ABC News reports that psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were paid $1000/day to design and implement the US torture program.

According to current and former government officials, the CIA's secret waterboarding program was designed and assured to be safe by two well-paid psychologists now working out of an unmarked office building in Spokane, Washington.Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, former military officers, together founded Mitchell Jessen and Associates….Former U.S. officials say the two men were essentially the architects of the CIA's 10-step interrogation plan that culminated in waterboarding. Associates say the two made good money doing it, boasting of being paid a $1,000 a day by the CIA to oversee the use of the techniques on top al Qaeda suspects at CIA secret sites."The whole intense interrogation concept that we hear about, is essentially their concepts," according to Col. Steven Kleinman, an Air Force interrogator….But it turns out neither Mitchell nor Jessen had any experience in conducting actual interrogations before the CIA hired them."They went to two individuals who had no interrogation experience," said Col. Kleinman. "They are not interrogators."

Mitchell and Jessen were first exposed in July 2007 as the CIA psychologists who reversed engineered US military SERE training methods for the Bush administration's torture program.SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape; it is a training program for US military personnel at risk of capture. As part of the program, trainees are subjected to harsh and abusive psychological interrogation methods—largely derived from Cold War techniques employed by Soviet and Chinese interrogators to extract false confessions.

The ailing pediatrician and human rights defender, Dr. Binayak Sen, has languished for two years in the central jail in Raipur, the capital of the state of Chhattisgarh in central India.? The government accuses him of aiding and abetting terrorists – a charge Dr. Sen has consistently denied and one that Amnesty International deems baseless and politically motivated.

I have always condemned violence, whatever the justification.? (Dr. Binayak Sen)

The government’s allegations against the 59-year-old physician belie what the Global Health Council announced a year ago this month when Dr. Sen won the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights for his work with the rural poor and tribal communities and for his steadfast support of civil liberties and human rights in India.Why would such humanitarian activities land the renowned doctor in jail?Dr. Sen has worked for more than 25 years in Chhattisgarh setting up primary health centers, training community health workers, treating miners, prisoners, and other marginalized groups.? But his public health outreach and provision of medical care to the underserved poor put him in direct contact with alleged supporters of Naxalism – a Maoist movement that the government considers a threat to India’s national security.? But in its war on terrorism, the government has erroneously targeted an innocent man with trumped up charges.While visiting a local jail, Dr. Sen began treating an elderly man, Narayan Sanyal, whom authorities claim is a Naxalite terrorist.? Despite being thoroughly searched each time he visited the jail, Dr. Sen was charged with ferrying letters to and from Sanyal in support of the Maoist insurgency.? As soon as he learned of the warrant for his arrest, Dr. Sen immediately and voluntarily presented himself to the authorities to sort out what could only be a simple misunderstanding.? But there was none.? Police arrested Dr. Sen on 14 May 2007, and he has since been detained while his trial is ongoing.? ?While the prosecution has deposed 61 witnesses, none has corroborated the accusations against Binayak Sen.What’s worse is that now Dr. Sen is being refused specialist medical care.? He suffers from coronary artery disease, which can at any time present as a medical emergency.? His wife, Ilina Sen, wrote an impassioned letter last week detailing his current state. Physicians for Human Rights strongly urges local authorities not to delay treatment and to allow Dr. Sen to receive medical care of his choice for this potentially fatal disease.

Learn More

• www.BinayakSen.net
• PHR statements on Binayak Sen, MD
• Indian TV News 20/20 coverage (via www.ndtv.com)

Judge Baltasar Garz?n, an investigating magistrate at the National Court in Madrid, Spain, has announced that he will investigate the US torture program at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Judge Baltasar Garz?n will probe the "perpetrators, the instigators, the necessary collaborators and accomplices" to crimes of torture at the prison at the US naval base in southern Cuba, he said in his ruling, a copy of which was seen by AFP.The judge based his decision on statements by Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, known as the "Spanish Taliban" and three other former Guantanamo detainees — a Moroccan, a Palestinian and a Libyan.Garz?n said that documents declassified by the US administration and carried by US media "have revealed what was previously a suspicion: the existence of an authorised and systematic programme of torture and mistreatment of persons deprived of their freedom" that flouts international conventions.This points to "the possible existence of concerted actions by the US administration for the execution of a multitude of crimes of torture against persons deprived of their freedom in Guantanamo and other prisons including that of Bagram" in Afghanistan.

There must be many like Andrew Sullivan who are breathing an exasperated sigh of relief, saying, "If Americans Will Not Defend the Geneva Convention …"

then the rest of the civilized world will have to take a stand against the now documented war crimes of high officials in the American government…

But for Americans who value human rights and the rule of law this is also an embarrassment.

