DoD Report Reveals Some Detainees Interrogated While Drugged, Others "Chemically Restrained"

Reposted with permission from Truthout

by Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold
Original date of publication, July 11, 2012

Detainees in custody of the US military were interrogated while drugged with powerful antipsychotic and other medications that "could impair an individual's ability to provide accurate information," according to a declassified Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general's report that probed the alleged use of "mind altering drugs" during interrogations.

In addition, detainees were subjected to "chemical restraints," hydrated with intravenous (IV) fluids while they were being interrogated and, in what appears to be a form of psychological manipulation, the inspector general's probe confirmed at least one detainee - convicted "dirty bomb" plotter Jose Padilla - was the subject of a "deliberate ruse" in which his interrogator led him to believe he was given an injection of "truth serum."

Truthout obtained a copy of the report - "Investigation of Allegations of the Use of Mind-Altering Drugs to Facilitate Interrogations of Detainees" - prepared by the DoD's deputy inspector general for intelligence in September 2009, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request we filed nearly two years ago.

Over the past decade, dozens of current and former detainees and their civilian and military attorneys have alleged in news reports and in court documents that prisoners held by the US government in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan were forcibly injected with unknown medications and pills during or immediately prior to marathon interrogation sessions in an attempt to compel them to confess to terrorist-related crimes of which they were accused.

The inspector general's investigation was unable to substantiate any of the allegations by current and former detainees that, as a matter of government policy, they were given mind-altering drugs "to facilitate interrogation."

But the watchdog's report provides startling new details about the treatment of detainees by US military personnel. For example, the report concludes, "certain detainees, diagnosed as having serious mental health conditions being treated with psychoactive medications on a continuing basis, were interrogated."

Leonard Rubenstein, a medical ethicist at Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights and the former president of Physicians for Human Rights, said, "this practice adds another layer of cruelty to the operations at Guantanamo."

"The inspector general's report confirms that detainees whose mental deterioration and suffering was so great as to lead to psychosis and attempts at self-harm were given anti-psychotic medication and subjected to further interrogation," said Rubenstein, who reviewed a copy of the report for Truthout. "The problem is not simply what the report implies, that good information is unlikely to be obtained when someone shows psychotic symptoms, but the continued use of highly abusive interrogation methods against men who are suffering from grave mental deterioration that may have been caused by those very same methods."

Shayana Kadidal, the senior managing atty of the Guantanamo Project at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the report, which he also reviewed, "reinforces that the interrogation system at Guantanamo was a brutal system."

"One of the things that struck me after reading this," Kadidal said, "is under the system set up by the [US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia], any statements detainees made during these interrogations would be presumed accurate even if detainees took medication that could produce unreliable information."

"The burden ends up falling upon the detainee to prove what was said wasn't accurate if they were challenging their detention" in habeas corpus proceedings, Kadidal added.

Explaining the rationale behind forcibly drugging detainees, the former commander of the Joint Medical Group at Guantanamo said, "some detainees were involuntarily medicated to help control serious mental illnesses," according to the report, which added that an ethics committee approved of such plans.

"For example, one detainee had a piece of shrapnel in his brain which resulted in control problems and a limited ability to provide effective consent," the report said.

The detainee with the shrapnel injury may be Abu Zubaydah. In 1992, Zubaydah had suffered a shrapnel wound to the head while fighting on the front lines of a civil war in Afghanistan. Brent Mickum, Zubaydah's habeas attorney, said the high-value detainee has been routinely overdosed with Haldol, the only drug the inspector general identified that was used on certain detainees.

But the report suggests detainees were often not told what types of drugs they were given when they asked or for what purpose it was administered.

Brandon Neely, a former Guantanamo guard who was at the prison facility the day it opened in January 2002, told Truthout, "medics never informed the detainees what the medication was."

"The medics walked around with little white cups that had pills in it a couple of times a day," said Neely, who sometimes accompanied the medics when they distributed the medication. He added that if detainees refused to take it an "Immediate Reaction Force" team, who guards would call to deal with resistant or combative detainees, would administer the medication to prisoners by force.

Rubenstein said the failure to inform prisoners what drugs they were given means "some basic principles of medical ethics were cast aside, especially those requiring a doctor to explain his or her recommendation and seek consent for it as an affirmation of the dignity and autonomy of the patient."
"Even where consent is not forthcoming and involuntary medication is allowed after voluntary medication is not accepted, it should never take place unless this process is followed," Rubenstein said.

The cumulative effects of indefinite detention, interrogations, use of drugs, and other conditions of confinement also appear to have taken a toll on the detainees' mental state and impacted the DoD watchdog's ability to conduct a thorough investigation.

Indeed, when the inspector general sought to interview the attorney representing one detainee who claimed he was given mind-altering drugs during interrogations, the attorney responded, "at this state of his incarceration, [redacted] memory is severely compromised and, unfortunately, we are skeptical that he can provide you with any further details ..."

The investigation also found instances where "chemical restraints" were used on detainees "that posed a threat to themselves or others," which Rubenstein said, "is contrary to US Bureau of Prison regulations, decisions of the US Supreme Court and to medical ethics principles that forbid subordinating the patient's medical interests to prison security."

Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Defense Department spokesman, said, "as a matter of long-standing department policy," he could not comment on whether "chemical restraints" continue to be part of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), also known as Tactics, Techniques, Procedures (TTPs), at Guantanamo and other prisons operated by the DoD because "doing so might not only compromise security but [the SOPs] are 'living' documents, subject to regular change and updating."

Media Report Sparked Probe

The inspector general's yearlong probe was launched in June 2008, two months after the publication of a Washington Post report in which some detainees claimed they were forcibly drugged and coerced into making confessions.

One of the detainees at the center of The Washington Post report, Adel al-Nusairi, a former Saudi policeman who was imprisoned at Guantanamo from 2002 to 2005, is prominently featured in the inspector general's report and identified as "IG-02."

According to his attorney's notes cited in The Washington Post, al-Nusairi claimed he was injected with an unknown medication that made him extremely sleepy just before he was interrogated in 2002. When his captors awakened him, he fabricated a confession for US interrogators in hopes they would leave him alone so he could sleep.

"I was completely gone," al-Nusairi told his attorney, Anant Raut. "I said, 'Let me go. I want to go to sleep. If it takes saying I'm a member of al-Qaeda, I will.'"

The inspector general's review of al-Nusairi's medical records showed he was diagnosed as "schizophrenic and psychotic with borderline personality disorder" and injected with Haldol, a powerful antipsychotic medication, whose side effects include lethargy, tremors, anxiety, mood changes and "an inability to remain motionless," according to the watchdog's report.

Haldol can also cause the usually irreversible movement disorder known as tardive dyskinesia. But the inspector general did not say that in his report. The inspector general noted al-Nusairi had told his interrogators he was being forced to take monthly injections that he no longer wanted to receive. The report said "uncooperative" detainees were sometimes forcibly injected with psychoactive medications.

But the investigation concluded there was "no evidence that [al-Nusairi] was administered shots during interrogation."

Despite his diagnosis and the unreliability of the information he provided to his interrogators due to the effects of the antipsychotic medication, al-Nusairi was declared an enemy combatant after he confessed to being a member of al-Qaeda and imprisoned at Guantanamo for three more years before finally being repatriated to Saudi Arabia.

"I think any rational person would agree that confessions of terrorism while under the influence of mind-altering drugs are about credible as professions of love while under the influence of alcohol," Raut, al-Nusairi's attorney, told Truthout.

Two days after The Washington Post story was published, then-Sen. Joe Biden, who at the time was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Sen. Chuck Hagel, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, sent a letter to DoD Inspector General Claude Kicklighter urging him to investigate the detainees' allegations and to focus solely on whether the Department of Defense and its sub-agencies issued written and/or oral policy authorizing the use of "mind-altering drugs to facilitate interrogations."

The CIA's inspector general also conducted an investigation at the request of the Democratic lawmakers into the claims about the use of mind-altering drugs pertaining to detainees in custody of the agency. That report, which Truthout is also seeking under the FOIA, remains classified.

Investigative Gaps

The inspector general reviewed Department of Defense interrogation policy from 2001 through 2008 and interviewed more than 70 military intelligence and medical officials who had oversight of detainee operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. Top military intelligence officials interviewed by the inspector general said they were "unaware" of any special access "black" program, policies, direction or order authorizing the use of drugs as an interrogation tactic or to "facilitate interrogations."

The watchdog also looked at classified and open-source documents, including detainees' medical records and 1,620 interrogation plans covering 411 detainees between August 2002 and January 2005.

"No interrogation plans were noted which mentioned drugging, medicating, or threatening to drug or medicate a detainee to facilitate interrogation," according to the report, which added that a separate review of detainees' medical records documenting their "physical and psychological care and treatment" did not turn up any evidence "of mind-altering drugs being administered for the purposes of interrogation."

"The 'headline' here is that there's no evidence of any organized, systematic [Department of Defense] effort to use drugs for interrogation purposes," said Gregg Bloche, the author of "The Hippocratic Myth" and a health policy expert and professor of law at Georgetown University who also reviewed the inspector general's report for Truthout. "Can isolated cases of drug use for interrogation purposes be absolutely ruled out? No - as the report acknowledges, there are gaps in evidence available to the [inspector general]. But if there were such cases, they were likely few and far between."

But it appears that the probe did not scrutinize other documents, such as a second set of detainee medical records maintained by the Behavioral Science Consultant Teams or BSCTs that may have contained information relevant to the inspector general's investigation into the use of mind-altering drugs during interrogations.

The BSCTs were made up of psychologists and other mental health technicians and, at one time, psychiatrists. The BSCTs work closely with interrogators in crafting interrogation plans based on the psychological assessments of a detainee's weaknesses. The BSCT psychiatrists and at least one psychologist who passed a special Defense Department psychopharmacology program were able to administer drugs, at least in principle.

Human rights activists have long believed the Defense Department controlled a second set of detainee medical records, but evidence never surfaced to support the suspicions.

However, Truthout has uncovered previously unreported testimony from Army Surgeon General Kevin Kiley's 2005 report on detainee medical operations in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan (pg. 18-13) that confirms the suggestion.

Kiley indicated that, while BSCTs were not medical personnel and "did not document the medical condition of detainees in the medical record," they "did keep a restricted database which provided medical information on detainees."

Rubenstein added, "if drugs were used those BSCT records should be consulted."

