CIA Doctors Were Replaced with Contractors for Torture

[kpete]

Daily Kos
CIA Doctors Were Replaced with Contractors for Torture
by drational

Thu May 14, 2009 at 05:33:48 AM PDT

As a physician, I have been perplexed to learn that medical personnel were involved in the CIA interrogation program. Physicians are bound by a 2500-year old oath not to do harm. This central tenet of allopathic medicine has not always held- physicians have contributed their "skills" to torture throughout history. But never before in America have physicians participated in Government sponsored-torture.

Along these lines, there were two important concepts revealed in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Torture yesterday:

1. The CIA hired contractors to "experiment" with torture.

2. A CIA psychologist who was on scene for the initiation of the harsh techniques for the first time on Abu Zubaydah left in protest when harsh interrogation began.

It is important to note that the OLC memos were drafted in a way that suggests there was no dissenting opinion about the use of harsh interrogation techniques, yet yesterday we heard Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator who was the first on the scene to interrogate accused terrorist Abu Zubaydah, testify that the lead CIA forensic psychologist assigned to the Zubaydah interrogation left the CIA facility in protest when the SERE contractors began to use harsh techniques. This was followed by withdrawal of all FBI agents from the interrogations because of concerns about employing torture.

Yet the 2002 Bybee memo on techniques does not report any dissent from CIA psychologists, but does rely heavily upon "psychological evaluations". These are almost certainly the evaluations of contractors.

much more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/14/724437/-CIA-Doctors-Were-Replaced-with-Contractors-for-Torture

[Solly Mack]

1. Sick bunch of puppies

but that goes without saying

[bobthedrummer]

21. I've had my rabies shot for a long time-kick...

[Mist]

2. Yet another layer of obfuscation--eliding over the difference between doctors and

contractors. A very carefully laid construct of "plausible deniability."

[bobthedrummer]

9. Sounds like a criminal conspiracy, looks like a criminal conspiracy...kick

[Blue_Tires]

3. everyone passing the buck

and the contractors outsourced to other contractors....

[bobthedrummer]

10. Let's not forget that RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY was Poppy's SecDef.

RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY was Poppy's second choice but John Tower had too many "liabilities".

RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY had been mentored by DONALD HENRY RUMSFELD. RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY was ideologically in the same extreme RW camps such as HENRY "SCOOP" JACKSON as well as the Straussians aka neocons, "the crazies".

When RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY was GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH's SecDef he had access to various intelligence reports-many of which he scorned, even though they were prepared by highly professional and ethical people. He always had a bias to the "dark" aspects.

For those that would like to see some of the now declassified reports that likely crossed Poppy's SecDef's desk The National Security Archive has an Electronic Briefing Book/EBB worth reviewing. It is linked below.

The National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 122
PRISONER ABUSE: PATTERNS FROM THE PAST
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. the details are spilling out everywhere...

Kos, Comon Dreams, Truthout, and others have various pieces to add, the picture is becoming more clear.

Happy to be 4th rec. and I hope more people here get to see this.

edit: typos

[bobthedrummer]

8. More links (historically speaking, remember Sid Gottlieb, dixiegrrrrl?)

These are more recent, yet Sid Gottlieb's "work" and "team" hasn't been forgotten by some of US (also Gittinger, West, and many other spook "health" professionals).

"The CIA's Torture Teachers: Psychologists helped the CIA exploit a secret military program to develop brutal interrogation tactics-likely with the approval of the Bush White House" by Mark Benjamin (6-21-07 Salon)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/21/cia_sere/print.html

Top Ten Most Overlooked News Stories 2008 (9-18-08 Project Censored)
#10: APA Complicit In CIA Torture
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/10-apa-complicit-in-cia-torture/

"The Psychologists Behind Abusive Interrogations of Detainees" by Eric Umansky (7-2-08 Pro Publica)
http://www.propublica.org/article/the-psychologists-behind-abusive-interrogations-of-detainees-702

"Torture: An Author and a Resister" by Ann Wright (5-1-09 Truthout)
http://www.truthout.org/050109A

[newfie11]

5. I wonder where the CIA psychologists are today.

Sure are keeping quiet.

