Doctors at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib used their medical knowledge to help devise coercive interrogation methods for detainees, including sleep deprivation, stress positions and other abuse, it was reported Thursday.
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine provides the most authoritative account so far that doctors were active participants in the abuse of prisoners in the US' "war on terror."
"Clearly, the medical personnel who helped to develop and execute aggressive counter-resistance plans thereby breached the laws of war," says the article, which is based on interviews with more than two dozen military personnel and recently released official documents. It adds: "The conclusion that doctors participated in torture is premature, but there is probable cause for suspecting it."
The issue that the administration had encouraged the use of coercive interrogation techniques was raised yesterday in the Senate confirmation hearings of Alberto Gonzales, the presidential nominee for attorney general. Gonzales was attacked for a memo which said only the most severe types of torture were not permissible under US law.
The article accuses doctors of violating professional ethics by passing detainee health records to military intelligence, and by watching interrogation sessions.
It also describes collaboration with interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq in which doctors and medics helped set the parameters for abuse, determining 72-hour "sleep management" schedules for detainees, approving bread and water regimens for those subjected to "dietary manipulation," and sanctioning long periods of isolation.
At Guantanamo and at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, doctors had the final say on the interrogation plan for each detainee.
"We'd capture a guy; the medic would screen him and ensure he was fit for interrogation. After that the medic would watch over the interrogation from behind the glass," the article quotes a military police commander as saying.
The report is not the first evidence of physicians' collusion with torture. Last August an article in the British medical journal the Lancet accused medics at Abu Ghraib of failing to report the beating of detainees and of forging death certificates. But the practices described Thursday suggests for the first time that medical practitioners played an active role in abuse.
"This is physicians and psychiatrists being involved in the design and implementation of interrogation plans," said Jonathan Marks, a British lawyer and a fellow at the Georgetown University law center, who co-authored the report.
There was no immediate comment from the US military, but the article includes comments from the deputy assistant secretary of defense for health, David Tornberg, which suggest that the Pentagon holds that professional ethics do not apply in a time of war. That view has raised concern within the medical community.
"You have to protect physicians from being manipulated or used to serve military purposes," said Leonard Rubinstein, director of Physicians for Human Rights.
"This goes to the heart of the medical function -- taking care of patients -- and every doctor can see how they can become compromised."
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS