Role of psychologists in military interrogations
Maxine Clarke
Wednesday, 03 June 2009 09:48 UTC
Last week’s (21 May issue) Editorial in Nature (459, 300; 2009 – free to access online) on “responsible interrogation” has stimulated many responses, and we welcome more here. The Bush administration used what it described as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, and others describe as torture, to wring information from detainees suspected of terrorism. There is no scientific basis for asserting that techniques such as waterboarding, or slamming people against a wall, are fast or effective ways of getting at the truth (see a News story in Nature 445, 349; 2007 – subscription/site licence). Hence, continues the Editorial, the struggles by the American Psychological Association (APA) to formulate ethical guidelines for psychologists involved in US national-security-related interrogations such as those that took place at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The discussions were carried out confidentially in 2005 and involved the ten members of the APA Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security, leading to a set of 12 principles issued in a 2005 report.
The controversy now is that the Massachusetts-based activist group Physicians for Human Rights, among others, say that the APA has excessively cosy relations with the military on torture — letting the Pentagon dictate a set of guidelines to its own liking. The Nature Editorial argues that evidence for this accusation is not obvious in the 12 principles themselves. "One forbids psychologists to engage in, direct, support, facilitate or offer training in torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; another articulates a moral obligation for them to report acts of torture to the “appropriate authority”." But because the APA task force did not question whether psychologists should be involved in interrogations at all (the first principle explictly allows this), there was a backlash from APA members. Last September, they pushed through a resolution stating that psychologists may not work in settings where people are held outside, or in violation of, international law (for example the UN Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution) – places like the so-called overseas “black” sites where the United States has held detainees – unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights. Other professional societies, for example the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the World Medical Association, are all formally against their members participating in interrogations.
The Editorial concludes: "Mike Gelles, a task-force member who was at the time chief psychologist for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, maintains that his active involvement at Guantanamo Bay allowed him to bring concerns about interrogation methods to military leaders there, leading them to change those methods. He deserves the last word. “Removing professional psychologists from these settings,” he wrote in 2007 to colleagues who were calling for a moratorium on psychologists’ involvement in interrogations, “will impact the degree of oversight and inevitably increase the likelihood of abuse, thus having precisely the opposite effect of what occurred as a result of my involvement at Guantanamo Bay.” "
Updated 03 June 2009 09:50 UTC
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Replies
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Letter to the editor:
I am writing in response to “Responsible Interrogation” (21 May, 2009 issue, vol. 459, p. 300, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7245/full/459300a.html). The author writes, “The risks of abuse are ever present, and having a professional present should serve as protection for detainees . . .” There no logic in this statement, nor is there evidence to support the statement.In spite of Mike Gelles’ claim in 2007 to have altered interrogation methods by his presence at Guantanamo in 2002, again, there is no evidence that any significant changes occurred. Approximately 500 prisoners have now been released from Guantanamo and reports of abuse and torture run rampant, which has been documented with evidence.
Though Nature appears to find the PENS report defensible, there are in fact many aspects of the report that are alarming, including the following paragraph from the fourth of the twelve statements: “The Task Force notes that psychologists sometimes encounter conflicts between ethics and law. When such conflicts arise, psychologists make known their commitment to the APA Ethics Code and attempt to resolve the conflict in a responsible manner. If the conflict cannot be resolved in this manner, psychologists may adhere to the requirements of the law. (Ethical Standard 1.02)”
The “law” of the United States had been shredded by Bush administrative attorneys and others at the time of the PENS report with the result that all prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere had no habeas corpus rights, and it was “lawful” to use torture in interrogations. The PENS report was intended to twist ethics just as the Justice Department memos were intended to twist the legal framework.
Psychologists have been at from interrogation and detention centers since 2002. Perhaps we could give tortured detainees, those who were tortured in spite of the presence of psychologists, the last word.
