Soldz & Reisner's "Comments" to APA on Hoffman Report, with My Initial Thoughts on the Report

As can be seen from the introductory material below, the following material has been granted wide release by its authors. I am reproducing it here with general formatting from the original. A few typos have been quietly corrected.

The "Comments" by Stephen Soldz and Steven Reisner concern the July 10 release of the APA-initiated Hoffman report, "Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture," conducted by David H. Hoffman of the law firm Sidley Austin LLP. A PDF of the lengthy report can be found here. APA's own press release and their own recommended actions related to the report's release is linked here. An index to the exhibits in the report and five binders of supplementary materials used in the report are posted at APA's website.

Previously, I cited what I believed to be serious questions regarding conflict of interest issues regarding Hoffman and CIA and the RAND Corporation (see here and here). I still believe those were relevant questions to ask, and until I absorb the full report, I cannot say for certain what effect any relationship in particular between Hoffman and the CIA or RAND had in the final version of the report.

In this report, Hoffman stated that he could not get the full story on how the APA interacted with CIA, primarily due to classification issues. Regarding the issue, for instance, of participation of past APA presidents with the CIA, Hoffman had this to say in a key paragraph:

As to the actions and knowledge of the former APA officials listed above (Fox, Gravitz, Matarazzo, and Seligman), some of them were clearly brought closer to the circle of knowledge through important interactions with Hubbard and Mitchell, as described further below. But we did not find evidence that there was a significant link between APA and their interactions or communications with the CIA. It is a fair question whether important interactions between these very prominent former APA officials also entailed, led to, or were connected to important interactions between APA and CIA. Except for very limited instances, we did not see any evidence of this in our examination of APA emails and other documents, and in our interviews, despite having found a very substantial amount of email and documentary evidence establishing important interactions between APA and government officials in other contexts, as set out above and below. On the one hand, this makes sense, since prominent psychologists who are former APA Presidents and Board members would not necessarily think that their interactions with the CIA about these issues would call for them to contact the APA, unless the CIA had specifically requested something from APA. On the other hand, we keenly recognize that in investigating activities involving the CIA, an agency that trains people to keep things secret for a living, we are especially limited in our ability to determine definitively what occurred, and therefore we are aware that our conclusions can only be based on the evidence available to us. This is especially true when the interactions are between CIA officials and individuals who were not APA officials or employees at the time, since their emails would not necessarily have been within APA’s system. [pg. 46 of report]

Furthermore, there are various points were evaluations of the evidence seems unwarranted, or based on interviews and evaluations of credibility that cannot be independently assessed, as in the assertion that "APA did not have the same close and longstanding relationship with the CIA as it did with DoD..." I also believe that Hoffman's dismissal of the import of the 2003 APA-CIA-RAND meeting, and the roles of Kirk Hubbard, Charles "Andy" Morgan, Kirk Kennedy, Susan Brandon, Philip Zimbardo, Martin Seligman, and others, may not be accurate. But I hesitate to say more until I have more fully examined the evidence, particular what has been posted in the over 600 MB of binder material at APA's Hoffman-related webpage.

There is also the significant problem that the entire issue of the controversy over the use of Behavioral Science Consultants in interrogations is posed as something in the past. In fact, as I've made clear recently, the passing of the Feinstein-McCain amendment to the National Authorization Act, which made use of the Army Field Manual a lawful requirement by government interrogators, including the CIA, means that use of BSCs have now the force of law. Much worse, and related, is the fact that the Army Field Manual on interrogations itself contains many abusive and torture-like "techniques" like isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, use of fear and inducing "hopelessness and helplessness" in detainees, such that it has been condemned by the UN and various human rights organizations. The Hoffman report never references anything in relation to this.

Despite these concerns, and any others I may yet find, the report has provided a wealth of material that is useful to those who oppose unethical use of medical professionals in interrogations, as well as those who oppose torture in general and are trying to unwind the entire story of U.S. involvement in torture. For that I am grateful. The report helps fill in many gaps in our knowledge of how APA interacted with the Department of Defense, both in sidestepping and sabotaging critics, and in managing how APA ethics practice could be made congruent with DoD (and CIA) needs. I agree, however, with Hoffman, that evidence shows that changes to the APA ethics code itself, made in 2002, were not in response to the need to alibi torture, at least not in their inception.

Additionally, it has not passed my notice that the report has important new details on certain stories I covered earlier, including the interrogation and abuse meted out by NCIS to Daniel King, and Stephen Behnke's work helping train the BSCTs.

Also, Hoffman examined changes made to the "Common Rule" governing government-linked human subjects research changes made by Paul Wolfowitz to DoD's own directive on such research, and stated, "it seems likely that the exceptions in the Common Rule and the definitional changes in the Wolfowitz Directive broadened opportunities for DoD to conduct research on detainees subjected to interrogations."  He added, "However, there is no evidence that APA acted to facilitate psychologists’ participation in such research, if it occurred."

Hoffman evidently drew in part upon a lengthy examination of the Wolfowitz Directive and other ethics changes which Jason Leopold and I wrote in October 2010, as he footnoted that article in a section that commented on the weakening of informed consent protections by DoD (pg. 281 of the report).

As regards the rehabilitation of the APA, I am dubious. In my Jan. 2008 public resignation from the APA, I wrote, "I view APA's shifting position on interrogations to spring from a decades-long commitment to serve uncritically the national security apparatus of the United States. Recent publications and both public and closed professional events sponsored by APA have made it clear that this organization is dedicated to serving the national security interests of the American government and military, to the extent of ignoring basic human rights practice and law. The influence of the Pentagon and the CIA in APA activities is overt and pervasive, if often hidden."

Ongoing revelations, including the material in the Hoffman report, strengthens this conclusion from seven years ago. I do not believe that, recent events otherwise, this is going to change.

Now, the U.S. is gearing up for new Cold War with Russia and China, and the use of psychologists and other medical professionals by the military and intelligence services is likely to continue. It would be utopian to believe that APA or any significant organization involved in government contracts and activities would be able to separate itself from such actions. Instead, we might see that a rejuvenated APA, supposedly made clean by a purging of elements, like Behnke, APA's former Ethics chief who was recently fired based on the Hoffman revelations, still working on many elements of strengthening imperialist armed forces aimed at war and conquest, much as medical professionals and their organizations have in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

It has not passed my attention, for instance, that the American Psychiatric Association and American Medical Association, both of which have stated policies against the use of their members in interrogations, have never once censored or made charges against any CIA or DoD medical professional for their actions in relation to renditions and torture. As APA proposes to make a similar ban, it is worth considering the worthlessness of how such bans have been implemented, or rather not implemented, at those organizations.

The following are the thoughts and recommendations of key opponents of APA policy on interrogations. I have not evaluated these in any depth, and present them here for public examination and as a key part of the evolving discussion around the APA torture scandal, noting that the authors note their comments are preliminary, and that they, too, have not had time to absorb the full content or import of the Hoffman report.

I thank Stephen Soldz and Steven Reisner for their willingness and dedication to transparency to make these "Opening Comments" to APA a part of the public record. (Update: Dr. Soldz has now added a link to his own posting of the "Comments.")

Folks,

As you know, Steven Reisner and I met with the APA board on July 2. We agreed to confidentiality until the report was public, which happened today. We, therefore, are distributing the Opening Comments that Steven and I made at that meetings. We believe that they provide a guide with which to judge APA’s actions in the coming weeks. Feel free to distribute. [Apologies for cross-posting.] {Ed. note: square brackets in original}

Opening Comments of Stephen Soldz and Steven Reisner to the American Psychological Association Board, July 2, 2015

Last October, James Risen published allegations of American Psychological Association (APA) complicity in the Bush era torture program in his book Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. In the wake of these allegations, the APA Board in November 2014 commissioned an independent investigation of these allegations. This allegation was conducted by Chicago attorney David Hoffman of Sidley Austin LLC and his colleagues.

In late June, 2015, as they prepared to receive the Hoffman Report, the APA Board asked to meet with us (Steven Reisner and Stephen Soldz). We presume we were asked because over the last nine years we have been leaders of the movement to remove psychologists from abusive and sometimes torturous national security interrogations. Further, we have researched and published extensively on these issues and extensively shared the results of our research with Hoffman and his team. Most recently, we were the psychologist coauthors of the report All the President’s Psychologists: The American Psychological Association’s Secret Complicity with the White House and US Intelligence Community in Support of the CIA’s ”Enhanced” Interrogation Program, which was featured in a May 1, 2015 New York Times article.

