”less coercive” tactics, such as prolonged isolation, and sensory deprivation, are not so abusive. Only thusly could she make the startling claim that the PENS members were critical of “coercive interrogations.” She also didn’t understand the Office of Inspector General report that made clear that military SERE psychologists, beyond Mitchell and Jessen, were integral to US interrogations at Guantanam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Like all to many reporters, she apparently believes that what she discovered is the key to the whole, rather than one small piece of a large puzzle. Mitchell and Jessen were the extreme of a continuum, not an alternative to otherwise humane behavior. Just ask any of these supposedly “humane” psychologist interrogators what they think of the tactics approved by Secretary Rumsfeld in April, 2003, which included isolation, “environmental manipulation,” “sleep manipulation,” and “Fear Up Harsh”. So far, those supposed “rapport-building” psychologists have declined to answer this question. Until they answer in detail, their claims of being against abuse are simply not credible.

As for Brad Olson, in the brief time he had, he presented a brief overview of the current state of our struggle, which will continue at the APA Convention this August.

Add comment July 31st, 2007

Uwe Jacobs responds to APA Board substitute resolution replacing Moraotorium

Uwe Jacobs, Executive Director of Survivors International, responded in an email to Neil Altman to the recent American Psychological Association Board substitute resolution to the Moratorium resolution that would call for a halt to psychologists participating in national security interrogations of so-called “enemy combatants.” Neil Altman is the sponsor of the Moratorium resolution that the Board resolution would replace.[posted here with the permission of Dr’s Jacobs and Altman]:To: Neil Altman, PhD
From: Uwe Jacobs, PhD
Re: Moratorium Resolution and BOD alternative

Date: 7/24/07

Dear Neil -

I would like to clarify my position with respect to the substitute motion by the APA Board of Directors currently being circulated as an alternative to your original moratorium resolution.  You will recall that my efforts to explicitly ban participation in all forms of coercive interrogations and inflicting distress on prisoners and list a large number of specific techniques was meant to be responsive to some concerns expressed by the Ethics Committee and thus aid passage of your resolution by the COR. In my following exchanges with Dr. Stephen Behnke [the APA’s Director of Ethics], he strongly encouraged this effort initially.

However, I began to understand that this was intended to become a substitute and competing document to your resolution, which I did not intend or support. In addition, I felt increasingly at a loss as to how I could respond to a number of objections made to my proposals by SB. It is certainly true that my own thinking was incomplete and evolving and that SB had useful editorial suggestions for me.
However, I also encountered objections I did not understand.

For example, I had suggested that any participation in intentionally inflicting distress on prisoners above and beyond routine procedures of law enforcement would be prohibited. SB objected that distress was too vague, that a lot of things cause distress and that I should focus on causing harm instead.  Conversely, I believed that this would lead to a situation where harm (a higher standard) would have to be proven, rather than having a simple standard of behavioral ethics. I did not believe that it was complicated or murky to say that we don’t intentionally inflict distress for the sake of inflicting distress. I further argued that we obtain informed consent and explain our reasons and procedures, for example, in the context of a forensic evaluation. I also could not agree with SB’s repeated likening of the situation under discussion with other psychological activities, such as performing forensic examinations and mandatory reporting of abuse. I still believe that inflicting distress on a child molester for the sake of protecting the child, while being legally required to do so, is not an activity anyone could claim to be unethical because of standards that were drafted specifically to address the handling of prisoners. The same goes for telling a divorced mother or father that one will have to make recommendations concerning child custody on the basis of psychological data. Such objections simply do not appear authentic, and I found them especially puzzling here because I had inserted a qualifying note stating that these ethical standards were concerned specifically with the handling of prisoners and interrogations and nothing else.

In working on this document, I also began to understand that SB discouraged anything that was legal in nature, such as making reference to the Convention Against Torture, and that there was interest only in compiling a comprehensive list of prohibited techniques and to say additionally that we should not cause harm. I felt that this program was too minimal and would lead to a less desirable outcome, rather than improve the resolution, especially if the idea was to offer it as an alternative.  After gaining distance from some of the details and complexities, I came back to the simple realization that there was a basic difference between what we wanted APA to articulate and what the APA leadership wanted: we wanted to say that psychologists should not be working at detention sites that have been found in violation of international human rights laws and the APA leadership wanted to preserve access of psychologists to these sites, insisting that psychologists would be valuable as guarantors of safety and ethics.

When I tried to explain this position of APA to one of my German colleagues this summer, he made it clear that he considered it an insane proposition to participate in the operation of an internationally condemned prison camp with the argument that this will make it less bad for the prisoners.  I realized that this type of policy would be unthinkable for a professional organization in Germany because the experience of the Third Reich still runs deep with us and we think that when government policy is in violation of basic human rights, one may no longer adopt professional neutrality.

I can’t agree, therefore, that striving to be a good egg but going to work at Gitmo is as clear a policy against torture as recommending that we don’t participate at all. After all, a non-binding policy resolution by a professional group is not a major act of civil disobedience, much less does it rise to the level of any individual psychologist’s refusal to obey an order from a superior officer. It is just a public statement and it seems like the least we should do.

I hope that this helps to explain why I don’t think the Board proposal is a good alternative to your resolution.

Best regards,

Uwe
p.s. If it is of any help to your dealings with the COR, feel free to share these thoughts.

Uwe Jacobs, PhD
Director, Survivors International
703 Market Street, Suite 301
San Francisco, CA 94

Add comment July 28th, 2007

Coalition for an Ethical APA analyzes APA Board resolution on interrogations

The Board of the American Psychological Association has proposed a Resolution that they wish to substitute for the resolution, introduced by Neil Altman, that would call a Moratorium on psychologist participation of so-called “enemy combatants.” The Board’s motion would ban participation in use of certain interrogation techniques, but allow overall participation to continue.

In response to the Board introducing this substitute resolution, the Coalition for an Ethical APA has issued a statement pointing to a number of loopholes in the resolution that need to be closed if it is to have any teeth. Here is the Coalition’s letter:

To Sharon Brehm, Stephen Behnke, The Board, the Council

The Coalition for an Ethical APA welcomes the recent statements by the APA Board to address our and the nation’s concerns about the role of psychologists in detainee abuses. Specifically, we welcome the APA’s condemnation of those abuses, the call for working together with governmental investigative bodies, and the proposal to clarify APA policy to prevent such abuses from occurring in the future.

