DHS Behavioral Research Group proposed "use of Guantanamo Bay subjects as data"

Overlooked in a report released last year that documented collusion with top members of the American Psychological Association with U.S. government agencies in activities that involved torture or abuse of detainees was a section that documented interest in using Guantanamo Bay detainees for experimental purposes or objects of study by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

According to the minutes of a May 7, 2003 "unclassified advisory group" for the DHS Science and Technology Behavioral Research Program, which documented the inaugural meeting of the group, topics that might be included in DHS "social and behavioral research" included "autonomic specificity in reactions to stress; use of electro-encephalograms for determination of intent and for detection of deception; and use of Guantanamo Bay subjects as data."

Involved in such discussions, led by National Science Foundation, were Geoffrey Mumford; the Director of Science Policy at the American Psychological Association (APA), and Susan Brandon, then-Program Chief, Affect & Biobehavioral Regulation in Division of Neuroscience and Basic Behavioral Science, NIMH, and also a Senior Scientist at APA.

Currently Brandon is Chief of Research for the Obama Administration's High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG.

Others present at the 2003 meeting were Norman Bradburn, Assistant Director for the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF); Phil Rubin, Division Director of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, NSF; Ken Whang, Program Manager for Collaborative Research on Computational Neurosciences, NSF; and Gary Strong, the Director of Behavioral Research, DHS. Strong kept the minutes for the event, which was held at NSF offices.

"Effectiveness Research" or "Program Evaluation"?

The report released last year (PDF) by Sidley Austin, "Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture," authored by Chicago-based attorney David Hoffman and other Sidley associates, indicated that both Mumford and Brandon were queried about the interest in research on Guantanamo detainees.

Mumford, who Hoffman's report indicated was a central leader in getting APA involved with Department of Defense and CIA collaborative efforts, told Sidley investigators he couldn't recall any such discussion about detainees. Brandon's reply was more revealing. From Hoffman's report, p. 171-172:

Brandon likewise stated that she did not know what this comment referred to, and assumed that any discussions on this topic would have related to attempts to discover what people were doing with research subjects when there was very little oversight. However, she stated that she recalled people wanting to observe detainees to understand the effectiveness of the interrogation program. Brandon said she would characterize this kind of observation as program evaluation rather than research.

"Program evaluation" is precisely the term Dr. Jerald Ogrisseg, a psychologist with Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, United States Joint Forces Command, used before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on June 17, 2008, when the committee was investigating detainee abuse and torture at Guantanamo (bold added for emphasis):

Mr. Chairman, with regards to my July 2002 communications with then Lt Col Dan Baumgartner, the then Chief of Staff of JPRA, my recollection is that Lt Col Baumgartner called me directly, probably on the same day that I generated my 24 July 2002 memorandum that I referenced earlier. He indicated that he was getting asked “from above” about the psychological effects of resistance training. I had no idea who was asking Lt Col Baumgartner “from above” and did not ask him to clarify who was asking. I recall reminding Lt Col Baumgartner in general terms about program evaluation data I’d presented in May of 2002 at the SERE Psychology Conference. These data, which were collected on Air Force survival students at different points of time during training, indicated that training significantly improves students confidence in their ability to adhere to the Code of Conduct.

The "training" Ogrisseg referred to consisted of mock prison camps and use of graduated forms of torture as a form of "stress inoculation" on troops or other U.S. agents to make them more resistant to torture, or so goes their rationale. Is it possible that similar forms of "program evaluation" -- though it's hard to see this as anything but illegal research -- was also used on real torture victims, such as at Guantanamo? It is noteworthy that the DHS behavioral group referred to using Guantanamo detainees for research in nearly the same breath as studying "autonomic specificity in reactions to stress."

"Autonomic specificity in reactions to stress" is precisely a form of research previously conducted on SERE mock torture "detainees." Research by CIA psychiatrist Charles Morgan III showed powerful changes in endrocrine and nervous system functioning in mock-torture SERE students studied. Is it really so far-fetched to think such experiments were extended by CIA or the Department of Defense, or other government agency (such as DHS) to the detainees captured in the "war on terror"?

Apparently not. A National Research Council (NRC) 2008 report on a conference on Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies examined briefly what it characterized as a “contemporary problem,” the possibility of doing research on “war on terror” detainees, removed by the U.S. government from Geneva protections against experiments done on prisoners of war. (This report was earlier examined in an article I wrote back in February 2011.)

In a section of the report that looked at the “Cultural and Ethical Underpinnings of Social Neuroscience,” the report’s authors examined the “Ethical Implications” of these new technologies. The section explored the birth of the new field of bioethics, in response to the scandalous revelations of the Tuskegee experiments. The report noted that “On the whole, however, the system of protections for human research subjects is not well designed to capture instances of intentional wrongdoing,” providing “rather… guidance for well-motivated investigators who wish to be in compliance with regulatory requirements and practice standards.”

Another interesting, and even more ominous issue was discussed the NSC panel (emphasis added):

A contemporary problem is the status of detainees at military installations who are suspects in the war on terrorism. Presumably, the ethical standards that apply to all human research subjects should apply to them as well. But if they are not protected by the provisions of the Geneva protocols for prisoners of war, the question would be whether as potential research subjects they are nonetheless protected by other international conventions, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948). Those technical questions of international law are beyond the scope of this report.

Why should the question of research on detainees arise in this discussion at all?

Christian Meissner, currently a lead researcher for the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, back in 2010 spoke to National Academy of Science participants attending a workshop, "Field Evaluation in the Intelligence and Counterintelligence Context," on the putative difference between research and "program evaluation." According to the report of the meeting, "Christian Meissner commented that, from his experience as chair of an institutional review board, he knows that there is a significant gray area between program evaluation and research. Indeed, he said, it is quite possible to field test things under the guise of program evaluation. But once one begins manipulating factors and having control groups, the studies clearly amount to research." (pg. 68-69)

Commenting on the same issue at the workshop, Jonathan Moreno, well-known science ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said, "It’s not an easy line to draw,” he said, “but I think you can intuit those lines."

