Iacopino, Vincent - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

Peter

Okay, good afternoon.

0:06

-

Good afternoon.

0:08

Peter

We are very grateful to you

0:08

for participating in the Witness to Guantanamo Project.

0:10

We invite you to speak of the experiences

0:14

and involvement with detainees and others

0:16

involving Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

0:20

We hope we provide you an opportunity

0:23

to tell your story in your own words.

0:24

We're creating an archive of stories

0:28

so that people in America and around the world

0:31

will have a better understanding

0:33

of what happened in Guantanamo.

0:35

And hopefully, your experience will help us understand that.

0:37

Future generations must know what happened,

0:43

and by telling this story, you're contributing to history.

0:44

And again, we appreciate your willingness

0:47

to speak with us today.

0:49

If there's any time you wanna take a break,

0:51

please let us know.

0:53

And if you say something you'd like us to remove,

0:55

we're happy to remove it if you let us know in time.

0:57

And we'd like to begin by asking you

1:00

some basic information about yourself,

1:01

beginning with your name and your education

1:04

and your date of birth and where you grew up.

1:09

A little bit of that.

1:11

-

Sure.

1:13

Well, first I'm grateful to be here,

1:14

and I'm grateful for the project

1:16

because the history is critical

1:17

to righting what was wrong about Guantanamo

1:20

and the war on terror?

1:24

My name is Vincent Iacopino.

1:26

I am an internist and I have a PhD

1:28

in one of the medical sciences.

1:33

I was born January 1st, 1957.

1:34

So I'm 60 years old.

1:37

Peter

Where were you born?

1:40

-

I was born in New Jersey, on the coast,

1:41

in the central portion of the coast in a middle-class town.

1:45

I went to Villanova University undergraduate.

1:49

I did my medical and graduate school training

1:54

at Georgetown University.

1:56

I did my residency in internal medicine

1:59

and a chief residency at University of Minnesota.

2:02

I took some time off to do humanitarian assistance

2:06

working with the American Refugee Committee

2:10

on the Thai-Cambodian border in a war zone.

2:13

That was in 1986, '87.

2:17

Came back, finished my residency.

2:20

I then did a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford,

2:22

the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program.

2:26

I became the medical director

2:30

of a treatment organization for survivors of torture

2:31

in San Francisco called Survivors International.

2:35

I started working with Physicians for Human Rights,

2:39

a human rights documentation organization back in 1992,

2:41

and I've been working with them ever since.

2:46

So it's been 25 years or so.

2:48

And I've held various positions

2:51

with Physicians for Human Rights

2:53

as their director of research and investigation,

2:56

senior medical advisor and so on.

2:58

And conducted all kinds of investigations

3:01

of human rights violations,

3:05

and torture being one of the most prominent ones.

3:06

-

I know you went to, or you've studied

3:10

a number of countries and incidents

3:13

in other countries before Guantanamo.

3:15

Maybe give us a little background on that

3:17

before we go into Guantanamo.

3:18

-

Sure.

3:20

Well, it's quite a few countries where I have traveled

3:22

and investigated and documented torture,

3:25

political killings, disappearances,

3:29

sexual assault, the conditions for refugees,

3:31

child labor problems, HIV/AIDS and human rights issues.

3:35

So a wide range of issues.

3:39

And some of the countries, India, Turkey,

3:42

South Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Macedonia.

3:46

A lot of my work now is in Central Asia.

3:55

In Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.

3:58

I've been to Thailand

4:03

for human rights investigations as well.

4:04

So suffice it to say, a number of countries,

4:06

usually countries where there are problems.

4:09

Peter

And how did you get called into Guantanamo issues?

4:11

How did that happen?

4:14

-

So, I have a long history of working to document torture.

4:15

I'm one of the old timers.

4:23

In fact, I was probably one of three people in the US

4:24

in the early '90s to be doing this sort of work

4:28

with Survivors International in San Francisco.

4:31

And I was recruited by Physicians for Human Rights

4:34

to do investigative work because of that skill.

4:36

And with the investigations that I did,

4:41

particularly in Turkey,

4:45

we had the idea of developing UN norms

4:47

for investigating and documenting torture.

4:50

And that effort which took three years,

4:53

culminated in the publication of UN guidelines,

4:56

the gold standard for investigation

5:00

and documentation of torture.

5:02

It's called the Istanbul Protocol.

5:03

I was the principal organizer

5:05

and author of that publication.

5:07

And so, many people look to me

5:09

because of my long history and my role in the norm setting

5:11

for investigation and documentation.

5:16

Peter

Before we go into Guantanamo,

5:18

just so people that are watching,

5:20

can you tell us a bit about what the norms are

5:22

from the Istanbul Protocol?

5:24

-

Sure.

5:26

Well, before the Istanbul Protocol, there were no norms.

5:27

And so the typical practice

5:30

was for official forensic doctors

5:32

not to really do anything,

5:34

just to say there's no sign of injury or lesion.

5:36

And the doctors and civil society

5:39

would do these fantastic reports,

5:42

but the judges would not allow them.

5:47

So the purpose, first of all, was to create a standard,

5:49

a framework that everybody could use

5:53

both in the government and in civil society

5:56

to enable that material medical evidence

5:59

to come to bear in courts of law.

6:02

And the actual content of the Istanbul Protocol

6:04

has the legal framework for the prohibition against torture,

6:08

information about conducting prompt,

6:14

impartial, legal investigation.

6:17

So it's also for lawyers and judges and prosecutors as well.

6:19

Some of those legal norms had already been established.

6:22

What was mostly new about the Istanbul Protocol

6:25

were the norms for the evaluation

6:28

of physical and psychological evidence of torture.

6:31

And just briefly, that consists of taking a history,

6:35

getting the information,

6:40

especially about the specific allegations of torture,

6:41

asking about one's past medical history,

6:46

about the symptoms that they had, any disabilities,

6:51

what happened in the torture, obviously in great detail.

6:54

And the psychological evaluation has a lot to do

6:57

with understanding who that person was

7:00

before the alleged abuse and what happened

7:03

and what the effects have been, their symptoms.

7:06

Do they fit into diagnostic categories or not?

7:09

But mostly it's the meaning of the experience

7:12

that the person has.

7:14

And we assess the veracity of that testimony

7:15

through the internal consistency

7:19

and the temporal relationships and so forth.

7:21

And then in the end, we make judgements

7:23

about the level of consistency between physical

7:28

and psychological evidence and the allegations.

7:31

And we might say that they're unrelated

7:34

or that they're consistent or highly consistent

7:37

or virtually diagnostic, that the physical

7:39

and psychological findings are virtually diagnostic

7:42

of the alleged abuse.

7:44

And there was a huge advance in our work

7:47

because it's a framework that everyone needs to follow.

7:52

And it basically was adopted by the UN General Assembly

7:55

and in regional human rights courts and so forth.

8:00

It is fortunately a standard

8:02

that we can all hang our hat on.

8:05

Peter

Does it require training

8:07

of the investigator?

8:08

-

Absolutely.

8:10

Especially in the case of the medical personnel

8:11

and forensic doctors, no one really learns this

8:14

in medical school.

8:19

Basic techniques of documentation perhaps.

8:20

But no, the physical and psychological consequences,

8:23

you have to learn how to conduct

8:26

an empathic and effective interview,

8:28

how to understand your own emotional reactions.

8:31

There are many considerations

8:33

that people really do need to learn.

8:35

And frankly at the beginning, no one is really great

8:37

at this kind of anamnesis.

8:41

This long interview and so forth

8:43

and putting it all together, and it takes a lot of practice.

8:45

So usually the way that people become competent

8:48

is to observe, you know, they learn the knowledge

8:52

and then they learn through observation

8:55

and then supervision.

8:57

Like most practices in medicine.

8:59

Peter

So, you were one of the first

9:01

that people would observe you as you...

9:02

-

Yes. Yeah.

9:05

Peter

Well, then we can go back

9:08

to how that led you to Guantanamo.

9:09

-

Yeah, so because of my experience in documenting torture

9:12

and in norm setting for the standards of investigating

9:18

and documenting medical evidence,

9:22

there were lawyers who found out about me

9:25

and contacted me to examine detainees

9:29

or to examine medical records

9:33

if the detainee could not be examined at Guantanamo.

9:35

And so I was involved in a number of cases

9:37

of either examining the medical records alone

9:40

or evaluating a detainee in Guantanamo.

9:44

I've testified in several cases.

9:48

Peter

Why couldn't a detainee be examined?

9:51

-

Well, it just wasn't allowed.

9:56

I can say that in the case

10:04

of the high value detainees especially,

10:07

even the observations of the detainee

10:11

or their descriptions of their alleged abuse was classified.

10:14

They couldn't say what happened to them.

10:18

Nevermind have an individual doctor travel to Guantanamo

10:20

and to meet with them and so forth.

10:25

And everything at Guantanamo is classified.

10:27

Any observation if you go there.

10:29

So, yeah, it was because of this problem of classification,

10:32

that has changed over time only recently.

10:39

And a lot of it had to do with testimony.

10:44

Some of the testimony I provided myself on the necessity

10:46

of to make any kind of evaluation, medical evaluation,

10:50

of being there, of having medical records

10:55

and frankly all relevant documents,

10:57

legal or otherwise, classified or not.

11:01

So, and then to travel to Guantanamo,

11:03

you do need to get your security clearance,

11:06

which can take months.

11:08

You need to be vetted by the FBI

11:11

and they have to come to your house

11:15

and talk to everyone you've known for the past,

11:17

I don't know, 20 years?

11:20

Peter

Even with that high security clearance,

11:24

you still couldn't talk to the detainees?

11:25

-

Well, I was referring to some of the high value detainees

11:29

and specifically referring to the case of al-Nashiri,

11:32

in whom they would not allow the medical records

11:36

to be reviewed, for a physician to evaluate,

11:39

a non-governmental physician to evaluate him at Guantanamo.

11:44

And when I testified in court

11:49

that this is an absolute necessity,

11:53

in fact, some of my friends and I,

11:55

we belong to a group called

11:57

the Independent Forensic Expert Group,

11:58

where 33 forensic experts from around the world.

12:00

We wrote a statement about the relevance

12:03

of such information to an evaluation of torture.