The Board requested and we agreed to keep the substance of our discussions confidential until the report became public. However, with the public release of the report, we are now free to speak. Below are our opening comments to the Board.

Stephen Soldz Comments:

Thank you for having us here. I wish it was under less disturbing circumstances. We have come to discuss with you what we believe needs to be done by the American Psychological Association (APA) in the wake of the imminent release of the Hoffman Report. The conditions of confidentiality requested by the Board and agreed to by us have precluded our being able to discuss our ideas with our colleagues who have joined us for the last decade in our attempts to unveil the web of collusion beneath APA’s policies and actions regarding psychologist participation in sometimes abusive national security interrogations. However, our ideas have benefited from hundreds of hours of discussion with colleagues regarding the steps necessary to put APA on an ethical course. We believe that these ideas reflect those of many others besides ourselves, though we also consider it vital that the voices of those many others be actively heard as we proceed.

I would like to make some opening comments, following which Steven Reisner will describe our ideas for the initial steps needed for APA to right itself and weather the storm that is just over the horizon. We would like to emphasize that these comments and ideas were put down less than 48 hours after we obtained access to the 500+ page Report. Neither of us has even read the entire report, much less absorbed it. Thus, these ideas are preliminary and may well be supplemented by others as we fully absorb the report and discuss with colleagues what should be done.

I would like to begin with a very brief summary of what we take to be the gist of this report. The report documents in exhaustive detail the existence of a years long conspiracy to engage in collusion between senior leadership in the APA and the intelligence community, including the CIA and, most notably, the Department of Defense (DOD). This collusion involves a two-pronged strategy by the APA: First, there was a concerted attempt to generate so-called “ethical” policies on psychologist involvement in interrogations that would provide no constraints whatsoever on psychologists in the military working for DOD and other agencies. The second prong consisted of an elaborate deceptive and dishonest public relations strategy to falsely portray APA policy as concerned with the protection of detainee welfare and human rights.

This collusion included the development of apparently fine-sounding policy statements that were, as the report documents, virtually always vetted directly by DOD officials; manipulation of critics of APA policy to ensure that attempts to change that policy were toothless and did not in fact challenge DOD policies or practices; a strategic decision to turn heads away from increasing evidence on torture and other detainee abuse, including homicides, and on psychologist involvement in that abuse; and the dismissal and/or failure to investigate in any serious way ethical complaints against psychologists alleged to have participated in abusive interrogations, accompanied by repeated assurances from APA officials that all complaints would be comprehensively investigated. This collusion was accompanied by systematic manipulation of APA governance procedures, the active solicitation of opposition to critics by APA staff, and even the recording, in at least two known instances, of falsely claimed “unanimous” votes.

This years-long collusion was accompanied by false statements from every Board and every elected President over the last decade denying the existence of the collusion described in such detail by Mr. Hoffman. The collusion was also accompanied by squelching of critics and, sometimes, by personal attacks upon them in the face of overwhelming evidence in the public record, including media reports and the results of multiple government investigations by Congress and other agencies. Most notable, are the vicious personal attacks upon PENS task force member and national hero Jean Maria Arrigo, who first revealed the collusion, attacks that in one case was distributed widely by the president of the Association; responses to those attacks went unanswered by that President or any other Association official. Other critics have been banned from state psychological association listservs; been attacked by an APA president in the official Monitor on Psychology as “opportunistic commentators masquerading as scholars;” been threatened with possible libel suits and ethics complaints; been disinvited from speaking to and writing for state psychological associations; been surreptitiously recorded by APA staff when having a private conversation with reporters; had venues where they were speaking criticized and even implicitly threatened with loss of accreditation; and called “clowns” in a national psychological newspaper by an individual given numerous awards by APA and its divisions and who is often in APA governance. This, sadly, is only a partial list of the attacks on critics. In none of these instances did people in APA leadership positions stand up to defend the right of critics to speak. These actions were all undertaken against those who sought to uncover the collusion that was denied by Association leadership, including this Board and the current CEO only a few months ago.

That is the background to our meeting today to discuss how the APA should respond to the crisis facing the Association, the profession, and the country. I suspect that some of you have not yet fully grasped the magnitude of this crisis. As the result of its collusion, the APA is likely to become the public face of torture. The press storm will be fierce. Editorials will condemn the Association’s actions. Congress members will weigh in. Human rights groups, frustrated with the lack of accountability for torture, will be lining up to raise money off of suing the APA. There may be a decade of lawsuits, draining the budget and staff and elected officials’ time. Members will flee and young psychologists will be even more reluctant to join. And the Association’s 501©(3) nonprofit status may be threatened.

More importantly, if not handled correctly, torture collusion will become the public face of the profession we love. There is little doubt that the APA’s actions will go down in history books next to the chapter on the Tuskegee and Guatemalan syphilis experiments. The actions we take in the coming weeks, months, and years will determine how that chapter ends.

I would like to end by outlining what I believe are the fundamental principles that should guide the APA’s actions forward. These are: contrition, accountability, transparency, inclusiveness, and genuine change. Notice that I did not list “healing” or “reconciliation.” Healing and reconciliation are needed, certainly, but this is not the time to talk of them. Before healing can start, we need painful surgery to remove the tumor that our work and the Hoffman Report demonstrate have been at the heart of the APA for the last decade.

Now Steven will describe the preliminary steps necessary to start removing this tumor.

Steven Reisner Comments:

Following on Stephen's comments I want to reiterate: There is a cancer on the APA. You here will have to decide whether to do the necessary surgery or whether you will preside over the death of the association:

There are four issues here:

1. The APA sacrificed its reputation and independence – perhaps its 501c3 tax exempt status – to align its policies with those of the CIA and the DOD. This was an active campaign, with constant behind the scenes consultation, in order to do the bidding of these agencies, first the CIA, then the DOD.

2. There was an active campaign to undermine the will of the membership and of the council when they attempted to institute ethical restrictions on such activity. Simultaneously efforts were made to prop up and expand opposing efforts in support of such activity. Sometimes efforts were made to create opposing efforts to such activity. Thus APA ceased being a member-driven or democratic organization. The letter and spirit of the organizations by-laws were thwarted in favor of this secret agenda pushed by a staff that is supposed to be neutral and facilitative of the will of membership and governance. Instead staff manipulated the council and the membership.

3. There was a public relations campaign directed to deceive the public and to manipulate governance. To the public the PR campaign made the false claims that APA was acting independently for human rights at the behest of its membership, while in fact it was doing the opposite. Within the organization there was a campaign to influence and manipulate those who opposed the policy or were uninformed and to bully those who would not be manipulated.

4. All of this was done to advance a program of torture and abuse. It continued long after that program and the psychologists’ role in that program were public knowledge. If this level of manipulation and deception were done solely to secretly promote a government agenda, it would be a scandal; the fact that it was done to support torture and abusive monitoring of and research on detainees, is more than a scandal – it reaches the level of support for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The numbers of APA staff and members of governance involved actively in this disgrace is staggering. It began with a few and rapidly incorporated increasing numbers from top to bottom.

Before I lay out what we believe APA must do, I want to make clear what you are dealing with. If the report is released on July 20th, there will be front-page articles in every major newspaper in this country and around the world on July 21st.

The headlines will read: Report Finds APA Leadership Colluded With Bush Administration in Support of Torture.

What will the subheading read?
“Many named remain in leadership positions”
or
“APA removes tainted leadership in response to investigation”

This is not a PR problem. This is a survival of the association problem. And there is no good way to get through this. You will face numerous lawsuits and secondary investigations. You will face a hemorrhage of membership and the loss of public trust. And APA is going to lose its central leadership of the past decade and a half.
--------------
I will now follow on Stephen’s list of five essential categories of steps that must be taken if the association has a chance of surviving:

Contrition,
Accountability,
Transparency,
Inclusiveness
Genuine Change

Contrition

· Let’s be clear that contrition is not a PR maneuver. Contrition requires thoroughgoing acknowledgement, remorse and change. APA must publicly acknowledge the depth and scope of this failure.

· Apology to all affected – to the people harmed (detainees), it includes the public and the congress (for not upholding public trust and deceiving them), to the profession, members, former member and non-members for undermining our ethical foundations, opening us up to ridicule and scorn, and damaging our reputation. And to Jean Maria Arrigo.

· I would like to see an op-ed written by APA leadership in the Times expressing this contrition.

Accountability and Housecleaning

· Staff involved must be fired
· Members involved must be banned from governance
· Bring ethics charges where appropriate.
· More importantly, APA must publicly recommend state ethics charges where appropriate.
· Make sure there is no hint of conflicts of interest in any part of governance or staff
· Those found to be part of the collusion should be stripped of association awards, standing and honors.
· And then you can give a special award to Jean Maria for being willing to stand up to an onslaught of power and manipulation that no one in this room was willing to stand up to.

