Fwd: [bangla-vision] Human Experimentation ;; Heart of Bush Administration Torture Program

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Subject: [bangla-vision] Human Experimentation ;; Heart of Bush Administration Torture Program
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Human Experimentation at the Heart of Bush Administration's Torture Program
Jason Leopold 

 

Truthout
, June 6, 2010

 

High-value detainees captured during the Bush administration抯 "war on terror" who were subjected to brutal torture techniques were part of a Nazi Germany-type
program involving illegal human experimentation, the purpose of which was to collect research "data," according to a disturbing new report that calls on
President Barack Obama, Congress and other government agencies to immediately launch inquiries and Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the allegations.

 

  The findings contained in the 27-page report, "Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the 'Enhanced?

 

  Interrogation Program," is based on extensive research of previously declassified government documents that shows the crucial role medical personnel played
in in establishing and justifying the legality of the Bush administration抯 torture program.

 

  The report said the research and experimentation of detainees its authors have documented is not only a violation of the Geneva Conventions, but is a
grave breach of international laws, such as the Nuremberg Code, established after atrocities committed by Nazis were exposed in the aftermath of World
War II.

 

  "Health professionals working for and on behalf of the CIA monitored the interrogations of detainees, collected and analyzed the results of [the] interrogations,
and sought to derive generalizable inferences to be applied to subsequent interrogations," states an executive summary of the report, prepared by Physicians
for Human Rights. "Such acts may be seen as the conduct of research and experimentation by health professionals on prisoners, which could violate accepted
standards of medical ethics, as well as domestic and international law. These practices could, in some cases, constitute war crimes and crimes against
humanity."

 

  For example, PHR said the drowning method known as waterboarding was monitored in early 2002 by medical personnel who collected data about how detainees
responded to the torture technique. The data was then used by Steven Bradbury, the former head of the Justice Department抯 Office of Legal Counsel (OLC),
to write a legal opinion in 2004 advising CIA interrogators on how to administer the technique, referred to in the PHR report as "Waterboarding 2.0."

 

  "According to the Bradbury memoranda, [CIA Office of Medical Services] teams, based on their observation of detainee responses to waterboarding, replaced
water in the waterboarding procedure with saline solution ostensibly to reduce the detainees?risk of contracting pneumonia and/or hyponatremia, a condition
of low sodium levels in the blood caused by free water intoxication, which can lead to brain edema and herniation, coma, and death," the report says. In
Bradbury抯 torture memo, he wrote that "based on advice of medical personnel, the CIA requires that saline solution be used instead of plain water to reduce
the possibility of hyponatremia (i.e. reduced concentration of sodium in the blood) if the detainee drinks the water."

 

  PHR noted that the presence of CIA medical personnel during the waterboarding sessions "could represent evidence of human experimentation" because it
underscores "the danger and harm inherent in the practice of waterboarding and the enlistment of medical personnel in an effort to disguise a universally
recognized tactic as a 'safe, legal and effective?

 

  interrogation tactic."

 

  CIA medical personnel also obtained experimental research data by subjecting more than 25 detainees to a combination of torture techniques, including
sleep deprivation, according to the report, as a way of understanding "whether one type of of application over another would increase the subjects?susceptibility
to severe pain." The information derived from the research informed "subsequent [torture] practices."

 

  "This investigation had no direct clinical health care application, nor was it in the detainees?personal interest, nor part of their medical management,"
the report says. "It appears to have been used primarily to enable the Bush administration to assess the legality of the tactics, and to inform medical
monitoring policy and procedure for future application of the techniques."

 

  Frank Donaghue, PHR抯 chief executive officer, said the report appears to demonstrate that the CIA violated "all accepted legal and ethical standards put
in place since the Second World War to protect prisoners from being the subjects of experimentation."

 

  "Not only are these alleged acts gross violations of human rights law, they are a grave affront to America抯 core values," he added.

 

  Rev. Richard Killmer, executive director of the the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said PHR抯 findings "recalls some of humanity抯 darkest
days梒harges from which no person of faith can afford to turn away."

 

  As expected, the CIA denied the report抯 assertions.

 

  Spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the agency, "as part of its past detention program, [did not] conduct human subject research on any detainee or group of
detainees."

 

  But Gimigliano抯 denials are contradicted by dozens of former intelligence and national security officials who, as recently as last March, said detainees
were experimented on.

