Christy–Thanks so much for having me on FDL today to talk about all the recent revelations and developments in the fight against torture. It is a pleasure to be here!

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?

I believed we would see the bottom, that the details would spill out all at once, and we would recover from the initial painful discoveries.

But I was wrong. The bottom seems a long way off now.

Welcome, Mr. Raymond.

Welcome, Nathaniel. So great to have you here to discuss this today.

Would love your thoughts on the first read through of the SASC report and how you see tie-ins to everything we’ve already learned via ICRC, OLC memos and all the other publicly available information. How do you see the role of medical professionals in all of this now — and what accountability should we all be asking for, in your opinion?

Also, 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.

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

Paging Dr. Joseph Mengele, Angel of Death.

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.

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?

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.

I think Obama & congress are lost causes. No backbone, will get played by the CIA that these techniques are necessary to save the country. (Though no harm in trying, and good luck with your efforts.)

What about something that docs can do without govt help, like getting public the names of the psychologists and medical docs who participated in the torture. We know the politicians who did it, why not the doctors? And can’t you get them delicensed?

As far as I speculate, there had to have been medical doctors as well as psychologists. Several (40?) prisoners died under CIA control, and no doubt there were docs supervising the torture to make sure the prisoner was still alive.

Hi Nathaniel, thanks so much for being here.

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.

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.

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?

Those in the medical profession who actively participated in the torture, are they, like all the others who are involved seem to be, also authoritarian leaders or followers? Should efforts be made in the future to weed out of the medical profession those who can be tested and found to have an authoritarian mindset?

It truly is all the memos and other matters we don’t know about that still keep me up nights. If what we know is still not the worst of it, imagine what that might be.

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.

The psychological society has been ripped apart over this issue. The board of directors had tried to continue to support that it was better to have a ‘psychologist” attending. The membership, notsomuch.

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.

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.

Doubt that there’s much we don’t know. The only thing in the recently released memos that was new was use of insects, and one could have speculated on that.

I once watched a program on cspan by a Canadian man who was physically tortured in Saudi Arabia. They specialize in methods that leave no scars, like beating the soles of the feet. (Don’t remember the details, but think they wanted a false confession, which he finally gave.) So we might expect to hear of that kind of torture, which hasn’t come out yet.

One of the things that struck me from the Shane/Mazzetti article in the NYTimes today was the notion that “leaarned helplessness” was supposed to somehow increase the liklihood of TRUTHFUL confessions.

I get why torturing someone would lead them to tell you whatever it was that they thought you wanted to hear–which is why I think Paul Krugman hit the nail on the head suggesting that the torture was menat to extract a “confession” tying Iraq to Al Quaeda and/or 9-11 and that Cheney/Rumsfeld didn’t give a rat’s ass if the “confession” was true or not–would make sense. But learned helpessness and the desire to please one’s captors would make any information MORE SUSPECT not more reliable.

Question: By bringing his “learned helplessness” theory to the attention of the CIA NOT FOR A THERAPUTIC or DIAGNOSTIC purpose–is it not fair to say that this psycholigist advocated the use of violence against another human being for the purpose of causing harm –including psychological harm — and that harm indeed happened to those persons?

How does that make him any better than the mafia capo who advocates to the mafia don that someone should get “wacked”?

Nathaniel, thanks for joining us and thanks for the excellent work you and PHR do.

I want to see every doc who participated in torture lose their license. While we’re waiting for the Feds to cough up the names, I’d love to see professional specialty societies, state/county medical associations, and state medical boards routinely ask all applicants/renewal applicants if they ever participated in interrogations.

Will some lie? Of course: their false statements alone (at least in CA) are grounds for licensure revocation. Once we pry the names out of the Feds, of course.

What avenues seem most likely to reveal the names of licensed health practioners who in any way participated in torture/interrogations?

Also, even while we are waiting for official action, might consumer preference (”Would you like your child/spouse seen by a doctor who tortured, or one who didn’t?”) help increase economic penalties for my evil colleagues? Getting care systems like Kaiser or components of care (like academic med centers) to prospectively wall out torture docs (nurses, psychologists, etc) can help bring economic sanctions upon the torturers even faster….

And one of the big problems with that is that a number of the folks in leadership roles, as I understand it, have also had either CIA or DOD consulting positions or were working on contracts directly for one of them at the time a lot of those issues were coming up with at least one group of which I’m aware. It’s been a huge mess.

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.

Let’s assume (for the sake of discussion) that Congress heeds your call for a “non-partisan commission to investigate the Bush Administration’s use of torture, with a specific focus on the role that psychologists and medical professionals played in its design, justification, supervision, and use.”

Who would you suggest as members of such a commission? If you’d rather not name specific people, what kind of people should be asked to serve?

My own partial answer would include someone from the Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis MN. Looking back on the 2005 hearings to confirm Alberto Gonzales as the Attorney General, the testimony of CVT Executive Director Douglas Johnson was stunning in its ability to foresee where we’d be today.

Getting their names public & making a big stink about it would get us a lot farther than we are now. It may not be enough, but it’s better than nothing.

Should efforts be made in the future to weed out of the medical profession those who can be tested and found to have an authoritarian mindset?

Well, if applied to today’s physicians, it would reduce their numbers by about 95%.

And really, short of pleading the fifth, it’s hard to imagine doctors refusing to testify. There simply cannot be a claim of doctor-patient privilege, or other such prohibition.

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.

–clincal 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.

Speaking of which, Nathaniel, can you talk a bit about how groups like the A.P.A. came to approve of medical participation in some of this, like the decision they came to in 2005 at their annual meeting? I know PHR was integrally involved in trying to point out ethical problems with this at that meeting.

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?

following up on dr murphy’s excellent points at #23, should we as medical consumers be asking those same questions of every health care professional who treats us?

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.

Of course, a background issue to all of this is that the medical profession has been notoriously bad at policing itself for decades. Physicians who screw up in one locality often don’t even have to move out of state. The idea is just to move them out of the local community. If they really fuck up, they may have to move out of state. But seldom do any of them lose their ability to practice completely.

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?

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”

And of course, there is also the underlying theme to all of this, which is that torture and all the rest of the destruction was essential in their intention to pillage the treasury, outsource as much work as possible to crony capitalists and thieves, and the wholesale ruin of our government. Every aspect, executive, legislative and judicial was totally compromised for the theft. Torture was an important sideline to keep the enterprise going.

Bottom line, these are sadistic sick people who drew a lot of people into their web of deceit.

I agree that it is important to establish who did what and under what circumstances.

A note of “routine stressors of confinement” with regard to torture is pretty obviously malpractice.

But in all this, let us not forget the nurses. They are medical professionals too.

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?

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.

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?

I’d also like to note for the record that the SASC report was signed off by all members of the committee unanimously. If you look at the committee membership roster, you’ll just how much of an achievement it was — and how damning a lot of the classified material had to have been to overcome partisan gamesmanship in this.

This is a superbly crafted memo in terms of public disclosure. Truly.

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.

The doctors in question should be brought to the bar of justice. If any are found guilty, perhaps they could be useful as County Health Department volunteers, Prison doctors, or doctors in third world countries, so that they could help the poor.

If you could simply hit them in their pocketbooks, that might be adequate punishment. They still retain skills that are valuable to society. It is unfortunate for society to waste these skills.

It has been reported (via Canadian Right Wing Media) that many doctors in Canada are seeking employment elsewhere as they have become responsible for the OBGYN care (and baby delivery) of (illegal alien) pregnant women (after the first two served are paid by the Provincial Health Systems).

It seems that it is often reported around the world that doctors are in short supply and thus are in demand.

Are there additional committees that will be releasing other reports that related to this in other ways? Surely the SASC report is not the only one in the works?

I believe Senate Intel is working on one as well but, thus far, it’s been fairly closed door due to secrecy issues in what’s been discussed. I haven’t heard what, if any, of the hearings may be public as yet. Will let you know when and if I do.

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.

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.

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.

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?

I sure hope we see that soon.

To perseverate (my 23 and Suzanne’s 33), would either

1) incorporating questions about participation in torture/interrogation as a routine component of the questions we docs must answer for hospital privileges

and/or

2) increasing direct consumer demand for “torture-free” hospitals, clinics, care systems

further accelerate the torture docs’ sequestration outside of patient care?

Meant to say also that House Judiciary is supposedly working on some hearings, but they haven’t been set yet.

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.

Interesting how bushco encouraged medical professionals to follow their conscience when it came to birth control and violate their ethics when it came to torture.

I won’t hold my breath that there will be any investigations of their own by the House or Senate Ethics Committees.

