US psychologists linked to CIA torture

The leading industry association for US psychologists colluded with the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon to allow its members to take part in controversial interrogations at Guantánamo Bay and at other sites around the world, according to a leaked review.
The 542-page report, first published on Friday by the New York Times, was commissioned by the American Psychological Association to look into its relationship to the US intelligence establishment and the use of torture in interrogations of terrorism suspects. It raises new questions about the influence intelligence agencies wielded after the attacks of September 11, 2001, even with civilian groups.
The eight-month investigation by attorneys Sidley Austin found that senior APA officials “colluded with important [Department of Defense] officials” to make sure the association’s ethical guidelines were “loose” and did not constrain Pentagon psychologists taking part in interrogations.
It also found that between 2001 and 2004 the same APA officials also had “very substantial interactions” with the CIA, “including on topics relating to interrogations”.
The officials’ motivation was to “curry favour” with the CIA and the Pentagon, the report’s authors wrote. In one glaring example, the investigation found that the APA’s ethics director regularly sought and received guidance from a senior Special Forces psychologist “before determining what APA’s position should be, what its public statements should say, and what strategy to pursue on this issue,” they wrote.
In a statement the APA said its board had decided on a number of reforms as a result of the report. Among those was a policy that would prohibit psychologists from participating in any interrogation of persons held by military and intelligence authorities anywhere.
“This bleak chapter in our history occurred over a period of years and will not be resolved in a matter of months,” said Dr Nadine Kaslow, who chaired a special independent review committee that commissioned the report. “But there should be no mistaking our commitment to learn from these terrible mistakes.”
The investigation involved more than 200 interviews with 148 people and reviewed more than 50,000 emails and other documents. The overwhelming impression they drew, investigators wrote, was of an APA that put its public relations priorities and desire to work with defence and intelligence agencies above its ethics.
While it did not find that APA officials definitively knew of any US torture — or “enhanced interrogation” — programmes, the report accuses them of turning a blind eye.
“APA officials had strong reasons to suspect that abusive interrogations had occurred,” the report’s authors said “In addition, APA officials intentionally and strategically avoided taking steps to learn information to confirm those suspicions.”
By doing so, the APA officials essentially gave their blessing “with knowledge that there likely had been abusive interrogation techniques used and that there remained a substantial risk, that without strict constraints, such abusive interrogation techniques would continue”.
“While we found many emails and discussions regarding how best to position APA to maximise its influence with and build its positive relationship with the Defense Department, and many emails and discussions regarding what APA’s messaging should be in a media environment it perceived as hostile, we found little evidence of analyses or discussions about the best or right ethical position to take,” the report’s authors found.
That was unusual, they concluded, “in light of the nature of the profession and the special skill that psychologists possess regarding how our minds and emotions work — a special skill that presumably allows psychologists to be especially good at both healing and harming.”
Friday’s leaked report follows the release last December of an excruciatingly detailed Senate report into the CIA’s use of interrogation techniques including mock burials, standing in stress positions for long periods of time and “waterboarding” to mimic drowning.

That report was the most damning rebuke of the CIA since the early 1970s when a committee led by Senator Frank Church investigated its failed attempts to assassinate leaders such as Fidel Castro, Cuba’s former president.