I will start with staff. I see that some of the people who need to go are in this room. That in itself tells me that you don’t really yet understand the seriousness of your situation. I want to say that this list is possibly incomplete, because I haven’t yet read every page of the report.

Staff to be fired
Anderson, Honaker, Gilfoyle, Farberman, Garrison, Kelly, Mumford, Behnke.

Governance prohibition effective immediately
Levant, Koocher, Banks, Dunivin, Moorehead-Slaughter, James, Deleon, Gelles, Newman, Gravitz, Shumate, Breckler, Strassberger, Sternberg, Matarrazo, and Anton

Recusal for conflict of interest and investigation of role required
Strickland

APA needs to recommend to Division and State Association that they do the same.

But housecleaning is a small piece of what is necessary for full accountability.
How do we hold leadership and governance itself accountable?
How do we answer the question, how did this happen and what must we do to insure it doesn’t happen again?

We must have a thoroughgoing and independent institutional review. We need to appoint a blue ribbon panel to evaluate the organizational processes, structures, procedures and culture that allowed this to happen.

The panel must recommend changes in processes, structures and procedures geared to preventing this kind of power manipulation from happening again. It must review APA’s overly close ties to military, intelligence agencies and government; it must in particular look at the potential for corruption in the directorates, in particular the ethics office, the ethics committee and the science directorate. It must investigate the APA voting processes and investigate the opaque entity that counts our votes: Intelliscan

It must further address:

· The power of staff and how it oversteps its institutional bounds
· The progressive minimization of the oversight role and authority of Council and restore its authority and responsibility
· Investigate how staff managed to impede the will of Council and prevent it from happening again (e.g., 1.02, statue of limitations).

We need a committee of ethicists to redesign APA ethics policy and procedures. It may be true that 1.02 was not changed with torture in mind – the fact that it and other standards were weakened under the influence of APAIT is a second scandal unto itself that must be investigated. We also need to reopen ethics cases closed as part of this conspiracy. And if those to be investigated are no longer members, we must recommend state board investigation.

There must be a financial accounting, including DOD, CIA and government money, awards, fellowships and quid pro quos.

We must refer this report and its findings to the FBI and we must cooperate fully in any ensuing investigation.

We must also refer the report to the appropriate Congressional committees, as per Senator Feinstein’s request. These committees include Senate Select CI, SASC, Senate Judiciary, and Senate Committee Health and human services and their counterparts in the House of Representatives. (Like the PENS report)

Policy change

All policies regarding APA and national security must be annulled, including the approval of operational psychology as a subspecialty.

Review of the ethics of national security and operational psychology:

Blue ribbon panel #2 to do a thoroughgoing independent ethical review of the role of psychologists in national security operations. JMA should be a part of such a panel, along with internationally recognized medical ethicists and human rights advocates.

Moratorium on participation in national security interrogation and detention operations during the review process.

No statute of limitation on TCID ethics charges, automatic ethics committee investigation for TCID charges when these arise in the context of national security operations, detention or interrogation activities.

We need to develop guidelines for undertaking such investigations.

For Non-members, APA has to recommend full investigation from the state boards in national security sites and offer them guidelines.

Transparency

Let this be the last time that APA discussions of such import are held in secret. We need to make all such discussions transparent and easily accessible. We also need to report in plain language:
· The salaries and perks of staff
· The lobbying APA does
· Who gets to represent APA to congress and government and how such people are chosen.
· Anything else members of council, the membership, or the public wants to know or should be informed of.

We need to make all our deliberations and actions transparent, including these discussions.

We should have APA books publish the Hoffman report; The American Psychologist and the Monitor should publish the Executive Summary.

We should deposit the entire record of the Hoffman investigation deposited into the APA PENS Debate Collection at the archive of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

And we should call for a Congressional investigation into the role of health professionals and health professional organizations roles in support of the torture program and invite the other health professional organizations to do the same.

Inclusiveness

All stakeholders must be represented in these discussions. These include the broader psychological community, including those who opposed now-tainted APA actions when they occurred and the hundreds or thousands who quit the APA because they recognized this complicity while the elected leadership and staff denied it. In addition, equally important stakeholders are the medical ethics community, human rights advocates, Congress (as seen by the expressed desire of Sen. Feinstein to review the report), and the broader public, as attested to by the extensive press interest in our April report. All of these have a stake in the decisions and initiatives you and we undertake today and in the coming weeks.

Ultimately, and importantly, we must set aside a time in August for a lengthy Town Hall Meeting at the convention where we give the membership a chance to discuss these revelations

Genuine Change - ???

Stephen Soldz
Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis
ssoldz@bgsp.edu

New Questions About Conflict-of-Interest Throw Doubt on APA's "Independent Review" of CIA Links

A report by psychologists and human rights workers released at the end of April charged officials of the American Psychological Association with collaborating with Bush administration officials, including members of the CIA, in furthering the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" torture program. The report, titled "All the President's Psychologists," drew upon emails from a deceased RAND Corporation researcher, Scott Gerwehr, who evidently worked in some capacity with the CIA.

"The APA's complicity in the CIA torture program, by allowing psychologists to administer and calibrate permitted harm, undermines the fundamental ethical standards of the profession," the report, which was published by The New York Times, said.

APA countered these charges, which also were raised by New York Times journalist James Risen last year, by engaging "David Hoffman of the law firm Sidley Austin to conduct an independent review of whether there is any factual support for the assertion that APA engaged in activity that would constitute collusion with the Bush administration to promote, support or facilitate the use of 'enhanced' interrogation techniques by the United States in the war on terror," according to a statement by the psychologist organization last November.

But this "independent review" into links between APA and the CIA torture program was compromised, according to my own research, by links between its leader, David H. Hoffman, and former members of the CIA, including former director George Tenet, who headed the Agency at the time it constructed and implemented its post-9/11 torture program.

This article will demonstrate that Hoffman and his law firm also have professional links to a former chairman of the think-tank RAND Corporation, Newton Minow. RAND played a key role in the controversies surrounding APA and torture, as discussed below. It is the contention of this article that together with the revelations concerning Hoffman's ties to former CIA figures, including Tenet, and now links to a key RAND figure, that the potential for conflicts-of-interest can not be ignored.

RAND's History

According to RAND's website, its organization is nonprofit and "nonpartisan.... independent of political and commercial pressures." The Center for Media and Democracy's Sourcewatch website reports that "one-half of RAND's research involves national security issues." RAND reports that roughly five percent of its work is classified. Besides national security issues, RAND has long produced analyses concerning health care, education, and other topics.

RAND was active in the counter-terror/counterinsurgency prosecution of the Vietnam War. They offered expertise to CIA advisers working on the interrogation-torture-assassination program known as Project Phoenix. Such collaboration is mentioned in a 2009 RAND history of Phoenix. This study has nothing to say of Phoenix's history of torture, and barely even mentions the use of interrogation, while trying to refute charges of assassination by Phoenix teams. According to RAND's analysis, "decisionmakers would be wise to consider how Phoenix-style approaches might serve to pry open Taliban and Al-Qaeda black boxes." [pg. 24])

Douglas Valentine in his book, The Phoenix Project, describes how top CIA Phoenix official, Robert "Blowtorch" Komer, left the Agency to work for RAND in 1970.

Perhaps most famously, RAND Corporation was the source of the famous Pentagon Papers, as RAND analysts, including Daniel Ellsberg, had been involved in collecting the papers that made up the famous secret history of U.S. policy in Vietnam. Interestingly, it was Minow, as then-appointed chair of RAND's Board of Trustees who led the damage control effort there after the Ellsberg leak.

Most recently, RAND has been active in consulting on counterinsurgency tactics in the post-9/11 "war on terror."

The Role of RAND Corporation in CIA's Torture Scandal

While charges of APA collaboration with both CIA and the Department of Defense on interrogation policies, including use of torture, go back some years now, the issue took on greater urgency after New York Times journalist James Risen revealed details of such collaboration in his book Pay Any Price.

Risen's new information was based on a collection of emails he obtained that belonged to a deceased RAND Corporation researcher, Scott Gerwehr. The emails proved Gerwehr worked closely with CIA psychologist Kirk Hubbard. Hubbard was the head of CIA's Operational Assessment Division, and from 2005-09 was a contractor with Mitchell-Jessen and Associates, a company linked by Senate investigators to use of torture.