"Beyond the scope"

So for the NSC panelists, the issue of whether or not detainees, removed from normal Geneva protections (as at Guantanamo), are protected by international covenants, like the Nuremberg protocols, are "beyond the scope" of their inquiries. Not for the last time was the issue of research on detainees at Guantanamo deemed "beyond the scope" of investigators. In the Sidley report quoted above, Hoffman (and his co-authors) explained why they never followed up the trail of evidence on possible research abuse. "... we considered it beyond the scope of this investigation to draw conclusions regarding whether the CIA, DoD, or any other executive agency was conducting research on detainees because we found no evidence that APA had coordinated with the government to facilitate such research," they wrote (p. 172).

Maybe not APA as an institution, but certainly top APA officials collaborated with the government based on their standing as leaders of the field of psychology, as demonstrated by their leadership at APA. This aspect of the Sidley investigation has been ignored by the press, by APA critics, and by critics of the Hoffman report (who mostly are DoD apologists). Hoffman and his allies carefully determined who the scapegoats would be for their report, while letting a number of others -- and not only psychologists -- off the hook. Still, I am grateful for their work in documenting a good deal we didn't know about this collaboration.

The issue of studies on detainees also surfaced as part of a September 2003 "after-action" report by a SERE consultant, Terrence Russell, sent to Iraq to assist special forces Task Force 20 in interrogation of detainees. (This TF was later named Task Force 121.) But the report, and another by Russell's putative superior, Col. Steven Kleinman, showed that abuse of detainees was taking place. When Kleinman intervened to stop such actions, his life was threatened by TF personnel. Russell was a civilian manager for the Research and Development division of Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which was then the parent command for SERE.

“In regards to the recent study on effectiveness at GTMO, of which there is plenty of room to debate whether or not that have had [sic] much success..." Russell wrote in passing, trying to counter criticisms by Kleinman in the latter's own version of events written in his own after-action report. Kleinman later told me he thought Russell was referring to many different kinds of studies on interrogation going back to the Cold War years. He didn’t believe Russell had any “study on effectiveness at GTMO” that he could actually refer to. But perhaps such "effectiveness" research was hidden as "program evaluation."

The minutes for the DHS meeting where conducting research on Guantanamo detainees was released by the APA itself, as one of a number of "binders" of documentary material gathered by Sidley for its research. The minutes were on page 1355 of Binder 2 in the APA release (see PDF), but I am reproducing them here for the benefit of the public. Click on image to see larger, more readable version.

Letter to HHS on Proposed "Intelligence Surveillance" and Criminal Justice Exceptions to Human Subject Protections

The following was my response to a call for comments from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regarding proposed changes in the federal rules regarding the protection of human experimental subjects. The deadline for comments was today, and the following reproduces what I sent HHS.

Outside academia and the departments that run Institutional Review Boards, the issues surrounding these changes may seem arcane. But as my letter documents, the issues on protection of human subjects in federal funded experiments touches on some of the most important issues of our time, not least the torture program ran by the CIA and Department of Defense in the past 15 years. Other comments can be read at the link provided above. My very modest contribution in no way touches many of the important issues raised by these proposed changes, and interested readers should peruse the comments of others to get a fuller picture of the stakes involved in these proposed changes.

Note: Rather than embed links, I have provided endnotes with links, which reproduces how I sent the letter to HHS. One interesting side benefit of drafting and posting this letter was that it allowed me to update old links that had gone missing or dead over the years. Sadly, the links to much of the relevant material (Project Shad, for instance), had changed or disappeared, as public interest in the subject waxes and, sadly, wanes.

----------------------------

Date: January 6, 2016

To: Jerry Menikoff, MD, JD
Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP)
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
1101 Wootton Parkway, Suite 200
Rockville MD 20852
and
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other relevant agencies

From: Jeffrey S. Kaye, Ph.D.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx, CA xxxxx

Re: Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM), Docket ID HHS-OPHS-2015-0008
(CFR Citation: 45 CFR 46)

HHS has asked for public responses to changes proposed in law regarding Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects, also known historically as the “Common Rule.”

In particular, my comment is related to proposed exceptions to protections under federal law for human subjects on matters related to “intelligence surveillance” and “criminal justice activities.” In addition, I address suggestions of weakening protections related to Subpart C of the Common Rule, which covers research on prisoners.

Currently, the Department of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), and the intelligence agencies that operate under the umbrella of the Department of Defense, are all regulated by 45 CFR 46, and protection of human subjects falls under the Common Rule. There is good reason historically for this, as government agencies, often under the auspices of “national security,” failed to protect human beings who were harmed significantly under experiments undertaken by such agencies.

These agencies act under a veil of secrecy, and safeguards on potential misuse of actions considered research, as defined, or even potentially close to research, should be strengthened, not weakened.

As Jay Katz said in a 1994 review of the history of human experimentation:

“In my review on the regulations on the conduct of research, I have tried to demonstrate that medical science's commitment to individual autonomy continues to remain ambiguous.

“The call for balancing the need to advance science for mankind's benefit and to protect the inviolability of subjects of research all too commonly tilts in favor of progress….

“As you know, I do not believe that the current federal regulations on the protection of subjects of research go far enough.”¹

Lack of Research Protections in the DoD and CIA

Failures to protect are not instances of the distant past. According to a 2010 investigatory report by Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye²:

“In January 2004, the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) initiated a DoD-wide review of human subjects protection policies. A Navy slide presentation at DoD Training Day (PDF)³ on Nov. 14, 2006, hinted strongly at the serious issues behind the entire review.

“The Navy presentation framed the problem in the light of the history of U.S. governmental ‘non-compliance’ with human subjects research protections, including ‘U.S. Government Mind Control Experiments – LSD, MKULTRA, MKDELTA (1950-1970s)’; a 90-day national ‘stand down’ in 2003 for all human subject research and development activities ‘ordered in response to the death of subjects," as well as use of "unqualified researchers.’

The Training Day presentation said the review found the Navy ‘not in full compliance with Federal policies on human subjects protection.’ Furthermore, DDR&E found the Navy had ‘no single point of accountability for human subject protections.’”

This review was ordered in late January 2004, only a few months after the Supreme court had agreed to hear the case later known as Rasul v Rumsfeld, which would decide that the Guantanamo detainees had a right to challenge their detention. The DoD-wide review came over two years after a DoD directive authored by Paul Wolfowitz had indicated such procedures should be in place. As a result, none of the required assurances by the different Defense Department components regarding their human subjects protection policies had been filed with DDR&E. In effect, there was little or no oversight over DoD research policies at exactly the time when both DoD and CIA were engaged in an experimental torture program, or using detainee prisoners as human guinea pigs for the study of the effects of torture and harsh detention (about which more below).

The DoD directive (3216.02), authored by Paul Wolfowitz, mentioned in the paragraph above, was titled “Protection of Human Subjects and Adherence to Ethical Standards in DoD-Supported Research,” and released in March 2002. The directive was updated in 2011. But in its 2002 version, and for many years, it represented a significant weakening of human subjects protections, making waivers of informed consent the responsibility of lower-level heads of DoD divisions, and weakening protections that had been in place for decades by limiting research safeguards to “prisoners of war.” There had never been such loose rules on informed consent ever explicitly allowed in the history of military research.⁴ While protections against use of research on detainees, such as those held at Guantanamo, supposedly now restrict research or experiments on that population,⁵ the history of attempts by DoD officials to push back against such restrictions should not allow for further weakening of any protections now in place.

There are a number of other instances of lack of protection of research subjects under the Department of Defense. One of the most egregious, which like so many of these abuses, took decades to come to light, concerned the military’s Project Shad.

Project Shad was a DoD experiment that exposed at least 4,000 Navy men to various chemical agents and decontaminant chemicals, "including Bacillus globigii (BG), Coxiella burnetii [which causes Q fever], Pasteurella tularensis [which causes tularemia or 'rabbit fever'], Zinc Cadmium Sulfide, Beta-propriolactone, Sarin, VX, Escherichia Coli (EC), Serratia Marcescens (SM), Sodium Hydroxide, Peracetic acid, Potassium hydroxide, Sodium hypochlorite, ‘tracer amounts’ of radioactivity and asbestos, [and] Methylacetoacetate."⁶ The existence of these experiments was denied by the U.S. government for 35 years, until Congressional hearings were finally held in 2002.⁷ While back in 2002, there were major news reports on the subject, today the story has dropped off the radar. Nevertheless, the government website, Health.mil, still has a webpage dedicated to information on the subject.⁸

The history of abuses surrounding Project Shad, and other similar instances of dangerous military research, e.g. projects Copper Head, Flower Drum, Shady Grove, Autumn Gold, among others undertaken from 1963-1970, argue strongly against any lessening of human subjects protections when it comes to military research.

Finally, on the subject of military research, it is worth noting the warnings aired in a National Research Council (NRC) 2008 report on a conference on “Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies.”⁹ Participants concluded, “On the whole… the system of protections for human research subjects is not well designed to capture instances of intentional wrongdoing,” providing “rather… guidance for well-motivated investigators who wish to be in compliance with regulatory requirements and practice standards.”

While some find the current “formal procedures in place for the use of military personnel in medical experiments” are “stringent,” that doesn’t imply “that no abuses can occur, nor that convenient alternative frameworks (such as field testing) cannot be used to circumvent the research rules, but only that the official policies and procedures in the military are rigorous.” (bold emphasis added)

But even with such supposedly “rigorous” policies, the report’s authors see a problem. They ominously ask whether “classified research can ever be ethically sound inasmuch as it lacks transparency, such as in the form of public accountability. For example, if a member of an ethics review board disagrees with a majority decision involving a classified human experiment, that member would be unable to engage in a public protest of that decision.”

I think the questions raised in the NRC 2008 report are germane and vital to the issue of NPRM changes on matters related to “intelligence surveillance” and “criminal justice activities.” In particular, the kinds of artifice that can be engaged in relation to what exactly constitutes research is precisely what makes changes in these sensitive areas of high concern.

One such instance where the issue of using field testing or adjustment of technique and program assessment vs. formal research, i.e., to test areas of generalized knowledge, concerns charges of experimentation by the CIA and DoD in regards to the application of interrogation techniques on prisoners captured in the “war on terror,” prisoners which the U.S. government removed from coverage by the “prisoner of war” provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

Research done by the government in relation to interrogation or detainees was usually couched in terms that the research was only program evaluation, as in the case of the Behavioral Science Consultation Teams at Guantanamo, or involved only research related to improvement of conditions for individual detainees, or response to specific applications of an interrogation technique, as when the CIA monitored the oxygenation level of a waterboarding victim.

The point is that in the case of intelligence or national security agencies, especially those aspects covered by secrecy and classification, or that are “covert,” determinations of what is and what is not research, i.e., what can be covered or monitored by the Common Rule, what the “exceptions” are, is actually nonsensical. Either the coverage is complete and total, or it is not.

Charges of CIA Experiments in Torture

In the case of the CIA experimental torture or “enhanced interrogation” program, OHRP referred any research misdeeds back to the agency itself, in this case, back to the CIA. Such is their policy, which is in this case is shown as grossly inadequate.

The fact remains, as documented in the recent release of the Executive Summary of the Senate Select Committee Intelligence report on the CIA’s torture program, that the plans for the “enhanced interrogation” program were formed in the same division of the CIA that ran the MKULTRA program.¹⁰

Do we really want less, not more, safeguards on “intelligence surveillance” activities?