We have studied the Board, Dr. Behnke and Rhea Farberman’s statements. As we understand it, the position of the APA has always been that psychologists have a role to play in interrogation, and that the role of psychologists should be limited to the study and practice of non-abusive modes of interrogation, based on rapport building, rather than on abuse or coercion. While we represent a wide array of psychologists who take different stances on this issue (many do not believe psychologists, as health professionals, should be involved in interrogations at all), we would like to be able to come together on an ethical stance that preserves the primarily responsibility of psychologists, which is to “do no harm.”

Therefore, we have studied the Board’s new proposed resolution in the hopes that, with certain specific changes, we could all come together to reassert an ethical position with regards to psychologists and interrogations. In this way we may all agree that we have done what is necessary to move psychology back into the forefront of ethics and service, where it belongs.

We accept that the goal of the new proposal is to permit psychologists to lend their expertise to detainee operations, while prohibiting them from participating directly or indirectly in the types of abuses that have brought shame to our profession and to our nation. To this end we have amended the Board’s proposal, in order to ensure that there is nothing vague or unclear in the wording and meaning of the resolution, that might prevent a psychologist interrogator, or a military superior from knowing precisely what a psychologist may or may not ethically do with regard to detainee or “enemy combatant” treatment and interrogation.

The areas where we believe that clarifications are necessary are the following:

1. At present it is not made clear that this resolution holds, even in the face of contradictory law, or regulation. It is necessary to state explicitly that this resolution is not limited by ethical standard 1.02, which allows psychologists to follow laws, regulations, or orders when these conflict with APA ethics.

2. At present the limitations apply to specific techniques, rather than to a type of unethical interrogation that these techniques exemplify. The standards against which techniques can be assessed as ethical or unethical must be explicitly stated.

3. At present, the casebook offers “guidelines” based on the international instruments cited in the 2006 Resolution Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment. These need to be made enforcible standards, and the guarantees of the 5th 8th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution need to be added to these standards, as per the 2006 resolution.

4. At present the prohibited tactics, techniques and behaviors apply only to interrogations themselves. But since psychologists often consult on the environment detainees are kept in, as part of intelligence gathering preparation operations, these prohibitions must apply to all detainee and “enemy combatant” situations. Behaviors that are unethical remain unethical whether they are undertake as part of the interrogation process or the wider detention process.

5. At present, there is no prohibition against psychologists’ participating in detainee operations when detainees are kept in conditions that would be condemned as breaches of humane treatment, according to the instruments cited in the resolution. The resolution must address the psychologists’ ethical responsibilities when asked to work in such an environment.

6. At present the Resolution commends psychologists who take an ethical stand in the line of duty. We believe the APA owes active support to those in the military who are willing to risk their careers for the sake of principle.

Here is the Board’s Substitute Resolution:

Substitute Motion #2

(as originated by the Board of Directors)
That the Council of Representatives adopts the following resolution as APA policy:
Reaffirmation and Elaboration of the American Psychological Association Position Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
WHEREAS the mission of the American Psychological Association is to advance psychology as a science and profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare through the establishment and maintenance of the highest standards of professional ethics and conduct of the members of the Association;
WHEREAS the American Psychological Association is an accredited non-governmental organization at the United Nations and so is committed to promote and protect human rights in accordance with the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
WHEREAS subjecting individuals to torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment for any reason in any context is wholly antithetical to these goals and purposes;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association unequivocally condemns torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, for any and all purposes, including interrogation;
BE IT RESOLVED that the unequivocal condemnation includes an absolute prohibition against psychologists’ planning, designing, assisting or participating in any activities, including interrogations, which involve the use of torture and any form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
BE IT RESOLVED that this unequivocal condemnation includes, but is not limited to, an absolute prohibition for psychologists against direct or indirect participation during interrogation processes in: mock executions; water-boarding or any other form of simulated drowning or suffocation; sensory deprivation and over-stimulation; “hooding”; forced nakedness; sexual humiliation; cultural or religious humiliation; exploitation of phobias; stress positions; the use of dogs to threaten or intimidate; physical assault, including slapping and shaking; exposure to extreme heat or cold; induced hypothermia; mind-altering substances used for the purpose of eliciting information; isolation and sleep deprivation used in a manner that adversely affects an individual’s physical or mental health; or the threatened use of any of the above techniques to the individual or to members of the individual’s family;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association calls on the United States government—including Congress, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency—to prohibit the use of these methods in all interrogations and that the American Psychological Association shall inform relevant parties with the United States government that psychologists are prohibited from participating in such methods;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association encourages any individual with knowledge that a member of the Association has engaged in torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including the specific behaviors listed above, to provide this information to the Ethics Committee, and directs the Ethics Committee to take appropriate action based upon such information;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological association commends those psychologists who have taken clear and unequivocal stands against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in the line of duty, including stands against the specific behaviors listed above;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association urges all psychologists with information relevant to the use of any method of interrogation constituting torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment to inform their superiors of such knowledge, to inform the relevant office of inspector generals when appropriate, and to cooperate fully with all oversight activities, including hearings by the United States Congress and all branches of the United States government, to examine the perpetration of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment against individuals in United States custody, for the purpose of ensuring that no individual in the custody of the United States is subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment;
BE IT RESOLVED that in writing a casebook and commentary, the APA Ethics Committee shall set forth guidelines for psychologists working in contexts of war and imprisonment that are consistent with international human rights instruments, as well as guidelines developed for health professionals, including but not limited to: Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions; The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; The United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel, particularly Physicians, in the Protection of Prisoners and Detainees against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and The World Medical
Association Declaration of Tokyo: Guidelines for Physicians Concerning Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Relation to Detention and Imprisonment;
BE IT RESOLVED that the American Psychological Association, in order to protect against torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and in order to mitigate against the likelihood that unreliable and/or inaccurate information is entered into legal proceedings, calls upon United States legal systems to reject testimony that results from torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

1 comment July 28th, 2007

Gonzales refuses to condemn waterrboarding or hypothermia

Scott Horton points out a particularly enlightening quote from Albert Gonzales’ Congressional testimony two days ago, that demonstrates this administration’s advocacy of torture, just as long as you don’t call it “torture.” But first Horton on the background:

The question at this point is pretty simple. It boils down to a list of roughly a dozen techniques developed by CIA contractors for use, originally by the Pentagon and CIA. In the meantime we know who the contractors are, who wrote the contracts, and what techniques they prescribed. And we know enough to label this entire enterprise as a criminal conspiracy which is likely at some point in the future to be the subject of a serious investigation and prosecutions. (That is, when the criminals and political sycophants are chased out of the Department of Justice and people sworn to uphold the law are reinstalled there).