12:05

And that was instrumental in another clinician,

12:08

Dr. Sondra Crosby, gaining access,

12:12

becoming the evaluator in the case of Mr. al-Nashiri.

12:14

Peter

I still don't understand.

12:21

I think it's really important for history to understand,

12:22

how could the defense even defend any position

12:24

of their client

12:30

if you couldn't even visit with their client?

12:31

What was the justification the government gave

12:35

why you couldn't even talk to the client?

12:37

And why even if you got high security clearance,

12:39

you couldn't talk to the detainee?

12:41

-

Well, I think it's a little bit like expecting people

12:45

to fight with two hands tied behind their back.

12:47

I mean, it was an unfair practice and ostensibly,

12:50

it was on the basis of national security.

12:54

That this is classified information.

12:58

In the case of allegations

13:00

of the abuse that happened to them,

13:02

that's sources and methods.

13:06

I mean, that's what said, but everyone knows

13:08

what the approved methods of interrogation were

13:12

from the Department of Defense and the CIA,

13:17

the documents that came out after 2004.

13:21

And so it's not a secret.

13:24

Obviously the illegal ones,

13:25

the ones that were not authorized,

13:27

of which there were many for each individual,

13:29

it's a question of liability to be frank.

13:33

It's a way to conceal the evidence of torture

13:37

that is so glaring once you see it from the inside.

13:40

Even from the outside, it's not hard to tell.

13:44

The Abu Ghraib photos that came out in 2004

13:47

spoke volumes to the cruelty that was taking place,

13:51

but it was just the tip of the iceberg.

13:56

Peter

So, why are you permitted

13:58

to review documents?

14:00

Wouldn't that be classified too?

14:01

What's the difference?

14:03

-

Well, in some cases, the medical records were released

14:05

without the necessity of a security clearance.

14:09

And other cases,

14:15

I think depending upon the specific concerns

14:16

that the government had, a security clearance is required.

14:21

And so, in my case, before I went to Guantanamo,

14:25

I did apply for and receive my security clearance.

14:30

And that enabled me not only to go to Guantanamo

14:33

and examine the detainee, but also to visit

14:36

what was called the Secure Room in Crystal City, Virginia,

14:40

just across from Washington, D.C. for several days

14:43

to review relevant, secret information.

14:47

And then, pardon me.

14:53

When I testified in court, it was a closed court.

14:55

It was not an open court hearing.

14:59

And there were precautions with my own note taking.

15:02

I mean, the notes that I took

15:06

during the interview in Guantanamo are filed away

15:07

and I didn't get to see them

15:11

until my time, either in the Secure Room or in court.

15:12

Peter

And these are interviews

15:17

you took in Guantanamo

15:19

and the court was the military commission

15:20

or was it another court?

15:23

-

The case I'm referring to in Guantanamo

15:25

is the case of Muhammad al-Ould Slahi.

15:27

And it was a habeas case in federal,

15:30

closed federal court in Washington, D.C.

15:34

Not a military commissions case.

15:36

But I've reviewed information

15:39

in many military commission cases as well.

15:43

Peter

Were you surprised at what you did see?

15:47

Did you expect to see what you saw?

15:49

Were you prepared for what you saw?

15:55

-

So, my observations at Guantanamo

16:00

are technically classified.

16:05

So when I refer to that material,

16:07

it's only public source.

16:11

I don't refer to any personal observations

16:12

or case information that I personally documented.

16:15

It's prohibited.

16:17

So, but there is copious amounts of information

16:20

on the case of Mr. Slahi and other cases as well,

16:24

from these releases of the most recently,

16:29

the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report in 2014,

16:35

and other reports from the Office of the Inspector General

16:40

for the CIA back in 2004 and 2008.

16:46

I believe it was the the Senate subcommittee

16:49

on something, intelligence, I believe.

16:53

So, we've had revelations about the practices at Guantanamo.

16:56

And of course, in the other theaters of operation

17:02

in Afghanistan and Iraq, based on the release

17:04

of those documents.

17:08

We've gathered additional information

17:09

by interviewing former detainees.

17:13

Physicians for Human Rights,

17:16

the organization I work for, examined 11 detainees

17:17

who had been released.

17:21

This is back in 2011, '13, I wanna say.

17:22

And they conducted medical examinations

17:27

for over a period of two days,

17:31

physical, psychological evidence assessments

17:32

in accordance with the international norms

17:35

that we established, the Istanbul Protocol.

17:38

And they concluded that there was,

17:40

that the physical and psychological evidence

17:44

was highly consistent with the specific allegations

17:46

of torture that the detainees have.

17:50

Peter

Could you elaborate on that?

17:53

That's public information since the men were released.

17:54

Is there something that might be interesting

17:58

for us to know more specifically

18:00

as to what you gathered or what they report?

18:04

-

Yeah, the name of the report is Broken Laws, Broken Lives.

18:07

and it is this detailed examination of the 11 detainees.

18:10

I believe seven were detained in Abu Ghraib in Iraq,

18:16

and four were detained in Afghanistan

18:19

and later transferred to Guantanamo.

18:22

They were under the authority of the DOD.

18:24

In some cases, there were CIA personnel involved

18:30

but these were not black site detainees.

18:33

And there were allegations of the typical

18:36

enhanced interrogation tactics

18:43

that were approved by the DOD.

18:44

Sensory, sleep deprivation for long periods of time,

18:47

exposure to cold.

18:51

There was loud music, sensory bombardment,

18:53

manipulation of diet.

18:59

There was shackling in uncomfortable positions

19:01

for a long period of time,

19:04

being placed in coffin sized boxes.

19:06

Peter

This is all documented?

19:10

-

Well, this was all documented. Sure.

19:12

And those were the ordinary approved tactics,

19:14

but it didn't stop there.

19:17

One was stabbed with a screwdriver.

19:21

There were all kinds of humiliations,

19:23

many of them sexual.

19:25

With sexual assault, with anal instrumentation,

19:28

with truncheons, forcing the men to perform sexual acts.

19:32

Having women touch them.

19:42

And one with menstrual blood, which is forbidden in Islam.

19:46

And another who was forced to drink urine.

19:54

Another that was peed on by the guards,

19:57

another who was used like a human sponge to wipe the floor.

20:03

A floor soaked with urine.

20:08

So there were offenses to the Koran.

20:11

Writing in, stepping on Korans and so on.

20:14

Putting a dog leash on someone who is naked.

20:21

And these are the kinds of things

20:26

that were done to these men.

20:27

And they had the physical scars

20:29

and psychological scars of the abuse that they alleged.

20:32

And broken bones, nerve injuries,

20:37

disabilities of their limbs that were broken.

20:44

And the vast majority of them

20:47

had post-traumatic stress disorder

20:48

and/or major depression related to their abuse.

20:50

Peter

I wanna just go back to Slahi for a minute

20:58

and then I wanna talk about something else,

21:00

but did the Physicians for Human Rights interview Slahi

21:01

after his release?

21:06

-

Well, he was just released last year.

21:09

And no, we haven't interviewed him.

21:11

I've interviewed him extensively in the past

21:15

and I've been in communication with him.

21:18

But the answer to that question is no.

21:21

I mean, I think it's pretty well known what was done to him

21:24

through the public source information

21:30

and the Senate Select Committee report, SSCI report.

21:32

And also in the 2008 report.

21:37

It goes into his torture in great detail.

21:40

And it's a tragedy.

21:44

It's a tragedy.

21:47

A man who did, admittedly fight for Al-Qaeda

21:48

up until '92, but then had, according to Judge Robertson

21:53

in the habeas case, nothing to do with jihad

21:57

or Al-Qaeda after '92.

22:02

But that didn't prevent him from being tortured

22:06

for several months and indefinitely detained.

22:07

It took quite an ordeal for them to release Mr. Slahi.

22:12

Some 88,000 signatures from ACLU,

22:17

15 or so members of parliament from the United Kingdom.

22:21

All kinds of public advocacy to release him.

22:25

He was touted as one of the most important

22:32

high-value detainees, and in the end,

22:36

there was no charge and he was tortured.

22:43

And remarkably, he bears no ill will.

22:46

And even, well, he does not bear ill will

22:50

against the guards, the torturers.

22:53

He's a real model of a human being.

22:58

Peter

And would it did help

23:03

for Physicians for Human Rights to interview him

23:04

just so that information that is not public

23:07

can then go public?

23:10

-

I don't think so.

23:13

As I said, I believe that the information

23:14

that was critical in his case has been published,

23:18

and what remains is additional and not essential

23:21

to the understanding of what went on

23:28

for him and for others like him.

23:31

Peter

So when you talk about torture,

23:33

one of the things that we heard

23:34

from detainees that we interviewed,

23:35

and many of them told us that they thought

23:37

that Guantanamo was more a psychological prison

23:39

than a physical brutal, prison.

23:42

Had you heard that and can you talk to that?

23:44

The difference?

23:48

-

Yes, I can talk to the difference

23:50

between Guantanamo and other places of detention.

23:52

And also the United States

23:57

versus a whole bunch of other countries

23:58

if you're interested.

23:59

But to the first question.

24:01

Yeah, at Guantanamo, it was staffed by the DOD by and large.

24:04

And so the practices, the torture methods and so forth

24:11

were the DOD approved techniques.

24:16

Waterboarding was not one of them.

24:18

And so waterboarding wasn't really performed,

24:20

to my knowledge, in Guantanamo.

24:22

The same with the coffin-sized boxes.

24:26

And I don't think it's fair to say

24:30

that the methods were psychological

24:32

as opposed to physical.

24:35

It's an artificial distinction in my mind.

24:36

When you manipulate someone's diet and starve them.

24:39

When you keep them awake for very prolonged periods,

24:43

in the case of Mr. Slahi, it was weeks.

24:48

It was 70 days,

24:51

Peter

He was awake for 70 days?

24:53

-

Well, they tried to keep him awake.

24:54

Sensory deprivation, these are all physical methods

24:57

that break down an individual psychologically.

25:00

Near hypothermia.

25:04

These are all approved methods.

25:06

Marathon interrogations.

25:08

And the point of all of this was to create

25:13

this state of learned helplessness.

25:16

The psychologists, the infamous psychologists,

25:20

James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen,

25:22

who designed and implemented the torture methods.

