June 6, 2007
Sharon Brehm, Ph.D.
President
American Psychological Association
Dear President Brehm:
We write you as psychologists concerned about the participation of our profession in abusive interrogations of national security detainees at Guantanamo, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the so-called CIA ‘black sites.’
Our profession is founded on the fundamental ethical principle, enshrined as Principle A in our Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct: ‘Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm.’ Irrefutable evidence now shows that psychologists participating in national security interrogations have systematically violated this principle. A recently declassified August 2006 report by the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (OIG) — Review of DoD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse — describes in detail how psychologists from the military’s Survival, Evasion Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program were instructed to apply their expertise in abusive interrogation techniques to interrogations being conducted by the DoD throughout all three theaters of the War on Terror (Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq).
SERE is the US military’s program designed to train Special Forces and other troops at high risk of capture to resist ‘breaking’ during harsh interrogations conducted by a ruthless enemy. During SERE training, trainees are subjected to extensive abusive treatment, including sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, isolation, cultural and sexual humiliation, and, in some cases, simulated drowning (‘waterboarding’). By SERE’s own admission, these techniques are classified as torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
The OIG report details a number of trainings and consultations provided by SERE psychologists to psychologists and other personnel involved in interrogations, including those on the Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCT), generally composed of and headed by psychologists. The OIG confirms repeated press accounts over the last two years that SERE techniques were ‘reverse engineered’ by SERE psychologists in consultation with the BSCT psychologists and others, to develop and standardize a regime of psychological torture used by interrogators at Guantanamo, and in Iraq and Afghanistan. The OIG report states: ‘Counterresistance techniques [SERE] were introduced because personnel believed that interrogation methods used were no longer effective in obtaining useful information from some detainees.’
The OIG report also clearly reveals the central role of psychologists in these processes:
‘On September 16, 2002, the Army Special Operations Command and the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency [the military unit containing SERE] co-hosted a SERE psychologist conference at Fort Bragg for JTF-170 [the military component responsible for interrogations at Guantanamo] interrogation personnel. The Army’s Behavioral Science Consultation Team from Guantanamo Bay also attended the conference. Joint Personnel Recovery Agency briefed JTF-170 representatives on the exploitation techniques and methods used in resistance (to interrogation) training at SERE schools. The JTF-170 personnel understood that they were to become familiar with SERE training and be capable of determining which SERE information and techniques might be useful in interrogations at Guantanamo. Guantanamo Behavioral Science Consultation Team personnel understood that they were to review documentation and standard operating procedures for SERE training in developing the standard operating procedure for the JTF-170, if the command approved those practices. The Army Special Operations Command was examining the role of interrogation support as a ‘SERE Psychologist competency area‘ (p. 25, emphasis added).
It is now indisputable that psychologists and psychology were directly and officially responsible for the development and migration of abusive interrogation techniques, techniques which the International Committee of the Red Cross has labeled ‘tantamount to torture.’ Reports of psychologists’ (along with other health professionals’) participation in abusive interrogations surfaced more than two years ago.
While other health professional associations expressed dismay when it was reported that their members had participated in these abuses and took principled stands against their members’ direct participation in interrogations, the APA undertook a campaign to support such involvement. In 2005, APA President Ron Levant created the PENS Task Force to assess the ethics of such participation. Six of the nine voting psychologist members selected for the task force were uniformed and civilian personnel from military and intelligence agencies, most with direct connections to national security interrogations. Perhaps most problematic, it is clear from the OIG Report that three of the PENS members were directly in the chain of command translating SERE techniques into harsh interrogation tactics. Although we cannot know exactly what each of these individuals did, their presence in the chain of command is troubling.
One such task Force member is Colonel Morgan Banks who, according to his Task Force biography
‘is the senior Army Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) Psychologist, responsible for the training and oversight of all Army SERE Psychologists, who include those involved in SERE training…. He provides technical support and consultation to all Army psychologists providing interrogation support…. His initial duty assignment as a psychologist was to assist in establishing the Army’s first permanent SERE training program involving a simulated captivity experience…. In November 1991 [sic: 2001], he deployed to Afghanistan, where he spent four months over the winter of 2001/2002 at Bagram Airfield, supporting combat operations against Al Qaida and Taliban fighters.’
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