Of the dozen techniques, four are, in my mind, particularly troubling: waterboarding, the cold cell or hypothermia, long-time standing, and sleep deprivation in excess of two days. Each of these techniques is well established under U.S. law as torture, and its use is a felony. However, the Bush Administration’s weasel lawyers don’t see it that way. And for the record, their view is that they’re “confused.”

Alberto Gonzales is, of course, the Bush Administration’s star witness on this point. Back during his confirmation hearing, Senator John McCain asked him whether it was lawful in his mind to waterboard someone outside of the United States? And the nation’s chief law enforcement officer to be responded with 110 seconds of embarrassed silence, followed by a promise to look into that question and get back (which, characteristically, he never did).

And just two days ago, during an appearance before a Senate committee in which he racked up more perjuries than any witness since the organized crime bosses were called in, this is how Gonzales responded to Senator Durbin’s question. Durbin asked would it be legal, in Gonzales’s view, for foreign nations to apply the four techniques I just named to nonuniformed U.S. citizens?

And Gonzales’ response?

“Senator, you’re asking me to answer a question which, I think, may provide insight into activities that the CIA may be involved with in the future. . . . [I]t would depend on circumstances, quite frankly.”

But at least we know that the President didn’t authorize murder or rape, at least not if they’re intended.

Add comment July 26th, 2007

Psychologists or interrogators? the necessity to choose one role or the other

Martha Davis, a member of the Steering Committee of withholdapadues.com, has written this very interesting analysis of the error in assuming that “psychologists” are participating in interrogations. Davis perceives a fundamental conflict between the identity as a “psychologist,” subject to professional ethics, and that of a military interrogator, totally subservient to the military chain of command:

With apologies for the length of this… is it too late to stand back and ask what the APA is fighting for no matter how strong the safeguards put into a resolution?

It looks like the APA will talk endlessly with protesters about HOW psychologists are to be involved in detainee interrogations and WHAT they can or cannot do, as long as WHETHER is off the table. But since when did psychologists as psychologists become so directly involved in interrogations anywhere? In virtually all dual role situations for a psychologist (psychologist treating prisoners, psychological assessments of suspects to determine ability to stand trial, research or consulting psychologist developing new measures for assessing fitness to serve), the ethical issues have been dealt with in theory, practice and print for decades and the psychologist has a realm of practice that is not to be subordinate to the institutional chain of command (e.g. the police commissioner can’t order the psychologist to make a psychological decision.) In top secret military activity, the dual role issues and chains of command are murky and difficult to know (e.g. psychologists working for intelligence agencies in psych ops), but BSCT psychologists involved in top secret detainee interrogations lose their duality as psychologists in the military and have only one, intelligence officer in the Army. Still the APA has publicly supported the BSCTs as psychologists. According to the APA Exec. Dir. of Public Communications in a letter to the editor of the Charleston Gazette:

“APA has chosen a strategy of engagement, of having psychologists present wherever interrogations take place, as the strategy most likely to promote ethical interrogations and to prevent abuse.”

It looks like after 9/11 the U.S. Army (at least) instituted a new service, something that stands independent of and equal in importance to other services in the military that have long been staffed by psychologists (like psychological services for armed forces personnel). The Army named their version of this new service “Behavioral Science Consultation Teams” and has explicitly described it as staffed by psychologists and psych techs (and originally psychiatrists). These teams are a) separate from the Medical Services b) answerable to the army chain of command, and in GTMO to the CO himself, and c) devoted to intelligence gathering.

No matter what the APA says, the Army (cf the Army Surgeon General 2005 report) says BSCTs are involved in intelligence gathering – training/coaching civilian contract or army personnel “student interrogators” in the camps, attending interrogations, collecting psychological information in preparation for them, and because the Army appears to have less experienced interrogators than the FBI, the DIA, and maybe the CIA, BSCTs can direct the line of inquiry with authority to stop, start, amend what goes on. Note that the Army is not employing BSCT psychologists as “safety advisors,” (which is how the APA describes their function) although the Army may use their status as “psychologists” to assure an uneasy public that detainee treatment is humane.

If, as I have read, Dr. Gelles of the Navy is “Chief Psychologist, Interrogations” then other branches of the armed services are also establishing units in which the psychologists’ primary responsibility is interrogations. I submit that psychologists as psychologists (as opposed to once psychologists, now CIA agents) responsible for intelligence gathering and in charge of interrogation units “on the ground” is a new and profoundly important development. What is critical here is that the APA, the state licensing boards, indeed no civilian entity has any authority whatsoever over what they are and what they do. And here’s what may be the real rub. The APA or state licensing boards probably cannot object to the Army calling BSCTs “psychologists” even though they are intelligence officers because of the right of a government agency like the VA to waive the licensing law and call some personnel “psychologists” even if they don’t have a doctorate, etc.

We must take the authority of the military and its chain of command absolutely as the bottom line here, compounded ten-fold by the fact that what really goes on in detainee interrogations is top secret. We and the APA have the power to protest, to advise, to write press releases, and if we want, to support and lend our professional reputations to the effort. But no NGOs or civilian groups have power over the military or access to top secret interrogations. If anyone has any doubt, look at what the Army Surgeon General did after receiving a massive study (2005) of detainee treatment that recommended that psychiatrists be removed from detainee interrogations. He said we don’t accept the recommendation, but we’ll study the matter. And the argument that BSCTs are “safety officers” is naïve at best. An interpreter who did a tour of duty at GTMO, (Saar and Novak, 2005) reports that interrogations are staged for visiting VIPs and everyone shapes up when the International Red Cross representatives come by, but no such good behavior is reserved for BSCTs.

The APA cannot stop BSCTs, but it can withhold its very public, enthusiastic endorsement of the program, and it can amend Ethics code1.02 so that psychologists in the Medical Services who witness abuse are not in a black hole of ambiguity, ordered by code 1.02 to follow orders when their judgments are at odds with the chain of command.