25:25

The so-called reverse engineering

25:29

of the SERE methods of torture.

25:31

Survival, evasion, resistance and escape.

25:36

The program that the United States built up

25:39

after the Korean War to help our soldiers resist torture.

25:42

They designed and implemented those methods.

25:51

And that was for the CIA.

25:54

And at Guantanamo,

25:58

the involvement of health professionals there

26:02

was different from that of the involvement at the CIA sites.

26:06

And basically, you had two groups of clinicians.

26:11

One that was supposed to take care of the medical concerns,

26:16

both physical and psychological care for the detainees.

26:22

And the other,

26:25

the so-called Behavioral Science Consultant Teams or BSCT,

26:26

psychologists and psychiatrists.

26:30

Their charge was to ensure

26:32

that the interrogations were safe, legal and effective.

26:35

And that wasn't true.

26:41

That was a lie.

26:45

That was a bedtime story that people told themselves

26:46

to obscure their own sort of moral agency

26:49

to help them disconnect.

26:57

And so, in reality, what the BSCT psychologists

27:01

and psychiatrists did,

27:03

was to identify psychological vulnerabilities,

27:06

monitor the interrogations, albeit from another room,

27:10

usually through a one way glass,

27:15

and to advise the interrogators on how to break down

27:18

the detainees to create this state of learned helplessness.

27:22

And you can see this in the BSCT logs.

27:27

There are very few of them that have been declassified,

27:34

but in some, you can see exactly what their intention was.

27:38

It was to create a state of debility, dependency and dread.

27:43

Those are the hallmarks of torture

27:47

that the CIA has recognized

27:49

in their KUBARK manual from the 1960s

27:51

and later in the 1980s.

27:54

They referred to them, of course, with euphemisms.

27:55

Like ego down, futility and fear up harsh.

27:58

And this was their goal.

28:04

And they would advise interrogators for months

28:06

to achieve this state of learned helplessness.

28:13

The debility, dependency, and dread.

28:15

-

And this was more common in Guantanamo?

28:19

Is that what you're telling us, than in other-

28:21

-

Well, I'm saying that the regime,

28:23

the torturing regime in Guantanamo

28:25

was one of using the DOD approved practices and more.

28:27

And that the health professionals facilitated this

28:34

in two different ways.

28:40

One through the BSCTs who had direct involvement

28:41

in the torture, and the other was the neglect

28:43

of evidence from the people charged

28:46

with their medical and mental health care.

28:48

And I'll talk about them for a moment.

28:51

Because let's take the medical people.

28:54

The doctors and nurses and so forth.

28:57

They did take care of ordinary medical conditions

28:59

like skin rashes, upper respiratory infections,

29:02

peptic ulcer disease.

29:06

Everything from ear wax removal to eyeglasses.

29:07

But when it came to instances

29:11

where there was intentional harm

29:13

and people presented to them with fractures,

29:17

bone fractures, contusions, lacerations, nerve injuries,

29:20

they never asked the question, "How did this happen?"

29:26

They missed the opportunity entirely

29:29

to document and to quite frankly

29:32

to complain of what had happened.

29:34

The mental health people,

29:38

the people in behavioral health services,

29:42

so-called BHS, who were responsible for psychological care,

29:44

they completely ignored

29:48

post traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

29:51

Nightmares, dissociation, problems with memory and so forth.

29:54

It was right there in their faces.

29:59

We know this because myself and others

30:00

like Dr. Steven Tsinokas,

30:03

retired Brigadier General for US Army,

30:06

we've reviewed medical records.

30:10

And we could see that the patients complained

30:11

of PTSD symptoms.

30:14

And mind you, post traumatic stress disorder

30:15

comes from severe trauma.

30:18

But they would not follow up with questions.

30:23

They would treat people who presented with PTSD symptoms

30:25

with anxiety medications.

30:29

And major depression, they would treat that as well

30:34

only with medications.

30:37

There was no attempt to establish

30:40

a therapeutic relationship.

30:41

They just completely neglected the cause

30:45

of the symptoms that they were seeing

30:48

and treated with medications.

30:50

And to some extent, it's understandable

30:52

that the detainees did not trust the BHS staff,

30:55

the Behavioral Health Services staff,

30:58

because they were viewed as associates

31:00

of the doctors who participated in their torture.

31:04

I should say the psychiatrists and psychologists.

31:07

As an example of this in one of the medical records

31:11

that I read, where the BHS staff entered a statement

31:14

that he told the detainee, someone who had presented

31:21

with PTSD symptoms and depression,

31:24

that you should try to relax.

31:27

You should try to relax

31:29

when the interrogators are using aggressive methods.

31:31

It was stunning.

31:39

The combination of direct involvement in the actual torture

31:40

and the concealment of that involvement

31:45

by the neglect of evidence of the clinicians

31:48

who were supposed to take care of the detainees.

31:51

Peter

So for you, when I asked you earlier

31:55

if there's something that really surprised you,

31:57

it sounds like this might've surprised you

31:59

or were you expecting what you just described?

32:01

-

It was surprising.

32:04

I mean, I'm not surprised by much.

32:05

I've been documenting evidence of torture for 25 years

32:07

and I've seen horrific brutality.

32:11

What's more particular about the US

32:16

is the calculated nature of it

32:19

and the systematic nature.

32:23

I mean, in most countries, torture is brutal

32:24

and it's not documented so much.

32:29

This went through the chain of command

32:32

and people kept notes.

32:34

And we know that the interrogators

32:35

would have to call back to officials,

32:39

national security officials back in Washington

32:42

to approve some of their methods of torture.

32:46

There was collusion up and down the chain of command.

32:49

This is not something you ordinarily see

32:54

in torture around the world.

32:56

And so it really makes it stunning,

32:59

the involvement of so many people and the effects

33:01

of the torture is as bad as anything you can imagine.

33:04

It doesn't matter whether or not

33:09

you are giving electric shocks or cigarette burns

33:11

or hypothermia and waterboarding.

33:15

The effect is the same.

33:18

And I can say that in one instance

33:21

of a man being peed on in Abu Ghraib,

33:24

it just destroyed, as he said, destroyed his life forever.

33:31

Peter

Do you think the US,

33:40

what you're describing, consciously thought this thing

33:42

that they said they're going to treat the men this way

33:45

and psychologically damage them

33:50

in ways that are beyond the physical torture?

33:52

-

Well, that's a good question.

33:56

The intent behind the systematic policy of torture.

33:59

Remember how it all began.

34:04

There was an attack on this country, September 11th.

34:07

And there were two very important elements to the response.

34:13

The rage that people felt from that attack

34:17

and the fear that people felt of another attack.

34:21

Fear, I think was an all encompassing phenomenon

34:26

for the policy makers who responded to 9/11.

34:31

It's not wrong to have feelings of rage

34:35

towards people who do outrageous things,

34:37

who murder senselessly, innocent people.

34:40

But the policy that was created was stupid

34:45

on a grand scale.

34:50

We've learned lessons of torture

34:51

over the years in the dirty wars

34:53

of Central and South America and elsewhere.

34:54

We know a lot about torture.

34:57

We know that it doesn't work.

34:59

In fact, there was pushback when the US

35:02

was beginning to authorize

35:06

previously recognized torture practices.

35:10

That, hey, look, this is unreliable information.

35:12

The CIA had disavowed torture saying, it's unreliable.

35:15

The Army Field Manual manual talks

35:20

about not engaging in torture because it's unreliable.

35:22

United States, by and large did not practice torture.

35:27

It certainly didn't authorize torture

35:30

in any of the wars it fought before.

35:31

It wasn't necessary.

35:33

And people who are experienced interrogators,

35:35

they know that rapport building

35:37

and strategies work better than causing people

35:40

so much pain that they're willing to say anything at all.

35:45

So initially what happened in the authorization of torture

35:49

was a redefinition.

35:54

A definition that frankly rendered

35:58

the definition of torture meaningless

36:01

by the Office of Legal Counsel,

36:03

specifically by John Yoo and Jay Bybee.

36:07

John Yoo is a professor of law

36:10

just two blocks away here

36:12

at the law school at University of California Berkeley.

36:13

Peter

Jay Bybee is in your neighborhood.

36:19

-

Jay, is he?

36:21

Peter

He's the Court of Appeals in Nevada.

36:22

-

Oh, I didn't realize it was in Nevada.

36:25

I knew he got promoted to a Court of Appeals, but...

36:26

So, look, before this was done, there were people

36:31

like Dick Cheney saying, we have to go to the dark side.

36:35

We have to use any and all means necessary

36:38

in order to get actionable intelligence.

36:41

No one can deny the importance of actionable intelligence,

36:43

but people should have known better than to torture

36:46

in order to gain that actionable intelligence.

36:53

And they were warned against reverse engineering

36:56

SERE tactics and so on.

36:59

But it didn't stop anyone.

37:04

Torture was redefined in a way that made it meaningless.

37:06

By that I'm referring to the two conditions.

37:09

One was to elevate the thresholds

37:15

for severe physical and mental pain.

37:17

Physical pain had to be akin to major injuries,

37:19

organ failure or death.

37:25

And by the way, organ failure by and large is not painful.

37:27

Maybe organ failure, if your heart is.

37:32

And that might be understandable to allow for more stress.

37:35

But the truth is the second condition

37:41

was that of specific intent.

37:43

That the perpetrator had to specifically intend

37:46

to create those elevated levels of physical and mental pain.

37:51

How can you possibly know?

37:57

I mean, you can say,

37:59

"My intent was to get actionable information."

38:01

Intelligence.

38:04

They further explained that you could do this in good faith.

38:06

And that you could honestly believe

38:12

that you are acting in good faith

38:16

without it being reasonable.

38:18

All you had to do, this is written in the memos.

38:21

The Yoo and Bybee memos.

38:23

All you had to do was review the literature

38:25

and consult an expert,

38:28

things like that would confer on you

38:29

this sense of good faith, what you were doing.

38:33

And it didn't matter anyway

38:38

because the person had to specifically intend

38:39

for the elevated thresholds of torture.

38:42

It was incredible to read this.

38:45

Peter

Was that the beginning?

38:51

-

The OLC memos, which enabled the torture

38:55

was the basis for the approval

39:01

by the Department of Defense and the CIA

39:03

for the actual methods.

