http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/17/1324205
Dissident Members Challenge American Psychological Association on Role in CIA
Interrogation, Torture
Friday, August 17th, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/17/1324205
Democracy Now! broadcasts from San Francisco, where the American Psychological Association
is set to hold a historic vote at its annual convention. Following a string of exposes revealing that
psychologists have played a key role in designing the CIA‟s torture tactics, outraged APA
members have introduced a moratorium calling for an outright ban on psychologist involvement in
detainee interrogations. We speak with two psychologists at the forefront of the campaign for an
interrogation ban, Dr. Stephen Soldz of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and Dr.
Steven Reisner of New York University.
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Here in San Francisco, a group of psychologists are planning to hold a protest today over the
refusal of the American Psychological Association to bar its members from participating in
interrogations at military and CIA prisons.The protest is occurring on the opening day of the 115h
annual APA convention. Unlike the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric
Association, the American Psychological Association allows its members to participate in
detainee interrogations.
APA representatives argue that the presence of psychologists keeps interrogations safe and
prevents abuse. But in recent months, a string of exposes in Salon.com, Vanity Fair and the New
Yorker have revealed that psychologists have played a key role in designing the CIA‟s torture
tactics.
Outraged APA members have introduced a moratorium resolution to be voted on this weekend. It
calls for an outright ban on psychologist involvement in detainee interrogations. Dr. Stephen
Soldz and Dr. Steven Reisner have been at the forefront of this effort. They are both members of
the Coalition for an Ethical APA. They co-wrote an open letter to APA President Sharon Brehm in
June of this year urging her to support the moratorium resolution. We invited the APA on the
program but they declined our request.
Dr. Stephen Soldz. Psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and professor
at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He is a founder of Psychoanalysts for
Peace and Justice and maintains the Psyche, Science, and Society blog.
Dr. Steven Reisner. Psychoanalyst and a member of the American Psychological
Association. He is a faculty member at NYU Medical School and a faculty adviser at the
International Trauma Studies Program at Columbia University.
AMY GOODMAN: We are here in San Francisco, where a group of psychologists are planning to
hold a protest today over the refusal of the American Psychological Association to bar its
members from participating in interrogations at military and CIA prisons. The protest is occurring
on the opening day of the 115th annual APA convention.
Unlike the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, the American
Psychological Association allows its members to participate in detainee interrogations. APA
representatives argue the presence of psychologists keeps interrogations safe and prevents
abuse. But in recent months, a string of exposes in Salon.com, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker
have revealed that psychologists have played a key role in designing the CIA‟s torture tactics.
Outraged APA members have introduced a moratorium resolution to be voted on this weekend. It
calls for an outright ban on psychologist involvement in detainee interrogations. Dr. Stephen
Soldz and Dr. Steven Reisner have been at the forefront of this effort. They are both members of
the Coalition for an Ethical APA. They co-wrote an open letter to APA President Sharon Brehm in
June of this year, urging her to support the moratorium resolution.
Dr. Stephen Soldz is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, and professor at
the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He‟s founder of Psychoanalysts for Peace and
Justice and maintains the Psyche, Science, and Society blog.
Dr. Steven Reisner is a faculty member at New York University Medical School and a faculty
adviser at the International Trauma Studies Program at Columbia University.
We invited the APA on the program. They declined our request.
So we welcome our guests here in San Francisco, just before you head out to APA convention.
You'll both be participated in debates this weekend.
Dr. Stephen Soldz, talk about how we have gotten to this point. And there is a growing pressure
on the APA. What is the background of this story?
DR. STEPHEN SOLDZ: OK, well, let me try and tell you in brief, because we could go on for
hours on it. But I know you‟ve provided great coverage over the years, which we really
appreciate. Going back since the days -- was it, three, four years ago -- when we started getting
hints in the press that conditions in American detention facilities were not quite ideal, that abuse,
that treatment that probably meets the legal definition of torture was occurring in many of them,
there started to be increasing numbers of reports that health professionals, psychologists among
them, were participating in those abusive interrogations and the other abuse that‟s non-
interrogation-related abuse at these facilities. As a result, the professional associations -- the
American Medical, the American Psychiatric, the American Psychological -- were under pressure
to do something. The two medical associations eventually, though somewhat belatedly, adopted
policies that said that their members do not belong in interrogations. As health professionals, their
obligation is to help and do no harm.
The American Psychological Association has not done that. They appointed a presidential task
force on ethics and national security, the so-called PENS Task Force, in 2005. When their report
came out, it was not signed by the members of the committee. However, it later was revealed that
six of the nine members of this committee, investigating -- forming policy on the ethics of
involvement in interrogations, were themselves from the military and intelligence communities,
most with direct ties to interrogations. In other words, these were precisely the people whose
behavior was potentially being reported upon in the press as being problematic, were those who
the APA chose to formulate its policy. And then they had them not sign their report. Since when
does one hear a report where you can't read a list of the members? I‟ve never seen such a thing.
And since then, the pressure on the APA has grown intensely to change its policy. They maintain
this -- psychologists involvement in interrogations will make them safe, legal, ethical and effective.
This mantra has been repeated by every APA leader over and over again, and yet the evidence
is, as you said, in those articles, in many other articles going back now a number of years, is just -
- and perhaps most critically from the Department of Defense itself, where in May they
declassified a report by the Office of the Inspector General, the OIG report, that explicitly said that
military psychologists from the military SERE program -- Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape --
that trains US soldiers to resist torture if they're captured by countries which torture, that these
techniques were reverse-engineered to develop the interrogation techniques used by the CIA, by
the military at Guantanamo and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan. The OIG report is conclusive
evidence from the military itself that the psychologists were central to this whole business.
Over the years, the APA has not said one single word of concern about the role of psychologists,
the role of psychology in abusive interrogations, in torture. They passed resolutions:
“Psychologists do not torture,” you know, and, “Of course, everyone's against -- President Bush is
against torture. Alberto Gonzales is against torture. The APA is against torture.” But like President
Bush and Alberto Gonzales, the APA has never seen torture. They have never acknowledged
psychologists‟ role in torture. They have never acknowledged that the torture is occurring. So,
again -- so that's the background. They seem to be feeling incredible pressure this year, and
there is a lot of parliamentary maneuvering going on. And we can get into the details there, but
that's the background there.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we wanted to host a debate this morning on the moratorium resolution,
but the APA declined our invitation. The Director of Ethics at the APA is Dr. Stephen Behnke. He
was unable to join us, he said. But this is an excerpt from a debate that he had yesterday with our
other guest, with Dr. Steven Reisner, on the San Francisco public radio station KQED.
DR. STEPHEN BEHNKE: We feel it is very clear for the American Psychological Association to
be absolutely clear on what is an ethical interrogation and what is not an ethical interrogation.
And if one takes a look at the current debate in the administration, there is a debate over whether
harsh techniques are ethical or effective. The American Psychological Association's position is
clear: harsh interrogation techniques are neither ethical nor are they effective. We believe that it‟s
very important to have that message very clear, wherever interrogations take place.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Steven Reisner, you were the one in the debate with Dr. Behnke yesterday
on KQED. Your response?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, there are two aspects of it: whether harsh techniques are ethical
and whether harsh techniques are effective, and what the APA‟s position has actually been on
both of those aspects. The trouble is, as Stephen Soldz said, the APA has stated over and over
again that they are against torture, they're against harsh techniques. They have a new campaign
in favor of rapport-building interrogations and rapport-building interrogations which do not coerce,
which do not torture. The trouble is that they have yet to articulate ethical principles which prohibit
interrogations that are harmful, that are coercive, that are abusive. And so, they change the
subject and make the claim that the APA is against these things, but when you read the ethical
protocols and when you read the resolutions, there are so many loopholes and there are so many
openings --
AMY GOODMAN: Like what?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, let's take the -- right now the APA is offering a substitute
resolution to the moratorium, and in it, they do something which I think is a major step forward:
they ban fourteen of the harshest techniques. They come out against any psychologist
participating in an interrogation in fourteen of the harshest techniques, as established by
Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First. And that is a major step forward.
However, what is left out is the fact that psychologists are not only guiding and supervising
interrogations at sites like Guantanamo, they also consult on the conditions that detainees are
kept in. The interview with Jose Padilla's lawyer showed so clearly what the effect of the
conditions is on a detainee, not only how the interrogation is handled. So what the APA does not
prohibit in its ethical principles or in the board‟s substitute resolution is a psychologist
recommending isolation over an extended period of time for a detainee as a way of, you know,
breaking him down for an interrogation. They don't prohibit sensory deprivation in the general
circumstances that the detainee is held in, only in terms of an active interrogation. So the
loopholes are tremendous.
They also don't say that you cannot do other abusive or enhanced techniques, apart from the
fourteen. They just mention fourteen that cannot be done. They don't align with a higher principle,
the Geneva Conventions, the UN principles of human rights. So that's why I‟m saying that
Stephen Behnke can argue that the APA opposes abuse, but they haven't put it in writing and
made it clear.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me play another excerpt. This is of the interview we did with Dr. Angela
Hegarty yesterday, the forensic psychiatrist who examined Jose Padilla after he was released
from military detention last year. And I asked her about the difference between the positions of
the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association on the
question of participating in coercive interrogations.
DR. ANGELA HEGARTY: Well, the American Psychiatric Association principles of ethics
essentially follow the AMA‟s, which is --
AMY GOODMAN: American Medical Association.
DR. ANGELA HEGARTY: American Medical Association, yes -- is, no psychiatrist is involved in
torture ever under any circumstances. Period. Torture -- there is no caveat that opens up the
possibility by mentioning the Bush administration's qualifications on the definition of “torture.”
That the psychologists are protesting and debating this is great news. Clinicians -- our entire
professional identity is clinicians. And if psychologists -- psychologists certainly see themselves
as clinicians, people who care for people. Our entire professional identity as people who help
people is obviated by such involvement. And I entirely disagree with any caveat that would allow
a clinician to be involved in torture at any time.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the argument that those who don't want the moratorium are
making, and especially high-level staff of the American Psychological Association, that for
psychologists to be there is to bring ethics to the situation, to explain what is going too far?
DR. ANGELA HEGARTY: Well, you know, I asked Mr. Padilla about that. He‟d said that there
were some decent people that he had come in contact with, you know, over the -- especially in
the latter part of his stay at the brig. And I asked him, I said, “You know, if I were in a situation like
this as a clinician and I abhor what‟s being done to you, would you want me to stay, knowing that
there‟s somebody who cares about you, who‟s ideally, hopefully, ethical? Or would you -- albeit
powerless -- or would you want me to leave?” And he actually gave me one of the first and only
immediate and straightforward and direct answers: he would want me to leave. He would not
want me there, because for him my presence endorses what‟s going on, even though, as I said,
in my scenario I would be powerless to do anything to change it.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Angela Hegarty, the forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Jose Padilla for
twenty-two hours. Dr. Reisner, your response?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, I think there are two issues here. One is the clinical issue, whether
psychologists in a setting like the brig or Guantanamo can or should offer therapeutic aid to the
detainees, when their very presence seems to support the existence of such places. And the
other side of the issue is whether psychologists in such places should participate in the action of
interrogation or the purposes -- the governmental purposes, the military purposes -- of those
sites.
I think, without any question, it is clear that if a psychologist participates in the interrogations or
supervises the interrogations or supervises the conditions in an arena where there are no human
rights and no due process, that that psychologist is contributing to the violation of human rights.
And so, there should be an absolute prohibition.
On the other hand, whether a psychologist should or should not offer therapeutic aid is a complex
ethical decision, and you have to weigh whether the aid offered outweighs the support -- the
possibility of being perceived as supporting the circumstance.
But the APA is not really addressing that. We're trying to address the second contingency of
whether psychologists should be actively participating in the military and intelligence aims and
intentions in breaking down these prisoners or interrogating these prisoners at those sites. And
we are saying that that is, in effect, a violation of human rights, no matter how ethically you
ostensibly do that.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that the debate is changing this weekend at the APA, the
American Psychological Association? And why also is the staff of the APA so committed to
continuing what the AMA and the American Psychiatric Association have said no to?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, I think that the debate is changing, because a year ago we had
rumors that psychologists were involved. It seemed logical. Psychologists were involved in the
SERE program. The techniques were SERE techniques. It seemed likely that psychologists could
be doing this, and we wanted ethical principles that prohibited it. Between last year and this year,
it‟s not a question of a likelihood. It‟s a question of revelations that these things have been going
on and psychologists have been behind it from the beginning in the CIA, as Katherine Eban
revealed in Vanity Fair. Mitchell and Jessen, with the obvious approval of people higher than they
are, because it continued for a long time, used SERE tactics to torture detainees.
AMY GOODMAN: These are two psychologists.
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Two psychologists. And then after that, the DOD got into the act.
Psychologists were brought in -- SERE psychologists were brought in to train other psychologists
to use the same methods, to use SERE methods to interrogate. The Department of Defense itself
has acknowledged this. We know that this has happened. Psychologists have been responsible
for the abusive interrogations. So the membership is much clearer in what‟s going on and what
we have to change. So the debate has changed very significantly.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to break, but we're going to come back. We‟re talking with Dr. Steven
Reisner and Dr. Stephen Soldz. They are both involved with Psychologists for an Ethical APA.
We're here in San Francisco at the annual gathering of the American Psychological Association,
with debates culminating on Sunday, with one or two votes around the issue possibly of a
moratorium on psychologists involved in detainee interrogations or with some kind of amendment
to the previous resolution on this issue. We'll talk more about it in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We're broadcasting today and on Monday from San Francisco to be at the
American Psychological Association annual meeting, a real showdown happening this weekend.
Today at 4:00 there‟s going to be a protest against psychologists‟ involvement in abusive
interrogations and torture. On Sunday, major votes taking place by members of the APA. We will
cover that and bring it to you Monday.
I want to play an excerpt of an older interview that we did with Dr. Stephen Behnke, the director of
the APA‟s ethics office. He appeared on Democracy Now! two years ago, shortly before the APA
convention of 2005. I asked Dr. Behnke whether the reports of psychologists' involvement in
detainee abuse at Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, had led him to question whether
psychologists should participate in interrogations.
DR. STEPHEN BEHNKE: I would say that for us, the question is not whether psychologists may
be involved. We believe that there is an ethical role for psychologists to play. The question is,
what are the ethical boundaries within which psychologists must remain when they are engaged
in these activities?
AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are Dr. Steven Reisner and Dr. Stephen Soldz. They‟re both with
Psychologists for an Ethical APA. Dr. Soldz, respond.
DR. STEPHEN SOLDZ: Well, notice, you asked him about concrete reports that abuses were
occurring. He has nothing to say. He, you know, not -- he will -- again, no one from the APA will
ever say, “This is horrible. Psychologists have done horrible things. We need to do something
about it.” All he says is, “We will set rules that say they shouldn't do this.” Well, they don‟t follow
these rules.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Koocher, the former head of the APA was also on Democracy Now! And he
said, “Give me some names.” Talk about someone, for example, like John Leso.
DR. STEPHEN SOLDZ: Well, John Leso is a psychologist at Guantanamo, one of these
behavioral science consultation teams that are called “biscuits” -- Major Leso. It‟s been
documented that he participated in the torture of a detainee, Mr. al-Khatani, that occurred in fall of
2002 and early 2003. Time magazine obtained the interrogation log, about eighty pages, of this
interrogation, or partial log. There‟s a log kept. I mean, that‟s part of -- this is a very bureaucratic
torture regime. Every fifteen minutes, there is a notation of what was done to the person. “Maj. L,”
as he‟s often referred to, is in that log. He was present in the torture room. This is documented.
So after this business about names, at least four people have filed ethics complaints against Dr.
Leso, four that I‟m aware of, going back to last August. I still looked. Dr. Leso is still a member of
the APA a year later. So if these ethics -- whatever these processes are, they seem to take
forever and ever and ever, if there‟s ever going to be any resolution. Of course, they're all in
secret, so that -- which, you know, for individual ethics business, this is protection.
But it‟s not so much around individuals. It‟s about policy. That's one of the tricks that Dr. Koocher
and Dr. Behnke use, is to turn it into individuals. “Give us the name of individuals.” This is
classified activity. This is deliberately secret. Yes, we occasionally get a name here or there. But
when we raise a name and raise concerns, we're accused of being unethical, because we don't
have total evidence. It‟s about policy.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read from the Spokesman Review in Spokane, very interesting
piece, “Expert Has Stake in Cryptic Local Firm: Consultants Tied to CIA Interrogations.” It says,
“The former president of the American Psychological Association is a partner in a Spokane-based
firm linked to the CIA's reported use of harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists at
secret detention centers around the world.
“Joseph Dominic Matarazzo, an 81-year-old former psychology professor at Oregon Health &
Science University in Portland, said in a statement Friday that he serves on the board of Mitchell
Jessen & Associates and owns 1 percent of the firm.
“According to public records, Matarazzo is one of five „governing people‟ in the Mitchell Jessen
firm, which does secret interrogation consulting work for the CIA.
“Matarazzo refused repeated interview requests but said in an e-mailed statement that he „is not
and never has been involved in the company's operational decisions,‟ and that he only „attends
brief and infrequent company meetings.‟ […]
“The statement was relayed by a spokesman at the Portland medical school where Matarazzo
taught behavioral neuroscience for 50 years before his retirement in June.”
Dr. Steven Reisner?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, here is an example of -- the APA has tried many ways of
deflecting the issue of psychologists participating, organizing, running these abusive and torture
regimes. And the APA‟s response has been, “Well, they're not members of the APA.” And the
APA‟s response has been, “Give us names of members so we can bring them up on charges.”
Now we have an implication of a former president of the APA, who owns 1% of a company of two
psychologists who are clearly implicated in the torture of detainees, and the APA's response has
been, „Well, we don‟t really -- we're not concerned about what Dr. Matarazzo does outside of APA
administrative positions or politics.”
So the APA has managed to avoid taking a responsible position on where psychologists ought to
be in terms of the ethical principles of torture, abuse, what psychologists have done, what our
standards are, and done an accounting for all psychologists.
AMY GOODMAN: What would it say to President Bush if the American Psychological Association
said no to participation in detainee interrogations?
DR. STEPHEN SOLDZ: I think that it would be a very strong public statement, especially after the
American Medical and the American Psychiatric, the American Nursing Association, the American
Anthropological Association, the American Ethnomusicological Association have all made -- and
just last week the American Translator Association, have all made very strong statements. If the
American Psychological Association, the largest mental health organization in the world, said,
“No, this is not right. We will not participate,” I think it would be a message that will be heard.
Whether the Bush administration would hear it, you never know, but I think Congress would hear
it, the press would hear it, and we know, after the psychiatrist and medical associations said no,
that the military said, “From now on, we prefer psychologists for our behavioral science
consultation teams. We prefer psychologists to psychiatrists, because of the positions of their
respective associations.” So we know the military listens to this.
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Also --
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Reisner.
DR. STEVEN REISNER: What the American Psychological Association would be doing would be
acknowledging that the torture has been primarily psychological torture and that this would be an
abuse of the principles of psychology. The Association of Ethnomusicologists has come out
against the use of music as torture. But the American Psychological Association hasn‟t yet come
out and acknowledged that psychology has been perverted into an instrument of torture and has
finally said that that would be against the ethical principles of this American Psychological
Association, and it would call into question the complete regime of abuse and torture of the
detainees.
AMY GOODMAN: Does the American Psychological Association give these interrogations cover?
Does it legitimatize them? Could they go on if psychologists weren‟t there?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Could they go on? They could go on, because there are professional
interrogators. Why psychologists have tried so hard to position themselves in the field of
interrogation is a question that I think ought to be investigated and ought to be questioned.
DR. STEPHEN SOLDZ: Jane Mayer, on your show a couple weeks ago, I think, put it very
clearly. There‟s two parts of this. One is the supposed expertise of the SERE program, which is
bogus, because SERE was designed to help people from breaking, not from giving information,
but from becoming collaborators. You know --
AMY GOODMAN: How to keep American soldiers strong if they're captured --
DR. STEPHEN SOLDZ: Yeah. Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: -- and if they‟re tortured.
DR. STEPHEN SOLDZ: And so, it's not about -- so they didn‟t -- but it‟s partly about that, but the
other thing is that the administration, from the beginning, has known that their activities are illegal,
and they‟ve been concerned about the possibility of future war crimes trials. One way to avoid --
they reinterpreted “torture,” that basically you could do anything, as long as the intent wasn't to
harm, you know, as long as the intent -- so to have a psychologist say, “This is a good way to get
information” gives the prestige of the profession of psychology to say that this -- that, yes, we can
use these techniques, because this is what science says how we can get information.
AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to talk about the schedule of this weekend and the track that‟s
going to be happening, as, Dr. Reisner, you're going to go right off from this show to participate in
the first session, “What are psychologists doing in US military detention centers?” a track of the
APA weekend. But I notice that more than half of these, it seems, will be taking place during or
after the vote on Sunday. Can you explain how that works?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, we have not gotten the impression that the APA board and
administration has wanted there to be such full coverage of the mini convention on psychologist
participation in interrogations. We asked them to put a brochure out and let the membership
know. It arrived maybe a day before members were leaving for the convention, so that they had
already made their schedules for it. The town meeting to discuss members‟ feelings about and
opinions about this participation is after the vote. Half of the meetings are after the vote. And this
is supposed to be an education for the council members in order to help them vote. In fact, the
board wanted the vote to take place on Thursday's meeting, yesterday‟s meeting, before any of
this took place. We fought them and fought them and fought them. But I believe that there is
enough, especially with the coverage that it‟s been getting here and elsewhere and with the rally,
I think that there will be enough opportunity for the council members to be educated.
AMY GOODMAN: Where will the rally take place today at 4:00?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: At the Buena Vista Gardens? No, Yerba Buena Gardens, the Stone
Stage, today at 4:00.
AMY GOODMAN: Here in San Francisco.
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Here in San Francisco.
AMY GOODMAN: And just to clarify, as we wrap up, do you expect there to be or are you
demanding a vote on moratorium on psychologist participation in torture on Sunday?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: We are demanding a vote on both. We want there to be an up-or-down
vote on the moratorium so that psychologists go on record, you know, whether they are
supporting or not supporting psychologist presence in these sites. And we would like a vote on
the board's resolution, because it adds important caveats to the entire issue.
I just also want to say that the events are listed on the website ethicalapa.com, and a lot of the
issues are laid out more clearly on that website.
AMY GOODMAN: Are an increasing number of psychologists withholding dues from the APA?
DR. STEVEN REISNER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we‟re going to continue this story on Monday. Last comment, ten
seconds, Stephen Soldz.
DR. STEPHEN SOLDZ: This is a very important chance for the APA to finally do the right thing,
and I hope that they do so.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to leave it there. Thank you both, Dr. Steven Reisner, Dr. Stephen
Soldz, with Psychologists for an Ethical APA.
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