The leading US professional group for psychologists secretly worked with the administration of former US president George W. Bush to help justify the post-9/11 US detainee torture program, according to a watchdog analysis released on Thursday.
The report, written by six leading health professionals and human rights activists, is the first to examine the alleged complicity of the American Psychological Association (APA) in the “enhanced interrogation” program.
Based on an analysis of more than 600 newly disclosed e-mails, the report found that the APA coordinated with Bush-era government officials — namely in the CIA, the White House and the Department of Defense — to help ethically justify the interrogation policy in 2004 and 2005, when the program came under increased scrutiny for prisoner abuse by US military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
A series of clandestine meetings with US officials led to the creation of “an APA ethics policy in national security interrogations which comported with then-classified legal guidance authorizing the CIA torture program,” the report said.
The APA is the largest organization representing psychologists in the US, with more than 122,500 members. That mental health professionals played any role in the justification or enhancement of the interrogation program undoubtedly lent the program an air of legitimacy, if even behind closed doors.
In secret opinions, the US Department of Justice argued that the torture program did not constitute torture and was therefore legal, since they were being monitored by medical professionals.
A spokeswoman for the association denied in a statement to the New York Times that the group had coordinated its actions with the government.
There “has never been any coordination between the APA and the Bush administration on how APA responded to the controversies about the role of psychologists in the interrogations program,” Rhea Farberman said.
However, the report details a meeting in July 2004 — as images from Abu Ghraib stirred international outrage — at which the APA invited psychologists “directly involved in the CIA’s ‘enhanced’ interrogation program” to meet with the APA’s ethics office regarding the organization’s ethics policies.
The meeting came on the heels of a secret order — signed one month prior by then-CIA director George Tenet — suspending the agency’s use of torture techniques, which also requested a detailed policy review.
A second meeting took place in 2005, when the APA Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS), according to the e-mails, ensured that the “legal safeguards built into the ‘torture memos’ issued by the justice department’s Office of Legal Counsel were codified in APA ethics policy.”
Following the PENS meeting, the report says the APA passed “extraordinary policy recommendations,” in which the association reaffirmed that its members could be involved in the interrogation program, without violating APA ethical codes.
Additionally, the APA permitted research on “individuals involved in interrogation processes” without their consent.
“The analysis presented in this report raises serious concerns about the APA Board’s knowledge of, involvement in and responsibility for allowing the US government to unduly influence and change APA policy on interrogations,” the report said. “The resulting policy facilitated the continuation of the Bush administration torture program.”
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