39:05

They were the ones who authorized.

39:06

And they were the ones who created this complicity

39:09

of health professionals, which was different,

39:12

as I said, between the DOD and the CIA.

39:15

I'm gonna talk about the CIA for a second.

39:17

I know it's not Guantanamo related,

39:19

but I do wanna give the whole context here.

39:21

And how the methods and the practices were different

39:24

at Guantanamo versus Guantanamo.

39:28

Peter

And in that discussion,

39:30

I wanna go back to the psychological aspect of it.

39:32

If that led to this psychological,

39:36

which apparently seems like a different approach to torture,

39:38

but maybe not.

39:41

-

Yeah, it is slightly different approach to torture.

39:43

But in Guantanamo, as we said,

39:46

you had the DOD approved methods,

39:49

which didn't include waterboarding or coffins,

39:53

but all of the other ones that the CIA had.

39:56

And the health professionals were involved

39:59

in these two distinct groups

40:01

with direct involvement and neglecting evidence

40:02

of the clinicians responsible for care.

40:05

The CIA did it very differently.

40:09

The methods, the waterboarding obviously

40:11

was really very brutal.

40:13

And the detainees were kept in black sites,

40:15

undisclosed locations.

40:20

We didn't know about this until 2006.

40:22

It was denied until '14 of the some 120 or so

40:24

who were detained at these various sites

40:28

were transferred to Guantanamo.

40:30

And with the release of some of these classified reports,

40:34

we started to understand what the methods of torture were.

40:38

And as I said, they were like the DOD, but worse.

40:42

And the involvement of health professionals

40:46

was very different.

40:47

You didn't have BSCT psychiatrists and psychologists.

40:48

-

In the CIA program.

40:52

-

In the CIA. No.

You had the contractors like Mitchell and Jessen

40:54

who designed and implemented the torture.

40:57

And then you had the health professionals

40:59

with the Office of Medical Service with the CIA,

41:02

the so-called, the OMS.

41:06

And they actually had guidelines to monitor,

41:08

that compelled the health professionals to monitor.

41:12

Again, presumably as a safety officer.

41:14

To physically be present during waterboarding

41:17

and to monitor the health condition.

41:20

Hypothermia, sensory deprivation, uncomfortable,

41:23

prolonged positions and so forth.

41:28

But what really took place was not just that.

41:32

We analyze, the Physicians for Human Rights staff analyze

41:36

the 2014 release of the Senate Select Committee

41:40

on Intelligence report,

41:45

the 500 pages of the exact summary

41:47

from which there were 6,700 pages

41:51

from the classified report, still not released.

41:54

And in that report, there are the guidelines

41:57

for the OMS medical personnel,

42:00

which shows that they were supposed

42:04

to monitor the interrogations.

42:05

We also know that they used medical procedures

42:07

to torture people.

42:12

The so-called rectal feeding.

42:13

There's no such thing as rectal feeding.

42:16

The large intestine absorbs water.

42:18

It does not digest food.

42:21

It doesn't absorb food nutrients.

42:22

And anyone who inserts a rectal tube into a person

42:25

without consent with no medical indication

42:33

is engaging in sexual assault and torture.

42:38

And this was done.

42:42

The reports show that it was done

42:43

to clear people's head to make them compliant.

42:45

So the OMS personnel were involved in torturing themselves.

42:47

They also withheld care.

42:51

Pain medicine.

42:54

They delayed surgical procedures

42:55

in the case of gunshot injuries in a couple of cases.

42:58

They treated people in order to get them back

43:01

to the interrogation room.

43:03

For example, they would treat leg swelling

43:07

from prolonged standing.

43:09

In some cases, they would try to prevent blood clots

43:10

by giving anti-coagulants.

43:13

They would treat the injuries

43:17

from tight shackles and things like this.

43:20

The medical doctors at Guantanamo,

43:27

they failed to document any injuries, any harm, any torture.

43:29

And they were expected to collect information.

43:36

Some of this information on the waterboard

43:40

and others made it back to Washington, D.C.

43:42

and it was touted as evidence of safety.

43:45

For the waterboard, you have somebody there.

43:51

If someone has a cardiac arrest,

43:53

they're gonna resuscitate them and so forth.

43:55

Oh, by the way, we shouldn't drown people

43:57

with regular water because it might dilute out

44:00

their electrolytes in their blood.

44:02

So we use normal saline,

44:03

the same electrolyte content as your body.

44:04

So actually the cover for the safety

44:09

of the CIA techniques was the collection

44:13

of information by OMS doctors.

44:17

When you collect information without people's consent,

44:19

there's a federal statute against that,

44:24

against unethical human research or experimentation.

44:26

Which is a crime against humanity

44:31

under some conditions.

44:35

With reference to Nuremberg.

44:38

Health professionals are not supposed

44:40

to engage in experimentation.

44:41

Peter

We interviewed, you might even know her,

44:47

habeas attorneys representing one of the people,

44:51

one of the 14 you mentioned,

44:53

and he was allowed to release a few statements.

44:55

One of which said that when he was hanging by shackles.

44:58

A doctor would come in and measure

45:01

his leg to see whether it's swollen

45:05

to the point where he had to be released

45:07

or at least set down.

45:09

And doctor would come in and say, "It's not swollen enough.

45:11

You can keep him hanging."

45:13

-

Yeah. We've heard of this before.

45:16

And this is such a corruption of the most basic ethics

45:17

that we have as health professionals for 2,500 years.

45:24

The Hippocratic Oath tells us to act

45:29

in the best interest of your patients and not to do harm.

45:32

Peter

How do they justify that?

45:35

-

Well, that's a good question.

45:38

There is no justification ethically.

45:39

And people do a lot of things.

45:43

There's a large body of literature

45:45

on how people justify inhumane acts.

45:48

And I do think that people make moral justifications.

45:52

We need this for our national security in defense.

45:57

They use euphemistic labels like ego down,

46:01

futility, fear up harsh and so on.

46:04

They don't see the consequences of their actions.

46:09

Well, I'm doing this, but it's not ultimately leading

46:13

to the torture.

46:16

-

They don't see it?

You think they don't see it?

46:17

-

Well, I'm saying this is how people morally disengage.

46:18

These are mechanisms of moral disengagement.

46:21

I'm not making this up.

46:24

There's a study by Albert Bandura down at Stanford.

46:26

And I think they in large part helped to explain

46:29

how people escape self sanctions, the self criticism

46:34

of their immorality by psychologically tricking themselves,

46:39

if you will, into not seeing the consequences

46:43

of their actions, by diffusing responsibility,

46:45

not seeing the consequences of their action,

46:49

by blaming the victim.

46:52

It's their fault.

46:54

They wouldn't be in this situation

46:56

if they weren't the worst of the worst.

46:58

So people use psychological mechanisms

47:02

to disengage from their moral identity.

47:05

It's a well-known phenomenon how people disengage.

47:11

Peter

Can we go back, I'm sorry,

47:16

but just, 'cause you're just so excellent

47:18

and it's so important to see how that evolved

47:20

into where like all these detainees told us

47:23

that they were psychologically tortured,

47:26

if in fact, I know you said perhaps

47:28

there's no real difference.

47:31

But the way you're describing it, I just wondered

47:32

if America or American officials did think

47:35

that maybe there was this new heightened way

47:38

to torture people with no scars on them.

47:41

And yet you get the intel like you're looking for.

47:44

-

Yeah.

47:47

Well, I think that on this rational, conscious level,

47:49

people were thinking, well, it's so important

47:54

to get actionable intelligence.

47:58

Let's do everything up to the point of torture,

47:59

but not torture people.

48:02

But as you can see,

48:04

the Yoo-Bybee definition of torture was a joke.

48:05

You actually had to expressively intend

48:09

to create a psychological state

48:13

that would last for months or years?

48:17

That had to be your intent?

48:19

So there was a disconnect.

48:21

A disconnect that to me reveals a true intent,

48:24

not the intent to be more aggressive,

48:27

but the intent to actually do whatever you needed to do

48:31

to make someone talk.

48:36

And that's just what happened.

48:38

Not only did we have this regimen

48:40

of approved enhanced interrogation techniques,

48:43

which by the way, the US recognized as torture

48:47

before these reinterpretations of torture.

48:50

I know this because I've served

48:55

as a public member of human rights delegations

48:57

for the United States, with US delegates,

48:59

and have criticized other countries

49:03

of these very same techniques.

49:04

Extremely ironic for me to be in this position.

49:06

It was an attempt to commit and conceal

49:14

whatever acts they wanted to.

49:17

And there's a really good example of this

49:19

with extraordinary consequences.

49:22

And I don't think many people really know

49:24

about the case of Ibn Sheikh al-Libi.

49:26

The chief of staff for Colin Powell,

49:31

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson could tell you about this.

49:33

This was a Libyan paramilitary who was with Al-Qaeda,

49:37

picked up on the battlefield, rendered to Egypt in 2002.

49:42

And it was his false confession under waterboarding

49:46

of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

49:51

that was the smoking gun, the irrefutable evidence

49:54

that Colin Powell took to the General Assembly,

49:57

that was the last step in authorizing action in Iraq.

49:59

He recanted.

50:06

al-Libi recanted his testimony,

50:09

it's well-documented.

50:10

But it didn't stop us from going to Iraq.

50:12

And what were the consequences of this false testimony

50:15

based on torture?

50:18

4,000 US casualties, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed,

50:20

a trillion dollars in US treasure on that war.

50:26

And it destabilized the country and created,

50:30

to some extent, the conditions

50:34

for ISIS to come into the country.

50:35

Torture is a senseless act

50:39

that can have extraordinary consequences.

50:43

And did it help us at all?

50:45

Did we get actionable intelligence?

50:48

Well, I think we have

50:50

the most grandiose experiment ever in history.

50:52

The US torture between say 2002 and 2005 or six.

50:57

It's hard to tell when it stopped.

51:04

In three theaters of operation

51:06

and an unknown number of CIA black sites,

51:08

it was performed in all those countries

51:13

with the help of medical professionals.

51:15

And in the end, Diane Feinstein

51:17

said of the Senate Select Committee report

51:19

on Intelligence in 2014,

51:22

she said that we did not obtain any actionable intelligence

51:26

that was otherwise obtainable from those coercive methods.