On January 15, 2015, two United Nation Special Rapporteurs wrote an official letter to the U.S. government expressing their concern over “the role of health professionals in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogation program, between 2001 and 2009, and the subsequent lack of investigation into these allegations.”¹¹

The letter was prompted by new information released when in December 2014 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a redacted version of its Executive Summary of its report on the CIA “enhanced interrogation” program. One section of the letter contained charges and concerns about the research component aspect of the CIA program.

I reproduce that section of their letter in its entirety, as it helps explain my contention that the secrecy of the intelligence and covert operations world cannot allow any weakening of research or informed consent protections, as the agencies involved are without moral scruple, and have a long and even recent history of covering up misdeeds.

From the Special Rapporteurs’ letter:

3. Engaging in potential human subjects experimentation to provide legal cover for torture

From the SSCI summary it can be inferred that the OMS officers played an active role in determining, along with the DoJ lawyers, what techniques would be considered authorised for the CIA to employ. The 2004 OMS Draft Guidelines stated “in order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented”. The OMS personnel analysed data previously collected from the detainees during torture to make generalized conclusions about the techniques. In 2004 and 2005, this data and analysis was provided to the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel to determine what techniques and applications would be legitimate under their interpretation of U.S. laws.

On at least two occasions, CIA personnel expressed concerns that this process would amount to human experimentation. Similarly, on 11 April 2005, OMS personnel expressed such concern when stating that the “OMS did not review or vet these techniques prior to their introduction, but rather came into this program with the understanding… that they were already determined as legal, permitted and safe. We see this current iteration as a reversal of that sequence”.

However, despite these concerns, the 2005 Office of Legal Counsel memos (known as the Bradbury memos) reveal that the final determinations on the legality and safety of the techniques relied heavily on OMS data and analysis.¹²

There was no known response to this letter.

A Mysterious Use of Research Regarding the Department of Justice and the HIG

The NPRM states that the suspension of the common rule for “intelligence surveillance” includes “interviews, surveillance activities and related analyses... where these activities are conducted by a defense, national security, or homeland security authority solely for authorized intelligence, homeland security, defense, or other national security purposes.”¹³

The proposed Criminal Justice exclusion from the Common Rule involves “data collection and analysis that enables the uniform delivery of criminal justice. The scope of this exclusion is collection and analysis of data, biospecimens, or records by or for a criminal justice agency for activities authorized by law or court order solely for criminal justice or criminal investigative purposes. The activities excluded are necessary for the operation and implementation of the criminal justice system.”¹⁴

How does this look in light of the reality of research undertaken within the arcane workings of the criminal justice system? One example occurred during the interrogation of accused would-be assassin Manssor Arbabsiar. Under interrogation after arrest in 2012, a “research psychologist,” Susan Brandon, unknown to Arbabsiar was making observations and notes on defendant Arbabsiar. The research appears to have been for the FBI-led High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG, for whom Dr. Brandon worked as “Chief of Research.”

According to another psychologist contracted to the government, Gregory H. Saathoff, Brandon was present during all of Arbabsiar’s post-arrest questioning, viewing him via closed-circuit camera, where she “closely monitored and documented Mr. Arbabsiar’s behaviors.”¹⁵

She produced a 21-page document, which has been withheld from public view, the subject of a court protective order.¹⁶ Brandon’s document, and hence her research, became part of the prosecution’s case against Arbabsiar, and was apparently part of the process of reaching a plea bargain with him and his attorneys. How did a secretive research protocol become part of a prosecutor’s evidence against a defendant?

As I wrote at the time: “So what was the administration’s top interrogation researcher doing at Arbabsiar’s interrogation? And if she was doing research, was Arbabsiar so informed? And whether he was or not, what in her role as researcher later led Brandon to file a report with the court? These are all important questions....” (see endnote vi)

In the context of the new proposed changes in the Common Rule, the questions involved are vital to the workings of both science and of a democratic society.

Research on Prisoners

Related to the Criminal Justice and Intelligence Agency exclusions are calls for weakening the protections regarding use of prisoners in research, which currently fall under Subpart C of the Common Rule. The very way this is brought up in the call for discussion is insulting: “The subpart was written in the wake of harsh criticism regarding research abuses involving prisoners that occurred or became public in the 1960s and 1970s.”

This was not simply “harsh criticism,” but well documented instances of horrific abuse of prisoners. The classic work in this field was Allen Hornblum’s book, Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison, published by Routledge in 1998. There is no reason to lighten the restrictions against such research, which was the result of decades of abuses. Whatever positive results regarding such lightening of restrictions on consent in this case are outweighed by the dangers of unchecked power over a vulnerable population, the examples of which ruined untold number of lives.

As Mr. Hornblum concluded at the end of his book:

"It couldn't happen in America" we reassured ourselves about medical practices in Nazi Germany. But intolerable medical practices were practiced on vulnerable populations in America, without the support of the political culture or the despotic leadership that captivated Germany under the Third Reich, without any protest from the AMA, which prides itself on its ability to regulate itself.

History suggests that we are as susceptible to abusing our socially and economically disenfranchised citizens as any other nation. If, as many believe, a democracy is only as strong as the respect accorded its weakest members, we must work to assure that neither these abuses nor the "conspiracy of silence" that makes them possible ever happen again. We must do this not only for the benefit of the powerless, but also for the benefit of society as a whole.¹⁷

In conclusion, I ask that the NPRM changes proposed for weakening of protections on issues related to “intelligence surveillance” and “criminal justice activities,” as well as weakening protections related to Subpart C of the Common Rule relating to research protections for prisoners, be soundly rejected.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey S. Kaye, Ph.D.

Endnotes:

¹Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Public Meeting, Tuesday, July 5, 1994, Presentation by Jay Katz. URL: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet4/trnsct04.txt

²Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye, “Wolfowitz Directive Gave Legal Cover to Detainee Experimentation Program,” Truthout, Oct. 14, 2010. URL: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/257:wolfowitz-directive-gave-legal-cover-to-detainee-experimentation-program

³“DON Human Research Protection Program: What’s New -14 November 2006.” URL: http://www.dtic.mil/biosys/docs/hu-navy_cs-2006.pdf

⁴See Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye at i. above.