A key instance of the alleged collaboration between APA and CIA was the joint sponsorship of a group of workshops on "The Science of Deception," held at RAND's Arlington, Virginia offices on July 17-18, 2003. As I reported back in May 2007, one of the workshops included "scenarios" for discussion that included "pharmacological agents... known to affect apparent truth-telling behavior, and the use of "sensory overloads" to "overwhelm the senses and see how it affects deceptive behaviors."

Journalist Katherine Eban reported much the same about the workshop later that year in a seminal article for Vanity Fair, which exposed the fact CIA psychologists James Bruce Mitchell and Jessen had been present at the event.

The APA-CIA-RAND joint workshops were organized by RAND's Gerwehr, CIA's Hubbard, and APA's then "senior scientist" Susan Brandon, and APA's Director of Science Policy, Geoff Mumford. In 2010, I reported that APA's online linkage to the offensive "scenarios" had been scrubbed from APA's website.

Someone doesn't want the full story on this event to be known. As recently as November 2011, in a FOIA response to this author, the CIA claimed it could find no records pertaining to the 2003 APA-CIA-RAND meeting or workshops. (See PDF of response.) Risen and his collaborators on the Gerwehr-APA story also have failed to release all the information they have in their possession regarding the same event.

Similarly, in response to a FOIA I filed, the FBI could find no responsive documents regarding documents supposedly turned over to it by one of the authors of the "President's Psychologists" report,  Nathaniel Raymond. Raymond told me via email, "I directed the FBI and Durham in fall of 2010 during an in person meeting at DoJ HQ to where and how to obtain the [Gerwehr] emails. Durham and the FBI independently obtained the emails in the spring of 2011 based on the information I provided in 2010.... Any requests for access to the additional 600+ emails used in our analysis should be directed to [James Risen]." At the FBI's request, on May 6, 2015 I provided more information to assist the FBI in their records search. The FOIA request is still active.

Campaign Contributions

The critics who have opposed APA, or at least those who wrote the "President's Psychologists" report, which highlighted charges of APA complicity with intelligence agencies in the furtherance of the CIA's torture program, have publicly ignored charges that the APA-initiated "independent investigation" had serious conflict-of-interest problems due to Hoffman's relationships with Tenet and also Tenet's CIA Special Counsel from 1998-2000, Kenneth J. Levit.

(The use of "investigation" rather than "review" is a preference of APA's critics, and has been taken up by most of the press. It is my contention that the "review" barely, if at all, deserves the nomenclature of an "investigation." The word "investigate" or "investigation" never appears in the APA's "Board of Directors Resolution Regarding Independent Review." Hoffman himself, however, has used the term, as will be seen below. )

The "President's Psychologists" report never mentions or raises any questions about the obscure association between Hoffman and Tenet and Levit, nor do they seem to have investigated any such associations on their own.

The mainstream press fares no better. Articles that mention the Hoffman "investigation," including by James Risen at the New York Times and Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!, fail to mention Hoffman's link to CIA figures. One exception to this coverage was James Bradshaw at the National Psychologist who noted Hoffman's uncovered links to key CIA personnel.

In an email exchange with this author last December, David Hoffman refused to elaborate on the nature or his relationship with both Tenet and Levit in recent years. His known professional relationship goes back to Hoffmann's work in Sen. David Boren's office in the early 1990s, when Boren was chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Tenet was the SSCI's Staff Director. Levit also worked in Boren's office at that time.

Recently I discovered that Levit gave over $1,700 to Hoffman's abortive Senate campaign in 2010, a fact Hoffman had not revealed. I've asked Hoffman whether he knew about Levit's contributions, but as of press time he has not responded on that issue. I will update this post with Hoffman's response if or when I receive it. Meanwhile, Hoffman's response to other issues raised here is discussed below.

Meanwhile, discussion of the role of RAND Corporation in the whole scandal is either muted or totally ignored. In The Intercept's October 2014 story about the APA controversy, Gerwehr's employment by RAND is never mentioned. He is only referred to as a "behavioral science researcher." Gerwehr's work on counterterrorism and urban combat is never mentioned. The author of the story, Cora Currier, also never mentions the 2003 joint APA-CIA-RAND workshop described above, even though it is a key part of the narrative of the entire scandal, as reported by Risen, Eban, and others.

Minow's Links to RAND, Donald Rumsfeld, and David Hoffman

The most intriguing new information regarding the APA-CIA scandal concerns the fact that one of a handful of senior counsels in the Chicago office of Sidley Austin where David Hoffman works is Newton Minow. According to Sidley Austin's website, Minow was "a partner with the firm from 1965-1991." For much of that time, and beyond, he was also a member of the Board of Trustees for RAND Corporation, and was Chair of the Board in the early 1970s.

Minow is not only the former chairman of RAND Corporation, he is an incredibly well-linked member of the political establishment, going back to the Kennedy Administration. In more recent years, he has been a political consultant to President Barack Obama. (Obama had been an intern for Sidley Austin in Chicago, recruited by Minow's daughter, Martha, who is currently dean of Harvard Law School.)

Minow's resume is by Establishment standards quite distinguished. He is a former chairman of the FCC and of the Carnegie Foundation. He is a former Vice Chairman of the Commission on Presidential Debates, and is still listed as a member of its Board of Directors.

Minow's plea for more U.S. funding for international broadcasting efforts like those of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Radio Marti, and his vilification of Al Jazeera as Osama bin Laden's "favored news outlet" made it into the pages of Congressional Record.

Perhaps most telling in Minow's resume is the sponsorship of a scholarship in his name at the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California, which RAND bills as "the largest public policy analysis Ph.D. program in the United States." The Newton M. Minow Scholarship was initially funded with a $150,000 grant from Donald Rumsfeld, a noted torture figure himself.

Minow's linkage to RAND does not end there. As recently as 2003, he was on the Board of Advisors for RAND's Public Safety and Justice division. He is one of a small number of individuals in RAND's "Legacy Circle," having contributed an estate gift to RAND. According to RAND's 2006 Annual Report, Minow has donated something between $100,000 and $249,999 to RAND over the years.

Hoffman's known public linkage to Minow is sparse, but worth noting. He serves with Minow on the advisory board for the Chicago chapter of the American Constitutional Society. (To be fair, H. Candace Gorman, a noted attorney for Guantanamo detainees, is also on the ACS advisory board.)

Hoffman also served as a co-author for an amicus brief for which he represented Minow, and others, as Amici Curiae. The brief was published in January 2015.

According to an article in The New York Times, in 2002, Minow was one of a number of "outside experts" the Bush Administration consulted with on its implementation of military commissions. The Times described Minow as a "longtime friend of Mr. Rumsfeld."

Rumsfeld led the Department of Defense at a time it was implementing torture at Guantanamo and in Iraq and Afghanistan. He personally approved "use of 'stress positions,' the removal of clothing, the use of dogs, and isolation and sensory deprivation" on detainees. Many forms of torture were countenanced under Rumsfeld, including water torture. Numerous lawsuits have been filed to hold the former Bush administration figure accountable.

In a request for comment from APA, Public Communications Executive Director Rhea Farberman did not respond to a direct question about foreknowledge regarding any link between Hoffman and Minow. In an email, she said only, "APA has complete confidence that Mr. Hoffman is conducting his review in a thorough and fully independent manner."

But as we shall see, soon after accepting APA's charge as "independent" reviewer, Hoffman was discussing the project with Newton Minow.

Hoffman Responds

I asked David Hoffman to further explain his contacts with Minow. He replied via email.

As you may know, Newt Minow was FCC Chairman under JFK and gave the famous “TV as a vast wasteland” speech in 1961. At 89 years old, he remains a prominent civic and community figure in Chicago. I had heard of Newt Minow but had not met him before I joined Sidley in 2011. I speak with him from time to time, but not frequently, and do not socialize with him.

As regards possible contact with Minow on the amicus brief noted above, Hoffman explained that Minow "was one of the former governments [sic] officials and public interest groups who were the listed amici in the matter," and Minow did not work on the brief.

Even more specifically, Hoffman explained, "Mr. Minow is not working on the APA matter, and I have never worked on a matter with him."

Still, soon after Hoffman took the job to head the APA-initiated review into the charges of collusion with the CIA, raised by James Risen and others, Hoffman did discuss the matter with his firm's senior counsel:

Shortly after the public announcement by APA in November 2014 that I had been engaged to conduct an independent investigation in this matter, I saw Mr. Minow and told him about this new engagement. At the time, I did not know that he had been affiliated with the Rand Corp. I have not had any contact with Mr. Minow about the matter since then.