Certainly the APA itself should stop calling intelligence officers psychologists. If “safety officers” are needed, then the call should be for International Red Cross personnel involvement in interrogations because they are more independent of the command structure and would not be associated so directly with medical services. What is the cost to psychologists in the military? As someone responsible for psychological services for law enforcement told me, “What a terrible position to put a psychologist in. Who would want the job?” However, it is possible that some do want the BSCT job –or cannot get out of it without trouble from the CO — and it may actually be prestigious, at least at the higher rank levels. Also, if psychologists are poised to direct a new service in the military – interrogation training and monitoring or some such — then this must have great appeal. To ban this is not necessarily to deprive the individual psychologist of advancement – if he or she wants to become an intelligence officer, there appear to be ample opportunities within the traditional intelligence agencies for people with psychological training. (NB: FBI and CIA agents with degrees and licenses in law or psychology are called FBI or CIA agents, not psychologists.) It is the leaders of APA who want greater hegemony for the profession who must be most threatened by questioning whether psychologists as psychologists should be involved in detainee interrogations. In this sense it is even more powerful an issue than the fight for the right of psychologists to give medications because psychologists appear poised to actually run a new service as psychologists.

So when the resistance feels insurmountable, it may be because it is. We cannot underestimate the overriding power of the military and the U.S. Government to dictate how this is played out, and the stakes for the governance of the APA in supporting it. At this point, just days before the APA convention, I hope there is no premature decision to accept any alternate proposal – unless the impossible happens and the APA explicitly withdraws its very public support of psychologists’ nvolvement in detainee interrogations and promises to rescind 2002 Ethics Code 1.02.

Martha Davis

Add comment July 24th, 2007

The CIA’s “not torture” torture

The Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Mike McConnell was interviewed on Meet the Press yesterday. Part of the interview concerned Friday’s Executive Order allowing the resumption of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation, known to all English speakers as “torture.” Of course, Admiral McConnell denied that they were “torture.” When asked to define torture, the Admiral said

“an attempt to define torture in the executive order gives examples of mutilation or murder or rape or physical pain.”

So we know that, at least officially, they don’t murder, mutilate, or rape the detainees. Of course, like every member of the Bush administration, the Admiral shows a woeful lack of knowledge of international or American law. After, all, you can’t be expected to understand what you spend your whole career avoiding.

After all, the US has a long history of trying to exclude the dominant forms of torture, namely the SERE-based techniques that constitute psychological torture. The Admiral does that here:

Let me just leave it by saying the techniques work. It’s not torture, you’re not subjected to heat or cold, but it is effective, and it’s a psychological approach to causing someone to have uncertainty and, in a situation where they will feel compelled to talk to you about what you’re asking on that.

In their Report Summary released Friday, Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First demonstrate that the CIA’s techniques clearly meet the legal definition of forbidden behavior, either “torture” or “cruel, inhuman, or degrading behavior.” Of course, a civilized society or a civilized government wouldn’t need NGO reports to make clear something this obvious.

But the best sense of what is involved  in the CIA “techniques” came when he was asked about the smell test: If an American soldier was subjected to these techniques, would the US cry “foul!”:

I would not want a U.S. citizen to go through the process, but it is not torture, and there would be no permanent damage to that citizen.

If its too harsh for us, its too harsh for everyone. That’s the Golden Rule. Some of us learned that in kindergarten.

The relevant section of the interview:

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about the executive order the president issued about enhanced interrogation measures. What does that allow a CIA-held target? What kind of measures can you use to get information from them?

MR. MCCONNELL: Well, Tim, as you know, I can’t discuss specific measures. There’s a variety of reasons for that. One, if I announce what the specific measures are, it would aid those who want to resist those measures to train, to understand it, and so on, so I won’t be too specific.

Let me go back to a higher calling in this context. The United States does not engage in torture. The president has been very clear about that. The executive order spells it out. There are means and methods to conduct interrogation that will result in information that we need, and what I would highlight — I was concerned and worried and, quite frankly, appalled by Abu Ghraib. My view is America risked losing the moral high ground, and so I focused on this when I came back.

What I can report to you is that was an aberration. The people who were responsible for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib have been held accountable, and they’re serving a sentence for that. That is not the program the CIA was administering. It is not the program that the president approved in the recent executive order.

MR. RUSSERT: But by use of the term “enhanced interrogation measures,” there clearly are things that are used to elicit information. Have we eliminated water-boarding? Can you confirm that?

MR. MCCONNELL: I would rather not be specific on eliminating exactly what the techniques are with regard to any specific. When I was in a situation where I had to sign off, as a member of the process, my name to this executive order, I sat down with those who have been trained to do it, doctors who monitor it, understanding that no one is subjected to torture. They are treated in a way that they have adequate diet and not exposed to heat or cold, they are not abused in any way, but I did understand when exposed to the techniques how they work and why they work — all under medical supervision, and one of the things that’s very important, I think, for the American public to know — in the history of this program it’s been fewer than 100 people.

And so this is a program where we capture someone known to be a terrorist, we need information that they possess, and it has saved countless lives because they believe these techniques might involve torture, and they don’t understand them, they tend to speak to us, talk to us in a very candid way.

MR. RUSSERT: Does this new executive order allow measures that if were used against a U.S. citizen who was apprehended by the enemy would be troubling to the American people?

MR. MCCONNELL: I can report to you that it’s not torture.

MR. RUSSERT: How do you define torture?

MR. MCCONNELL: Well, torture is — an attempt to define torture in the executive order gives examples of mutilation or murder or rape or physical pain, those kinds of things.

Let me just leave it by saying the techniques work. It’s not torture, you’re not subjected to heat or cold, but it is effective, and it’s a psychological approach to causing someone to have uncertainty and, in a situation where they will feel compelled to talk to you about what you’re asking on that.

MR. RUSSERT: Then you would find it acceptable if a U.S. citizen experienced the same kind of enhanced interrogation measures?

MR. MCCONNELL: Tim, it’s not torture. I would not want a U.S. citizen to go through the process, but it is not torture, and there would be no permanent damage to that citizen.

While the American Psychological Association plays semantics with what is and is not “torture” and “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,”  just so long as they can keep psychologists in there abusing detainees, why don’t they take an ethical stand and unequivocally condemn the CIA’s “enhanced techniques” and the President’s Executive Order? Such an action might actually have an effect. Oh, yeah, now I understand why they won’t do it.