⁵See “New DoD Directive on Detainees Allows Sleep and Sensory Deprivation, Biometric IDs,” Invictus, September 17, 2014. URL: http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/new-dod-directive-on-detainees-allows.html?m=1

⁶“American Servicemen Used As Guinea Pigs - Tests Revealed DOD Releases Project SHAD Fact Sheets”, (no date, but first webpage circa 2002). URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20070221064138/http://www.testsubjects.net/shad.htm

⁷Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, Second Session, October 9, 2002, “Military Operations Aspects of SHAD and Project 112.” URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20090805150741/http://fhp.osd.mil/CBexposures/pdfs/oct9h02.pdf

⁸See “Project 112/SHAD,” (no date), URL: http://www.health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Health-Readiness/Environmental-Exposures/Project-112-SHAD

⁹See Jeffrey Kaye, NRC on Research on “War on Terror” Detainees: “A Contemporary Problem,” February 12, 2011. URL: https://shadowproof.com/2011/02/12/nrc-on-research-on-war-on-terror-detainees-a-contemporary-problem/

Also National Research Council (NRC) 2008 , “Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies”. URL: http://www.nap.edu/read/12177/chapter/6#118

¹⁰Jeffrey Kaye, “SSCI Report Reveals CIA Torture Program Originated in Same Department as MKULTRA,” The Dissenter (later changed name to Shadowproof), December 11, 2014,. URL: https://shadowproof.com/2014/12/11/ssci-report-reveals-cia-torture-program-originated-in-same-department-as-mkultra

¹¹Dainius Puras and Juan E. Méndez, Letter to the U.S. Government, January 15, 2015, “Mandates of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
URL: https://spdb.ohchr.org/hrdb/29th/public_-_OL_USA_15.01.15_%281.2015%29.pdf

¹²Ibid., pp. 3-4.

¹³Federal Register, Vol. 80, No. 173, Tuesday, September 8, 2015, Proposed Rules., p. 20. URL: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-09-08/pdf/2015-21756.pdf

¹⁴Federal Register, Vol. 80, No. 173, Tuesday, September 8, 2015, Proposed Rules., p. 18. URL: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-09-08/pdf/2015-21756.pdf

¹⁵Jeffrey Kaye, “Government’s Psychological Evaluation of Manssor Arbabsiar Fails to Impress,” The Public Record, October 10, 2012. URL: http://pubrecord.org/law/10586/governments-psychological-evaluation/

¹⁶U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Protective Order, 11 Cr. 897 (JFK), USA vs. Manssor Arbabsiar, August 15, 2012. URL: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/459526-8-15-12-protective-order-manssor-case.html

¹⁷Hornblum, Allen M. (2013-05-13). Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison (Kindle Locations 4625-4631). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

APA Torture & Ethics Scandal Highlights Fact No Medical Professionals Have Been Held to Account for Torture

In her very interesting analysis of the American Psychological Association's new policy calling for withdrawal of psychologists from national security interrogations and sites identified with torture and abuse, such as Guantanamo, Deborah Popowski ("The APA’s Watershed Move to Ban Psychologists’ Complicity in Torture," August 11) writes:

I predict that ultimately, this resolution [Motion 23B passed by APA's Council of Representatives] will be more powerful than its AMA and American Psychiatric Association counterparts precisely because it took years of dogged advocacy to achieve. The APA’s bad behavior was a mobilizing force for psychologists of conscience. The organization now faces a savvy group of reformers that understand its playbook and will keep pressing for enforcement. I look forward to seeing how they ride this wave of momentum.

I think this is a good point, but it, like most of the analysis on the APA's new interrogations policy has a certain unreal character, as its analysis exists outside of the realities of the Department of Defense justifies its use of health professionals, including psychologists and psychiatrists, in interrogations.

DoD and the American Psychiatric Association "Ban" on Psychiatrists in Interrogations

Popowski mentions AMA and the American Psychiatric Association (APsyA) because both of these practitioner groups previously issued policies forbidding their members to participate in interrogations. Such participation is unethical, they said, although the psychiatrist's group did allow their members to "provide training to military or civilian investigative or law enforcement personnel... on the possible medical and psychological effects of particular techniques and conditions of interrogation..."

But what these powerful organizations condemn and how they enforce these policies are two different things. In addition, how the Pentagon chooses to interpret the policies of these organizations is yet another thing.

In a September 2008 letter to then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the APsyA president, Dr. Nada Stotland, quoted an article by George Annas, who noted, "The DOD's new position that its physicians not follow nationally and internationally accepted medical ethics represents a major policy change." Stotland was complaining about how the Pentagon continued to train psychiatrists for interrogation despite the APsyA's opposition to the their participation. It is not known if or how Gates replied, but DoD's policy in the matter itself never changed.

But the psychiatrist association itself never put any teeth in their policy. It never moved to sanction any member for participation in interrogations, which is done under the auspices of the Pentagon's Behavioral Science Consultation (BSC) program. Later, then-APA president Gerald Koocher would use APsyA's stated preference not to bring any such charges as an example of the rightness of APA's own policy. (See "President's Column," APA Monitor, July/August 2006)

Indeed, no doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, nurse, medical technician, or any medical professional involved in interrogations has ever been brought up on charges by any medical or professional association. Attempts to bring charges by state licensing agencies were undertaken by private individuals -- attempts with which Ms. Popowski has assisted -- and such attempts universally failed (thus far), though not for trying.

But as important as the attempts to get at the torturers via licensing board complaints are, is a strategy aimed at prosecution via state licensing agencies really going to be effective? As one state licensing agency official told me, "How do you expect us to prosecute these cases when the U.S. government will not do so?" It would indeed take a great deal of courage to buck the federal government. There is also the issue that legal actions against health professionals would be subject to "graymail" defenses, in that defendants will argue that (supposedly, or potentially) exonerating evidence is classified and highly unlikely to be made available from the government. What happens then?