Hoffman added, "In response to your inquiry, I looked up when Mr. Minow was chairman of Rand, and I see that it was 44 years ago (1970-71). I do not believe that Mr. Minow’s past affiliation with Rand creates a conflict of interest for us in this matter."

Indeed, Minow was Chair of the Board of Trustees at RAND at the time the Pentagon Papers were released by former RAND researcher Daniel Ellsberg. A RAND history of the period describes the Pentagon Papers leak as sending RAND management into "a tailspin." The government took away RAND's security clearance, and it was Minow who led the campaign to get it back, and make the necessary changes to policy and personnel to restore the think-tank back to the government's good graces.

But Minow's contribution to RAND did not end there. As noted above, he served on RAND advisory boards until the 2000s. While he was Chair of RAND's Board of Trustees as far back as the early 1970s, Minow was a member of the Board almost continuously from 1965-1997. As recently as 2007, he was an "advisory trustee" to the organization.

I also asked Hoffman that, given Minow's close relationship with Donald Rumsfeld, Hoffman had any contact with George W. Bush's former Secretary of Defense. Hoffman stated flatly, "I have never met or spoken with Donald Rumsfeld."

In a follow-up email, I asked Hoffman to elaborate more on the substance of his conversation with Minow about the APA review. Hoffman has not replied.

Minow is not the only person with links to RAND working in the Chicago Sidley Austin office. Another partner in the firm, Anne E. Rea, serves on the RAND Institute for Civil Justice Board of Overseers. In 2014, Rea gifted RAND with something between $25,000 and $49,999. (The same year Minow is listed as donating between $1,000 and $4,999.)

Hoffman said this about Rea, "I know Anne Rea, as she is a partner in Sidley’s Chicago office. We have never worked on a matter together; we have not spoken about the APA matter; and I did not know about any work she has done for the Rand Corp."

Authors of "President's Psychologists" report respond

I asked the authors of the report "All the President's Psychologists" -- who told me they did not know about Hoffman's links to Minow until I told them -- to respond to this revelation. Stephen Soldz, Steven Reisner and Nathaniel Raymond sent me an email on May 27:

"We and others have pressed for 'internal review,' an independent investigation of APA since our Open Letter in Response to the American Psychological Association Board in 2009 signed by 13 organizations," Soldz and his colleagues wrote. "Our call was always for the investigatory organization to be selected by independent human rights organizations precisely to avoid the types of potential conflicts of interest you raise. Thus, we were initially concerned when the APA Board itself selected Mr. Hoffman to investigate potential complicity by key staff and elected officials including possible complicity by past and current Board members."

The email noted that "questions have only escalated" about the investigation when APA Board of Representatives revealed their plan to delay the report’s public release for months of alleged “internal review.” Soldz et al. have alleged such delay violates "the clear precedent that investigations of unethical or criminal behavior by organizations are immediately made public."

The authors of the critical report told me, "once Mr. Hoffman was selected, we chose to work with his team and have shared whatever information, documents, and opinions they requested.... Our experience with Mr. Hoffman and his team has given us every reason to believe that they are pursuing leads without limitation or constraint.... The proof of their independence will be in the honesty and comprehensiveness of their report."

Soldz and his co-authors state, "We intend to assess the true independence of the Hoffman team’s work through observing how he accounts for the evidence already in the public domain, including the data we released in our April 30, 2015 report."

But accounting for "evidence already in the public domain" seems a weak demonstration of investigatory zeal and honesty, much less comprehensiveness. Such accounting has little to do with an investigation qua investigation, but seems to be more about validating previously held beliefs or findings. Such an investigation isn't expected to dig deeper or make new findings.

Indeed, it seems tendentious to call it an investigation at all, if that is all that is expected from it. The APA has termed only an "internal review of whether there is any factual support" for charges of collusion on torture during the Bush years. Such a "review," for instance, would not touch on current APA support for psychologists at U.S. detention sites like Guantanamo where Appendix M interrogations take place. Last November, the United Nations stated that some Appendix M techniques created psychosis in prisoners and others amounted to "ill-treatment."

The APA has been silent about this, even though there is an APA-member initiated referendum that passed some years ago stating APA should tell psychologists not to work at sites that have human rights violations, as determined by organizations such as the United Nations.

Meanwhile, supporters of the "President's Psychologists" report have launched a petition campaign after news leaked out that the APA was going to take its time in making any release of Hoffman's findings public.

Such supporters would do as much or more good by asking the authors of "President's Psychologists" to release the full list of attendees at the 2003 APA-RAND-CIA workshops, which I am under the impression they hold.

[Correction: Stephen Soldz has written to remind me that a list of those attendees was given by him and the co-authors of the President's Psychologists report to The Intercept. It was disclosed in a link published within an April 2015 article by Cora Currier. The full list and accompanying documentation has been posted online at DocumentCloud. Sadly, Currier never analyzed the document in depth. But most immediately what springs up as important is the presence at these meetings (which included Mitchell, Jessen, and other CIA personnel) of the chief of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, Stephen Band, among other FBI personnel. What that means is that the collaboration on interrogation matters was much wider among governmental agencies than previously disclosed.]

In the spirit of complete transparency, the full text of the responses to my inquiries, sent via email by Stephen Soldz, Steven Reisner, Nathaniel Raymond, and David Hoffman, are available at this link.

For a Fair, Just Inquiry

Those who are repelled by the actions of APA and other professional organizations and institutions in regards to the U.S. torture scandal likely will have to look beyond this "independent review" by APA's contractor. The entire affair is reminiscent of the controversy over the UK torture inquiry that was headed by Sir Peter Gibson.

That inquiry, following on revelations about UK collaboration with the U.S. rendition program and the torture of prisoners like Binyam Mohamed, was announced by the British government. But British human rights groups refused to support this blatant attempt at a whitewash or limited hangout of UK involvement in torture, not least because the man picked to lead the investigation, Peter Gibson, had deep ties himself to the intelligence world. The lack of transparency over procedures was another problem. In 2012, the British government scrapped the investigation, citing conflicts with other investigations.

British human rights groups at the time made clear just what is needed in an inquiry of this sort. They noted that "to comply with basic human rights standards, it is essential that an inquiry, among other things" should be both "independent" and "subject to public scrutiny."

Amnesty International and eight other UK NGOs wrote: "The persons responsible for and carrying out the inquiry must be fully independent of any institution, agency or person who may be the subject of, or are otherwise involved in, the inquiry."

As far as I know, Hoffman's links to the intelligence world are much less dramatic than Gibson's, and reasonable people may disagree about the degree of conflict of interest involved in his "review" or "investigation."

Yet, while in the case of the Gibson inquiry, Amnesty and the others were writing about a governmental investigation, the same need for independence and transparency is true for any inquiry, including into the relationships of APA with intelligence or military-linked agencies. It is not any claim upon Mr. Hoffman's own integrity to say that his links, and that of the firm where he works, to former CIA and RAND officials, not to mention the fact APA chose its own "investigator," in this instance present conflicts of interest that place into doubt the integrity of his "review," no matter what results it may claim, or when it is released.

Crossposted at Firedoglake.com

Psychologists Call for End to Abusive Interrogation Techniques in Army Field Manual

A group of psychologists who have been outspoken in opposing the use of U.S. medical professionals in interrogations have released a letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel condemning the ongoing use of interrogation techniques amounting to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners.

The use of such techniques are found in the current Army Field Manual (PDF), and in particular in its special Appendix M, which summarizes a set of techniques, under the label "separation," that are only meant to be used on prisoners who the U.S. government claims don't meet the additional Prisoner of War protections of the Geneva Conventions -- prisoners like those held in indefinite detention at Guantanamo.

Even so, most human rights and legal groups have found the techniques under question -- solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, manipulation of diet and environment, use of fear and emotional abuse of prisoners -- to be against Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention Against Torture, and other international and domestic laws. (See "Contrary to Obama's promises, the US military still permits torture," The Guardian, Jan. 25, 2014).

Not mentioned in the letter, signed by Steven Reisner, President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), on behalf of his organization, is the recent discovery that the use of torture techniques derived from a government program to help military personnel resist torture (the "SERE" program), was never totally removed from the military's Army Field Manual. Instead, the Pentagon used obfuscating language and obscure references to hide that fact from the casual onlooker.

Indeed, the current Army Field Manual on interrogations, including its Appendix M, was the subject of an Office of Legal Council 2006 memorandum by "torture memo" author Steven Bradbury. While President Obama rescinded most of the Bush-era torture memos when he first came into office, he never rescinded the Bradbury memo on Appendix M.