Jose Padilla and "A Deliberate Ruse"

The report also delves into the area of so-called "truth" drugs, which are administered for their presumed mind-altering effects.

Since the start of the "war on terror," intelligence officials have publicly said drugs like sodium pentothal should be introduced in interrogations as a way of getting "uncooperative" detainees to talk.

"We ought to look at what options are out there," former FBI and CIA Director William Webster told reporters in 2002.

The inspector general's report pointed to instances in which top military officials had considered introducing "truth" drugs during interrogations. The watchdog cited an October 2, 2002 meeting of Guantanamo interrogation command and legal staff where the use of "truth serum" on detainees was discussed as having a "placebo effect."

George Bimmerle discussed the use of placebos as ersatz "truth drugs" in a classic 1961 CIA text titled "'Truth' Drugs in Interrogation." Bimmerle wrote that placebos are "most likely to be effective in situations of stress." The drugs are described as acting upon "a subject's sense of guilt," absolving a prisoner under interrogation of responsibility for giving up information, because it is assumed the effect of the drug was to blame.

Interrogators utilized the "placebo effect" when they questioned convicted terrorist Jose Padilla, a US citizen who was arrested in May 2002 on suspicion of plotting to build and detonate a dirty bomb and held as an enemy combatant at the US Naval Brig in South Carolina.

Padilla's federal public defender, Michael Caruso, in a 2006 federal court filing, claimed Padilla was "given drugs against his will, believed to be some form of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or phencyclidine (PCP), to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations."

Sanford Seymour, the technical director of the US Naval brig in South Carolina where Padilla was held, however, vehemently denied the charge during a 2006 hearing to determine whether Padilla, a US citizen, was competent to stand trial. Seymour asserted Padilla was injected with an influenza vaccine.

But what Seymour failed to disclose, reported here for the first time, was that Padilla was given the flu shot during an interrogation session and told by his interrogators the injection was "truth serum."

The inspector general's probe determined "the incorporation of a routine flu shot into an interrogation session ... was a deliberate ruse by the interrogation team, intended to convince [redacted, Padilla] he had been administered a mind-altering drug," such as LSD.

Investigators from the inspector general's office reached that conclusion after a visit to the Naval Brig where they reviewed records and interviewed Brig officials about Padilla's claims.

Padilla's name is redacted from the report, but it's clear, based on the detailed descriptions of the allegations, the inspector general is referring to him. The report says the FBI and Joint Task Force 170, the "predecessor organization" of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, interrogated Padilla from June 2002 through October 2002. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) took over his interrogations from October 2002 through March 2003 at which point the FBI and DIA jointly conducted the interrogations.

The inspector general's office also viewed some of Padilla's interrogation videotapes where Padilla "expressed concern about the possible use of drugs to induce him to cooperate with the interrogators."

"The most detailed discussion of truth serum occurred on November 14, 2002, after [redacted] declined to take a polygraph examination," according to the inspector general's report. "The interrogation video recording depicts that following the polygraph declination, [redacted] and the interrogator had a discussion of other techniques which could be used to verify [redacted] statements. Among the techniques described by the interrogator was the use of a 'truth serum.'"

At the end of the tape, according to the inspector general, the interrogator told Padilla, "There is no such thing as a 'truth serum.'" But the initial suggestion apparently affected the detainee when he was given a flu shot during his interrogation session about three weeks later. Padilla asked his interrogator why he was given a shot.

"It was necessary," the interrogator said, "and proceeded to ask [redacted] what kind of shot he received."

Padilla said he was told it was a flu shot, but as the interrogation wore on he said he did not feel well and asked, "what did you shoot me with? Did you shoot me with serum?"
Bloche, the health policy expert and Georgetown University law professor, said the ruse interrogators pulled on Padilla "sounds like a juvenile prank."

"But it's a serious breach of medical ethics," Bloche said. "It undermines trust in military physicians and it's an unfair insult to the integrity of the vast majority of military doctors, who quite rightly believe that this sort of thing is contrary to their professional obligation."

The inspector general rebuked a government agency - possibly the DIA or FBI - involved in Padilla's interrogation for failing "to follow legal review procedures" established by US Joint Forces Command.

Padilla was convicted of terrorism support charges in 2007. Recently, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal Padilla filed against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials. The high court let stand an appeals court ruling, which dismissed Padilla's complaint related to his treatment at the Naval Brig. Caruso, Padilla's federal public defender, did not return messages left at his Miami office for comment about the inspector general's conclusions.

But just a few months after the deception on Padilla, according to the inspector general's probe, an unnamed DIA "representative" came up with a list of 40 techniques at the request of a Pentagon "working group" overseen by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that met between January and April 2003 to discuss interrogation methods to use on detainees captured in the global war on terror.

The "DIA representative" was identified in a declassified 2009 Senate Armed Services Committee report that probed the treatment of detainees in custody of the US military as Dave Becker, the Interrogation Control Element (ICE) Chief at Guantanamo. Becker recommended to the "working group" the use of drugs, "such as sodium pentothal and Demerol," which was number 40 on the list of interrogation methods presented to the "working group." Becker said those drugs "could prove to be effective" and "relaxes detainee to a cooperative state."

When Senate Armed Services Committee investigators interviewed him about the list of interrogation techniques, Becker said he had recommended the "use of drugs" to Rumsfeld's panel because he'd heard "a rumor" that another agency "had used drugs in their interrogation program."

