{"id":61193,"date":"2015-07-20T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=61193"},"modified":"2015-07-20T10:20:08","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T09:20:08","slug":"outside-psychologists-shielded-u-s-torture-program-report-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/07\/outside-psychologists-shielded-u-s-torture-program-report-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Outside Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. A new report examines the collaboration between psychologists and officials at the C.I.A. and the Pentagon. Credit Brendan Smialowski\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

10 Jul 2015 – <\/em>The Central Intelligence Agency<\/a>\u2019s health professionals repeatedly criticized the agency\u2019s post-Sept. 11 interrogation program, but their protests were rebuffed by prominent outside psychologists who lent credibility to the program, according to a new report.<\/p>\n

The 542-page report, which examines the involvement of the nation\u2019s psychologists and their largest professional organization, the American Psychological Association, with the harsh interrogation programs of the Bush era, raises repeated questions about the collaboration between psychologists and officials at both the C.I.A.<\/a> and the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

The report, completed this month, concludes that some of the association\u2019s top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association\u2019s ethics policies in line with the Defense Department\u2019s interrogation policies, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the C.I.A.\u2019s interrogation program and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency.<\/p>\n

The association\u2019s ethics office \u201cprioritized the protection of psychologists \u2014 even those who might have engaged in unethical behavior \u2014 above the protection of the public,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

Two former presidents of the psychological association were on a C.I.A. advisory committee, the report found. One of them gave the agency an opinion that sleep deprivation did not constitute torture, and later held a small ownership stake in a consulting company founded by two men who oversaw the agency\u2019s interrogation program, it said.<\/p>\n

The association\u2019s ethics director, Stephen Behnke, coordinated the group\u2019s public policy statements on interrogations with a top military psychologist, the report said, and then received a Pentagon contract to help train interrogators while he was working at the association, without the knowledge of the association\u2019s board. Mr. Behnke did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The report, which was obtained by The New York Times and has not previously been made public, is the result of a seven-month investigation by a team led by David Hoffman, a Chicago lawyer with the firm Sidley Austin at the request of the psychology association\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

After the Hoffman report was made public on Friday, the American Psychological Association issued an apology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe actions, policies and lack of independence from government influence described in the Hoffman report represented a failure to live up to our core values,\u201d Nadine Kaslow, a former president of the organization, said in a statement. \u201cWe profoundly regret and apologize for the behavior and the consequences that ensued.\u201d<\/p>\n

The association said it was considering proposals to prohibit psychologists from participating in interrogations and to modify its ethics policies, among other changes.<\/p>\n

The involvement of psychologists in the interrogation programs has been a source of contention within the profession for years. Another report<\/a>, issued in April by several critics of the association, came to similar conclusions. But Mr. Hoffman\u2019s report is by far the most detailed look yet into the crucial roles played by behavioral scientists, especially top officials at the American Psychological Association and some of the most prominent figures in the profession, in the interrogation programs. It also shows that the collaboration was much more extensive than was previously known.<\/p>\n

A report<\/a> last December by the Senate Intelligence Committee detailed the brutality of some of the C.I.A.\u2019s interrogation methods, but by focusing on the role of psychologists, Mr. Hoffman\u2019s report provides new details, and can be seen as a companion to the Senate report.<\/p>\n

The C.I.A. and the Pentagon both conducted harsh interrogations during the administration of President George W. Bush, although the C.I.A.\u2019s program included more brutal tactics. Some of them, like the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding, are now widely regarded as torture. The agency\u2019s interrogations were done at so-called black site prisons around the world where prisoners were held secretly for years.<\/p>\n

The report found that while some prominent psychologists collaborated with C.I.A. officials in ways that aided the agency\u2019s interrogation program, the American Psychological Association and its staff members focused more on working with the Pentagon, with which the association has long had strong ties.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the report said that senior officials of the association had \u201ccolluded\u201d with senior Defense Department officials to make certain that the association\u2019s ethics rules did not hinder the ability of psychologists to remain involved with the interrogation program.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s most immediate impact will be felt at the association, where it has been presented to the board and its members\u2019 council. The board met last week to discuss the report and is expected to act on its findings soon. The association has since renounced 2005 ethics guidelines that allowed psychologists to stay involved in the harsh interrogations, but several staff members who were named in the report have remained at the organization.<\/p>\n

A C.I.A. spokesman said that agency officials had not seen it and so could not comment.<\/p>\n

Dissent began building within the C.I.A. against the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques not long after its interrogation program began.<\/p>\n

In about late 2002, the head of the C.I.A.\u2019s Office of Medical Services, Terrence DeMay, started to complain about the involvement in the program of James Mitchell<\/a>, a psychologist and instructor at the Air Force\u2019s SERE (survival, evasion, rescue and escape) program, in which United States military personnel are subjected to simulated torture to gird them for possible capture. Mr. Mitchell had also served as a consultant to the C.I.A. advisory committee that included two former presidents of the psychological association.<\/p>\n