To this day, the use of methods amounting to torture in the Army Field Manual continues, and while this is opposed by nearly every human rights group that has looked at the torture question -- from Amnesty International to Physicians for Human Rights, from Center for Constitutional Rights to The Constitution Project -- Congressional oversight personnel at the Senator Carl Levin's Armed Services Committee (SASC) state the procedures in the Army Field Manual and its Appendix M are not abusive.

The procedures in the Army Field Manual currently are backed by presidential executive order, and its methods are used by both the Department of Defense and the CIA.

A SASC staffer was quoted recently as saying, “We are comfortable that Appendix M of the Army Field Manual no longer permits the use of interrogation techniques that are cruel and inhuman, or are a violation of our obligations under international law.”

"No longer permits..."? Does SASC admit Appendix M once did permit torture? If it "no longer permits" such use of cruel and inhuman techniques, nor violate international obligations, can someone at SASC inform us of when that change took place? And what did that change consist of?

I don't think we'll ever get an answer to these questions. As long as the mainstream media, including so-called alternative outlets, continue to ignore the current use of torture by the United States, government apologists and those who cover for use of torture have nothing to lose by keeping mum.

History will not treat such cowardice and dishonesty kindly.

Below is the full text of the letter from PsySR. The link to the letter is here.

**********

April 29, 2014

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As an organization of health professionals dedicated to human rights advocacy, Psychologists for Social Responsibility strongly objects to practices that violate the ethics of health professions and lie outside the norms of international law and practice. The recent Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence confirms that, beginning during the Bush Administration, interrogation and detention practices were put in place by the CIA that constituted torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Practices once condemned under law and international treaty were soon redefined by the Justice Department to permit a "culture of torture" to proliferate under U.S. policy. These practices quickly spread to the detention centers of the Department of Defense and throughout the theaters of war. While legal progress has been made to limit these policies and practices, significant remnants remain under your authority. We write to you today to urge you to eliminate all existing procedures allowing for torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees.

In 2009, via Executive Order 13491, your administration officially announced its intention to end the torture practices developed and instituted under the Bush Administration. Interrogation practices that did not conform to the Army Field Manual were abolished. However, as documented by numerous legal and human rights groups, as well as by former interrogators,[1] the Army Field Manual still includes abusive techniques in violation of these standards.

We concur with the recent recommendation of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP)/Open Society Foundations report [2] calling for you to issue a new executive order banning interrogation techniques using isolation, sleep deprivation, exploitation of fear, and other methods that violate international standards regarding torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. We, too, urge you to remediate the ethical standards of the Army Field Manual via executive order.

The current edition of the Army Field Manual (2006) officially supports interrogations using "approach techniques," including the creation, manipulation, and intensification of phobias and fears in prisoners ("Fear Up") and the calculated psychological attack against ego or self-esteem ("Emotional Pride and Ego Down"). The "Emotional Futility" approach intends to create a perception in a prisoner that "resistance to questioning is futile." The manual describes the purpose of this technique as engendering "a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness" in a detainee and notes the "potential for application of the pride and ego approach to cross the line into humiliating and degrading treatment of the detainee."

Also problematic on both basic health and human rights grounds is Appendix M, added to this most recent version of the Army Field Manual (2-22.3). This special annex proposes a technique known as "Separation," which includes the use of solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, forms of sensory deprivation, and environmental manipulations -- all of which could theoretically be extended indefinitely -- as ostensibly legitimate forms of treatment on "unlawful combatants." The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture [3] and independent human rights organizations describe such practices as torture and/or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. As health professionals and human rights advocates, we are disturbed that such techniques are conducted under an official capacity and by executive order.

We are particularly concerned that health professionals, including psychologists, have been engaged to support such efforts, directly or indirectly, in violation of their ethical obligations and in violation of the policies of their professional associations.

As you must be aware, these practices are not only cruel, but also yield questionable intelligence and contribute to a perception of our country as a systematic violator of human rights. It would serve as a strong and principled legacy of your Administration if these remaining practices of torture, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment were finally and definitively ended.

We look forward to your timely response.

Sincerely,

Steven Reisner, PhD
President
Psychologists for Social Responsibility

cc: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel

[1] Scott Horton, "Interrogators Call for the Elimination of Appendix M", Harpers, Nov. 16, 2010. URL: http://harpers.org/blog/2010/11/interrogators-call-for-the-elimination-of-appendix-m/
[2] Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror, IMAP/OSF Task Force Report (PDF), Nov. 2013. URL: http://www.imapny.org/File Library/Documents/IMAP-EthicsTextFinal2.pdf
[3] "'Solitary confinement should be banned in most cases," UN expert says'", UN News Centre, Oct. 18, 2011. URL: https://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40097

[Note: The letter was first posted at Counterpunch on April 30. Also, in regards to full disclosure, I should say that I am a member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, and while I am not on the steering committee that decided to publish this letter, nor have ever held any leadership position in that organization, I was consulted on the matter of this letter. I am proud that an organization I belong to took a principled stand on this issue.]

Originally posted at FDL/The Dissenter

Retired Gitmo Psychologist Makes the Short List for University Job: Students and Faculty Protest Ties to Torture

A number of students, faculty and staff at the University of Missouri (MU) are protesting the selection of a controversial psychologist linked to torture at the US detention facility at Guantanamo as a finalist for a top slot at Mizzou.

Dr. Larry James, who is currently dean of the professional psychology program at Wright State University in Ohio made the selection committee's short list for the position of division executive director at the university's College of Education.

According to the school prospectus, the division consists of nine graduate academic programs with 60 faculty and 29 professional staff members.

James is a retired Army psychologist who was senior psychologist on the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) at Guantanamo in early 2003. In 2010, the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) helped file a licensing complaint against James in Ohio, alleging numerous instances of misconduct and ethical violations related to his work at Guantanamo. (A similar, less detailed summary of the case against James was put together by Center for Constitutional Rights in relation to another licensing case in a different state.)

"Fixing Hell?"

James claims he was sent to Guantanamo to "fix" problems with interrogation abuse, and that, moreover, he succeeded in doing just that. His book, Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib was published with a forward by well-known psychologist and former American Psychological Association president Philip Zimbardo, who praises James highly. (James was Chief Psychologist at Abu Ghraib in 2004.)

According to a February 5 article in the Missourian, James told a public forum called by MU's School of Education that he lacked the authority to stop the abuse he witnessed at Guantanamo. Nevertheless, he also has reportedly said, "The work I did there literally changed and outlawed all of those abusive tactics."

But a 2008 investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) totally contradicts James's contention. According to the SASC, during the period of James' first assignment at Guantanamo "the incidents [of abuse] occurring during the spring of 2003 [during James' tenure] signif[ied] a consistent problem at GTMO."

The "incidents" included cases of forced "compulsive exercise" and sexual humiliation. One interrogator performed a lap dance on a detainee "making sexual affiliated movements with her chest and pelvis while... speaking sexually oriented sentences."

Another "incident" involved a female interrogator wiping what the detainee was led to believe was menstrual blood on his face and forehead.

The report notes no evidence of any disciplinary action for these forms of physical and psychological abuse. A memo written at the time, "Historic Look at Inappropriate Interrogation Techniques Used at GTMO," cited interrogator use of yelling, loud music and strobe lights on detainees, while other documents note use of forced shaving, sensory deprivation and "implied death threats."

The anonymous author(s) of the "Historic Look" memo criticized those in charge of interrogations, and all but accused them of lying. "Despite these revelations by interrogators, the supervisory chain of command reports that these techniques are not used," the report said.

In his 2008 book, Fixing Hell, James said that he witnessed an interrogation, which is also described in the IHRC report: A detainee was "forced into pink women's panties, lipstick and a wig ... then pinned ... to the floor in an effort 'to outfit him with the matching pink nightgown.'"

James admittedly did not intervene to stop this interrogation, but instead poured himself a cup of coffee and, in his own words, "watched the episode play out, hoping it would take a better turn and not wanting to interfere without good reason, even if this was a terrible scene."

According to his narrative, James ultimately was forced to intervene "several minutes later" after he determined "Someone is gonna get hurt" (italics in original). Nevertheless, James never mentioned problems with the interrogation or the use of sexual humiliation to the interrogator, nor did he mention reporting or disciplining him.

According to a story by Associated Press, James told those who attended a public meeting in Columbia, Missouri on February 5, "I was sent to Guantanamo not to aid these CIA operatives, but to teach these young men and women, how do you sit down and interview someone without any abusive practices whatsoever.... That's what my mission was."