Applicable DoD policy on BSCs goes back to the 2006 DoD Instruction 2310.08E, "Medical Program Support for Detainee Operations." This policy allows DoD to use psychiatrists or physicians with the approval of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, despite the policy by the American Psychiatric and American Medical associations.

E2.2 As a matter of professional personnel management, physicians are not ordinarily assigned duties as BSCs, but may be so assigned, with the approval of ASD(HA), in circumstances when qualified psychologists are unable or unavailable to meet critical mission needs.

In case some might think this old Bush-era instruction is not in force, it is. The most current policy, DoD Directive 3115.09, "DoD Intelligence Interrogations, Detainee Debriefings, and Tactical Questioning" (in its most up-to-date version of 11/15/13) references the 2006 DoD 2310.08E instruction as "reference (r)", i.e., for policy on BSCs.

Manipulation of Phobias

It's worth noting, 3115.09 has also made allowance for the ongoing use of SERE techniques, as they are used in the Army Field Manual, which I pointed out some time back. The only recent change in 3115.09 has to do with BSC manipulation of detainee phobias, a change that has not been publicly noted before: "Behavioral science consultants may not be used to determine detainee phobias for the purpose of exploitation during the interrogation process." That appears to be the one concession made by the Obama administration to criticisms of its interrogation policy. The reference was to phobias as addressed in Army Field Manual 2-22.3 in its description of the "Fear Up" approach. Before this change was made in 2012, BSCs were allowed to manipulate or create phobias in prisoners in a style of coercive interrogation that an earlier version of the Field Manual noted some nations -- though not the United States -- would find illegal.

The fact is, the opponents of existing policy at APA, not to mention officers at AMA, APsyA, and a number of human rights watchdog groups are aware of current Pentagon policy on using physicians in interrogations in lieu of psychologists, and despite the opposition on paper of physicians organizations, but nothing is ever said about it. One has to ask why this is. Psychologists, who still have a fight on their hands in making the new APA policy enforceable within APA, have not mentioned DoD's policy on such use, about which nothing has changed since the days of the Bush administration.

The Enforcement Question

Except for an Aug. 8 article in Al Jazeera America, no news accounts have noted that when APA opponents of the old interrogation policy were putting forth their motion to ban members from participation in interrogations or at sites where human rights abuses take place, the first draft of that motion had a strong enforcement proviso, which stated, "Be it resolved that the APA will direct staff to contact the licensing boards of all states and territories informing them that it is the sense of the Council of Representatives that any complaint against a psychologist who refuses to comply with the call to leave Guantanamo be reviewed ‘with prejudice’."

The final version of the motion that passed, and is hailed as a victory, omitted that provision. Such a step back from enforcement does not bode well for the future effectiveness of the APA action.

Other arguments regarding the efficacy of enforcing the APA's new policy were raised by psychologist John Grohol at his blog PsychCentral last week. Grohol quoted an August 18, 2015 email from APA’s Associate General Counsel Jesse Raben to psychologist and ethics exert Ken Pope, who resigned from APA in 2008 over APA's slippery ethics policies.

With regards to 23B (and therefore with the 2008 [member-initiated] resolution [banning psychologists from interrogation at human rights violating sites]) while this new Council resolution invokes Ethical Principle A to “take care to do no harm,” it does not amend the Ethics Code and is not enforceable as a result [emphasis added]. However, Council’s implementation plan for the new policy requests that the Ethics Committee consider a course of action to render the prohibition against national security interrogations enforceable under the Ethics Code.

Grohol's article must have made some impact, because Nadine Kaslow and Susan McDaniel, both members of the Special Committee for the Independent Review by David Hoffman that excoriated APA's connivance with the Department of Defense on interrogation issues, responded to Grohol's charges in an email to APA's Division 48, The Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence. (Kaslow is also an APA past president, while McDaniel is the organization's president-elect.)

APA Officials Respond

Kaslow and McDaniel's full reply is not online, but what follows is an edited version of the high points. The two APA officials sympathized with Grohol's skepticism, but felt "that this reaction is misplaced at this time in the history of APA."

The authority and processes regarding policy development and modifications to the APA Ethics Code are stipulated in APA’s Bylaws and Association Rules. The first very important step is for a policy, such as the national security interrogation prohibition, to be passed by Council. For those policies with ethical aspects such as this one, the next step is for it to be considered by the Ethics Committee. The independence of the Ethics Committee is important, as described in the Hoffman Report. According to our Bylaws and Association Rules, the Ethics Committee has authority for formulating the Ethics Code, overseeing the process for changing the Ethics Code (which involves governance review and public comment), and for enforcing it. The movers of New Business Item #23B -- Scott Churchill, Jean Maria Arrigo, and Frank Farley, supported by Steven Reisner and Dan Aalbers -- were well aware of the necessary process. They successfully achieved the policy change, the all-important first step to achieving their ultimate goal of an enforceable prohibition, in keeping with the American Medical Association. (The American Psychiatric Association's policy is not part of their Ethics Code.)

.... The movers also included a provision in the implementation section of the resolution for Council to request that the Ethics Committee "consider pursuing an appropriate course of action in as expeditious a manner as possible to incorporate into the Ethics Code the prohibitions surrounding psychologist participation in national security interrogations, as set forth in this policy." The next step is for the Ethics Committee to carry out this recommendation. An amendment to the Ethics Code will provide the necessary “teeth” for the policy to be enforced. In the interim, I would like to point out that the Ethics Committee considers APA policies, guidelines, and other documents when interpreting the Standards of the Ethics Code.

.... As noted above, although the 2013 policy is not enforceable under the Ethics Code, it provides valuable guidance to the Ethics Committee in this regard....

Changing policy, aspects of the Ethics Code, and creating a culture that is transparent and trustworthy in all parts of the organization will take time and considerable effort. But it is a commitment we feel deeply in support of our public, our discipline, and our members....