The inspector general's report went on to say the working group ultimately rejected the use of drugs. But the report failed to mention an important document: a March 2003 legal opinion sent to Pentgaon general counsel William "Jim" Haynes by Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel attorney John Yoo, which said drugs could be used in interrogations as long as they did not "disrupt profoundly the senses or personality." Yoo's memo was cited in the senators' letter to the inspector general calling for the investigation. It's unclear why it was not mentioned in the watchdog's report.

The investigation also reviewed published reports prepared by the US government and human rights organizations revolving around the treatment of detainees in US custody. One report scrutinized was Kiley's 2005 US Army surgeon general report on detainee medical operations in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan, which said a doctor refused "to provide cough syrup as a 'truth drug'" to an Iraqi detainee. The inspector general interviewed this doctor, who indicated the request, which he turned down as unethical, came from his "brigade S-2 (Intelligence Officer)."

The surgeon general's report also said a licensed practical nurse saw "sedatives (ativan, diazepam, etc.) being used by medical personnel to calm a [Iraqi] detainee so that the detainee would talk more."

According to the DoD inspector general's investigation, after the watchdog attempted to obtain a sworn statement from the nurse, identified in its report as a "non-commissioned officer," about the use of sedatives on detainees, the nurse "elected to make a corrective statement" to what he had claimed three years earlier.

"Sedatives were only given to patient detainees to alleviate pain," the nurse's statement now says.

"They Said It Was Some Candy"

The inspector general's office also received permission from the deputy secretary of defense to interview three detainees in January 2009 about their claims of being forcibly drugged during interrogations. An attorney for one of the detainees declined the interview request. The inspector general did not attempt to interview detainees who claimed they were administered mind-altering drugs during interrogations and have since been repatriated.

The names of the two detainees interviewed are redacted in the report.

The detainee told the inspector general after he was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, by Pakistanis in September 2002 where he held for three days he was transferred to the "Prison of Darkness," in Kabul, Afghanistan for 40 days. He was then sent to the US prison base at Bagram for about a week and then shipped off to Guantanamo.

"[Redacted] stated that during an interrogation at Bagram he was given pills; green and red ones," according to statements the detainee gave the inspector general in April 2009. "After I ate like three of them, my tongue started getting heavier. After that, I woke up and they (interrogators) said thank you very much, we've got what we need. After I ate the stuff, it was like a state of delusion ... it took like three-four days to (feel normal again). I was not normal until I came to Cuba and then I started to feel my mind back. It was a state of delusion. Like everything was a dream. My sensation was not great."

The inspector general asked the detainee if he was told what the pills were.

"At the time they said it was some candy. And I was so hungry so I ate it," the detainee said.

The inspector general then asked the detainee if it was possible what he had experienced at the "Prison of Darkness" was due to exhaustion.

"I don't remember exactly," the detainee said. "If you saw my condition in the Prison of Darkness after 40 days of being tortured and having to stand all the time at Bagram. Those were things consuming my mind at the time ... when I start to remember that, I get somewhat upset, because it was a terrible event in my life. When you had been standing for three-four days in a row, I was so tired, I was exhausted. I can't describe those sensations."

Interrogators who questioned the detainee were interviewed by the inspector general's office. They did not remember the detainee "as each had interrogated over 100 persons during their respected assignments." They denied giving detainees drugs or medication for "interrogation purposes" and never witnessed other military personnel administer detainees drugs. The interrogators said, however, they "frequently gave the detainees food and candy to reward or encourage them to talk," such as "Fruit Loops," "Jolly Ranchers," "cookies," "suckers," and "Taffy's."

"Based on the statements provided by the interrogators and lacking any evidence of drugging, we concluded that we could not substantiate [redacted] allegation," the inspector general's probe concluded.

The inspector general also interviewed a detainee who was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in March 2002 and claimed after he was transferred to Guantanamo that summer an interrogator told him "he would give me something that will make me talk."

However, the watchdog was unable "to correlate this information with records and documents pertaining to [the detainee's] interrogations."

Responding to the completion of the investigation in August 2009, J. Alan Liotta, the principal director in the office of detainee policy, warned in a letter to the inspector general signing off on the document, "The release of this report is likely to generate media attention."

"Please keep our office informed as to when it will be released and efforts to craft talking points regarding the release," Liotta wrote, signing off on the report.

Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

APA "Casebook" on Psychologist Ethics and Interrogations Fails to Convince

A new proposed "casebook" on psychologist ethics in national security settings, written by the Ethics Committee of the American Psychological Association (APA), tells psychologists that when assessing whether an interrogation technique is abusive or not, they should consider, among other factors, whether there are "data to support that the technique is effective in gathering accurate information." This determination, which places the needs of the military or intelligence gathering entity above that of the person the psychologist is examining, demonstrates how blatantly unethical it is for psychologists to participate in these interrogations.

While it's shocking that APA would call upon psychologists to weigh an interrogation technique's "effectiveness" with other ethical standards, it's even crazier when one considers it took them six years to write this up, having been originally tasked with writing an "ethics casebook" for interrogations back in 2005.