It does bring to mind that old saw, “When they came for the (fill in), (fill in) and (fill in), I did nothing. When they came for me, there was no one left to do anything.”

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 neighbords.

Demand it. Demand it. Demand it.

here’s the link to the petition

Interesting how bushco encouraged medical professionals to follow their conscience when it came to birth control and violate their ethics when it came to torture.

He was just applying the tried and true principle: IOKIYAR.

Nathaniel — do you have any thoughts you can share on the destruction of those CIA interrogation tapes and the investigation into that?

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.

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.

Thanks for your work.

As an attorney and activist journalist I interviewed a former interrogator who told me the following:

1. That rendition is kind of a red herring because he interrogated prisoners on air craft carriers beyond the bational boundaries. The victims may have been told they were rendered but in fact were way offshore under OMI supervision.

2. Genital mutilation was used against females as well as males.

3. American citizens were tortured and psychologically neutralized with chemicals to “forget” or else be so disoriented that they could not reliably descrive their experiences (in one case after clitorectomies with no anasthesia AND

4. that there are hundreds of former interrogators in hiding, veterans, who are afraid of their government and the ONI-CIA who will kill them rathert than let them disclose these crimes. Many went awol and into hiding.

Any evidence of any of this in your records?

and if not…

keep an eye out for them.

My source told me that only with anonymity and immunity would he testify (and that he would accept punishment except he expects to be killed if he were to testify without anonymity)

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.

Mr. Raymond – THANK YOU. Years ago I was active in the movement to expose the Soviet use of psychiatry as an instrument on political suppression. It really distresses me that my country has embraced torture.

I expect that OPR report to be quite scathing, but it will be limited to the four walls of DOJ in terms of recommendations for punishment. Thus, someone like David Addington who worked for Dick Cheney’s OVP would not be included in bar association referrals for ethical questions, etc.

But I’d expect that there will be references to any number of outside pressures, influences and other issues within the report as well. From what I have been hearing, there are a large number of people cringing in wait for this report. And have been for a while, which makes me more than wonder what they’ve added into it as new revelation bits and pieces have trickled out…

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.

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.

Senator Levin interview on NPR now.

–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.

Article 144 of the 4th Geneva Conventions requires High Contracting Parties not only to disseminate the laws of war to professionals and soldiers but to the general public as well. We, as a nation, are not in compliance if a third of the people don’t see what is wrong with torturing prisoners for information. I think the long term solution has to begin with what we teach our children, as well.

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?

It may not contain recommendations for punishment for those outside the four walls of the DOJ, but you can hardly tell the story of the Yoo/Bybee/Bradbury memos without the cast of characters from WHCO and OVP.

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.

Great and deeply disturbing discussion.

Mr. Raymond, thank you for all you are doing, and for taking the time to detail some of it here today.

And thank you, Christy, for hosting.

Michele Bachman will accuse that this is indoctrination in schools.

Thank you Christy and Nathaniel. Slowly the wheels of justice grind. I hope our country (all individuals) think deeply about the implications of all of this and will find courage in their convictions when confronted with aiding this type of evil enterprise in the future.

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.

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.

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?

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.

thank you mr. raymond for coming to speak with us about this critical issue. i signed the petition and hope that many others do likewise. it is only when we the people speak up demanding answers and change that it will occur.

Thank You for your hard work and leadership on this issue. You are a gentleman and a scholar. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and insight. Very informative. Thanks to Christy also.

Hi Nathaniel,

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?

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.

Thanks Nathaniel, seems we’re finally gaining traction on this issue.

Will PHR be doing more houseparties?

Feel free to come back any time and drop into the comments!

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.

You may have missed my quick question above but a response would be great

Nathaniel,
Thanks for the book rec. and your time here with us. Off to sign the petition and then some sleep. *keep forgetting the sleep part*

Marcy is all over it again, at the top of the front page!
Abu Zubaydah: Waterboarded 83 Times for 10 Pieces of Intelligence

I have to sign-off, but I will try and come back later and answer Valtin and seventhson’s questions more fully. So check back. Thanks for your questions!

Nathaniel, I’m just grateful PHR is here: your and your colleagues’ work lets me know many of us are working to defeat this evil.

Sorry for kibitizing (I’m in clinic between patients), but I wonder if AMSA would be a powerful ally in med schools. Once AMSA took up chasing drug reps out of med schools, that made an internal difference (even in huge ac med centers).