2 comments July 23rd, 2007

Steven Miles on The Decider’s CIA “enhanced techniques”

Bioethicist Steven Miles has obtained and sent me The Decider’s personally-annotated copy of selected portions of last Friday’s Executive Order reauthorizing the CIA’s abuse regime:

Annotated Sections of President Bush-Cheney’s Ultra New Executive Order on CIA Interrogation

Steven Miles, MD. Author of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror.
=========================
Bush’s Executive [I'm the decider] Order Friday, July 20, 2007; 3:59 PM

INTERPRETATION OF THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS COMMON ARTICLE 3 AS APPLIED TO A PROGRAM OF DETENTION AND INTERROGATION OPERATED BY THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

[Note: The Geneva Conventions state: "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." but that is Article 17 so forget it.]

The Military Commissions Act defines certain prohibitions of Common Article 3 for United States law, and it reaffirms and reinforces the authority of the President to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. [

[Note: Article X of the Geneva Conventions can kiss off, "No derogation from the preceding provisions shall be made by special agreements"]

[Note: Article VII: says "Prisoners of war may in no circumstances renounce in part or in entirety the rights secured to them by the present Convention, and by the special agreements referred to in the foregoing Article, if such there be." however the Military Commissions Act says:

"(a) IN GENERAL.—No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any habeas corpus or other civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States is a party as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories. ... <

3) INTERPRETATION BY THE PRESIDENT.— (A) As provided by the Constitution and by this section, the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and to promulgate higher standards and administrative regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. (B) The President shall issue interpretations described by subparagraph (A) by Executive Order published in the Federal Register. (C) Any Executive Order published under this paragraph shall be authoritative (except as to grave breaches of common Article 3) as a matter of United States law, in the same manner as other administrative regulations. ---so like I said, I AM THE DECIDER.]

(c) “Cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

[Note: "Amendment V: No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;" ugh except evildoers, as defined by me or my staff, witnessing against self is OK in off-shore facilities and coerced testimony obtained without a lawyer present does not mean compelled--I am the decider.]

[Note: "Amendment VIII: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." No bail at all is not excessive, so sayeth DECIDER."]

[Note: Amendment XIV: The XIV amendment deals powers of states and the rights of citizens--it is really irrelevant to this whole deal but Dick said that 3 amendments looked more American than two, THE DECIDER."

I hereby determine that Common Article 3 shall apply to a program of detention and interrogation operated by the Central Intelligence Agency as set forth in this section.

[Note: Noting that the other hundred or so articles in the four Geneva Conventions do not apply, it is specifically OK for the CIA to continue its program of extraordinary renditions because this is only addressed in article 49 of the 4th conventions, "Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive." Kidnapping and being dropped in Uzbekistan is not in and of itself cruel, nor is it all that unusual, lots of people go to Uzbekistan. The CIA is not responsible for protecting such tourists. --TD. ]

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 20, 2007.

Add comment July 22nd, 2007

“Enhanced” Interrogation Techniques: The Risk of Criminality

In response to Friday’s Executive Order authorizing the CIA to resume abusdive interrogations of “enemy combatants” in its custody, two of the NGOs leading the fight against torture have released a summary of their forthcoming report on the CIA’s “enhanced techniques.” [For an Analysis of the Executive Order, see Marty Lederman at Balkinization.]

For anyone thinking that the new CIA program will be substantially different than the old one — described in detail online by Vanity Fair last week — nearly universally condemned as torture, this quote from an Administration official is not comforting:

“CIA detainees have also alleged they were left naked in cells for prolonged periods, subjected to sensory and sleep deprivation and extreme heat and cold, and sexually taunted. A senior administration officials briefing reporters yesterday said that any future use of ‘extremes of heat and cold’ would be subject to a ‘reasonable interpretation . . . we’re not talking about forcibly induced hypothermia.’ “

The report:

Summary of Forthcoming Report on

“Enhanced” Interrogation Techniques: The Risk of Criminality

by Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First

July 2007

All U.S. personnel who engage in the CIA’s so-called “enhanced” interrogation techniques and similarly abusive techniques are at serious risk of violating U.S. law. Under U.S. law, as detailed below, the severity of physical pain or mental harm caused by an interrogation technique is key to determining whether the technique can be considered torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. An extensive body of medical literature, derived from the treatment and study of torture survivors worldwide, demonstrates that the “enhanced” techniques are likely to cause significant physical and mental harm to detainees. As a result, officials and interrogators who authorize and participate in interrogations using these techniques face a substantial risk of criminal prosecution under the provisions prohibiting “torture” and “cruel and inhuman treatment” in the U.S. War Crimes Act (WCA), as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA),i and under the U.S. Torture Act of 2000.ii Many of these interrogation techniques may also be prohibited by the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA).iii To protect U.S. officials and personnel from potential criminal liability and to ensure that all U.S. personnel adhere to U.S. law, these techniques should not be authorized.

The CIA Enhanced Interrogation Methods

While the details of, and regulations governing, the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation program remain classified, credible reports have disclosed several of these techniques, including waterboarding (mock drowning), exposure to extreme cold (including induced hypothermia), stress positions, extreme sensory deprivation and overload, shaking, striking, prolonged sleep deprivation, and isolation, among others.iv Without identifying these and other specifically approved techniques, the President has publicly endorsed “alternative interrogation methods,” declaring that the MCA, which he signed into law in October 2006, allows the CIA “program” to continue.v Yet a closer examination of the MCA and other U.S. law, informed by medical and psychological knowledge, reveals that authorization of these enhanced interrogation techniques, whether practiced alone or in combination, may constitute torture and/or cruel and inhuman treatment and, consequently, place interrogators at serious legal risk of prosecution for war crimes or other violations.

A recently declassified report by the Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has revealed that these techniques were based in large part on techniques of torture used by the U.S military in its Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program intended to train personnel to resist such abuse.vi According to the OIG, these techniques were transformed, with the assistance of military psychologists, into “standard operating procedure” (SOP) for interrogations at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. This Guantánamo SOP, the OIG reports, also was brought to Afghanistan and Iraq and, according to media reports, provided a basis for techniques used by CIA personnel, also with assistance from psychologists.vii The origin of these techniques is directly related to the focus of this report. They were designed to inflict physical and psychological harm for the purpose of breaking down interrogation subjects. This report describes the nature and extent of that harm and the legal consequences.