Protests

The selection of James as one of two finalists for the College of Education position has led to demonstrations on campus, news conferences, public meetings to defuse the controversy and a letter from more than 30 faculty and staff protesting any hiring of James.

The letter to University of Missouri Chancellor Brady Deaton states, "[James'] possible appointment raises unresolved and extremely controversial issues. An ethical and moral cloud hangs over Dr. James's work and reputation, and, if he assumed a high-profile post here, that cloud would hang over MU, generally."

On February 1, according to the student newspaper, The Maneater, "About 30 students and Columbia residents marched from the Islamic Center of Central Missouri to Hill Hall" on the MU campus to protest the selection of James as a semi-finalist for the position.

Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation Coordinator Jeff Stack reportedly organized the protest.
"This decision is obscene to us as people of good will in our society," Stack told the crowd. "We are standing with the people who have been oppressed. We are not standing with the torturers."

The Barbara Peterson, director of strategic communications at MU's College of Education, told Truthout that College of Education Dean Daniel Clay had read James' book, Fixing Hell, and "all the documents" from the complaints against him.

According to the Associated Press, Clay stated James "was selected ... as a finalist because the search committee believed his leadership and management experiences aligned well with the minimum and desired qualifications for the position."

The Maneater quoted Clay's comments about the charges against James:

I felt strongly that in the interest of fairness and transparency that, um, you know, we can't discriminate against an individual based on unfounded allegations.... " As much as, uh, the thoughts of this turned my stomach and may turn yours, um, the reality is that he's not been, uh, indicted or found guilty of any ethics or, uh, legal or, uh, licensing board violations through this process.

James told AP that he was innocent of all the allegations, and called "the continued scrutiny of his military record 'an old story.'"

"Why do these people continue to try a decorated, disabled military veteran?" James said. "They cannot produce a patient, a prisoner, a government official or any official document that shows I have harmed any person."

Truthout asked the head of the School of Education Selection Committee, Dr. Michael Pullis, to respond to questions, but he referred all inquiries to Peterson. Pullis, who also is listed in the University of Missouri's Grants Manual Handbook as the official in charge of research grants, did not return further requests for comment.

Interestingly, MU is a recipient of millions of dollars of Department of Defense research grants, like a $5.3 million grant in November 2011 to evaluate combat casualty care.

On February 6, the St. Louis chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a news conference at MU's Student Center. According to an account in the Missourian, other groups present included "the MU Muslim Students Organization, the Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation and concerned MU faculty members."

CAIR-St. Louis executive director, Faizan Syed, told the audience, "Mizzou has a high standard of ethics, and his possible hiring would put a black tarnish on that." He indicated CAIR intends to further organize faculty and students at other University of Missouri campuses across the state to oppose any James hiring.
According to the Missourian, "A CAIR petition opposing James' hiring had 289 signatures [as of Wednesday evening], but the organization will not present the petition to university officials until it reaches 1,000 signatures, Syed said."

James and the Rendition of Children

The IHRC report highlighted James' role as the leader of a military team sent to Afghanistan in early spring 2003 to render three young teenage boys from Bagram to Guantanamo. According to IHRC, James supervised the forceful and arbitrary detention of the Afghan boys, "transported thousands of miles away from their families and denied them access to counsel."

An April 2011 Truthout story described numerous media reports about the bereft parents, who were never informed by James or any US personnel that their children had been taken into custody, much less whisked off to Guantanamo.

The children told news media after their release they had not seen or heard from their families for many months after they were seized. They complained of homesickness during their incarceration. Though the UK Telegraph quoted one 15-year-old prisoner (some reports said he was 13) as praising the soldiers who watched over him; he also was critical of US authorities for not notifying his parents for ten months of his incarceration, even though he says he gave the Red Cross letters from the first months of his incarceration.
"They stole 14 months of my life and my family's life. I was entirely innocent - just a poor boy looking for work," the young teen said.

The families by most accounts were desperate to find out what happened to their children. No US authority or the Red Cross informed them about the fate of their sons for many months. James never raises the issue of the boys' parents in his book.

According to a February 2004 story in The Washington Post, Nayatullah, "an illiterate farmer of about 60," traveled to work sites throughout his area, asking if anyone had seen his son. No one had. "Finally I thought he must be dead," the father said.

Another boy's mother spoke through a translator to a Guardian UK correspondent about how she suffered not knowing her son's fate. She cried "every night thinking about my son."

"'I prayed to God, I asked, 'Where is my son?' she continued. 'He was just a boy, much too young to disappear on his own.'"

The family and other villagers looked high and low for the boy. Family members and friends went to Bagram, Logar and Gardez to ask the Americans about their son's whereabouts, but "no one knew about him." His father sold his land to acquire the several thousand dollars it took to fund the search for his son. It took the family seven months before they found out where their son was held.

At last, with no explanation or apology, the boys were released in January 2004. James had left Guantanamo after May 2003, but in his book, he wrote proudly of his work with the child detainees. "This is how my country handles prisoners," he said. "It's not all about abuse. We can take juveniles like that and send them home better than we found them."

As for the boys, for whom no evidence of terrorism was ever described or revealed, James still referred to them in his book as "far from innocent" and "teenage terrorists." Still, the psychologist in James also noted that the boys were terribly traumatized, ""not only terrified, but also disheveled and lost."

James wrote they were "the most fragile - psychologically, medically and academically - children I had ever met." Even so, he saw them also as a "case study" for his "softer" style of interrogation - "exactly the kind of prisoners I needed to test my philosophy on interrogation."

Asked about the actions of James in the matter of the rendition of the teenaged boys, and the failure to notify the parents, Dr. Pullis would not respond.

According to an Open Letter to the American Psychological Association by two psychologists - Trudy Bond and Steven Reisner - the APA dismissed without investigation a 2007 ethics complaint by Bond against James which highlighted the rendition of the boys and the failure to notify the parents.

James has also been the subject of license board complaints in Ohio and Louisiana. His BSCT associate, Dr. John Leso was the subject of a licensing complaint in New York State, and Dr. James Mitchell, one of the chief architects of the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques," faced a similar complaint in Texas. All of these complaints were dismissed by state boards for one reason or another.

Bond and Reisner have called for APA to conduct "a full review of the practices of the APA ethics office with regard to the investigation and adjudication of cases alleging torture, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment."

Forgotten in all the controversy, Matthew Burns of the University of Minnesota, the other finalist for the division executive director position, quietly interviewed for the job last week on the MU campus. No decision on the final selection is expected until early March.

This story includes in part reporting that was used in a previous Truthout story.

Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission (Original URL)

[Update, 2/15/13: According to an article in the Missourian, the University of Missouri decided to put a halt on the hiring of someone new to fill the division executive director job "at this time."

Here's what Dean Clay had to say about the decision, according to a copy of his letter to faculty and professional staff, reprinted in the Missourian:

After receiving the recommendations from the search committee regarding the search for a new division executive director (DED), along with input received from other stakeholders, I have decided to not fill the position at this time.

The article explains, "According to a memo from Education Dean Daniel Clay, Mike Pullis will serve as interim director when John Wedman retires Feb. 28. He will continue in that interim role until another individual is selected.

"Wedman will continue in a part-time role throughout the next year to help facilitate the transition."

It looks like both James and Burns are out, but this may also be a strategy to let the whole controversy die out, and perhaps James might be considered again. In any case, the issue of accountability for those who served in senior roles in interrogations or forming interrogation policy was certainly brought to the forefront once again by this controversy.]

The Psychology of Torture: Culture and Change

From GritTV:

A recent study revealed that physicians with the CIA's Office of Medical Services were more deeply involved in torture than was previously thought--that doctors and psychiatrists actually helped interrogators design "enhanced techniques" that passed the Bush administration's requirements but would keep prisoners alive and without the severe physical injuries that even that regime admitted were torture.

Guest host Esther Armah discusses the results of this study, and the culture around torture, with psychologist Steven Reisner of Physicians for Human Rights and playwright Patricia Davis, whose new play, Alternative Methods, tells the story of a psychologist forced to choose between the humanity of a detainee and risking her own life.

Pat Davis also assisted Sister Dianna Ortiz in the writing of Sr. Ortiz's incredible tale of torture and survival by the U.S.-backed Guatemalan government, The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth.