The vignettes that would compose the "casebook" were apparently posted (PDF) by APA for public comments last June, but APA failed to notify their membership, or really anyone. The earliest comment posted was on August 18. In a comment posted by Nina Thomas, a psychologist who was one of the few non-military, non-intelligence-linked members on the 2005 Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) panel hastily assembled to formulate APA policy on psychologists and interrogations, Thomas decried the lack of notification of the membership.

"A barely three month period for responses does not seem adequate when we have not previously known anything about the progress on this work," Thomas wrote. She also indicated that progress on the casebook's development had not been regularly reported to APA's Council of Representatives. (The mandate to produce such a "casebook" goes back to 2005.) Thomas had other criticisms as well, writing, "It is my hope and aim that the Ethics Committee will seriously rethink its charge and return to Council with a request for a revised mandate."

The petition resolution affirmed by the membership of APA [in 2008] makes perfectly clear that psychologists are prohibited from working in settings in which people are held outside of or in violation of either international law or the U.S. Constitution. The only exceptions to this prohibition are in cases in which a psychologist is working directly for the person being detained, for an independent third party working to protect human rights or providing treatment to military personnel. These major and ultimately most important points do not have sufficient presence in this casebook as currently devised.

Over and over the APA "casebook" advises members to seek "consultation" about any difficult ethical situation, while advising psychologists to rely on a host of human rights documents, APA resolutions, and the APA ethics code to "guide" them. But psychologists shouldn't even be in these torture settings to begin with!

The petition resolution referenced by Thomas was a member-initiated petition that was passed in a referendum vote in 2008 by a membership unhappy with APA's policy on interrogations, and implemented by APA's Council in 2009. The resolution states that "psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights."

But APA has adamantly refused to set up a process that would actually determine when such a detention setting is in violation of the law, even while sententiously expressing "grave concern" over reports of torture and abuse at U.S. military and CIA interrogation and detention centers. According to one "casebook" instruction, "the psychologist ... would need to determine whether the site is a lawful or unlawful detention setting." If APA can't or won't make such a determination, how can they expect an individual psychologist to do this, and feel they will be backed up by their organization for doing so?

APA has refused to follow the policy of the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association in instructing their membership not to participate in interrogations. Indeed, it was the contention of the 2005 APA PENS panel that "it is consistent with the APA Ethics Code for psychologists to serve in consultative roles to interrogation and information-gathering processes for national security-related purposes, as psychologists have a long-standing tradition of doing in other law enforcement contexts."

Nothing in the new "casebook" is really any different than the position APA derived in the 2005 PENS report (PDF). The psychologist is supposed to walk an ethical tightrope while serving as "consultant" to interrogations, admonished to report torture or other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment (as defined by law), and to engage in research beneficial to national security aims. All the while, APA's seemingly benign admonishments cover a policy of support to detention and interrogation policies that amount to torture, using various legalistic loopholes built into a 2002 rewrite of the Ethics Code to allow the unethical use of psychologist expertise to brain-trust the torture.

APA concludes that psychologists should report torture to the "appropriate authorities." Furthermore, "If the psychologist was not satisfied with the result of reporting such concerns, the psychologist would consider other reporting avenues such as the judge advocate and/or the inspector general." It all sounds good, until you realize that such reporting rarely goes anywhere, and it beggars all knowledge of social psychology to believe that one individual will buck an entire system and put their careers on the line to protest. This is even more true when one considers that previous investigations of detainee torture have either minimized or covered up significant aspects of the torture.

The one case that APA often cites where a psychologist protested torture concerns NCIS psychologist Michael Gelles, who protested the torture protocol for Mohamed Al Qahtani. Two salient points are connected with that case. One is that it didn't stop the torture, both of Al Qahtani, nor the spread of the torture program throughout the Department of Defense. Two, Gelles was not just protesting a torture protocol, he was proposing a different program of psychological torture based primarily on the application of extreme isolation of the prisoner, who was reportedly already manifesting psychotic behavior.

Another example of the impotency of the policy of protest concerns the CIA torture of Abu Zubaydah. Planned by two former SERE psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the "enhanced interrogation techniques" applied to Zubaydah, which included stress positions, placing him into a closed box with insects, waterboarding, sleep deprivation and more, led then chief operational psychologist for the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism center, R. Scott Shumate to leave the interrogation "in disgust, leaving before the most dire tactics had commenced," according to a 2007 article by Katherine Eban in Vanity Fair.

There is no evidence that Shumate protested the torture up the chain of command. Indeed, the torture continued, and was extended to others. Shumate, whatever he did, was rewarded by being put on the APA PENS panel.

APA cannot help but confuse the "casebook" instructions by mixing use of the ethics code as a guideline with advice laid down by DoD in the Army Field Manual for interrogations: "'If the proposed approach technique were used by the enemy against one of your fellow soldiers, would you believe the soldier had been abused?'.... if the answer to this question is yes, 'the contemplated action should not be conducted.'" The problem is, as has been amply documented, it is the military and/or CIA psychologists who are proposing the "techniques" to begin with, or following orders from those higher in the chain of command (see here, and here, and here, for instance).