Violations of the War Crimes Act, the Torture Act and the Detainee Treatment Act

The recent amendments to the War Crimes Act establish as war crimes “grave breaches” of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions,viii including “torture” and “cruel and inhuman treatment.”ix “Torture” is characterized, in pertinent part, as “an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.”x The separate war crime of “cruel and inhuman treatment,” is defined “an act intended to inflict severe or serious physical or mental pain or suffering.”xi

For the crime of torture under the WCA xii and the Torture Act,xiii severe mental pain or suffering is defined as “the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from” several specified actions, including “the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering” and “the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.”xiv

For the WCA crime of “cruel and inhuman treatment,” serious mental pain or suffering is defined as “the serious and non-transitory mental harm (which need not be prolonged) caused by or resulting from” the same specified actions.xv

The Detainee Treatment Act requires that “no person in the custody or under the physical control of the United States be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (CIDT).”xvi The DTA defines CIDT as conduct prohibited by the 5th, 8th, or 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Adverse Physical and Mental Consequences

Medical literature clearly establishes that tactics such as the CIA’s reported “enhanced interrogation techniques cause the types of physical and mental anguish that are criminalized under the WCA and other laws. In a letter sent to Senator John McCain during the height of the MCA debate, several leading medical and psychological experts, including current and past presidents of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, conveyed this collective knowledge:

There must be no mistake about the brutality of the “enhanced interrogation methods” reportedly used by the CIA. Prolonged sleep deprivation, induced hypothermia, stress positions, shaking, sensory deprivation and overload, and water-boarding (which may still be authorized), among other reported techniques, can have a devastating impact on the victim’s physical and mental health.xvii

The pain and suffering arising from the individual and combined use of water-boarding, hitting, induced hypothermia, prolonged bombardment with loud music and flashing lights, stress positions, total and long-term isolation, and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques is directly related to the purpose of these techniques: to “break” detainees, mentally and physically.xviii The medical consequences of such abuse have been well-documented through years of research and treatment of survivors of violence and severe trauma.

Some of the enhanced techniques, particularly water-boarding, hitting, induced hypothermia, and stress positions are capable of causing “severe” or “serious” physical pain and suffering, the intentional infliction of which violates the “torture” and “cruel and inhuman treatment” provisions of the WCA. Each of the techniques can also cause significant psychological harm. According to one recent study, in fact, the significance of the harm caused by non-physical, psychological abuse is virtually identical to the significance of the harm caused by physical abuse.xix

This mental harm can take many different forms, including:

• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), manifested in: prolonged, recurring flashbacks and nightmares; significant impairment and instability in life functions; suicidal ideation; and, weakened physical health, among other consequences.xx Rates of PTSD range from 45% to 92% of torture survivors, subjected to both physical and mental torture. xxi

• Depressive disorder manifested in self-destructive and suicidal thoughts and behavior, and other characteristics.xxii

• Psychosis, in the form of delusions, bizarre ideations and behaviors, perceptual distortions, and paranoia, among other manifestations.xxiii

These techniques, moreover, are generally used in combination xxiv – prolonged isolation, for example, combined with sleep deprivation, light and sound bombardment, and exposure to cold – compounding their devastating psychological impact.

The Legal Risk Under U.S. Law

Given this body of medical and psychological knowledge, officials who authorize these techniques place themselves and those who engage in them at enormous risk: namely, that in future trials involving the War Crimes Act, courts will be presented with credible and compelling evidence of harm, provided by medical and psychological experts skilled in the documentation of physical and psychological consequences of torture and ill-treatment, in accordance with internationally accepted protocols.xxv It is the responsibility of the Executive Branch to ensure that its agents abide by the law. If instead it purports to authorize acts that violate the law, agents who carry out those acts will be put at risk of prosecution for serious crimes.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This report demonstrates that “enhanced” techniques of interrogation, whether practiced alone or in combination, may cause severe physical and mental pain. In fact, the use of multiple techniques of “enhanced” interrogation virtually assures the infliction of severe physical and mental pain upon detainees. Given this knowledge, U.S. policy makers and interrogation personnel should understand that if such methods are practiced, it would be reasonable for courts to conclude that the resulting harm was inflicted intentionally. The interrogation techniques analyzed above - and other techniques that have comparable medical consequences - implicate legal prohibitions and could result in felony criminal prosecutions. It is therefore inappropriate that any such techniques be available for use by U.S. personnel in interrogations, and it is the responsibility of U.S. policy makers to ensure that the use of such techniques is effectively precluded.

In issuing interrogation policy, the United States should refrain from repeating the mistake of allowing euphemistic descriptions of interrogation techniques to stretch the line between permissible and impermissible treatment. Instead, all U.S. agencies should firmly adhere to a single bright line standard of humane treatment that protects the lives and health of individuals in U.S. custody.

Recommendations to the Executive Branch

1. Prohibit the “enhanced” interrogation techniques, in order to protect U.S. officials and personnel from potential criminal liability and to ensure that all U.S. personnel adhere to U.S. law.

2. Prohibit the use of any other method that, alone or in combination with other interrogation methods, will more likely than not cause significant physical and/or mental pain or suffering.

3. Instruct all U.S. interrogators in effective, legal, non-harmful methods of interrogation.

i Pub. L. No. 109-366, §6(b), 120 Stat. 2600 (2006).

ii 18 U.S.C. §2340 (2007) (prohibits the infliction of “severe physical or mental pain and suffering,” including “prolonged mental harm,” in terms virtually identical to the MCA’s provision prohibiting “torture.”)

iii National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, P.L. 109-163 § 1403, 119 Stat. 3136 (2006).

iv See, e.g., Dana Priest , CIA Puts Harsh Tactics On Hold; Memo on Methods Of Interrogation Had Wide Review, WASH. POST, June 27, 2004, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8534-2004Jun26?language=printer (accessed Apr. 26, 2007). According to the Washington Post article, the enhanced interrogation techniques were approved by Justice Department and National Security Council lawyers in 2002, briefed to key congressional leaders, and required the authorization of CIA Director George J. Tenet for use. See also, Brian Ross & Richard Esposito, CIA’s Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described, ABC NEWS ONLINE, Nov. 18, 2005, available at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866 (accessed Apr. 26, 2007).

v Press Release, White House, George Bush, President of the United States, President Bush Signs Military Commissions Act of 2006, (October 17, 2006), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061017-1.html. The methods and techniques reportedly used in the CIA program have also been referred to as “enhanced interrogation methods” by anonymous senior CIA officials. See Priest, supra note 4.