51:31

Peter

One of the people we interviewed told us

51:38

about being in a dark site

51:40

where it was pitch black in Kabul.

51:46

Do you know about that?

51:48

And does that resonate with you

51:49

in terms of the kind of a different kind of torture

51:53

where he wasn't beaten physically,

51:57

he was just kept in pitch black dark

51:59

for three to four weeks.

52:00

-

Yeah, well, I think there is a great deal

52:03

of variability in individual experiences.

52:06

And I would imagine that a lot of it

52:09

depended upon the perception

52:11

of the information that an individual might have.

52:13

Keep in mind that there were bounties for people.

52:16

The United States paid the Northern Alliance,

52:19

General Dostum's forces 2000, up to $5,000

52:22

for someone who was with the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.

52:27

But in large part that created a demand

52:31

for fingering people to be suspected terrorists.

52:35

And so hundreds, thousands of people

52:41

were picked up in Afghanistan, in Iraq,

52:44

with the presumption of them being terrorists

52:49

when in fact they were just caught up.

52:53

There were thousands of detainees

52:58

at the detention sites in Afghanistan and Iraq.

53:01

Only 780 eventually went to Guantanamo,

53:06

but they were tortured to varying degrees at those sites.

53:09

I can say, there's a book by...

53:15

What's his name?

53:17

Josh, I've forgotten his last name.

53:18

The name of the book is

53:20

"None of Us Were Like This Before."

53:21

And he writes about what it was like to be a soldier

53:24

in these forward operating bases.

53:30

And they were instructed to use similar methods,

53:34

to rough people up, to soften them up.

53:38

That was the term that they used.

53:41

And so there were many more people,

53:43

who were ill treated in that scenario as well.

53:45

Peter

Could you tell us a little bit

53:51

about medical professionals in Guantanamo specifically

53:52

in terms of force feeding

53:55

and then maybe ERF-ing too.

53:57

But let's start with force feeding.

54:00

Again, I assume it's the same kind

54:02

of justification you've described earlier,

54:03

but maybe you could talk about it.

54:05

-

Yeah, well, force feeding is a medical procedure.

54:08

And whether you use a tube that goes through the nose

54:14

or a nasal gastric tube which is thick or a feeding tube,

54:19

which also goes through the nose, which is smaller,

54:25

you need a medical person to do that.

54:28

Whether it's a doctor or a nurse or a technician.

54:30

And so the medical personnel were involved.

54:32

They were involved in developing a policy.

54:36

There's a 30-page document

54:39

that was leaked through to Al Jazeera.

54:41

That's in the public domain.

54:43

The standard operating procedure for force-feeding.

54:46

I'm sure that health professionals were involved

54:49

in that 30-page document.

54:51

And they were involved in the implementation.

54:54

Doctors, nurses, and so on.

54:57

And what is it?

54:59

What is force-feeding?

55:01

Well, the DOD would have you believe

55:04

that the detainees were engaging

55:06

in what they called asymmetric warfare.

55:09

That this was what they called culture bound syndrome,

55:12

that they were trying to commit suicide

55:15

because that's all they could do

55:17

in their warfare against the United States.

55:20

In reality, these are men who let's say in 2013,

55:24

I think it was close to the peak, May 2013.

55:29

Of the 160 detainees who were still in Guantanamo,

55:32

100 of them were on hunger strikes.

55:36

Some 86 of them had already been cleared for release

55:40

to repatriate to other countries.

55:47

40 plus were being force fed.

55:50

It was extremely common.

55:53

Why?

55:55

Because these are men who had been picked up,

55:56

tortured, transferred to Guantanamo, tortured again

55:58

and indefinitely detained.

56:02

It had been since 2002 or three,

56:04

when most of them got there, until 2013, at least 10 years.

56:06

No charges, no criminal charge, no charges whatsoever.

56:11

And so a hunger strike is not about suicide.

56:15

That's not how people commit suicide.

56:19

We know.

56:20

There's a lot of information about hunger strikes.

56:21

It's a protest.

56:24

People use their bodies

56:25

and take some risks with their bodies

56:28

in order to gain attention to their situation.

56:30

And that may be a sort of a just thing to do

56:36

or maybe just because they want better prison conditions.

56:41

In this case, they were protesting indefinite detention.

56:44

I think most people can imagine

56:48

that if they were in that situation of being tortured,

56:50

not charged, approved for release,

56:53

that they would want to express themselves

56:56

in any way possible.

56:58

They would be so desperate to do that.

56:59

In fact, many people were so desperate

57:01

that suicide was extremely common in Guantanamo.

57:02

There's like 600 cases of documented suicidal thoughts,

57:06

more than 100 attempts.

57:11

Nine people who committed suicide as according to the DOD.

57:13

Force-feeding is...

57:24

Health professionals should know better.

57:26

They know that it's a medical procedure.

57:29

The World Medical Association,

57:31

the American Medical Association, unequivocal.

57:33

Force feeding a competent adult constitutes

57:37

inhuman and degrading treatment.

57:43

And in some cases it may, in my opinion, constitute torture.

57:45

There was variability and whether or not people

57:51

accepted some form of food orally, and the degree

57:53

to which the detainees resisted force-feeding

57:58

as you mentioned with ERF-ing, the emergency reaction force

58:01

or the forced cell extractions that took place

58:05

for the ones who were the detainees who were resistant.

58:08

It was like a police force in full riot gear,

58:12

who physically forcibly removed the detainee from his cell

58:16

and strapped them into a six point restraint chair

58:21

which was developed just for Guantanamo.

58:24

And they were forcibly fed.

58:28

And there was no opposition to this.

58:34

This is the really sad thing, except for one bright spot.

58:37

One Navy nurse who refused to do this,

58:40

and said it was something he just couldn't do.

58:44

What was the response of the military?

58:49

He was near his retirement and they started

58:54

to a dishonorable discharge for him.

58:59

Thanks to the American Nurses Association,

59:03

the American Medical Association

59:07

and Physicians for Human Rights who supported his case,

59:09

he spoke to the ethics,

59:13

the need to respect medical ethics.

59:16

And by the way, this happens to be torture anyway.

59:18

They stopped those proceedings

59:22

and he was able to retire honorably

59:24

or to be just discharged honorably.

59:27

Peter

Detainees also told us

59:31

that if they wanted any medical treatment at all,

59:32

they had to go through their interrogators.

59:35

They couldn't go directly to a medical personnel.

59:37

And in fact if they did go to some medical personnel

59:41

or some technician, the technician would say,

59:44

you have to go back to your interrogator

59:47

for permission for us to see you.

59:50

Had you heard that?

59:52

Is that...

59:53

-

Well, I don't know too many examples of this

59:54

but I do know that medical practice

59:57

and medical ethics were subservient to military imperatives.

1:00:00

The force-feeding is a perfect example of this.

1:00:04

That wouldn't have happened

1:00:08

had the DOD not called it asymmetric warfare

1:00:09

and insisted that everybody be force fed.

1:00:13

So yes, it's true.

1:00:18

The detainees were kept in cells

1:00:21

and their first point of contact

1:00:23

was not health professionals.

1:00:24

They couldn't simply request it on their own.

1:00:26

They had to speak to the guards

1:00:29

and that had to go up the chain of command, I'm sure.

1:00:33

I know from review of medical records

1:00:38

that some people who had medical problems

1:00:40

and they had, let's say back pain and so forth

1:00:43

and there was a medical regimen prescribed for that person,

1:00:46

it was overrided when people would go back and be tortured.

1:00:50

So I don't think it takes much imagination

1:00:56

to understand who was in control at Guantanamo.

1:01:00

It was the interrogators, it was the guards,

1:01:04

it was the military.

1:01:07

And the health professionals, some of them I know tried

1:01:10

or may have wanted to try,

1:01:14

but their very presence was problematic at Guantanamo.

1:01:16

It conferred this sense of legitimacy

1:01:21

of what was going on, that it was safely when effective,

1:01:25

that people were being taken care of there.

1:01:28

Peter

There is one person we interviewed

1:01:33

who told us that they try to get consent,

1:01:35

or they did get consent forms signed

1:01:39

by detainees for any surgeries.

1:01:41

They didn't get consent forms when they gave them

1:01:44

certain medications early in the early years.

1:01:46

Do you know anything about that?

1:01:50

Can you speak to that?

1:01:52

-

I can, of course, my review of a dozen

1:01:53

or so medical records doesn't speak

1:01:55

to 780 detainees who were there,

1:01:57

but from all of what I've learned at Guantanamo,

1:02:00

I agree with that.

1:02:06

That initially when detainees were arriving at Guantanamo,

1:02:07

they did preventive things,

1:02:12

treatment for presumed intestinal parasites.

1:02:16

For malaria that may have been residual in them,

1:02:20

tested them to see if they were exposed

1:02:23

to tuberculosis and things like that.

1:02:25

I saw no evidence in the medical chart

1:02:27

that they were consented for this,

1:02:29

but it's not the biggest problem.

1:02:34

That was not the biggest problem at Guantanamo,

1:02:37

because soon after all of that happened,

1:02:39

the torture began.

1:02:43

And as far as surgeries are concerned,

1:02:44

I did see informed consent in some cases.

1:02:48

I don't suspect that surgery was ever done

1:02:51

as a form of torture.

1:02:55

I have no reason to believe that to be the case.

1:02:58

I've never heard of it.

1:02:59

I certainly didn't see it.

1:03:00

And I think the opposite was true,

1:03:02

that a delay in care, getting access to care

1:03:05

in a timely way was problematic and still is quite frankly.

1:03:08

And there's a case.

1:03:14

Unfortunately, I can't refer to it right now,

1:03:15

but of people who need emergency medical procedures

1:03:17

and they either don't exist at Guantanamo

1:03:25

or it can't be done in a timely way,

1:03:28

because people need to be flown down there.

1:03:31

And the attorneys don't have effective communication

1:03:34

with their clients in order to know

1:03:38

what's going on with them

1:03:41

and then to take that information

1:03:43

to a third party like myself, a non-governmental person

1:03:44

to render an opinion, how serious is this?

1:03:48

What do they need and so forth?