Psychologists Speak Out

Dan Aalbers, one of the authors of the APA petition resolution told The Dissenter, "I didn't understand until fairly recently how few obligations remain in the APA's ethics code: if you use these quite useful pdfs [comparing the 1992 and 2002 ethical codes] and search for words and phrases that denote obligation -- 'must' 'should', 'do not' and 'obligation' itself -- you will quickly find that most of these phrases appear in the 1992 revision of the ethics code and, more often than not, the 2002 code saddles psychologists with no obligation greater than due consideration. Psychologists 'must' consider the consequences their actions -- but they are not prevented from doing much.... The 2002 ethics code should be thrown out and the 1992 code -- with its strictures on informed consent, on clarification of role, and obligations to avoid multiple relationships -- reinstated."

One good example of what Aalbers is talking about is Section 3.04 of the Ethics Code, to which the "casebook" authors often refer. It states, "Psychologists take reasonable steps to avoid harming their clients/patients..." Not "Do Not Harm," but the taking of "reasonable steps." Indeed, until the membership and some of the human rights community raised a hullaballoo, and even then only after eight years of stalling, did APA change its code last year regarding ethical conflicts with organizational authorities. Before this change, since 2002 the APA has instructed its membership that resolution of such conflicts could be resolved by simply following the authority in question (like the military) and not the ethical standard, should they be in conflict. Critics called this the Nuremberg Defense, referencing many a Nazi's defense against war crimes with the refrain that he was "only following orders."

Another psychologist who has been active in opposing APA's policies on interrogation, former president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility Stephen Soldz, also told The Dissenter that he was worried about aspects of the Ethics Code that relate to research. "Remember," Soldz said, "that [Ethics Codes] 8.05 ['Dispensing with Informed Consent'] and 8.07 ['Deception in Research'] still remain. 8.05 removes the requirement for informed consent for institutional research. And 8.07 raises the bar for psychological distress to rule out research deception, using language similar to the Convention Against Torture's definition of psychological torture. Meanwhile, the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group currently has former APA fellow Susan Brandon as Research Director. The HIG may have conducted and is apparently intending to conduct research on detainees. There are persistent rumors that research on detainees occurred as recent as last year (I'm not saying it ended, just have no current sources) in both Iraq and Afghanistan. While we don't know the nature of this research, there are some indications in the press that raise alarm.

"All this is simply to say that the interrogation issue is not a matter of the Bush administration and the past. Rather, it is still alive. And we should remember that research may have played a larger role in the need for psychologists than many of us originally realized."

Martha Davis, a forensic psychologist who has just completed a documentary about psychologists, interrogations and torture, "Doctors of the Dark Side," in a statement to The Dissenter cautioned that no fine tuning of the "casebook" would make things better (for the record, I was interviewed by Davis as part of the documentary):

I worry that IF the Ethics Committee were ever to do the right thing, extend the deadline, open the discussion up, and somehow put together another, much better Casebook that incorporated these suggestions and other good ones, then in effect, the casebook process would reinforce and "legitimize" the practice of having psychologists directly involved in interrogations. Every significant health and human rights organization has condemn this practice except the APA. The simple versions of "no direct involvement in interrogations" adopted by the AMA and ApA are understandable to everyone and the only way to guarantee that doctors "keep in their lane" etc., etc. We know so much more now than we did in 2005 -- so much of it ominous and disturbing. The practice is spreading beyond "national security" interrogations to US law enforcement settings. BSCT psychologists violate at least 10 parts of the APA Ethics Code (and that's without torture), and the role is incompatible with the new Specialty Guidelines of Forensic Psychology.

Len Rubenstein, Senior Scholar, Center for Human Rights and Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote an op-ed at Huffington Post last week, indicating he believed that a recent rewrite by APA of its forensic psychology guidelines should apply to psychologists and interrogations. Rubenstein, calling the PENS ethical guidelines "ethically untenable, little more than a shabby rationalization for severe ethical violations," noted that APA's new Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists call for complete transparency with the client, and eschews use of deception, both the opposite of military/CIA practice.

The guidelines also render intolerable the conflict of interest at the heart of the psychologists' role -- at once to advance intelligence gathering and to act as a "safety officer." The conflict, moreover, is likely to be resolved in favor of pressing for information, since the psychologists involved are classified as combatants, not clinicians (though they must be licensed to practice), and assigned to an intelligence chain of command. Whereas PENS sought to fudge the conflict by urging a "delicate balance of ethical considerations" the Specialty Guidelines insist on adherence to core obligations of integrity and fairness and avoidance of involvement in roles with conflicts of interest.

But according to forensic psychologist Karen Franklin, "These guidelines are not enforceable. And, like all such professional guidelines, they will be subject to diverse interpretations."

And it is in such a forest of conflicting interpretations, vague instructions, unenforceable prohibitions against torture, and the like, that APA hides complicity in the U.S. torture program, having determined that "national security psychology" is the wave of the future. The lack of accountability for psychologist collaboration with torture is the background for the entire discussion. It is more incumbent than ever that psychologists and other mental health professionals speak out against this amalgam of psychological science and practice with the art of coercive interrogation and persuasion, of the marriage of psychology with torture.

Also posted at Firedoglake/The Dissenter

Psychologists' Letter to AG Holder on OPR Report and Need for Torture Investigtions

Psychologists for an Ethical APA and Psychologists for Social Responsibility, and number of associated members have sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, expressing their upset the failure of the Department of Justice to hold the authors of the infamous torture memos responsible for their actions. In addition, they ask that the actions of psychologists in constructing and implementing the torture program be fully investigated.