Judge Garz?n reportedly cited "documents declassified by the US administration" as giving evidence "of what previously could be intuited: an official plan of approved torture and abuse of people being held in custody while facing no charges and without the most basic rights of people who have been detained."…There was evidence that the torture allegations could bring criminal proceedings against "the different structures [involved in] the execution, command, design and authorisation of this systematic plan of torture". (source)

The overwhelming evidence in now publicly available US government documents has led Judge Garz?n to launch an investigation from Spain, but our own government has yet to make a commitment to a full and comprehensive investigation at home. We need a non-partisan US commission and we need it now.

Attorney General Holder has indicated might cooperate with the investigation of the Spanish court."Obviously, we would look at any request that would come from a court in any country and see how and whether we should comply with it.""This is an administration that is determined to conduct itself by the rule of law and to the extent that we receive lawful requests from an appropriately created court, we would obviously respond to it," he said.

Attorney General Holder's commitment to the rule of law is refreshing and encouraging. It would be appropriate for his own government to make lawful requests to him to investigate the existing, overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing in US interrogation policies and practices. It would also be appropriate for the US government to launch a non-partisan commission as an apparatus for gathering all of the evidence and providing the Department of Justice with a comprehensive report. While we know a great deal, there is much that still must come to light.Ultimately it will be a great disappointment if the Spanish court is the only instrument for defending the Geneva Convention and US law. The scope of Garz?n's investigation is necessarily limited to the complaints of the Spanish citizens who were detained at Guantanamo Bay. Garz?n is rightly focused on "the different structures [involved in] the execution, command, design and authorisation of this systematic plan of torture," but so far his emphasis seems to be restricted to top Bush officials and the institutions of US law that were perverted to justify and authorize torture. We know now that other institutions share the burden of responsibility—in particular the health professional institutions and especially that of psychology.Before lawyers were brought in to justify the US torture program, psychologists were called on to design and execute the program. Health professoinals who are guilty must also face prosecution for breaking the law, and they must lose their licenses for such a gross breach of their professional ethics.

On Monday President Obama announced his intent to nominate?Eric Goosby, MD, CEO and Chief Medical Officer of Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation as the US?Global AIDS Coordinator. Dr Eric Goosby has been involved with the Health Action AIDS Campaign at PHR since its inception in 2002. PHR has benefited greatly from Dr. Goosby’s wise counsel and active engagement in our efforts to mobilize health professionals in support of evidence-based global AIDS initiatives rooted in sound human rights principles.As the global economic crisis threatens the US commitment to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention initiatives, Dr. Goosby will need adequate funding to be able to fulfill the administrations' promise to fight global AIDS. He will have to act quickly to build support within the Obama Administration and Congress to fund the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) at the levels authorized by Congress.As Dr. Goosby moves into his new role, we are eager to partner with him to address key?issues related to the successful scale-up of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs, including health systems strengthening, the ever-growing impact of HIV/AIDS on women and the implementation of effective harm reduction strategies that reflect best public health practice. We also urge him to work with his colleagues at the Department of Health and Human Services to lift the nation’s regressive and unsound HIV travel ban so that our policy reflects the US’ leadership in other areas of the global HIV/AIDS response.Last month, PHR delivered over 3,000 petition signatures to President Obama and Congress calling on them to "Stop AIDS Now!" and fully fund PEPFAR. ?You can still sign the petition and continue to show the broad public support for the fight against Global AIDS.

On Wednesday, just after the Senate Armed Services Committee released its report on the Bush Administration's torture program, Firedoglake hosted a live online chat with Nathaniel Raymond, Director of PHR's Campaign Against Torture. Firedoglake's Christy Hardin Smith introduced the online discussion, saying:

As the details spill out, again and again two names keep appearing—James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. But it wasn't just those two. There were medical professionals involved in all aspects of these policies, from their initial development and inception, to overseeing and potentially participating in the interrogations themselvesAnd that participation led to this sort of twisted, unsupported policy:

At the direction of an accompanying psychologist, the team planned to conduct a psychic demolition in which they'd get Zubaydah to reveal everything by severing his sense of personality and scaring him almost to death.

PHR has been on the forefront of calling out the ethical and medical ramifications of this, as well as detailing the physical, mental and legal implications of torture by physician complicity.The question now is: will there be true accountability for these actions? Or are we to be forever haunted by the ghosts of justice at Nuremberg?