1:03:50

Peter

Since you said you've never heard of it,

1:03:54

we had two people we interviewed who told us

1:03:56

they were interrogated during surgery,

1:03:58

not in Guantanamo, before they came to Guantanamo.

1:04:01

I mean, their shoulder that was operated upon

1:04:08

and he was interrogated and was kept partially awake.

1:04:10

You've heard of that?

1:04:14

-

Absolutely.

I know about that case.

1:04:15

And, well, I was referring simply to Guantanamo.

1:04:16

Yeah.

1:04:19

Peter

And that was not untypical.

1:04:20

Was that untypical?

1:04:21

I mean, we know two situations.

1:04:23

-

I think there are two or three cases

1:04:25

where I've heard that,

1:04:26

where there was a gunshot wound and it was delayed,

1:04:28

the shoulder injury and another gunshot wound

1:04:32

where they wanted to interrogate first.

1:04:36

That was the first priority.

1:04:39

Peter

But was it done during the surgery?

1:04:40

Is that what you're referring to?

1:04:43

-

No, I don't recall that.

1:04:44

It was during the emergency period,

1:04:48

sort of like in the equivalent of an emergency room

1:04:50

prior to, not in the surgical suite.

1:04:55

Peter

I have a few more questions,

1:04:59

but Ruth, do you have some questions.

1:04:59

Ruth

I have a few questions.

1:05:01

One is the role of the International Red Cross,

1:05:03

and just, I know they came, I know not much happened.

1:05:06

Have you spoken to them?

1:05:13

What is your assessment of their role

1:05:15

or non role in Guantanamo?

1:05:18

Johnny

When you answer, please look at Peter.

1:05:21

-

I will.

1:05:23

So the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC

1:05:27

is supposed to have access to prisons.

1:05:33

And the ICRC did have access to Guantanamo.

1:05:35

We know this because their report, which is always

1:05:41

supposed to be kept confidential to governments was leaked.

1:05:44

And that report is in the public domain.

1:05:50

The ICRC report, I believe it's from 2004.

1:05:53

And the ICRC report refers to some of the torture methods.

1:05:57

I believe they referred to exposure

1:06:07

to cold temperatures, to the shackling

1:06:10

and prolonged shackling in uncomfortable positions,

1:06:13

sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, hooding,

1:06:19

dietary manipulation and so forth.

1:06:23

Essentially, the approved DOD methods.

1:06:26

Their conclusion, they of course interviewed

1:06:31

a number of detainees as they always do.

1:06:34

And I don't know whether they had access to medical records.

1:06:36

Typically they ask for and usually get access

1:06:39

to medical records.

1:06:43

And their conclusion was that the ill treatment

1:06:45

at Guantanamo was tantamount to torture, quote.

1:06:49

And that was very helpful.

1:06:52

I mean, the ICRC plays a very critical role

1:06:56

in helping a country, a state to know

1:06:59

when it's abusing its prisoners.

1:07:04

And it's not the end of the process

1:07:07

because it's pretty easy to conceal that

1:07:10

or to steer the ICRC representatives to certain places.

1:07:12

So there's a shell game that goes on

1:07:18

between states and the ICRC.

1:07:21

And as I said, the reports are generally kept confidential.

1:07:22

In this case, fortunately, the report was leaked.

1:07:27

So it was helpful in bringing attention

1:07:30

at a very critical time in 2004

1:07:33

to the practice of torture by the US.

1:07:37

Ruth

Could you also confirm on camera

1:07:43

that the Istanbul Protocol

1:07:46

that UN protocol that you described,

1:07:49

that the US was approving of this-

1:07:52

Peter

A signatory?

1:07:55

Ruth

Yeah. Yeah.

1:07:56

Whatever route countries bought into this

1:07:58

that we did as a country.

1:08:03

-

So one thing I should add about the Istanbul Protocol

1:08:05

is that it is not a convention

1:08:08

that countries sign on to.

1:08:11

These are guidelines that are created for states.

1:08:13

The General Assembly signed on to the principles

1:08:20

of investigation and documentation,

1:08:24

which is an appendix at the end of these guidelines.

1:08:27

It's only about five pages, the principles.

1:08:30

That's what has been approved of

1:08:33

when it comes to the United Nations.

1:08:37

Individual countries like the United States

1:08:39

do not sign onto the Istanbul Protocol.

1:08:41

So to the extent that the US recognizes

1:08:44

the international documentation standards,

1:08:48

they haven't formally recognized them.

1:08:52

I can tell you that since it is the standard

1:08:54

that health professionals, medical doctors,

1:08:58

psychologists and psychiatrists use

1:09:01

for their asylum evaluations in the United States,

1:09:04

that in that context of asylum,

1:09:07

the courts, the asylum courts are quite familiar

1:09:12

with the Istanbul Protocol.

1:09:14

In fact, I've been asked to train the judges

1:09:15

from the Executive Immigration Office, EOIR.

1:09:18

The judges who are responsible

1:09:25

for adjudicating political asylum cases.

1:09:26

They've asked us to train them on the Istanbul Protocol.

1:09:29

But there is no official recognition per se

1:09:32

by the United States.

1:09:35

Ruth

Another, just a point of clarification.

1:09:38

When you were talking about describing

1:09:42

the different kinds of torture,

1:09:44

were you describing just Guantanamo

1:09:46

or were you describing, your descriptions

1:09:49

included the black holes and bog room

1:09:52

in other sites as well

1:09:53

when you were talking about the various kinds of torture,

1:09:55

or did you find that in Guantanamo,

1:09:59

some of those harsher techniques

1:10:02

were not practiced?

1:10:04

Did you find that it was not as overt in Guantanamo?

1:10:08

Or am I wrong?

1:10:13

-

Yeah, so the difference between the...

1:10:15

There was a difference in the interrogation tactics

1:10:19

that were approved by the Department of Defense and the CIA.

1:10:24

Both entities approved of sensory deprivation,

1:10:29

isolation, diet manipulation.

1:10:38

They approved of forced positions.

1:10:43

In the case of the CIA, they went further

1:10:48

with abdominal slaps and facial slaps

1:10:50

and so-called walling where you throw someone

1:10:55

up against a wall, and also waterboarding.

1:10:58

So there was a difference in what was authorized.

1:11:02

In both settings, both the DOD and the CIA,

1:11:07

what happened in reality was not only the approved methods

1:11:11

but additional unauthorized methods,

1:11:14

both in Guantanamo and in the CIA black sites

1:11:17

or the other places of detention in Afghanistan and Iraq.

1:11:22

Obviously with waterboarding which is more harsh,

1:11:27

you can say that the the techniques used by the CIA

1:11:30

were definitely more harsh

1:11:33

than they were in secret facilities

1:11:34

where there was little oversight.

1:11:36

And so, yeah, by and large

1:11:38

the torture that was practiced by the CIA was more brutal.

1:11:41

I already mentioned how health professionals

1:11:45

were using rectal feeding as a method of torture.

1:11:47

So there were differences.

1:11:53

In the end, as a physician who examines people

1:11:54

who have been tortured, the physical pain

1:11:59

and the mental pain and subsequent symptoms

1:12:03

are really quite similar.

1:12:06

And the methods don't necessarily matter as much

1:12:09

when you inflict physical and mental harm over time

1:12:15

and detain people for indeterminate periods of time.

1:12:20

They are profoundly affected.

1:12:25

And so the consequences, it's not so much what was done

1:12:27

as the consequences in my mind

1:12:32

of which there were little difference.

1:12:35

Ruth

One of the things that we're trying to distinguish

1:12:38

is when somebody was interrogated,

1:12:40

there was enhanced interrogation

1:12:46

from the Department of Defense versus the CIA,

1:12:48

'cause sometimes they didn't know who it was.

1:12:51

And were the techniques different in Guantanamo itself,

1:12:54

depending on who was interrogating them?

1:12:59

-

That's a good question,

1:13:04

because you don't always know who's interrogating.

1:13:05

And sometimes in Guantanamo, the CIA was what was there.

1:13:10

We know that they were there.

1:13:15

We just don't know when.

1:13:16

The detainees don't know when.

1:13:17

And so they don't necessarily say this was the CIA

1:13:18

or FBI or a military interrogator.

1:13:22

So it's unclear, but people like Mr. Slahi

1:13:27

who was exposed to the authorized DOD techniques,

1:13:31

he also had these other experiences

1:13:35

of a mock disappearance where he was taken on a boat

1:13:37

for several hours and told that he was going to be brought

1:13:44

to some other place where he wouldn't be protected.

1:13:47

And they beat him and broke his ribs.

1:13:50

And they didn't use a water board, but they forced water

1:13:54

and tried to suffocate him with water.

1:13:58

After that, he was told that his mother,

1:14:02

this was the thing that flipped his switch.

1:14:05

And he became completely compliant,

1:14:08

said whatever thing he wanted,

1:14:11

whatever the people wanted to know

1:14:13

whether it was true or not.

1:14:14

They threatened him with implicitly

1:14:16

with torturing his mother,

1:14:19

saying that his mother was on her way,

1:14:21

that they couldn't protect her when she got here.

1:14:24

She'd be the only female detainee.

1:14:26

And this was on official stationery

1:14:28

of the joint task force

1:14:30

or perhaps the state department, I forget.

1:14:31

But there was an official statement that they showed him.

1:14:34

And so while there were official differences

1:14:39

in the techniques, it was a license to do

1:14:46

whatever people wanted.

1:14:49

And so degrees of brutality in my opinion

1:14:51

count for very little.

1:14:55

I'm sorry, I...

1:14:58

Ruth

That is totally fine,

1:14:59

-

Is that okay?

1:15:01

-

Yes.

And another question is about the employees at Guantanamo.

1:15:01

So there were the interrogators, and then there was the CIA.

1:15:06

-

And Initially FBI, but they bugged out.

1:15:10

Ruth

And some FBI who apparently didn't generally do

1:15:12

the same techniques as what we were told.

1:15:16

-

Well, they condemned and left.

1:15:18

Ruth

Yes, exactly.

1:15:19

Employees like guards and interpreters

1:15:22

saw some of the stuff that was going on

1:15:26

and continue to have feelings of guilt,

1:15:29

inadequacy, have had long-term repercussions.

