Psychologists shielded US torture programme post-26/11: Report

The Central Intelligence Agency's health professionals repeatedly criticised the agency's post-September 11 interrogation programme, but their protests were rebuffed by prominent outside psychologists who lent credibility to the programme, according to a new report.

The 542-page report, which examines the involvement of the nation's psychologists and their largest professional organisation, the American Psychological Association, with the harsh interrogation programmes of the Bush era, raises repeated questions about the collaboration between psychologists and officials at both the CIA and the Pentagon.

The report concludes that some of the association's top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favour with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association's ethics policies in line with the Defense Department's interrogation policies, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the CIA's interrogation programme and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency.

The association's ethics office "prioritised the protection of psychologists - even those who might have engaged in unethical behaviour - above the protection of the public," the report said. Two former presidents of the psychological association were on a CIA advisory committee, the report found. One of them gave the agency an opinion that sleep deprivation did not constitute torture, and later held a small ownership stake in a consulting company founded by two men who oversaw the agency's interrogation programme, it said.

The association's ethics director, Stephen Behnke, coordinated the group's public policy statements on interrogations with a top military psychologist, the report said, and then received a Pentagon contract to help train interrogators while he was working at the association, without the knowledge of the association's board. Behnke did not respond to a request for comment.

The report, which was obtained by The New York Times and has not previously been made public, is the result of a seven-month investigation by a team led by David Hoffman, a Chicago lawyer with the firm Sidley Austin at the request of the psychology association's board.

After the Hoffman report was made public, the American Psychological Association issued an apology. "The actions, policies and lack of independence from government influence described in the Hoffman report represented a failure to live up to our core values," Nadine Kaslow, a former president of the organisation, said in a statement. "We profoundly regret and apologise for the behaviour and the consequences that ensued."

The association said it was considering proposals to prohibit psychologists from participating in interrogations and to modify its ethics policies, among other changes.

The involvement of psychologists in the interrogation programmes has been a source of contention within the profession for years. Another report, issued in April by several critics of the association, came to similar conclusions. But Hoffman's report is by far the most detailed look yet into the crucial roles played by behavioural scientists, especially top officials at the American Psychological Association and some of the most prominent figures in the profession, in the interrogation programmes. It also shows that the collaboration was much more extensive than was previously known.

A report last December by the Senate Intelligence Committee detailed the brutality of some of the CIA's interrogation methods, but by focusing on the role of psychologists, Hoffman's report provides new details, and can be seen as a companion to the Senate report.

The CIA and the Pentagon both conducted harsh interrogations during the administration of President George W Bush, although the CIA's programme included more brutal tactics. Some of them, like the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding, are now widely regarded as torture. The agency's interrogations were done at so-called black site prisons around the world where prisoners were held secretly for years.

The report said that senior officials of the association had "colluded" with senior Defense Department officials to make certain that the association's ethics rules did not hinder the ability of psychologists to remain involved with the interrogation programme.

The report's most immediate impact will be felt at the association, where it has been presented to the board and its members' council. The board met last week to discuss the report and is expected to act on its findings soon. The association has since renounced 2005 ethics guidelines that allowed psychologists to stay involved in the harsh interrogations, but several staff members who were named in the report have remained at the organisation.

A spokesman for the association did not respond to a request for comment, and a CIA spokesman said that agency officials had not seen it and so could not comment.

©2015 The New York Times News Service