Reading Kaslow and McDaniel's email, I think Ms. Popowski may have a point about the sanguinary effect of the new APA policy. From my own standpoint, I believe it was a huge step forward for the new APA policy to bring the recondite and legal struggle against the U.S. Reservations to the UN Convention Against Torture treaty out into the open, and put the imprimatur of a huge medical and professional organization behind the goal of removing those reservations, which in action eviscerated enforcement of that treaty in the U.S., and which were used by John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury to alibi torture in their infamous OLC memos on interrogation.

Loopholes on Unethical Research to Remain

But there are also giant holes in APA's new policy, particularly as it pertains to psychologist research for the military and intelligence agencies. Since that is really where the bulk of federal money to psychologists and psychology programs go, that means the haze of unreality around these issues is a veritable fog of obfuscation. APA ethics code 8.05 allows psychologists to suspend informed consent -- which is the bedrock of ethical research on human subjects -- "where otherwise permitted by law or federal or institutional regulations." In addition, ethics code 8.07 allows psychologists to use deception in research on "prospective participants," unless such deception would be "reasonably expected to cause physical pain or severe emotional distress." The emphasis on "severe" emotional distress is a weakening of earlier language, and allows great discretion for research using deception that would allow, say, "moderate" levels of emotional distress. Indeed, a section of the Hoffman report contains a section on the research issue, and I will examine it more fully in the near future.

Nevertheless, when it comes to interrogations or psychologists presence at national security detention sites, the APA policy is much more stringent that that passed by APsyA or AMA, and demands that psychologists not even involved in interrogations at sites such as Guantanamo be transferred out. But will DoD listen to that? And if psychologists continue to work in such secret circumstances, how will APA or anyone else know? And what if anything will happen about that? I don't imagine anyone in DoD is losing much sleep over this... yet.

There is also the force of moral suasion, which if not terribly powerful, does play some role in historical circumstances. The leaders of the fight against APA's previous torture policy, and against an APA leadership that worked with government forces to allow torture and abuse of prisoners during interrogation and detention, are to be congratulated. I know from private conversations they are aware that more battles lie ahead. I suggest those battles lie directly with the Obama administration itself, and the leadership of other medical professional and human rights organizations to hold the administration's metaphoric feet to the fire, and end the use of all medical professionals in interrogations and under cruel conditions of confinement at so-called national security detention sites that are known to abuse prisoners, like Guantanamo.

On the 70th Anniversary of Hiroshima: "The Atomic Victims as Human Guinea Pigs"

Transcribed below is the entire text of Japanese historian Shingo Shibata's 1996 essay in Seisen Review, "The Atomic Victims as Human Guinea Pigs." I've posted on it before, including a link to a photocopy of the entire essay. The text was transcribed independently by Wikispooks, and the copy I used below is based upon it (with some quiet corrections and formatting changes). (Wikispooks did not transcribe Shibata's Bibliography, but it can be found on pages 11-12 of the online version directly below.)



The medical condition of the Japanese atomic bomb survivors, or Hibakusha, for years was the subject of censorship by the Occupation forces of the U.S. and later Japanese censorship. It is still effectively so, by media and scholarly neglect rather than government order.

The Hibakusha were studied and examined by U.S. doctors and scientists organized as the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), in conjunction with staff from the Japanese National Institute of Health (JNIH)., In the course of their research, medical treatment was withheld from the atomic bomb victims, arguably because it interfered with their research goals.

Researcher Susan Lindee wrote about these topics in her excellent (and out-of-print) 1994 book, Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima (Univ. of Chicago Press). Amazingly, U.S. refusal to offer medical care to the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was because U.S. authorities believed "that medical treatment of the survivors by the ABCC would constitute atonement for the use of atomic weapons."

"From the beginning," a 1955 report to the Atomic Energy Commission stated, US researchers of the effects of the atom bomb on civilians were "not permitted to attempt medical therapy of the patients who had been injured by the two bombs.... to do so would have given confirmation to the anti-American propagandists... [who would] insist that such treatment should be an act of atonement for having used the weapons in the first place." (Lindee, pgs. 134-135.)

The U.S. has never apologized for the use of atomic weapons. Indeed, the policy of the U.S. is to frighten and terrorize the world with its awful arsenal.

One might ask, what did the Japanese Government do to aid the Hibakusha? In his essay, Shingata replies, "I am ashamed to say that the Japanese government did nothing to help the Hibakusha either."

Stop U.S. Plan to Modernize and Replace Nuclear Arsenal

In October 2009, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in part because of his supposed position in favor of nuclear disarmament. But since then, Obama has moved to increase spending on nuclear weapons, stating the supposed need to modernize weaponry and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to revitalize a nuclear weapons plant in Kansas City, Missouri.

New estimates made by Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, and reported at Al Jazeera America, say U.S. plans to modernize its nuclear arsenal will cost nearly $1 trillion dollars over the next 30 years.

In an August 5 press release by Peace Action, formerly SANE/Freeze, on the 70th Anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan (August 6th and 9th), Paul Kawika Martin, the policy and political director of Peace Action, and a guest of one of Japan's largest peace groups, Ginsuikin, commented from the official commemoration in Hiroshima:

“Here in Hiroshima, on the 70th Anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of this city and Nagasaki, we remember the hundreds of thousands of casualties caused by the most basic of nuclear weapon designs and know that we never want another populace to suffer from such a bomb. Even worse, today’s nuclear weapons are several to hundreds of times more destructive.

Clearly, these horrific weapons are no asset to any country. The current U.S. plan to waste $1 trillion over the next thirty years modernizing, maintaining and replacing delivery systems must be stopped.

President Obama should heed his Prague speech and live up to U.S. obligations under the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) by significantly reducing America’s 7,100 nuclear warheads.

Additionally, the agreement reached with Iran will verifiably block it from getting a nuclear weapon, making it paramount that the U.S. Congress support the accord.”