[bobthedrummer]

6. "The CIA hired contractors to 'experiment' with torture."

In August 2008 Cheryl Welsh (a UN recognized nonlethal weapons expert and a human rights activist against systems that target the human central nervous system) published the article below.

"Nonconsensual experiments are unconstitutional but recent changes in law allow just that" (by Cheryl Welsh August 2008 Mind Justice)

Table of contents

I. A new Bush executive order (EO) includes an old waiver that allows human subject protections to be modified or waived by intelligence directors in complete secrecy.

II. The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued an Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion that allows human subject protections to be modified or waived by the President in complete secrecy.

III. Experimentation law is firmly rooted in the U.S. Constitution and international law.

IV. Utilitarian national security interests at the highest levels of government continue to trump human subject protections.

http://www.mindjustice.org/unconstitutional.htm

[bobthedrummer]

7. "In Contravention of Conventional Wisdom: CIA 'no touch' torture makes sense out of mind control

allegations" by Cheryl Welsh (January 2008 Mind Justice)

Introduction

After the horrific pictures of prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib were displayed in front pages of newspapers around the world, the United States maintained that the U.S. government does not torture; Abu Ghraib was about a few bad officers.
Evidence now proves that CIA 'no touch' torture and worse were ordered by the executive branch and approved by top military officers. Surprisingly this scandal has much in common with another national security issue, neuroweapons, commonly referred to as mind control.

http://www.mindjustice.org/wisdom.htm

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Impressive homework, Bob T. D.....very impressive.

I keep files under my now no longer hidden "Tin Foil" folder.
Funny thing...almost all the TinFoil folder files are now in the news.
Often because of links like yours.

[bobthedrummer]

13. I add very little to anything, I'm indebted to those that love the truth dixiegrrrrl...

like kpete

[malaise]

24. There are no words to describe the evil that

was Bushco.

[bobthedrummer]

22. kick

[bobthedrummer]

11. Add to this thread DU-kick

[Supersedeas]

14. When will the Mainstream Press focus and disclose the truth about the GWB admin.

[bobthedrummer]

15. A good question, maybe when the defense industry doesn't own them...

[bobthedrummer]

16. "Tortured Profession: Psychologists Warned of Abusive Interrogations, Then Helped Craft Them"

by Sheri Fink (May 5, 2009 Pro Publica)
http://www.propublica.org/article/tortured-profession-psychologists-warned-of-abusive-interrogations-505

[ControlledDemolition]

17. Republicans are so against government sponsored health care! n/t

[bobthedrummer]

18. Yep-these are ultra-paradoxical days...

[bobthedrummer]

19. Stephen Cambone was certainly getting realtime updates from these torturers

Stephen Cambone (Right Web page)
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Cambone_Stephen

Stephen Cambone (Source Watch profile)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Stephen_Cambone

I wonder who suggested the "hiring" of psychologists from MRPI, L-3, CACI, Mitchell Jessen and Associates...

[bobthedrummer]

25. Gee, what a surprise that Stevie's aide Gen. Boykin is back in the news right now...

[bobthedrummer]

20. I'm sure some DUers have had some personal experiences related to this-share them...

[bobthedrummer]

23. "Outsourcing Intelligence in Iraq: A CorpWatch Report on L-3/Titan, updated December 2008 with

Recommendations from Amnesty International" by Pratap Chatterjee (Corp Watch)
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15253

There were many "subcontracted" groups involved also.

[bobthedrummer]

26. Kick + "AIG insures members of the American Psychiatric Association against liability"

a post from 10-6-08 in an interesting thread (see post 8 if link doesn't center)...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4169766#4178920