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As a U.S. psychologist who actively worked to oppose APA’s misguided policy of “engagement” with the Guantanamo program, I was appalled by the misinformation stated in your editorial, “Responsible Interrogation” of 5/21/09. In September 2008 the members of APA voted by referendum to change their organization’s policy by barring psychologists from working in settings that violate international law, unless working directly for the detainees. At the time, APA president Alan Kazdin informed President Bush of the new policy, writing, “The effect of this new policy is to prohibit psychologists from any involvement in interrogations or any other operational procedures at detention sites that are in violation of the U.S. Constitution or international law.” (10/8/09) Apparently the new APA president, James Bray, and some members of APA staff would like to pretend otherwise, and Nature is willing to go along with the fiction. Please retract and correct your editorial accordingly.
Ruth Fallenbaum, Ph.D.
Oakland, CA -
To the editor
Your editorial, Responsible Interrogation, Nature (459, 300) May 21, 2009, is anything but responsible. Rather than reflecting current American Psychological Association policy, the writer states that “having a professional present [in interrogations of terror suspects] should serve as protection for detainees…” This position was rejected by the APA membership in the fall of 2008 when a referendum stating that psychologists may not work in settings where detainees are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law or the U.S. Constitution was brought to a vote and passed with an 18 point margin. In 2003, the International Committee of the Red Cross determined that the conditions of detention in Guantanamo Bay in themselves were tantamount to torture. In voting for the passage of the referendum, APA members accepted the argument that while the presence of psychologists may confer an aura of professional legitimacy on these illegal settings, by their very presence in such sites, psychologists are complicit in torture.
As for psychologists keeping detainees safe in actual interrogations, surely a responsible scientific writer would recall the experiments of psychologists Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo demonstrating that social pressure can lead well meaning people to commit acts of violence. What makes your writer believe that psychologists, particularly those in the military chain of command, are any less prone to behavioral drift in an interrogation setting than the rest of the human race?
The position your writer favors led several hundred APA members to withhold their professional dues or to outright resign from an organization that, they believed, was making a mockery of its first ethical principle, do no harm. Please set this record straight. Many of us (Ethicalapa.com) worked hard to correct the APA’s damaging policies. It is disheartening to see these policies characterized as responsible in the pages of Nature.
Ghislaine Boulanger, Ph.D.
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To the Editor:
As a psychologist, I wish to commend your journal for addressing, in your May 21
editorial entitled “Responsible Interrogation,” a topic which is of paramount
importance today: the role of psychologists and health professionals in
“interrogations” in extralegal U.S. prisons such as Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib,
Bagram, and the CIA’s “black sites.” Further, I appreciated your observation
that there are “unequivocal” points to be made regarding this issue, one of
which is that what we are discussing here is torture rather than “enhanced
interrogation techniques,” a misnomer you rightly reject as “sanitized
parlance.”However, I was greatly disturbed by the remainder of the editorial, including
everything after your first paragraph. After starting out by clearly and
“unequivocally” condemning torture, your subsequent three paragraphs proceed to
muddy the waters as they oscillate bizarrely between suggesting that torture may
not be “effective,” wondering whether research could be done to clarify its
efficacy, suggesting that “soft” methods might be more effective, noting that
even if torture were in fact sometimes effective it is “not to be tolerated,”
and then opining that “there are few easy answers,” as evidenced by struggles
within the APA to set policy regarding psychologists’ participation in
interrogations.Let’s clarify a few points before we proceed, points which I would suggest are
also “unequivocal.” Torture has happened. Not in a few instances, nor due to a
few “bad apples,” but in a concerted, coördinated, programmatic fashion. The
basic outline of this story, including psychologists’ role in the migration of
the psychological torture techniques and programs from “SERE School” at Fort
Bragg to the above-named prisons, is now well-documented and indisputable. In
the 2007 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report entitled “ICRC
Report on the Treatment of Fourteen `High Value Detainees’ in CIA Custody,” the
ICRC provides ample evidence that not only do particular techniques (such as
“waterboarding,” hooding, short-shackling, prolonged standing, dousing with cold
water, prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation and over-stimulation, beatings,
threats, and many others), considered singly or collectively, constitute
torture, but so do the overall conditions of detention in Guantánamo. Thus,
reverting to “softer” techniques, focusing on “rapport-building” interrogations,
banning certain techniques such as “waterboarding,” and so forth, while
continuing to hold detainees incommunicado, without effective habeas corpus
rights, and in conditions of extreme isolation and stress, sensory deprivation,
and so on, is still torture. This is not to mention the recent reports
suggesting that detainees are still, at this late date, being subjected to
severe physical beatings by the “Initial Reaction Force” or IRF. Nor is it to
mention the many detainees who are currently hunger striking and being
force-fed, in direct contravention of international standards of medical ethics,
in the most rough and brutal of fashions with large plastic tubes shoved
violently up their noses twice a day, under the supervision of medical doctors.Regarding psychologists, one further point that I would suggest is unequivocal
is that the only “struggle” that has gone on in the APA in terms of this issue
is the ongoing “struggle” by the leadership of the APA to set and maintain the
policy it prefers (one of “engagement”), over and against adamant, sustained,
public, and vocal objections and resistance from an ever-growing majority of its
rank and file membership. As you point out at the outset of your piece, the
issue of participation in torture is fairly straightforward and unequivocal:
don’t do it. At Guantánamo, in which the ICRC and others have rightly contested
that the conditions of detention themselves constitute torture, there can be no
ethical role for psychologists in such settings until the basic conditions of
detention change and detainees are given their basic human rights.A further point that is unequivocal, but somehow escapes mention in your
editorial, is that APA policy regarding psychologists’ participation in these
settings was officially and dramatically changed in September 2008, when the APA
membership pushed through a resolution banning members’ participation in
interrogations in these facilities. This was the first time such a
member-sponsored resolution was brought to a vote in APA’s history, and it
passed by a roughly 60/40 margin, with a member turn-out that was, again,
historical. This was a case of the membership advocating for a change in
official policy over a period of years and against stiff resistance from the APA
leadership. Again, the historical record on this point is clear and
unambiguous, if you would care to look.As to the final two paragraphs of your editorial, they offer such a combination
of willful ignorance and apparent loathing for human decency that I would rather
not discuss them at all. However, I feel I must. You suggest that it is “the
reality that interrogation is a necessity in preventing loss of life from
terrorism, and that some professionals feel it is their duty to ensure that the
activity is conducted responsibly.” If this is “reality,” and a “necessity,”
then surely you can provide some evidence as to how our cruel regime of torture
in these extralegal prisons has “prevented loss of life from terrorism?” This
willful, systematic, and cruel torture is, in fact, a form of terrorism, and to
date over one hundred detainees have died during interrogation and confinement
in these prisons. I can only assume, then, from the above passage that the only
“loss of life from terrorism” that concerns you is that of U.S. citizens or their allies.You then point out the only known example of a psychologist who spoke out
against psychologists’ direct involvement in torture (as opposed to the vast
majority, who instead chose to remain silent and and complicit and collect their
paychecks), and suggest that he deserves “the last word,” which amounts in this
case to a veiled threat that removal of psychologists will “increase the
likelihood of abuse.” Given that the conditions of detention at Guantánamo
constitute torture, the issue, with all due respect to Dr. Gelles and his noble
act, isn’t one of “likelihood of abuse,” it’s one of “certainty of torture.” It
is a certainty that torture has been and is occurring in Guantánamo, based upon
the conditions there alone. It is also a certainty that any psychologists who
currently remain there or in other extralegal U.S.-controlled prisons around the
world, and are working within the military or CIA’s chains of command in those
facilities rather than on behalf of the detainees or international human rights
organizations, are doing so in direct contravention of their own professional
body’s policy.History will not look kindly upon this regime of physical and psychological
torture, nor upon psychologists’ and other health professionals’ involvement in
it. I would suggest that the least that a respectable journal such as yours
could do would be to accurately represent the APA’s own policies in this regard
to other concerned scientists around the world.Yours,
Ryan Hunt, Ph.D.
Psychologists for an Ethical APA
www.ethicalapa.com(visit our site to learn more about this issue, and to see all nine of our letters
to the Editor of Nature)
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