One unidentified witness was quoted in the Hoffman report as saying that doctors and psychologists in the C.I.A.\u2019s Office of Medical Services \u201cwere not on board with what was going on regarding interrogations, and felt that they were being cut out of the discussion.\u201d One leading C.I.A. psychologist told investigators that Mr. DeMay \u201cwas berating Jim Mitchell about being involved in the interrogation program,\u201d and that Mr. DeMay\u2019s objections \u201crelated to the involvement of psychologists as professionals adept at human behavior and manipulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. DeMay\u2019s complaints \u201cled to a substantial dispute within the C.I.A.,\u201d according to the report, and prompted the head of the agency\u2019s counterterrorism center to seek an opinion from a prominent outside psychologist on whether it was ethical for psychologists to continue to participate in the C.I.A.\u2019s interrogations.<\/p>\n

The C.I.A. chose Mel Gravitz, a prominent psychologist who was also a member of the agency\u2019s advisory committee. In early 2003, Mr. Gravitz wrote an opinion that persuaded the chief of the agency\u2019s counterterrorism center that Mr. Mitchell could continue to participate in and support interrogations, according to the Hoffman report.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gravitz\u2019s opinion, which the Hoffman report quotes, noted that \u201cthe psychologist has an obligation to (a) group of individuals, such as the nation,\u201d and that the ethics code \u201cmust be flexible [sic] applied to the circumstances at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

But ethical concerns persisted at the C.I.A. In March 2004, other agency insiders emailed the psychological association to say they were worried that psychologists were assisting with interrogations in ways that contradicted the association\u2019s ethics code.<\/p>\n

One of those who contacted the association was Charles Morgan, a C.I.A. contractor and psychiatrist who had studied military personnel who went through the SERE program\u2019s simulated torture training, research that showed that the techniques used on them could not be used to collect accurate information.<\/p>\n

Another, oddly, was Kirk Hubbard, a C.I.A. psychologist who was chairman of the agency advisory committee that included two former association presidents and on which Mr. Mitchell was a consultant. Mr. Hubbard told the Hoffman investigators that he did not have concerns about the participation of psychologists in the interrogation program, but emailed the association because he had been asked to pass on the concerns of other behavioral scientists inside the agency.<\/p>\n

The ethical concerns raised by Mr. Morgan and others inside the C.I.A. led to a confidential meeting in July 2004 at the psychological association of about 15 behavioral scientists who worked for national security agencies. This was followed by the creation of an association task force to study the ethics of psychologists\u2019 involvement in interrogations.<\/p>\n

But association and government officials filled the task force with national security insiders, and it concluded in 2005 that it was fine for psychologists to remain involved, the report found.<\/p>\n

The report provides new details about how Mr. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, another SERE trainer who would later go into business with Mr. Mitchell, gained entree to the C.I.A.\u2019s counterterrorism center, which hired them to create and run the interrogation program. After Mr. Mitchell worked as a consultant to the C.I.A. advisory committee, Mr. Hubbard introduced Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jessen to Jim Cotsana, the chief of special missions in the C.I.A.\u2019s counterterrorism center.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jessen were later hired as contractors for the counterterrorism center, where they helped create the interrogation program by adapting the simulated torture techniques from the SERE program, using them against detainees.<\/p>\n

Separately, Joseph Matarazzo, a former president of the psychological association who was a member of the C.I.A. advisory committee, was asked by Mr. Hubbard to provide an opinion about whether sleep deprivation constituted torture. Mr. Matarazzo concluded that it was not torture, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Later, Mr. Matarazzo became a 1 percent owner of a unit of Mitchell Jessen and Associates, the contracting company Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jessen created to handle their work with the C.I.A.\u2019s interrogation program. Mr. Matarazzo was also listed as a partner of the company in a 2008 annual report, according to the Hoffman report.<\/p>\n

Mr. Matarazzo said he had not read the report and could not comment.<\/p>\n

Mr. Hubbard, after he retired from the C.I.A., also did some work for Mitchell Jessen and Associates.<\/p>\n

The report reaches unsparing conclusions about the close relationship between some association officials and officials at the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence supports the conclusion that A.P.A. officials colluded with D.O.D. officials to, at the least, adopt and maintain A.P.A. ethics policies that were not more restrictive than the guidelines that key D.O.D. officials wanted,\u201d the report says, adding, \u201cA.P.A. chose its ethics policy based on its goals of helping D.O.D., managing its P.R., and maximizing the growth of the profession.\u201d<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

James Risen is an author, reporter and investigative journalist who has exposed various illegal activities by the US government and who is facing imprisonment for refusing to reveal the identity of one of his sources. In his book, <\/em>State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration<\/em>, Risen cites information from an unnamed intelligence agent about a CIA operation, Operation Merlin, which sought to disrupt Iran\u2019s nuclear program. On 2 June, 2014 the US Supreme Court decided not to intervene. Risen has categorically insisted that he will accept imprisonment before violating the confidentiality of his source.<\/em><\/p>\n

A version of this article appears in print on July 11, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Torture Efforts Were Protested by Psychologists.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 nytimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The report, completed this month, concludes that some of the American Psychological Association\u2019s top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association\u2019s ethics policies in line with the Defense Department\u2019s interrogation policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}