Below the cut I've excerpted all of Raymond's direct exchanges with participants in the discussion. For the complete chat, see the original post on Firedoglake.jhutson: With the declassification last week of the four Office of Legal Counsel memos and the declassification last night of the Senate Armed Services Committee report on its 2-year investigation, what’s the biggest surprise to come to light?Nathaniel Raymond: One of the most startling revelations from the recently released Office of Legal Counsel memos is the extreme involvement of medical professionals–one specifically was identified as a physician–serving as “safety officers” during the use of waterboarding and other tactics used on detainees in CIA custody. The monitoring of vital signs and giving instructions to interrogators to start and stop are some of the most severe abuses of the Hippocratic Oath and medical ethics imaginable. They also violate US anti-torture law. Strangely, the memos and the statements of former senior Bush Administration officials use the presence of medical professionals in contravention of their professional ethics as a defense, when it is in fact, itself, a crime.Christy Hardin Smith: I’ve been wondering about the licensing and professional organizations of which a lot of these folks are members. How are licensing boards likely to deal with a lot of this.As a lawyer, I’ve been wondering the same about various lawyers who were involved in this process. Professional organizations are going to have a very rough road ahead of them in sorting through conduct, intent and involvement, I’d bet. Would love your thoughts from the medical perspective.Nathaniel Raymond: Good question, Christy. As the White House, Congress, and the American public debate how and whether to hold those who authorized and use torture to account, one important front in the fight for accountability is the question of what do about members of specific professions—i.e. lawyers and health professionals (psychologists and physicians)—who were the handmaidens of torture.There has been only one case, to my knowledge, of a doctor who faced ethics charges because of his role in detainee abuse (he is licensed in CA) and that case was thrown out due to a supposed lack of juridstiction by the licensing board. However, there is in effort underway in NY state to pass legislation that would criminalize med ethics violations on the state level, called the “Gottfried Bill,” which PHR supports and is working with many groups to pass.What is needed now, additionally, besides legislation like the NY bill, is the swift action of the AMA, the APA, and the American Psychiatric Association to investigate their members and push licensing boards to sanction those found to have broken their oaths.laughingchimp: Today Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers were back at the British High Court arguing that evidence of his maiming by Moroccan agents, supervised by the CIA should be released. There was no mention of rendition in the OLC memos which leads one to conclude that it may still be illegal.The OLC memos may end up being most significant for what they don’t excuse. It would appear that when the CIA wanted to inflict lasting psychological or physical harm (as was also the case with Maher Arar) they sought to have interrogations completed by foreign agents. Would you agree?Nathaniel Raymond: You raise an important point, Mr. Laughingchimp. The cases of Binyam Mohamed and Maher Arar raise a troubling question that the release of the OLC memos and the SASC (Senate Armed Services Report) does not answer. What other secret memos exist that relate to detainee treatment (esp. rendition and transfer to third party intelligence services) that we don’t know about? While the OLC memos cover the use of the SERE tactics, we still don’t know what other aspects of detainee treatment and torture law were mangled in other, still classified directives.Christy Hardin Smith: It’s almost as though the medical professionals were used as the plausible deniability already factored into the mix. “See, we had doctor’s there, so everything was on the up and up.”Which, incidentally, is not an excuse with regard to conduct, but more of a PR ploy, I think. That they thought of it up front is bizarre enough, but that physicians would allow themselves to be used in that way? Appalling.Nathaniel Raymond: It is shameful that health professionals were put in a position of making an inherently damaging process “safe”… In fact, to quote my colleague Leonard Rubenstein, they became calibrators of harm.The use of doctors in this way, sadly, is identical to how other governments who have employed torture deployed health professionals as “legitimizers” and “sanitizers” of torture and abuse. Regardless of whether prosecutions occur, the US needs a non-partisan commission, with specific capacity to investigate health professionals, to get the full story.Jane Hamsher: Also curious to know how you think the medical community comes down on all of this—where do you think the AMA and others will stand?Nathaniel Raymond: The AMA recently released a letter to President Obama saying that they stand ready to support next steps, incl. a commission of inquiry. While this is positive, and PHR supports the AMA’s statement of support for accountability, it is essential that the AMA and the American Psychological Association, in conjunction with state licensure boards—the one’s who have the real power to impose strong sanction—tell their colleagues and the American people how they will ensure that those who assisted or directed torture will lose their licenses and never practice again.Hugh: There are several medical issues here.First, you have medical determinations made by the likes of Yoo, Bybee, Bradbury, and others has to what kinds of techniques caused what kinds of physical and psychological damage. They simply didn’t have the backgrounds to say anything about any of this.Second, you have medical personnel who either monitored detainees during torture, gave counsel to facilitate torture, or patched up detainees so that they could be further tortured. Personally, I feel the whole lot of them should have their professional credentials pulled. But aren’t these some of the well meaning people Obama has vowed to protect? How can the identities of any of them be established so that even if they aren’t pursued criminally they could be professionally.But even if their names were known, I foresee problems. If they are military physicians and nurses, couldn’t they continue to practice in that system? Mightn’t they be able to transfer at some point to VA facilities? I know in theory that the VA has certain standards but I could see these circumvented.Nathaniel Raymond: In response to your salient points, Hugh, I think it might be helpful to lay out what types of health professionals, from what branches of the national security community, and in what roles they were involved.Based on PHR’s investigations, the landmark report released by SASC yesterday, and other government documents and official statements in the public record, we know the following:

• psychologists and other mental health professionals with the US military and CIA supervised torture at the “black sites,” GTMO, and elsewhere.
• health professionals, including medics, patched up detainees so they could be returned to interrogation to face torture.
• clinical psychologists and doctors did not adequately report in med records how torture caused mental and physical harm to their patients. In one report analyzed by PHR, a psychologist says that the severe mental suffering of a detainee being held in prolonged isolation is due to “routine stressors of confinement.”
• And physicians and other members of the CIA’s Office of Medical Services were monitoring vitals and doing other diagnostics at CIA black sites during torture.