1:15:33

If a guard was torturing,

1:15:37

was that considered to be rogue or was that allowed?

1:15:39

Was it okay for these guards

1:15:44

to belittle, berate, harass,

1:15:46

physically beat up these detainees?

1:15:50

Or did people look the other way

1:15:55

or what was the relationship there?

1:15:57

-

Yeah, so it wasn't only the interrogators

1:15:59

who practiced torture

1:16:04

and the BSCT psychiatrists, psychologists

1:16:05

who facilitated that.

1:16:07

The guards were expected to soften up the detainees,

1:16:09

to treat them poorly.

1:16:13

They were the ones who were pouring water

1:16:14

on the detainees at night

1:16:16

and keeping them from sleeping at night

1:16:17

in their cells.

1:16:19

So they were an instrumental part of the actual torture,

1:16:21

softening them up before treating them badly,

1:16:24

humiliating and actually doing

1:16:27

some of the torture themselves.

1:16:31

I don't know of any policy that specifically prescribed

1:16:33

that role for guards, but it certainly

1:16:39

was the case in practice.

1:16:42

And other people who were there as interpreters,

1:16:43

I can't say that I've heard testimony about them,

1:16:48

but as bystanders, one, you bear some responsibility

1:16:52

and two, you suffer the trauma of that experience.

1:16:56

Ruth

And Peter will probably ask you this,

1:17:04

but were you...

1:17:09

What was your feeling about your country

1:17:13

when you saw this happening?

1:17:15

-

So, this is a difficult question.

1:17:20

Peter

You kinda said that before,

1:17:25

when you kinda said that you were on both sides.

1:17:26

-

Well, my job is to protect and promote human rights

1:17:29

and to promote people's health.

1:17:35

And this is why I've devoted my career to human rights work,

1:17:37

because I want to prevent human suffering

1:17:43

by protecting people's human rights.

1:17:45

Stopping torture, stopping genocide and so forth.

1:17:47

So, to some extent as a health professional,

1:17:52

it's always disturbing to see intentional harm to people.

1:17:57

Was I surprised that the US government was doing this?

1:18:05

I wasn't that surprised.

1:18:10

We participated in the training of the torturers

1:18:14

in Central and South America, the school of the Americas.

1:18:17

I think when any country is challenged in this way,

1:18:21

there is this thin veneer of civilization

1:18:25

in law and democracy and respect

1:18:28

for the rule of law that can disappear in an instant.

1:18:30

I know this from my experience working in other countries.

1:18:35

The US is not exceptional to that.

1:18:38

But at the same time, seeing it happen,

1:18:41

examining people, it happened to and being an American,

1:18:44

it was extremely saddening

1:18:53

that it was not just the case of some people

1:18:59

going outside the bounds of what was legal.

1:19:04

This was a systematic policy of torture

1:19:08

in three theaters of operation.

1:19:12

It was a policy that with the help of health professionals

1:19:14

who played a central role,

1:19:18

it was a policy that was hell bent

1:19:19

on committing torture and concealing it after the fact.

1:19:22

And it's still concealed.

1:19:27

We have some reports that have been declassified

1:19:29

to some extent.

1:19:31

There's a mountain of information

1:19:32

that has not been released,

1:19:34

that needs to be released in order to have a full account.

1:19:36

Peter

Did you ever interview al-Qahtani?

1:19:44

He was considered the 20th hijacker.

1:19:47

And some of the things you told us

1:19:50

did actually happen to him.

1:19:51

So I just wondered if you were involved in his case

1:19:53

so you could...

1:19:55

-

No, I did not.

1:19:56

Peter

One detainee told us that when he was ERF-ed,

1:20:01

they pulled him aside and they put a hose into his mouth

1:20:04

and then they put something into his nose

1:20:07

and that kind of blocked his breathing, I guess.

1:20:10

And you kind of just touched on that just now

1:20:13

when you said there were other forms

1:20:16

of water torture besides waterboarding.

1:20:17

Is that something that was done

1:20:19

systematically in Guantanamo,

1:20:24

or you heard that kind of thing?

1:20:26

-

Well, can you clarify, was this part of the forced feeding

1:20:27

or was this something-

1:20:30

-

No!

He was ERF-ed.

1:20:31

-

Can you explain what you mean

1:20:32

by something was placed in the mouth?

1:20:33

And so he was forcibly extracted

1:20:35

from his cell in a violent way,

1:20:39

and then what happened?

1:20:40

Peter

And then a hose is put it in his mouth?

1:20:41

-

A hose, water hose, yeah?

1:20:42

Peter

And then something was put

1:20:44

I think either in his mouth or his nose,

1:20:47

I couldn't quite understand

1:20:48

that blocked some of the breathing.

1:20:50

-

So this is essentially what happens

1:20:52

without the waterboard.

1:20:58

It's waterboarding without the technology

1:20:59

of the special table and all the procedures

1:21:03

involved in waterboarding.

1:21:07

I suspect that it was a cloth that covered the nose

1:21:10

and the mouth, which serves to suffocate

1:21:12

in and of itself.

1:21:17

And then when you add water onto that cloth,

1:21:18

when the victim tries to inspire, to get air,

1:21:21

the air comes in through the mouth and nose normally,

1:21:26

if it's not obstructed.

1:21:29

And they would be choking.

1:21:29

The water would be going into their lungs.

1:21:34

And so it's a low-tech way, if you will,

1:21:36

of doing waterboarding.

1:21:39

And I've heard of this being done in different instances.

1:21:41

Peter

I don't have too many questions left.

1:21:47

One thing, I've a couple of questions.

1:21:50

One is small and one is large is,

1:21:52

the medical records you talked

1:21:54

about them earlier, you had some access to them.

1:21:56

A lawyer told us that she wanted to get medical records

1:21:58

of her own client, and they did not allow her to access it.

1:22:01

Is that something that you are used to?

1:22:07

-

Well, I think it's a question for the lawyers

1:22:11

because they're the ones trying to get them.

1:22:13

I'm usually consulted on a case

1:22:15

where they already have the records

1:22:16

or they know they can get them.

1:22:18

I've heard that getting the records

1:22:19

was difficult in cases.

1:22:23

And so that's something that they would know more about.

1:22:25

I can say this in the case of al-Nashiri,

1:22:29

which we've already discussed,

1:22:32

that the records, I mean the records are just part

1:22:34

of what happened to an individual.

1:22:37

It's examining someone and having the relevant information

1:22:40

that might corroborate the allegations

1:22:45

that are client attorney notes, that are secret documents,

1:22:48

interrogation logs and so forth.

1:22:53

All of that is in relevant information,

1:22:55

not just the medical record for allegations of torture.

1:22:57

And I'll say this.

1:23:00

I referred once or twice to BSCT logs.

1:23:02

There are only a handful of those

1:23:06

that have come out unredacted.

1:23:09

And it is clear that they were expected to keep logs

1:23:12

of what they were doing and the outcome of their efforts.

1:23:18

And so there's a treasure trove of logs

1:23:22

that would speak volumes to what was actually done

1:23:26

and what the effects were, should they be released.

1:23:29

Peter

Did you ever do any work with Jose Padilla

1:23:33

who was in a military grade?

1:23:36

-

Yeah, no.

1:23:39

-

And John Walker Lindh?

-

No, no, no. Those were not my cases.

1:23:41

Peter

And so could you just address once more,

1:23:43

'cause to me that's really fascinating

1:23:44

and I have one more question after this,

1:23:46

but this is really important.

1:23:48

When you said the mental harm and physical pain

1:23:50

aren't all that different at the end.

1:23:53

When we spoke to people who've been isolated

1:23:57

for long periods of time, seemed like that didn't go away.

1:24:00

I think that in fact, even the rapporteur for UN

1:24:05

and rapporteur for torture said 15 days of isolation

1:24:09

and your mind might not return to what it was before.

1:24:11

That experience.

1:24:15

So it's hard for me to imagine that mental harm,

1:24:16

physical pain at the end

1:24:20

aren't all that much different

1:24:23

given what I heard about isolation and...

1:24:24

-

Yeah.

1:24:27

Well, first of all, the psychological consequences

1:24:28

of torture are variable because people are different.

1:24:32

They have different resiliencies.

1:24:36

There are different meanings attached

1:24:39

to their torture experiences.

1:24:41

And the methods themselves,

1:24:44

you might expect something to be horrific and long lasting

1:24:46

in terms of psychological consequences

1:24:49

whereas others might be less so,

1:24:51

and that might not be the case for an individual.

1:24:53

The only way to really know is to talk to someone,

1:24:55

to examine them.

1:24:58

And by and large, we know from,

1:25:00

there's a lot of literature

1:25:03

on psychological consequences of torture.

1:25:04

The things that generally are most disturbing to people

1:25:09

and last the longest is well, sexual humiliations

1:25:13

and assault, things that really get at people's identity.

1:25:20

It's some of the humiliations.

1:25:25

Sometimes it's betrayal,

1:25:30

if you're forced to betray someone else.

1:25:32

It wasn't so much the case in Guantanamo or elsewhere.

1:25:34

Physical torture isn't always as psychologically damaging

1:25:40

as some of the other things of,

1:25:49

as I said before, this individual who was peed on.

1:25:53

Peter

And so isolation,

1:26:01

you don't have any particular sense

1:26:02

that isolation in itself is more long-lasting

1:26:05

or more impactful.

1:26:09

You're saying it depends on the individual?

1:26:10

-

Well, I mean, we can talk about each of the techniques.

1:26:13

I mean, isolation is, human beings are social animals

1:26:17

and we need contact, human contact.

1:26:21

And sometimes this can be the hardest thing for people,

1:26:25

is being isolated.

1:26:27

And the amount of time that it takes, that's unreasonable.

1:26:29

Juan Menezes has spoken to this.

1:26:31

What was it? 15 days?

1:26:33

But that's somewhat arbitrary.

1:26:35

Peter

One year, two years, we've been-

1:26:38

-

And that's extraordinary.

1:26:39

Even sleep deprivation.

1:26:44

There are studies that show

1:26:46

that if animals are not permitted to sleep,

1:26:47

they actually die.

1:26:51

Each of these so-called enhanced interrogation tactics

1:26:54

can be profound in their long-term physical

1:26:58

and or psychological effects.