With exams/NBME coming up, it may be too late for this academic year; the third and fourth years hitting the floors right about now will likely be focused on clinical issues, not the political matrix. But – cause the torture docs will still be with in us in late August – the AMSA chapters at each American med school can be potent change agents.

(oops – 1:30 pt showed up…gotta go)

Please don’t be a stranger and stop in anytime.

Christy, thanks so much for hosting this forum and for all that you do.

Hope my ? wasn’t too tin-foily. Hard to tell these days.

Thanks much – I will look for it!

And thanks to the FDL for this service to us all!

Thanks Nate. I’m only sorry I got here so late to be in on this. That’s great if you’ll come back and answer. If you do, could I sneak in one more?

What about the Pentagon OIG investigation into the drugging of detainees? Will that be coming out anytime soon? Is it even concluded? Will it be made public? Are you aware of any of their findings?

There… that’s just one more “little” question ;-)

All the best…

I’m not in agreement- medical assistance to torture makes a person a torturer- these medics, doctors & nurses should not be foisted on the poor.

sorry i missed the chat–
since you said you would be back—
nathaniel-my question is phrased in a sketchy manner..it rang a bell a tthe time and by the time i had the internet to pursue it i couldn’t find his name or the diane rehm show he was on..has bothered me ever since.

right after dana priest ? did her big story on ‘black sites’, the official who was in charge of passing out surveys to all medical personnel in all sites where detainees were interrogated was on the show . (he was head of a department, big cheese, cna’t remember)he was there to calm the waters and tried to do so by talkng about the surveys thta were required and mandatory for all medical personnel in __#_sites. the number he used was way higher than any number i had heard by that date. the survey was specific about whether any of them had been asked or forced to participate in torture AND whether they had witnessed any torture-outside the bounds kind..he said at that time there were NO REPORTS OF IT.

what was weird was that i don’t think he meant to say the number of sites he did. (113?) he immediately tried to move on and was more measured after that. he goofed. his name was weiner-something or weimeriner sounding. i heard it when he resigned a year or two ago but was in the car and couldn’t find a thing on it later. if i had the name i could find the show.

big questions are–where are those surveys and where is the report from those surveys?

and where/what are the 113? sites he mentioned where interrogations took place?dana’s site number was under 20 in europe not counting iraq.

the show was pre-holiday week, i tried to find it, but without his name have not been able to.has bothered me ever since. i wondered at the time why it wasn’t in the news.

Dr. Raymond:

In the event you do get back to this, I wanted to reiterate (copied below) my question/comment and add the following:

According to a confidential source whom I interviewed, and with whom I diswcussed testifying before Congress, a former interrogator who admitted torturing American female detainees, clitorectomies without anesthesia were carried out on orders of his superiors by medical personnel on a US naval aircraft carrier in international waters and the females were pharmaceutically treated to prevent them from disclosing their treatment or remembering exactly what happened to them.

my comment above follows:

As an attorney and activist journalist I interviewed a former interrogator who told me the following:

1. That rendition is kind of a red herring because he interrogated prisoners on air craft carriers beyond the bational boundaries. The victims may have been told they were rendered but in fact were way offshore under OMI supervision.

2. Genital mutilation was used against females as well as males.

3. American citizens were tortured and psychologically neutralized with chemicals to “forget” or else be so disoriented that they could not reliably descrive their experiences (in one case after clitorectomies with no anasthesia AND

4. that there are hundreds of former interrogators in hiding, veterans, who are afraid of their government and the ONI-CIA who will kill them rathert than let them disclose these crimes. Many went awol and into hiding.

Any evidence of any of this in your records?

and if not…

keep an eye out for them.

My source told me that only with anonymity and immunity would he testify (and that he would accept punishment except he expects to be killed if he were to testify without anonymity)

Thanks for doing what you do and to all your colleagues: this is a frightening and critical point in our history and your work is invaluable.

given their abusive ways, i would really HATE to see these doctors in prisons. there’s enough abuse in our prisons already.

their licenses are already wasted. they should not have licenses to practise medecine anywhere.

prisons and third world countries are some of the places we need our most ethical and compassionate professionals, imo.

Just wandering by, I checked my Bush scandals list. Was it this guy you had in mind?

William Winkenwerder Jr. was Assistant Secretary of Defense for health affairs from 2001 until his resignation on April 16, 2007.

Hugh @102 — I think that’t the guy dmac is looking for.