The letter comes on the heels of two developments. One was the American Psychological Association's decision to finally drop the "Nuremberg clause" in their ethics code, which allowed members to follow unethical behaviors if they were ordered to by law or authority. Stephen Soldz has written an excellent, brief analysis on this, which readers should follow-up.

Secondly, the New York Times has published an op-ed by Leonard S. Rubenstein and retired Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, "Doctors Without Morals." Rubenstein and Xenakis charge DoJ's conclusion that the torture memos authors exercised nothing more than "poor judgment" as "questionable at best" and continue:

In contrast, the government doctors and psychologists who participated in and authorized the torture of detainees have escaped discipline, accountability or even internal investigation.

It is hardly news that medical staff at the C.I.A. and the Pentagon played a critical role in developing and carrying out torture procedures. Psychologists and at least one doctor designed or recommended coercive interrogation methods including sleep deprivation, stress positions, isolation and waterboarding. The military’s Behavioral Science Consultation Teams evaluated detainees, consulted their medical records to ascertain vulnerabilities and advised interrogators when to push harder for intelligence information....

Health professionals have a responsibility extending well beyond nonparticipation in torture; the historic maxim is, after all, “First do no harm.” These health professionals did the polar opposite.

Nevertheless, no agency — not the Pentagon, the C.I.A., state licensing boards or professional medical societies — has initiated any action to investigate, much less discipline, these individuals. They have ignored the gross and appalling violations by medical personnel. This is an unconscionable disservice to the thousands of ethical doctors and psychologists in the country’s service. It is not too late to begin investigations. They should start now.

Beltway wisdom is that investigations are dead in the water, but it doesn't have to be that way!

Here's a copy of the letter from ethical psychologists, angry at what some in their profession have done, and insistent that all actors responsible for torture be brought to account.

Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder,

We are psychologists who are working together to ensure that members of our profession never again engage in torture. We are disturbed by the conclusions of the report recently released by the Office of Professional Responsibility regarding the authors of the torture memoranda and by the report’s failure to hold the authors of U.S.’ torture policy accountable. We fear the consequences this failure will have for our profession and our country. One does not need to be a lawyer to see that the authors of the torture memos, Yoo, Bybee, Rizzo, Bradbury and unknown others, were neither providing policy makers with objective advice nor offering interrogators guidance. Rather, these lawyers were attempting to legitimize the practice of torture. We are appalled that the enabling of a crime so serious that it shares status with slavery and genocide as a Jus Cogens norm, is being treated as an error in judgment.

While all Americans have reason to fear this lack of accountability -- since any future administration can similarly redefine torture when it feels the need to do so -- our profession has more to fear than most. These lawyers redefined torture so that nearly any act could have been justified if a psychologist designed the interrogation technique, approved its use, supervised the act, or even was on the site where the act took place. According to the torture memos, the use of psychologists as previously described exonerated the perpetrators of torture. Similarly, if a psychologist assured authorities that a technique did not (or would not) have a negative impact upon the mental health of the victim that was taken as proof that the act was not torture. Such actions are in direct contradiction to the purpose of our profession.

The record clearly shows that psychologists enabled waterboarding as well as combinations of stripping, sleep deprivation, chaining and diapering and that Bradbury continued to rely upon psychologists in his defense of these acts; Yoo and Bybee were not the only ones who facilitated torture. This report cannot stand.

We call on you to take the following actions:

1. Reject the conclusions of this report and file a finding of misconduct with Yoo’s, Bybee’s, Rizzo’s and Bradbury’s local bar associations.

2. Launch a new investigation into the authoring of the torture memos. This investigation should seek input from psychologists who are qualified to evaluate the mental health of detainees treated by CIA staff psychologists and CIA contractors.

3. Ask Congress to subpoena every individual who refused to cooperate with the original investigation

4. Name a special prosecutor to examine the actions of every lawyer who contributed to the U.S.’ defense of torture

5. Launch a separate investigation into the actions of psychologists to examine what role they played in crafting these legal defenses.

If you simply accept this report and take no further action, you will be letting torture facilitators off with a reprimand and will step into line with so many others who wrung their hands, gritted their teeth, and have then been complicit in our government's use of torture. You have the power to step out of this line and the power to ensure that this never happens again. If you do not use your power to ensure that crimes such as torture never recur – what is the point of holding such a significant position?

Sincerely,

Psychologists for an Ethical APA
Psychologists for Social Responsibility Psychology and Human Rights Program
Dan Aalbers
Ruth Fallenbaum
Brad Olson
Trudy Bond
Jeffrey Kaye
Ellen G. Levine
Alice Shaw
Tamerra P. Moeller
Laura Doty
Art Eccleston
Mary Pelton-Cooper
Nancy C. Arvold
John Neafsey
Elaine M. Heiby
John M. Stewart
Sharon Gadberry
Jean Maria Arrigo
Ghislaine Boulanger
Brenda LeFrancois
Mary Wollitz-Dooley
J. Lamar Freed
Gunnar Örn Ingólfsson
Andrew Phelps
Michael R. Jackson
Frank Summers
Stephen Soldz
Susan Reese
Kristi Schermerhorn
Frank Kashner
Roy Eidelson
Robert Keisner
M. Brinton Lykes
Mark S. Kane
Brigitte Ladisch
Jacqueline A Schwarz
Jay B. Pozner
Richard V. Wagner
Bernice Lott
David Moshman
Shelley Mackaman
Michael O'Loughliln
Maureen Sinnott
Martha Davis
Jancis Long
Deborah Dupré
Carol Blum
Deborah Freed
Micki Levin
Thomas Teo
Armond Aserinsky
Diane Ehrensaft
Ryan Hunt

Edge of the Precipice: APA Meets the Devil's Details

The American Psychological Association is set to pass a new resolution regarding psychologists at national security interrogations. Tomorrow (8/19) is the showdown, at the APA Council of Representatives meeting.