Aug. 22 NYC Panel Discussion on Psychologist Participation in CIA/Pentagon Torture

The following is a press release from Patricia Davis, announcing an important discussion in NYC on torture and the participation of psychologists in its planning and implementation. The discussion will follow the performance of Davis's award-winning play, Alternative Methods. As the show's website explains, "Set in Iraq in 2007, Alternative Methods explores indefinite detention, learned helplessness, and the deep involvement of psychologists in torture." The plot tells the story of an Iraqi doctor who is detained, suspected of treating an Al-Qaeda leader. "With the clock ticking, interrogators must quickly get the doctor to reveal where the safe house is. Susan, a young interrogation psychologist, witnesses severe acts of torture that still yield no intelligence. She takes matters into her own hands."

The event couldn't be more timely, as around the country human rights groups are filing licensing complaints against psychologists who have been identified as involved in torture. These actions will go nowhere without real public support. Already, the complaint against Major John Leso, a military psychologist associated with the torture of Mohammed Al Qahtani, has been turned away by the NY State Office of Professional Discipline because it claimed it lacked jurisdiction. I'll be writing more about this outrageous action quite soon. In the meantime, one can study the complaints filed against the former chief psychologist at Guantanamo, Col. (ret.) Larry James, and former SERE instructor and CIA contract psychologist, James Mitchell.

I hope everyone in New York City will turn out for this important event. It's evident Patricia has done her homework. Her work on torture is well-researched. Her advocacy webpage includes a discussion on Barack Obama's black site prison at Bagram, and the ongoing use of psychological torture, such as solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and more in the Army Field Manual's Appendix M.

From the press release:

Panel Discussion on the Involvement of Psychologists in Torture

A panel discussion on the involvement of psychologists in torture will be held on Sunday, August 22, at 3:00 PM in the Red Room Theater, 85 East 4th Street, NYC. The discussion will follow the 1:00 PM performance of Alternative Methods at the First Floor Theater at La MaMa, 74A East 4th Street. The panel will feature the full cast of Alternative Methods, director Josh Liveright, playwright Patricia Davis, plus three experts on torture: Michael Otterman, human rights consultant and author of American Torture and Erasing Iraq: the Human Costs of Carnage; Steven Reisner, Ph.D, an eminent psychologist who has led his field in opposing the involvement of psychologists in torture and calling for accountability; and, Nathaniel Raymond, director of Physicians for Human Rights’ Campaign Against Torture and the organization’s lead investigator into the role of health professionals in American interrogation policy. Other experts will be announced as they are confirmed.

In addition to the August 22 performance, Alternative Methods will be performed at LaMama as part of the New York International Fringe Festival on: Sunday, August 15 at 8:15; Friday, August 20 at 5:30 PM; Wednesday, August 25 at 8:15 PM; and Saturday, August 28 at 9:45 PM. The play just finished a successful run in Washington, DC, at the Capital Fringe Festival, where the Washington City Paper called it “very well written and performed . . . very successful.“ The DC Theater Scene called the play “interesting and thought-provoking,” commended the “outstanding, all-equity cast,” and selected the play for its Social Consciousness Award.

Written by Patricia Davis and directed by Josh Liveright, “Alternative Methods” features Hend Ayoub, Charlie Kevin, Julie Kline, John Greenleaf, and Alok Tewari. See www.alternativemethodstheplay.com for more information.

More on PHR's Report "Aiding Torture," Steven Reisner on Democracy Now!

Psychologist Steven Reisner, who co-wrote Physicians for Human Rights' (PHR) new examination of Bush-era torture on the complicity of medical professionals and psychologists in planning and implementing and monitoring the abuse, was interviewed today on Amy Goodman's show, Democracy Now! The following is a transcript of the interview. (To download PHR's report, click on the title: Aiding Torture: Health Professionals’ Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the May 2004 Inspector General’s Report, can be downloaded at through this link.)

AMY GOODMAN: A new report by Physicians for Human Rights has found that physicians and psychologists played a greater role than previously known in designing, implementing and legitimizing the Bush administration’s torture program.

A team of doctors analyzed the details of the CIA’s Inspector General report on prisoner interrogation that the Justice Department released last week. Among other revelations, the report detailed how medical professionals collected data on the reaction of prisoners to interrogation methods in order to help the CIA assess and refine the use of waterboarding and other techniques. Physicians for Human Rights found this data collection and analysis, quote, “may amount to human experimentation” and calls for further investigation.

JUAN GONZALEZ: The group is calling for health professionals who have violated ethical standards or the law to be held accountable through criminal prosecution, loss of license and loss of professional society membership.

Dr. Steven Reisner is the co-author of the report, titled “Aiding Torture.” Dr. Reisner is the adviser on psychological ethics for Physicians for Human Rights. He’s also an adjunct professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University and a clinical assistant professor at NYU.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Thank you for having me.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Summarize your findings of that report.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, what we found is clear evidence of the role of health professionals in every aspect of the Bush administration’s torture program, from devising the program to implementing the program and to monitoring the program in a way attempting to justify it according to the Bush administration Justice Department’s narrow reading of the laws against torture. The Bush administration argued that if it doesn’t cause organ failure or death or prolonged psychological harm, it’s not torture, and therefore health professionals were present at every moment during these torture sessions to ostensibly validate that the prisoner wasn’t about to die or have organ failure.

AMY GOODMAN: Human experimentation?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, what happened is that the Office of Medical Services of the CIA didn’t have any data to go on to assess how dangerous to the life of the prisoner waterboarding actually was. So what they decided to do, according to the report, is to gather data through each session of the waterboarding in order to better assess how you implement waterboarding in the future. So they asked for data on the amount of water that was issued, how frequently the sessions were, whether there was a seal, you know, a nasal seal, making sure the water entered the cavity or didn’t enter the cavity, how many sessions per day, etc., etc. So, gathering of data in order to improve the functioning of a technique seems to us to come very close to, if not crossing the line, of experimentation on prisoners.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And presumably that data was then collected into scientific reports, right, that exist somewhere?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, presumably. We don’t have any documentation of that at this point, but that’s why Physicians for Human Rights is calling for a thorough investigation.

AMY GOODMAN: The eleven techniques, Dr. Reisner?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: The eleven techniques—well, the main thing about that is that we’ve discovered that there were techniques that we didn’t know about before: diapering—

AMY GOODMAN: What’s diapering for?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Diapering is for humiliation. You put a diaper on the detainee, and especially with—they combine that with a purely liquid diet, so that the detainee was likely to lose control of his bowels and experience this terrible regressive humiliation. The aim of all of these techniques primarily was psychological regression.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Reisner, can you put this in the context of what’s happening at the American Psychological Association? I mean, we’ve had you on a number of times. You ran for president of the APA. You didn’t win, though you got the most nominating votes for your candidacy. And you’ve led this movement, along with a few other psychologists, supported by thousands within the APA, to challenge its allowing psychologists to participate in coercive interrogations. You just came out of a meeting in Canada, the APA’s annual meeting. What has come of this movement?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, the protest against the APA’s position has been pretty widespread. And the APA has been claiming that they’re against torture, just like the Bush administration claims that it’s against torture. But when it comes to actually putting teeth into their proposals, into their policy, they have yet to implement their own policy.

We got the—we forwarded a referendum. The APA membership voted overwhelmingly to keep psychologists out of environments that violate Geneva Conventions or the UN Convention Against Torture. That’s APA policy.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, has stated, and wrote a letter to the president of the APA, that Guantanamo still violates the Geneva Conventions and violates the UN Convention Against Torture, but the APA continues to refuse to implement its own referendum policy and ask for the withdrawal of psychologists from that site—at that site and other similar sites.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And have any of the—I assume that the report did not identify any of the medical professionals who participated, but have any of the medical professionals who participated in these programs been identified or come forward at all?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, a number of them have been identified. The two psychologists that created the CIA’s torture program, oversaw it, implemented the waterboarding with a number of high-value detainees, Mitchell and Jessen, these were private contractors who had their own corporation. On the board of that corporation was a former president of the American Psychological Association. The Obama administration has terminated their contract, but so far there have been no ethical investigations. There have been no conclusions drawn for any of the psychologists or health professionals that were involved.

AMY GOODMAN: In your report with Physicians for Human Rights, the group is calling for health professionals who have violated ethical standards or the law to be held accountable through criminal prosecution, loss of license and loss of professional society membership. Do you see that happening right now?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: I don’t see it actually yet happening. And we’ve been pushing state licensing boards. We’ve been pushing the professional associations. And the way to really hold the professional associations to their own standards is to see whether they successfully investigate the ethical violations of their members. And so far, they have not.

AMY GOODMAN: We will leave it there. Dr. Steven Reisner, co-author of the report “Aiding Torture,” adviser on psychological ethics for Physicians for Human Rights, an adjunct professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University and a clinical assistant professor at New York University.