These varied roles, specialties, and branches and locations require a holistic approach to the med ethics violations that occurred as part of detainee abuse. A commission of inquiry is the best place to start in tackling what to do about these crimes by health professionals.Loo Hoo: Thanks for being here Nathanial. Did you ever get a sense of how these people could watch these procedures, much less participate in them? I absolutely cannot imagine.I couldn't watch someone "wall" a cat without making them stop.Nathaniel Raymond: One thing that continues to astound me, Loo Hoo, in the three years I have been ivestigating these issues is that there were many heroes in this story. Col. Steve Kleinman, USAF-Ret. objected to the use of SERE techniques on detainees in Iraq by the Special Mission Units (see amazing section on this in SASC report). My friend and personal hero Maj. General Tony Taguba, USA, Ret. told the truth to Congress. Alberto Mora. And many unnamed people of conscious at CIA.They all stood up.But I have yet to see a health professional involved in the use of these tactics be shown to have displayed real courage in the face of the unlawful orders they were given and, according to SASC, carried out. It is ironic that the healing professions appears to have been more compliant with gross violations of the Geneva Convention and US law then combat veterans and intelligence professionals. It says a lot about how social and institutional pressures can overwhelm people who are specifically trained to follow a higher code.Kirk James Murphy, MD: Though I agree state licensure boards have the final power, in CA and many other states, the state legislature has the power to direct the med baords via legislation (where they’re not cursed with govs who’d veto the new law). Might well-disposed legislatures in some states be able to advance the process by ordering their (captive) med licensure agency to wall out the torture docs?Nathaniel Raymond: Yes, Kirk. I think there needs to be citizen pressure on state legs to move (following the lead of NY State Rep. Gottfried) quickly to take exactly the type of action you are suggesting. “Juridstictional” issues and the ilk should not be used as an excuse to keep licensing boards from taking punitive action against those who violated the core principle of their professional ethics—"DO NO HARM"Christy Hardin Smith: Nathaniel—there is also mention in at least a couple of OLC memos of “outside providers” of psych or other contracted medical services. Do we have ideas who these were? Is that where Mitchell and Jessen’s firm comes in—or were there a lot of others as well?And, if you know, in what capacity were they contracting: advice, research or hands-on treatment? Or all of the above?Nathaniel Raymond: While we do not fully know exactly who those "outside providers" were, SASC’s investigation, hearings and report sheds some light on this question, potentially. SASC has discovered that consultations were made by DoD General Counsel Jim Haynes to SERE personnel in WA state in 2001 and 2002. It is likely that these consultations were used in some way to justify the authorization and twisted legal rationale for these tactics.To be a broken record, a commission in required to fill in these holes, wipe out the remaining redactions, and put all the principle players—good, bad and ugly—on the stand and before the American people to make sure that we know—once and for all—what was done in our name.BTW, I want to express here my great gratitude and respect for the hard working and committed investigators at Senate Armed Services. Senator Levin and his team released yesterday the most definitive record thus far of America’s descent into torture. We should all be proud of the work they have done to uphold our values and restore our nation’s reputation as a defender of human rights and the rule of law. My hat is officially off to them.Peterr: In the civilian world, medical professionals are licensed by and are accountable to state boards. How does it work for folks who are serving in the military?Are they required to be licensed in *some* state, though perhaps not where they are currently based/posted, or is there some DOD equivalent to a state licensing board that supersedes any state board?Nathaniel Raymond: In the US military, all health professionals in uniform, as part of post-Vietnam era reforms, are required to be state-licensed–psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, physicians, etc. Another important point to note about military med ethics is that any health professional given an order that violates their professional ethics is required by military code to not obey it. That professional, military and moral directive was clearly not followed here by the psychologists, physicians and other health personnel involved.ondelette: Nathaniel,Thank you and all of PHR for all you do.In 2006, Gerald Gray (Santa Clara University Institute for Redress and Recovery) wrote for the journal Torture that he believed that a regime had been deliberately set up to cause abuse and torture on a massive scale, by using the precepts learned in the Stanford Prison Experiment—anonymity (secrecy), control, and encouragement from authority, to facilitate having prisoners abused by those controlling them, at places like Abu Ghraib, for instance. Given that the techniques listed in the torture memoes include nudity, isolation, cold/dousing, loud noise, 24/7 lights, dietary manipulation, and sleep deprivation, which are well known to cause profound disruption of the personality and senses, and given that most of those techniques were propagated to Bagram and Abu Ghraib according to the SASC document released today, is it worth revisiting Gray’s accusations? The jailers were told to ’soften people up’ and given free reign in some cases, while the above mentioned techniques were SOP.Specifically, do you think those in charge—both the lawyers and administration and the medical and psychological professionals who advised them—should be held accountable for the treatments seen in Broken Laws, Broken Lives, some of which go well beyond anything in any specific memoes?Nathaniel Raymond: Inspired by your mention of SPE (Stanford Prison Experiment), I want to quote Phil Zimbardo who said about Abu Ghraib (to paraphrase):