The APA is on the edge of complete capitulation. Physicians for Human Rights saw fit to write a letter to APA warning it that the language they wish to use in their new resolution, re its definition of what constitutes isolation, sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation, will set things back, not move them forward.

From the letter from new PHR president Leonard Rubenstein to Stephen Behnke, APA Ethics Chair (no link -- I'm transcribing):

I am writing now to share one urgent concern I have discussed with Neil Altman [author of a moratorium resolution on psychologist participation in national security interrogations] about a qualification to the list of unacceptable interrogation techniques that could threaten to undermine the resolution, which is entirely unnecessary and is easily corrected. That is the qualification that isolation, sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation are only condemned if they lead to severe pain. Disapproval of other techniques is not so qualified. As you know, the Convention against Torture and other laws hold that all techniques that cause sever pain amount to torture. The entire point of listing the techniques is a statement by the APA that based on its knowledge and judgment, they amount to severe pain; moreover, they amount to cruel treatment. Condemning these techniques only if they cause severe pain is no different than not listing them at all. I note, too, that the language is actually worse than the board adopted last month. The entire qualification should be stricken -- just as there are no qualifications in the listing of other techniques....

If the APA cannot see clear to condemn them, but simply refers back to the Convention Against Torture, it will have gravely compromised the commitment it has made to oppose torture in all forms by our country.

"The Devil is in the Details"

For those who are confused, guess what? You've got it! You're supposed to be confused. The APA is crafting a resolution that is meant to sound anti-torture, using legalistic terms that seem innocuous, but have great meaning in federal courts. Intent to cause "severe pain" is a very difficult thing to prosecute. It almost never is, at least when it comes to torture and government officials. By crafting exceptions to the definitions of these techniques, the pro-torture forces are seeking to maintain the core program of their coercion paradigm: solitary confinement, sensory and sleep deprivation, which together work to break down an individual's psyche.

APA convention events on interrogation issues are constituted to appear even-handed. But the debate between anti-torture forces and the military is one-sided. Not because anti-torture activists aren't getting their say, but because of the tremendous weight of the U.S. government, and the psychological reality that conformity to power is a tremendously strong motivator. In addition, it's believed that the pro-government, pro-military forces already have the majority on the Council. It's not clear that the old moratorium resolution, or a new amendment crafted by Neil Altman and others that attempts to sneak a moratorium of sorts into the new resolution, will even be allowed to come to a vote.

Altman's amendment calls for psychologists only to work in health care roles, not as advisers to interrogation or conditions of detention. I still find this unacceptable, but it may be the most anti-torture forces can hope for at this point... if there's any reason left to hope at all.

After tomorrow, we'll know if my pessimism was merited.

Physicians for Human Rights Takes on American Psychological Association over Interrogations Issue

(Tip of the hat to Stephen Soldz over at Psyche, Science, and Society for this)

Executive Director Leonard Rubenstein of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has written a letter to Sharon Stephens Brehm, PhD, President of the American Psychological Association (APA), asking her to respond affirmatively to the recent revelations in a Pentagon Office of Inspector General report on detainee abuse. These revelations directly implicated military psychologists from the Pentagon's SERE program in "reverse engineering" POW resistance techniques from its schools for use as abusive interrogation guides and torture at Guantanamo Naval Base prison, and elsewhere.

Mr. Rubenstein's letter further lists a number of abusive practices, asking the APA to abjure 19 different unethical interrogation practices. (At least two of these practices, the use of drugs in interrogation, and the use of sensory bombardment or overload to "overwhelm the senses", have been studied by the APA, in conjunction with the CIA, in only the past three years. See my article on this from a few weeks back.)

In addition, beyond asking for APA to support the currently proposed moratorium on psychologist participation in interrogations, put forth by internal opponents to the current APA policy, PHR is suggesting the following ethical position to guide psychologists in the murky waters of interrogation:

Psychologists do not participate directly in the interrogation of an individual prisoner or detainee. Direct participation includes being present in the interrogation room; asking questions; suggesting questions; providing any advice, consultation, or assistance regarding the use of interrogation techniques with a specific interrogation subject; or monitoring an interrogation for the purpose of offering advice, consultation, evaluation or assistance in the use of techniques with a particular subject.

Psychologists do not offer general advice or training, research, experimentation, facilitation, or any other general assistance, outside the context of an interrogation of a specific subject, regarding use of interrogation methods that are intended to, or that the psychologist has reason to believe will, result in increased levels of psychological distress or harm to the subject.

Many kudos to PHR and its Executive Director, Leonard Rubenstein, for taking on the issue of torture and bringing it to the doorstep of those who participate, and in certain instances, cover or alibi the use of torture and other cruel and inhumane treatment by U.S. military and spy personnel.

Link to original PHR letter in PDF format.