1:27:03

Ruth

Well, I have a more general question,

1:27:07

if you've completed that.

1:27:09

How can we prevent this from happening again?

1:27:15

Would it be useful to prosecute the John Yoos

1:27:18

or the other folks who orchestrated this

1:27:21

or the political leaders who implemented this?

1:27:27

Or do you see any other viable ways

1:27:31

of avoiding this again part of this country?

1:27:34

-

Well, I do think that in the absence of accountability,

1:27:39

there has been no accountability.

1:27:44

This history will likely be repeated

1:27:47

as frequently as we are challenged

1:27:50

by events like September 11th.

1:27:52

It's important for us to understand what happened,

1:27:58

to speak the truth of what happened and not conceal it.

1:28:00

This country, our identity

1:28:04

is about the respect for the rule of law.

1:28:07

It's not about people.

1:28:09

It's about the law, our constitution.

1:28:10

That's what's enduring about this country

1:28:13

and what's different about it.

1:28:16

And systematic torture

1:28:18

and the continued concealment of it

1:28:23

and the lack of accountability for it,

1:28:26

it's a shame.

1:28:29

The extent to which the government respects the rule of law

1:28:32

is its source of legitimacy.

1:28:34

And so we don't have the same sense of legitimacy

1:28:36

as a government when you systematically torture

1:28:39

and you hold no one accountable.

1:28:42

And so we have to do this.

1:28:45

We have to do this for the United States,

1:28:47

for any country to be a country that's legitimate.

1:28:52

To claim sort of a moral sense about oneself.

1:28:59

I mean, John McCain was right.

1:29:04

This is not about the enemy, it's about us.

1:29:05

We lose our morality when we do this

1:29:10

and we sweep it under the rug.

1:29:14

What needs to happen?

1:29:17

Well, accountability.

1:29:20

Virtually nothing has happened.

1:29:22

The architects, the people in the OLC

1:29:25

like John Yoo and Jay Bybee and Addington

1:29:27

and Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, President Bush,

1:29:30

there needs to be an accounting.

1:29:38

And that can only come

1:29:40

with the declassification of information.

1:29:42

We know from other countries that years past troubled times,

1:29:44

that truth commissions and investigations

1:29:50

have helped to sort of right the ship

1:29:53

of morality in a country.

1:29:56

Take South Africa and other countries.

1:29:58

We need that release of information.

1:30:02

We need investigations.

1:30:04

We need a federal commission to investigate

1:30:06

and people need to be prosecuted.

1:30:10

The health professionals included.

1:30:12

They were central to committing and concealing torture.

1:30:15

And there have been six cases brought up

1:30:19

to licensing boards for health professionals,

1:30:23

all of which have failed usually on the basis of not...

1:30:26

They would say that they don't have the jurisdiction

1:30:30

and that's sad.

1:30:33

The medical profession, this is the biggest scandal

1:30:34

in medical ethics in the United States' history.

1:30:38

And health professionals have not been held to account.

1:30:41

I think in order to restore trust in health professionals,

1:30:47

we need to have that kind

1:30:50

of investigation and accountability.

1:30:51

Obviously there's still remnants of the policies of torture.

1:30:54

The Army Field Manual has been revised,

1:30:58

but still contains the tactics

1:31:02

of sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation,

1:31:05

which can constitute ill treatment and possibly torture.

1:31:07

It's called appendix M in the Army Field Manual.

1:31:11

That should be deleted.

1:31:14

Fortunately, the American Psychological Association,

1:31:19

which colluded with the Department of Defense and the CIA

1:31:24

and basically allowed the CIA and the DOD

1:31:28

to write their ethics policy

1:31:31

to accommodate torture practices.

1:31:34

Fortunately, the APA has reversed that history,

1:31:38

thanks to my organization, Physicians for Human Rights,

1:31:42

people like Stephen Tsoltz and Steven Reisner,

1:31:45

and a very courageous whistleblower

1:31:48

who was on the PENS taskforce.

1:31:50

The Psychological Ethics and National Security task force.

1:31:53

Jean Maria Arrigo, who blew the whistle on this collusion.

1:31:58

So fortunately there are no more BSCT

1:32:04

psychologists, psychiatrists at Guantanamo.

1:32:08

In fact, the APA has prohibited any psychologist

1:32:10

from being there, even for the purposes of care.

1:32:14

Psychologists, psychiatrist from civil society

1:32:19

or non-governmental can visit and treat and so forth.

1:32:21

And this is a very positive development,

1:32:24

but there should never be an accommodation in the future

1:32:27

for torture policies, for assisting in interrogations.

1:32:31

And something else that should happen

1:32:36

is that the Istanbul Protocol

1:32:39

and the standards for documentation

1:32:40

should be a part of all the health professionals knowledge

1:32:43

and practice, who work with detainees,

1:32:47

national security or otherwise.

1:32:49

Johnny

Seven minutes.

1:32:52

Peter

Well, you've made me think of one more question.

1:32:55

I have one more.

1:32:56

Why do you think the APA did participate

1:32:58

for the same reasons you gave earlier?

1:33:00

-

Well, after the Abu Ghraib photos came out in 2004,

1:33:03

the American Psychological Association,

1:33:08

which is the largest association of psychologists

1:33:11

in the world, put together this task force,

1:33:13

the Psychological, Ethics and National Security task force.

1:33:16

Six of the nine members of the PENS task force

1:33:20

were employed by the Department of Defense or the CIA.

1:33:24

Some of them were BSCT psychologists.

1:33:28

Some of them participated

1:33:29

in the torture of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq.

1:33:31

And there wasn't even a question at the beginning,

1:33:36

whether or not psychologists

1:33:41

should be involved in interrogation.

1:33:44

And as I said, there were these secret meetings

1:33:48

and this committee, this bias committee

1:33:50

that allowed the CIA and the DOD

1:33:56

to write its policy, to accommodate the design

1:33:58

and implementation of torture, meaning BSCT practices.

1:34:01

The standard operating practices of the BSCTs.

1:34:05

That SOP, that standard operating procedure

1:34:09

was brought to the PENS task force

1:34:13

and they used that physically to accommodate,

1:34:15

to develop their policy,

1:34:19

allowing physicians to be involved in interrogations.

1:34:21

There was another memo

1:34:24

from the assistant secretary of defense, Winkenwerder,

1:34:26

the Winkenwerder memo,

1:34:32

which actually in 2005 partitioned the ethics of clinicians.

1:34:34

They said that the typical ethics of beneficence

1:34:39

and non-maleficence of doing good

1:34:44

and not doing harm and confidential medical information,

1:34:46

all of that applied to the clinicians

1:34:49

who are taking care of the detainees,

1:34:51

with medically, psychologically and so forth.

1:34:54

But there's another group of clinicians

1:34:57

engaged in nonclinical activities, i.e. the BSCTs,

1:35:00

who were involved in interrogations

1:35:04

and those ethical duties did not apply.

1:35:05

Peter

The SOP said that?

1:35:11

-

This was a Winkenwerder...

1:35:13

This is the assistant secretary of defense.

1:35:14

I forgot his first name, but Winkenwerder is his last name.

1:35:17

It was a memo to the clinicians in Guantanamo.

1:35:21

And it helped to provide cover ethically

1:35:26

at the time for them.

1:35:29

And it was no surprise.

1:35:31

It was consistent with the PENS task force policy

1:35:33

that came out for the psychologists.

1:35:38

-

Well, my last question is,

1:35:40

is there something I didn't ask you

1:35:42

that when you came here, you were thinking-

1:35:43

-

That's a good question.

1:35:46

Yeah, yeah.

1:35:46

Peter

If we can put another card in,

1:35:47

so if you wanna take a break and...

1:35:50

-

No, I don't...

1:35:52

No, I don't need a break.

1:35:53

So I do need a time check.

1:35:53

Oh, we got that plenty of time.

1:35:56

So I have dinner with some colleagues of mine

1:35:57

in San Francisco.

1:35:59

May I just briefly rifle through

1:36:02

and see if there's something big?

1:36:04

Peter

Do you wanna stop the tape?

1:36:07

Okay.

1:36:08

-

We're rolling.

-

20 seconds.

1:36:09

-

Okay, good.

Let's talk about that.

1:36:10

-

Well, one of the most important things

1:36:11

that needs to happen

1:36:12

in the aftermath of systematic torture

1:36:13

is the closing of Guantanamo.

1:36:18

There's no need for Guantanamo.

1:36:20

It's an extremely expensive place to keep open,

1:36:23

and its functions can be replaced by services in the US.

1:36:26

And it is a place where it is hard to see what's going on.

1:36:29

The only reason to keep Guantanamo open

1:36:35

is if you intend to use it as it was used before.

1:36:37

And recently, there was an account in the media

1:36:41

that said that the Trump administration

1:36:45

actually has plans to expand the population at Guantanamo,

1:36:46

up to 13,000 so-called migrants.

1:36:52

It needs to be closed.

1:36:56

Primarily because it represents all that was done there.

1:36:58

The torture that was done there

1:37:04

in the name of all Americans.

1:37:06

It's a symbol of our disrespect for our own rule of law.

1:37:08

And when it's closed,

1:37:16

we'll be that much closer to regaining it.

1:37:17

Peter

As long as we're starting to,

1:37:22

did you think Obama was gonna close Guantanamo?

1:37:23

-

Yeah, I thought Obama would close Guantanamo

1:37:27

and as I believe I'm correct in this,

1:37:30

there was a presidential order to close Guantanamo.

1:37:35

The only reason it did not close

1:37:38

is because Congress wouldn't approve the funds

1:37:40

that were necessary to transfer detainees

1:37:43

to the United States.

1:37:45

This was a political decision by Congress.

1:37:46

Peter

I think we're done unless there's anything else

1:37:55

you wanna say, Ruth.

1:37:56

-

No, thank you.

Peter

Okay. That was great.

1:37:58

It was really great and we need-

1:37:59

-

I really enjoyed it.

1:38:00

Peter

Thank you, we need 20 seconds

1:38:01

of room tone where we just sit here quietly

1:38:03

and Johnny has to do that before we can turn off the mic.

1:38:06

-

Sure.

1:38:08

-

Okay.

Johnny

Okay, begin room tone.

1:38:11

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