It wasn’t a case of bad apples. It was bad barrel makers.

The cause of accountability for torture is not served by prosecuting and convicting the next round of Ivan Fredericks… Those who designed, justified, and authorized this regime of psychological and physical torture at the top levels–and in violation of their professional ethics, for lawyers and health professionals—must be held to account if the “bedrock principle of command accountability,” to quote ret. Brig. General David Irvine, is to be restored.For me and many military/intel professionals who I have spoken to, one of the most tragic casualties of this dark chapter is that “command accountability,” a core characteristic of our armed forces, has been so severely damaged. We cannot have reform of our military and intelligence services without accountability.Hugh: I am less a fan of Levin. My view is better late than never, but he could have used his position as a Senator to raise this issue and explore on his own before 2006. Certainly, since the Democratic takeover of the Senate in January 2007, he could have put out a report two years ago.Nathaniel Raymond: I hear you, Hugh. All of us concerned about torture wanted the truth out years ago—and wanted Congress to robustly execute its oversight obligations at the time—as opposed to after the fact. However, the SASC investigation only began in early 07 due to the Dems taking over the majority in the Senate. For the amount of ground that SASC has covered in just under two years, I think that they should be given credit, and they deserve applause for their efforts to ensure almost total declassification of their report.But as good as the report is…it is not enough. Even the SSCI (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) probe recently begun by the Chair, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) is not enough. There needs to be a commission–non-partisan and outside Congress–and AG Eric Holder should be allowed to freely follow the evidence where it leads him and the rest of DoJ.MrToad: While I wouldn’t be in the least surprised to have more, and more detailed, memos turn up, it seems to me that what we have is more than sufficient. The techniques as described are surely well able to get anybody to say, or agree to, anything and everything. We’ve seen this all before, of course, and the ability of people to set aside their morals and ethics (if any) is well-known. I think the most appalling thing for me, on reading the released memos, was the detailed, clinical list of how and how much these “techniques of harsh interrogation” were to be used. Change the names and print it in German with a 1940 publication date, and people would be properly shocked. So, I wonder—why bother with the comforting fiction that the Nuremberg trials matter any more, or that the medical or legal professions have any inherent ethical standards? Certainly there’s plenty of after-the-fact wringing of hands, but what’s in these memos is not news. With all due respect, what I expect to see from these professional societies amounts to a few harsh words followed by some hearty handshakes all around and then some well-deserved drinks in celebration of their fine efforts. I’d be interested in speculation on whether losing our national sense of community has cost us our sense of empathy or whether we as people and as a nation ever had any sense that we were part of a larger group than simply our special tribe. How are we different from any other nation that has eagerly set foot on the road to dictatorship?Nathaniel Raymond: Mr. Toad—to address your eloquent closing question, “how are we different from any other nation that set foot on the road to dictatorship,” the answer to it is in all of our hands. Seriously. As cliche as it sounds, the question of accountability now at the center of the public debate will only be answered the right way if the American people in a unified, non-partisan way clearly articulate their demand for it.PHR has a petition on our website (physiciansforhumanrights.org) calling on President Obama to support a commission. Call the White House. Call your member of Congress. Write a letter to the editor. Tell your neighbors.Demand it. Demand it. Demand it.bgrothus: Nathaniel,It is true that in the past, doctors have been trained not to have their authority challenged by patients or other health care providers. I think this is changing as new medical personnel are being encouraged to be more responsive to the needs and questions of patients.Do you think that we can hope for more doctors to stand against this kind of behavior in the future? I am astonished to hear that none seemed to have stood up for what was right, as least as far as we know now.Nathaniel Raymond: There are several components that need to be in place to ensure that these types of abuses by health professionals never occur in US military/intel settings again.The American Psychological Association needs to amend their ethics code to take out section 1.02—a provision which allows contravention of the ethics code when faced with a conflicting “lawful” order. It is tantamount to the Nuremberg defense.