vi Review of DoD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse (U)-Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense; Report No. 06-INTEL-10–August 25, 2006; (Declassfied May 18th, 2007).

vii Benjamin Mark, The CIA Torture Teacher, Salon. June 21, 2007.

viii Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 126 S. Ct. 2749 (2006) (holding that Common Article 3 applies to alleged members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban).

ix Military Commissions Act of 2006, § 950(j)(b)..

x Id. (emphasis added)

xi Id. (emphasis added)

xii Military Commissions Act of 2006, §5(b)(2)(A). (“the term ‘severe mental pain or suffering’ shall be applied … in accordance with the meaning given that term in section 2340(2) of this title”).

xiii 18 U.S.C. § 2340.

xiv 18 U.S.C. § 2340(2). (defining the term “severe mental pain or suffering”) (emphasis added)

xv Id.

xvi National Defense Authorization Act ,§ 1403..

xvii Letter from Allen S. Keller, Program Dir., Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, Gerald P. Koocher, President, American Psychological Association, Burton J. Lee, Physician to the President for George H.W. Bush, Bradley D. Olson, Chair, Divisions for Social Justice, American Psychological Association, Pedro Ruiz, President of the American Psychiatric Association), Steven S. Sharfstein, Immediate Past President, American Psychiatric Association, Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, (Ret. U.S.A) and Philip G. Zimbardo, Prof. Emeritus, Stanford & past President, American Psychological Association, to Sen. John McCain (Sept. 21, 2006) available at http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/news-2006-09-22.htm (accessed Apr. 26, 2007).

xviii PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, BREAK THEM DOWN: THE SYSTEMATIC USE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE BY U.S. FORCES,48-72 (2005), available at http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/report-2005-may.html (accessed Apr. 26, 2007) [hereinafter PHR, BREAK THEM DOWN].

xix Basoglu, M., et al., “Torture vs Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment,” Archives of General Psychiatry, vol. 64, No. 3, March 2007, pp. 277-285.

xx AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION, DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL, (Washington, DC. 4th Ed. 2000) (serves as the main diagnostic reference of mental health professionals in the United States of America) [hereinafter APA MANUAL]; U.N. OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, ISTANBUL PROTOCOL: MANUAL ON THE EFFECTIVE INVESTIGATION AND DOCUMENTATION OF TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN AND DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT 44 (2001). [hereinafter ISTANBUL PROTOCOL] The UN Commission on Human Rights in April, 2000, and the General Assembly on December, 2000, adopted resolution 55/89, the “Principles on the effective investigation and documentation of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”, commonly known as the Istanbul Protocol. The Istanbul Protocol is intended to provide international guidelines for the assessment of victims who alleged torture and ill-treatment and describes the fundamental principles of any viable investigation into incidents of torture. The manual was the result of three years of work of more than 75 experts in law, health and human rights, representing 40 organizations or institutions from 15 countries.; Ronald C. Kessler, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: The Burden to the Individual and to Society, 61 J. CLIN. PSYCHIATRY 61(suppl. 5) 4–12 (2000).

xxi Moisander PA & Erik Edston, Torture and its sequel–a comparison between victims from six countries, Forensic Science International. 137(2-3):133-40 (Nov. 26, 2003).

xxii Mollica RF. Surviving torture. New England Journal of Medicine. 351(1):5-7, 2004 Jul 1.

xxiii ISTANBUL PROTOCOL, supra note 20 at 44.

xxiv MAJ. GEN. GEORGE R. FAY, AR 15-6 INVESTIGATION OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AT ABU GHRAIB, Aug. 2004, at 9-10, available at http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/reports/ar15-6/AR15-6.pdf (accessed Apr. 26, 2007); see also PHR BREAK THEM DOWN, supra note 18, at 7.

xxv See generally ISTANBUL PROTOCOL, supra note 20.

2 comments July 22nd, 2007

Karl Kraus on War

War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.

[h/t Scott Horton]

Add comment July 22nd, 2007

Psychologists respond to Vanity Fair revelations on psychologists’ responsibility for CIA torture

Here is the press release from Coalition for an Ethical APA responding to last night’s Vanity Fair revelations on the central role of psychologists in designing, conducting, and teaching torture in the CIA’s secret torture centers. The article also documents the spread of these techniques from the CIA “black sites” to standrad use in other venues, including Guantanamo and Iraq.

July 17, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Shocking Report Showing Involvement of US Psychologists in Torture of Military Detainees Requires Emergency Reform of American Psychological Association, Says Coalition of Psychologists

Today’s deeply disturbing revelations in Vanity Fair show the essential role US psychologists played in the torture of detainees in CIA and Department of Defense (DoD) custody, heightening the urgent need for the American Psychological Association (APA) to issue clear ethical guidelines prohibiting psychologists in the military or intelligence services from violating basic human rights as part of interrogation processes, the Coalition for an Ethical APA stated. [The article is available at http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/07/torture200707?printable=true&currentPage=all] When read in conjunction with the recently declassified Defense Department investigation which revealed that psychologists re-engineered counter-terrorist training techniques as mechanisms for detainee abuse at Guantánamo, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, this article is an indictment not only of participating psychologists, but of the Association which refuses to condemn these practices.

In early 2005, the APA appointed a Presidential Task Force to form ethics policy that was dominated by psychologists from the military and intelligence establishment, some of whom were involved in the very interrogation chains of command now shown to have facilitated abuse. The ethics policy of the APA and the report of the APA’s Presidential Task Force, taken together, currently allow psychologists to participate in national security interrogations, unlike physicians and psychiatrists, and even permits contravening the ethics code when faced with a conflicting “lawful order” from a governing authority.

“After two years of reports that psychologists were aiding abusive interrogations, we now have clear evidence that psychologists directly participated in torture. During this time the APA, the main voice of the psychological profession, has closed its eyes and ears to all reports of abuse” said Dr. Stephen Soldz, Director of the Center for Research, Evaluation and Program Development of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis

The Vanity Fair article reports the role of psychologists in developing the CIA’s regime of abusive interrogations (”torture”). The article states “that psychologists weren’t merely complicit in America’s aggressive new interrogation regime. Psychologists, working in secrecy, had actually designed the tactics and trained interrogators in them while on contract to the CIA.” Psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen of the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program were brought in by the CIA to use SERE techniques, developed to help our soldiers resist collaboration if captured, to break down detainees.