 

  Indeed, the conclusions the report抯 authors reached in the area of sleep deprivation confirm several recent investigative reports published by Truthout
related to the torture and experimentation the Bush administration抯 first high-value detainee, Abu Zubaydah, was subjected to after he was captured in
March 2002.

 

  A former National Security official knowledgeable about the Bus h administration抯 torture program previously told

 

   [ http://www.truthout.org/torture-diaries-drawings-and-special-prosecutor58108]

 

 
 Truthout that Zubaydah was "an experiment...a guinea pig" used so CIA contractors could obtain data that was then shared with officials at the CIA and
the Justice Department, who used that information to draft the August 2002 torture memos stating what interrogation methods could be legally used, how
often the methods could be employed and how it should be administered without crossing the line into torture.

 

  The PHR report does not identify Zubaydah by name.

 

In March, Truthout reported [
http://www.truthout.org/torture-diaries-drawings-and-special-prosecutor58108],

 

 
based on interviews with more than two dozen intelligence and national security officials, that one of the main reasons Zubaydah抯 torture sessions were
videotaped was to gain insight into his "physical reaction" to the techniques used against him. The information

 

  For example, one current and three former CIA officials said some videotapes showed Zubaydah being sleep deprived for more than two weeks. Contractors
hired by the CIA studied how he responded psychologically and physically to being kept awake for that amount of time.

 

  By looking at videotapes, they concluded that after the 11th consecutive day of being kept awake Zubaydah started to "severely break down." So, the torture
memo signed by former OLC head Jay Bybee concluded that 11 days of sleep deprivation was legal and did not meet the definition of torture.

 

  PHR抯 analysis on sleep deprivation concluded, based on a review of documents, that "government lawyers used observational data collected by health professionals
from varying applications of sleep deprivation to inform legal evaluations regarding the risk of inflicting certain levels of harm on the detainee, and
to shape policy that would guide further application of the technique."

 

  Nathaniel Raymond, director of PHR抯 Campaign Against Torture, said "Justice Department lawyers appear to have never assessed the lawfulness of the alleged
research on detainees in CIA custody, despite how essential it appears to have been to their legal cover for torture."

 

  Brent Mickum, Zubaydah抯 attorney, said PHR抯 report is evidence that there was an "experimental element to the torture program and it was approved at the
highest levels of government."

 

  "I have said literally for years that I believe my client was tortured before any of these enhanced interrogation techniques were approved by the Justice
Department," Mickum said. "And now we know that not only was my client subjected to torture but he was part of an experiment. This is so ugly, so shameful,
so unlawful. If this revelation doesn抰 kick in an obligation on the part of the Department of Justice to investigate war crimes than I don抰 know what does.
The Obama administration has essentially refused to do that. At some point, the Obama administration has to take seriously what their obligations are under
the law."

 

  Mickum said he is preparing to file a series of motions in federal court based on the conclusions contained in PHR抯 report.

 

  For those who have closely followed the details that have surfaced over the years related to the Bush administration抯 torture program, a chunk of the
information contained in the report related to human experimentation has already been painstakingly documented by Marcy Wheeler at her blog Emptywheel,
and Truthout抯 own Jeffrey Kaye on his blog Valtin and in articles published on this website and at Firedoglake.

 

  In her
analysis
, Wheeler focused on a section of the report dealing with revisions the Bush administration made in 2006 to the War Crimes Act (WCA), which "retroactively
changed[d] the law on human experimentation [so] that experimentation no longer needed to have a personal benefit to the research subject, and could instead
be justified because of a 'legitimate?interest."

 

  According to PHR抯 report, "the new language of the WCA added two qualifications that appear to have lowered the bar on biological experimentation on prisoners."

 

  "That language requires that the experiment have a "legitimate" purpose, but does not require that it be carried out in the interest of the subject. It
also adds the requirement that the experiment not "endanger" the subject, which appears to raise the threshold for what will be considered illegal biological
experimentation.

 

  PHR has called on Congress to amend the law.

 

  Meanwhile, the research aspect of the interrogation program has not been dismantled. Last March, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who recently
resigned, disclosed that the Obama administration抯 High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), planned on conducting "scientific research" to determine
"if there are better way to get information from people that are consistent with our values."

 

  "It is going to do scientific research on that long-neglected area," Blair said during testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. He did not provide
additional detail as to what the "scientific research" entailed.

 

:: Article nr. 66737 sent on 07-jun-2010 06:36 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=66737

 

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