• Ethics training—both in mil institutions and at med schools—needs to be strengthened and revamped in light of the detainee abuse scandal to learn the lessons and close the gaps in training.
• All associations—state and national—need to send the message in their statements and actions: “You engage in this behavior and you will lose your ability to ever practice again.”
• State legislatures need to pass legislation, as Kirk mentioned earlier, to strengthen the law as it relates to these abuses.
• And a commission, which the AMA and APA should support publicly, is required to really examine how the strong codes of military medical ethics, that have distinguished our military at so many moments in the past, were short-circuited and undermined in such a tragic way.

Peterr: There’s also the yet-to-be-delivered report by the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility. It’s not a congressional committee, but given what folks like Sheldon Whitehouse are saying, it could be quite stunning.Nathaniel Raymond: Those of us who work on detainee abuse issues are waiting with baited breath for the DOJ-OPR report about what it says about many things, most notably the roles of Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury. There is much speculation about what it allegedly says and recommends. We will just have to wait for its release and push for DoJ and the American Bar Association, among other bodies, to act in response.Christy Hardin Smith: Nathaniel—do you have any thoughts you can share on the destruction of those CIA interrogation tapes and the investigation into that?Nathaniel Raymond: The investigation by US Attorney John Durham into the alleged destruction of black site interrogation tapes by the CIA could potentially be a “game changer” in terms of the question of prosecutions. Durham’s report, expected some time relatively soon, according to news reports, could cause additional legal action against former US officials. Regardless of its outcome, the Durham probe is important because it represents the first major investigation of its kind on these issues. We should all watch closely to see where it leads.Kirk James Murphy, MD: Mr. Raymond, thanks to you and PHR for fighting the good fight. I hope one day America’s values on torture will return to what they were after WW II.Nathaniel Raymond: Thanks, Kirk, for your kind words and insightful comments about med practice and ethics. It is heartening for wonks like me to see that people like you are concerned about these issues. Years ago, when the detainee abuse scandal was just becoming apparent, it was easy to despair about whether many other people cared enough to act, to get educated, to get involved. I don’t feel that anymore. Though we have a tough row to hoe in the fight for accountability, I am hopeful that enough people, such as yourself, are outraged enough to make their voices heard.bluejeanstshirt: Thank you Nathaniel, The level of violence in film, teevee and video games seem to have hit ridiculous levels. Reality shows depicting degrading acts would have to have an effect not only on the participants but also viewers. I was raised in front of the teevee and I know something is afoot. Any thoughts as to the overall effect on the nations psyche?Nathaniel Raymond: Programs such as 24, etc have distorted, I think, the reality of interrogation in counter-terrorism settings. To read a more accurate account, Matt Alexander’s book: “How to Break a Terrorist” is a compelling insider’s account of interrogation.But I am not fully answering your question. I think books, TV, etc that seems to countenance or promote torture or “gloves off” approaches to the complex multitude of real national security threats our country faces are reflections of the national trauma of 9/11 and the ensuing years of war in Aghanistan and Iraq. To quote the Japanese Nobel Laureate, author Kenzaburo Oe, who was writing about the aftermath of atrocities, we need to “outgrow our madness,” so to speak and recommit ourselves to the defense of our nation through the defense of our values.A commission will be, I think, a key component of that process. By being able to present the facts of how our government ended up doing what it did, we can begin to not only heal the damage nationally and internationally, the US can see how it can change course and operationalize that change.hackworth: NPR’s Robert Segal suggested that since Lyndie England and the other Abu Ghraib soldier were prosecuted, this issue should be over. Levin’s rebuttal was excellent.Segal suggested further that waterboarding is not a big issue. Levin’s rebuttal was also excellent.Nathaniel Raymond: Thanks for the play by play. I look forward to hearing what the Senator has to say.Thank you, Christy and everyone for listening this afternoon to a policy wonk who largely speaks in acronyms. It has been a true treat. Anymore questions before we finish up?Christy Hardin Smith: Nathaniel, as Gregg said above, this really has been a great discussion—and a disturbing one as well. I was saying this morning that we already knew so much of this from other memos and news reports the last few years, but reading it in compacted form with the serial e-mail and memos to fill in some of the gaps makes it that much more disturbing when you see how any dissent was cleanly cut out of the mix with policymaking.I can’t thank you enough for being here to discuss this today. But also for all of the work that you and PHR have done on these issues for so long.Nathaniel Raymond: Much appreciated, Christy. I look forward to joining you all again. And thanks to FDL for having a forum to talk about these important issues in a reasoned way.Valtin: Great work by you and everyone at PHR, and by SASC.I want to reiterate Jane’s question earlier:

Can you talk about the memo of Dr. Jerald Ogrisseg, whose memo on waterboarding in the SERE project was forwarded by Lt Col Baumgartner to the General Counsel’s office? It’s my understanding that this was used in order to provide proof of the “safety” of waterboarding by Yoo/Bybee, though Dr. Ogrisseg claims that his memo had no application to actual real-world waterboarding outside the SERE program.