While Mitchell and Jessen used so-called “enhanced” techniques such as waterboarding (i.e., simulated drowning), most of their techniques became staples of interrogation tactics toward detainees in the war on terror and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article quotes one source as describing the Mitchell and Jessen approach as being to “break down [the detainees] through isolation, [use] white noise, completely take away their ability to predict the future, [and] create dependence on interrogators.” The description of these techniques matches those techniques described by former interrogator Tony Lagouranis in his new book, Fear Up Harsh as being used by numerous interrogators in Iraq.

The article also makes clear that the sometimes misplaced prestige of psychology as a science and the importance of the supposed “scientific credentials” of the SERE psychologists were crucial to the acceptance of these abusive techniques by general interrogation staff and superiors alike. The article additionally reports that the APA supported the claim that Mitchell and Jessen had specialized scientific knowledge by inviting them to a joint APA-Rand Corporation, CIA-funded conference on the “Science of Deception: Integration of Practice and Theory.” This conference debated “the effectiveness of truth serum and other coercive techniques,” according to Vanity Fair.

The article also reports that the these SERE-based techniques developed by Mitchell and Jessen in the CIA’s secret “black sites” proliferated to other venues where detainees were interrogated, including Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The proliferation of SERE techniques was aided by the scientific “patina” afforded by psychology, as stated in the article by Human Rights Watch’s John Sifton. The article further reports that psychologists at Guantanamo participated in interrogations as judges of abuse levels, as “safety officers” deciding just how much abuse a given detainee could tolerate. This very role has been objected to by other health provider organizations, including the American Medical Association.

Since 2005, multiple press reports and government documents have clearly demonstrated that US military and intelligence service psychologists were involved in developing a regime of psychological torture for use on suspected terrorists. In May, the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (OIG) declassified a report revealing that psychologists from the military’s SERE program worked with US military psychologists at Guantanamo tasked with “developing the standard operating procedure” for interrogations using tactics that violate the Geneva Conventions. The OIG report also documented that these SERE psychologists played a role in bringing abusive interrogation techniques to Iraq and that the SERE-based techniques also migrated to Afghanistan. [The OIG report is available at: http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/abuse.pdf].

“When the APA leadership chose psychologists to formulate its ethical position on interrogations and torture, they included six from the military and intelligence services, some of whom were in the chain of command that directed the abuse.” said Steven Reisner, of the Coalition for an Ethical APA and Columbia University’s International Trauma Studies Program. “Is it really any surprise that, unlike psychiatrists and physicians who prohibited their members’ participation in interrogation, the APA concluded that psychologists could abandon ‘do no harm’ in favor of ‘break them down?’”

Increasingly, as the number of these reports multiplied, members of the APA have called for the Association to unequivocally condemn the use of psychological knowledge for purposes of coercion, abuse and torture, and to take concrete steps to prevent further participation of psychologists in abusive interrogations. In June, the Coalition for an Ethical APA sent an Open Letter to the President of the APA, Dr. Sharon Brehm, demanding swift and comprehensive changes in APA policy. In six weeks, the number of signatories to the letter has risen to over 650. The APA leadership has yet to respond to this letter. Soon afterwards, 58 psychologists from the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs issued an additional letter expressing outrage over the failure of the APA to adequately respond to the growing evidence of psychologist involvement in torture. Numerous individual psychologists have written additional letters of protest, and a group of APA members has organized a campaign to withhold their dues until the APA changes its ethical policy to prohibit such abuses.

“The evidence was strong and is now irrefutable,” states Brad Olson, chair of Divisions for Social Justice (DSJ), a collection of divisions within the APA, and faculty member at Northwestern University, “psychologists not only organized abusive interrogations, they directly participated in torture itself. APA members and psychologists everywhere will not stop our efforts until the APA changes its policy to prevent these disturbing violations of human rights from happening again.”

The APA leadership has stated repeatedly that psychologists’ participation in interrogations help keep interrogations “safe, legal, ethical, and effective.” The public record now suggests that the exact opposite is the case.

In response, the Coalition for an Ethical APA today reasserted its call for basic changes in APA policy regarding participation in interrogations and for fundamental reforms in the Association to prevent the reoccurrence of such catastrophic ethical breaches in the future, the Coalition said. The Coalition believes it is critical that the APA take immediate steps to remedy the damage done to the reputation of the profession and its ethical standards, to the Association, and to human rights, in general.

The group urgently recommends the following:

1. The President of the APA must immediately acknowledge errors and abuses committed by its leadership, and substantively reaffirm its commitment to promoting adherence by all psychologists to international human rights standards.

2. The APA Board of Directors and Ethics Committee must endorse the APA Moratorium on psychologist participation in interrogations of foreign detainees, to be voted upon at the August convention.

3. The APA Board of Directors must encourage, support, and cooperate with ongoing Senate investigations into the role of psychologist’s utilization of SERE techniques in developing the US regime of psychological torture used at Guantanamo, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the CIA Black Sites, and elsewhere.

4. The APA Board of Directors must commence a neutral third-party investigation of its own involvement, and that of APA staff, in APA-military conflicts of interest. Among the issues this investigation must examine are:

a) the numerous procedural irregularities alleged to have occurred during the PENS process;

b) the role of the military and intelligence agencies in the formation and functioning of the PENS Task Force;

c) the reasons the APA and its leadership have systematically ignored the accumulating evidence that psychologists participating in interrogations are contributing to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, rather than helping to prevent it;

d) the overall nexus of close ties between the APA staff/leadership and the military and intelligence agencies, ties that may have contributed to a climate that permits undo influence of military and intelligence agencies in the creation of these policies and that encourages turning a blind eye to abuse;

e) the transformation of the APA Ethics Code, from one that protects psychologists’ ethical conduct when such conduct conflicts with law and military regulations to one that protects psychologists who follow unethical law and military regulations.

The Coalition for an Ethical APA calls on all concerned APA members and other psychologists to join them by signing the Open Letter to APA President Sharon Brehm at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/BrehmLetter/, to participate actively in mini-convention sessions on ethics and interrogation at the APA Convention in San Francisco beginning this August 18th, and to join the demonstrations planned for this Convention [information available at http://ethicalapa.com/].

The Coalition for an Ethical APA unites psychologists deeply concerned about our Association’s failure to act on this major crisis facing our profession.

1 comment July 17th, 2007