As you know, it’s my contention that the OLC memo by Bybee shows clear evidence of cherry-picking Ogrisseg’s report, proving they had different info on waterboarding and ignored it. There apparently is a lot more in the SASC report as well.Also, it’s my contention that the Haynes’ approach to JRPA prior to any determination of different status treatment of “enemy combatants” from Al Qaeda/Taliban demonstrates conspiracy to torture, and one for which the administration has NO defense.Any comments on this? Also, do you see the rewrite of the Army Field Manual, with its abusive interrogation techniques written into it, as connected to the material in the SASC report?Nathaniel Raymond: Valtin—you raise a series of important points. I will address one of them briefly. The current Army Field Manual must be amended because several of the tactics identified by SASC report and by PHR’s investigations as being used on detainees (i.e. isolation, sleep dep, sensory dep) are still in the manual in Appendix M. No SERE tactic should be allowed to remain in the AFM in any form.

Psychologists for an Ethical APA Rally, Boston, August 16, 2008. (Farnoosh Hashemian/PHR)

Today, on the In These Times website, Fredrick Clarkson hones in on more of what the recently released Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) report reveals about the central role played by psychologists in "in devising, directing and overseeing the torture of prisoners."

Clarkson writes:

Early in the Senate report, we learn that the SERE program’s adaptation began with two senior military psychologists. In December 2001, Dr. James Mitchell, the senior SERE psychologist at the Pentagon’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, asked his former colleague Dr. John “Bruce” Jessen to review a recently obtained al Qaeda interrogation resistance training manual.

“The two psychologists reviewed the materials and generated a paper on al Qaeda resistance capabilities and countermeasures to defeat that resistance,” according to this heavily redacted section of the Senate report. Mitchell and Jessen became CIA interrogation consultants the next year.

In April of 2002, Jessen created an “exploitation draft plan” for Guantanamo detainees. According to this plan, Jessen would direct SERE training of interrogators at the “exploitation facility,” which would be “off limits to non-essential personnel.” The Senate report makes several references to changing conditions at GTMO whenever the International Committee of the Red Cross came to visit.

Eventually, Guantanamo became known as a “Battle Lab for new interrogation techniques,” which were then applied at military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and at CIA detention centers.

SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape; it is a training program for US military personnel at risk of capture. The SERE program includes a significant psychological component, overseen by military psychologists at multiple sites, particularly Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As part of the program, trainees are subjected to harsh and abusive psychological interrogation methods—largely derived from Cold War techniques employed by Soviet and Chinese interrogators to extract false confessions. Clarkson notes that SERE instructors themselves objected to how their training techniques were being adapted for interrogations:

In an interview with the Army’s Inspector General, Army psychiatrist Major Charles Burney said “interrogation tactics that rely on physical pressures or torture…do not tend to get you accurate information or reliable information.” According to Burney, instructors repeatedly stressed that harsh interrogations don’t work and that the information gleaned “is strongly likely to be false.”

The SASC report (PDF 15MB) says further that, typically,

those who play the part of interrogators in SERE school neither are trained interrogators nor are they qualified to be. These role players are not trained to obtain reliable intelligence information from detainees. Their job is to train our personnel to resist providing reliable information to our enemies. As the Deputy Commander for the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), JPRA's higher headquarters, put it: "the expertise of JPRA lies in training personnel how to respond and resist interrogations – not in how to conduct interrogations." (xiii)

Clarkson also connects the dots on accountability for torture, reminding us that to understand how the SERE program was perverted for US interrogations must include an examination of the American Psychological Association's sanction of its members' involvement in interrogations.

The role of psychologists in torture became a hot issue within the American Psychological Association in 2005, when the board of the organization of mental health professionals endorsed psychologists’ role in interrogations as consistent with APA ethics, for the purpose of making it safe, legal and effective. But a 2007 resolution of the APA membership proscribed member involvement in a number of interrogation tactics. Then, in 2008, the organization passed a further resolution against members’ presence at any facility where U.S. and international law was being violated, unless they were working for the benefit of the people held

Clarkson quotes Sara Greenberg's blog post from yesterday:

In January 2005, the American Psychological Association issued its Report of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security, which seeks to legitimize the involvement of psychologists in interrogation—a role that is fundamentally inconsistent with ethical principles and both US and international law. In concluding that psychologists have a central role in interrogations, the Task Force gave short shrift to the ethical and human rights implications of coercive interrogation practices used by US forces that relied on psychological expertise. Nor has the APA sanctioned its members responsible for designing and implementing torture.

As Steven Reisner, PHR's advisor on psychological ethics, concludes:

These individuals must not only face prosecution for breaking the law, they must lose their licenses for shaming their profession’s ethics.

Further Reading

Recent PHR Statements

• After Senate Report, Psychologists Who Tortured Must Be Held to Account
• OLC Memos Confirm Integral Role of Health Professionals in US Torture

PHR Reports on US Torture

• Break Them Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces
• Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risk of Criminality
• Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact

Further Comment

• PHR Experts on Torture (for press) 

We call on the President of the United States to establish an independent, non-partisan commission to examine and report publicly on torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in the period since September 11, 2001. The commission, comparable in stature to the 9/11 Commission, should look into the facts and circumstances of such abuses, report on lessons learned and recommend measures that would prevent any future abuses. We believe that the commission is necessary to reaffirm America's commitment to the Constitution, international treaty obligations and human rights. The report issued by the commission will strengthen US national security and help to re-establish America's standing in the world.

(Statement from the co-sponsors of www.commissiononaccountability.org)

PHR has once again joined with leading human rights organizations and has renewed its call to establish a commission investigate the torture and abuse of detainees. The quotation, above, is our joint statement.

In light of overwhelming evidence that the Bush Administration's legacy of torture originated with health professionals, who were deeply involved in facilitating and implementing the torture regime, the only way to look forward as a nation committed to our founding principles embodied in the Constitution is to demand accountability.

The newly declassified Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) report (PDF 15MB) is one of several documents released recently supporting the undeniable legal and ethical obligation to fully investigate and prosecute torture and to sanction violations of medical and psychological ethics:

• The International Committee of the Red Cross report (PDF)provides shocking examples depicting health professionals participating in torture.
• The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos show that manipulation of law to conform to desired policy outcomes were directly informed by the advice of health professionals.
• The SASC report provides further evidence that the Bush Administration, in developing its torture program, turned first to health professionals and relied on advice from psychologists that supported a policy of exploitation. The Bush Administration ignored the clear warnings that employing "aggressive techniques" would be illegal and ineffective. The report shows that long before the (OLC) memos were produced to provide a "golden shield" for torture, there were red flags cautioning that using adapted SERE techniques might be illegal and warning that information elicited from SERE techniques might be unreliable and inaccurate. A SERE trainer acknowledged: "[w]e have no actual experience in real world prisoner handling."

Health professionals complicit in designing and implementing torture abandoned their ethical duties to aid the national security apparatus and broke the law. The SASC report confirms that the process of designing an abusive interrogation program began in December 2001 and that torture was authorized at the highest levels of the Administration. The report clarifies how Secretary Rumsfeld's December 2, 2002 memo authorizing interrogation techniques that constitute torture, spread from Guantanamo to Iraq and Afghanistan. That memo was based on the advice of psychologists and military behavioral scientists.

To date, no comprehensive investigation has examined the role of health professionals in designing, aiding or failing to report abusive interrogation techniques. Physicians for Human Rights supports the recommendation made by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Chair of SASC, to Attorney General Holder: look at the evidence and pursue accountability; "we must acknowledge and confront the abuse of detainees in our custody."The American Psychological Association has never comprehensively addressed the troubling ethical entanglement of some members of its leadership in the intelligence apparatus. In January 2005, the American Psychological Association issued its Report of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security, which seeks to legitimize the involvement of psychologists in interrogation—a role that is fundamentally inconsistent with ethical principles and both US and international law. In concluding that psychologists have a central role in interrogations, the Task Force gave short shrift to the ethical and human rights implications of coercive interrogation practices used by US forces that relied on psychological expertise. Nor has the APA sanctioned its members responsible for designing and implementing torture. PHR, with colleagues from the University of Cape Town, has documented the conflicts encountered when health professionals are under pressure to use their skills to serve state interests at the expense of human rights. The findings were published in the report Dual Loyalty and Human Rights in Health Professional Practice: Proposed Guidelines and Institutional Mechanisms.

The United States and the military in particular, has been a leader in defining and establishing the applicable legal norms for individual criminal responsibility for war crimes, including the elimination of defense of superior orders and liability for heads of state. It is undeniable that crimes have been committed; as a nation, we must not turn our backs and walk away.

Unless the President and Congress act to create an accountability mechanism to address the authorization for and implementation of detainee abuse, the US will remain in violation of its clear legal obligation to investigate and prosecute torture. These techniques, which undermined our national security and may put American troops at risk, must not go unpunished. The integrity of medical and psychological ethics must be restored through a full airing of the facts and health professionals complicit in torture must lose their professional licenses.

The Firedoglake blog will host Nathaniel Raymond, Director of PHR's Campaign Against Torture, for a live online chat, from 3-4:30 pm. Raymond will answer questions about the newly declassified Senate Armed Services Committee publication, Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody (PDF). To particpate in the live online chat, vist http://firedoglake.com.