The issues above are amplified and expanded in Professor Shingo Shibata's essay below. I encourage readers to email or tweet or post on Facebook or otherwise send this article far and wide, as an action YOU can take on this, the 70th anniversary of the great crime of the atomic bombings, in the hopes it will aid in stopping atomic weapons from being used again.

The Atomic Victims as Human Guinea Pigs

Shingo SHIBATA

In connection with the Smithsonian flap, the United States Senate Resolution 257 was passed on 22 September 1994. It reads: "...The role of the Enola Gay during World War II was momentous in helping to bring World War II to a mercy end, which resulted in saving the lives of Americans and Japanese." (emphasis added) Further, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it was repeatedly contended that President Truman was right when be ordered the use of the atomic bombs because thereby numberless lives of not only American soldiers but also Japanese were saved. But such an argument has been proved groundless by some leading researchers. (Blackett, 1949; Alperovitz, 1965, 1985 and 1995; Tachibana, 1979)

What aim did the U.S. government have in carrying out the atomic bombing?

Firstly, by demonstrating the enormous destructive power of the atomic bomb, it wanted to establish U.S. hegemony over the world after World War II.

Secondly, it aimed to make mass experiments of the uranium bomb on Hiroshima and the plutonium bomb on Nagasaki to test numberless humans as guinea pigs and thereby to obtain data on its effects in order to make use of them for development of nuclear weaponry.

In this paper I am going to demonstrate my conception of the atomic bombing as being human experimentation.

I. FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE VICTIMS

What did U.S. Military Forces do after the Atomic Bombing?

First of all, I would like to examine the post-bombing policy of the U.S. Forces.

The first order of the U.S. Forces immediately after the occupation was to ban all publication of reports concerning the genocide and destruction caused by the atomic bombs. Thus they wanted to monopolize all information on the bombing. Until the end of the occupation on 28 April 1952, Japanese journalists, writers, cameramen, novelists and scientists were prohibited from reporting on the real situations of the atomic destruction. If they dared to do so, they were threatened with trial before the military tribunals of the Occupation Forces. Many books, including novels, poems and accounts of the events, were censored and often confiscated by American authorities. (Braw, 1986; Horiba, 1995a and 1995b) As a result, the urgent necessity to give medical and other social aid to the atomic victims (the “Hibakusha” in Japanese) was not reported even among Japanese.

Their second step was to prohibit all doctors in Japan from communicating and exchanging, even among themselves, the records of clinical experience and research on the Hibakusha. At that time they, especially in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, tried to do their best to find ways to cure the unheard-of terrible burns and internal disorders caused by atomic heat and radiation. The U.S. Forces further confiscated the samples of burnt or keloid skins, internal organs and blood and the clinical records of the dead and living Hibakusha. (Committee, 1981)

Their third step was to force the Japanese government to refuse any medical aid offered by the International Red Cross.

If a laboratory animal were cured, it would be utterly useless from the standpoint of medical scientific observers. Maybe it was by the same reasoning that the U.S. authorities did their utmost to prevent any medical treatment given to the Hibakusha. “As far as medical aid is concerned, the less the better” was their policy.

Their fourth step was to establish the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) as two institutions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the purpose of observing, not curing, of the hibakusha. Thus, almost all Hibakusha have been treated as if they were only human guinea pigs. Suppose that an assailant continues only to observe a wounded victim for many years after an assault. There is no doubt that such observance itself is nothing but an infringement on human rights.

What did the Japanese Government do to aid the Hibakusha?

I am ashamed to say that the Japanese government did nothing to help the Hibakusha either.

Firstly, its bureaucrats did their utmost to cooperate with the above policy of the U.S. Army toward the Hibakusha. Only two months after the atomic bombing they dissolved the governmental hospitals in charge of medical treatment of the Hibakusha in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a result, many Hibakusha were left on the streets of the devastated cities without any medical treatment, compounding the many difficult post-war economic and social conditions they had to contend with.

Secondly, by orders of the General Head Quarters (GHQ) of the U.S. Occupation Forces, on 21 May 1947, the Japanese National Institute of Health (JNIH, YOKEN in Japanese abbreviation) was founded with half of the staff of the Institute of Infectious Diseases (IID) attached to the University of Tokyo.

During the period of the Japanese invasion of China from 1931 to 1945, the IID had fully cooperated with the notorious Unit 731, that is, the Army unit for bacteriological warfare. (Williams & Wallace, 1989; Harris, 1994) Most of the staff of the JNIH transferred from the University of Tokyo to the Health and Welfare Ministry were medical scientists who had intimately cooperated with the network of Unit 731 in China and Singapore as well as the Laboratory for Infectious Disease Control (LIDC) attached to the Imperial Army's Medical College. The LIDC in Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, was the headquarters for the network of the bacteriological warfare program and its institutions, including most of the medical schools of many universities.

The officially declared aims of the JNIH were to make research on pathogens and vaccines and also to screen the safety of biological products (vaccines, blood products and antibiotics), and thereby to contribute toward preventive medicine and public health under the control of the GHQ. However, there were two hidden objectives of the JNIH. The first was to cooperate with the ABCC. The second was to continue, under the guidance and control of the U.S. Army 406th Medical Laboratory,[1] some uncompleted studies of biological warfare program as schemed up by Unit 731. (Shibata, 1989 and 1990)

As for the first hidden objective, only 13 days after the establishment of the JNIH the GHQ asked it to help the ABCC. Dr. Saburo Kojima, then the first Vice-Director and later the second Director of the JNIH, in his commemorative essay, “Memories on the Past Ten Years of the JNIH,” looking back on its initial stage of cooperation with the ABCC, wrote, “We, the intelligent scientists had equally thought that we must not miss this golden opportunity” [2] to record the medical effects of the A-bomb on humans. He was reportedly one of the leading medical scientists who committed vivisection on Chinese prisoners as human guinea pigs in the network of Unit 731 in China. [3] As such a scientist, very positively appreciating the proposal of the GHQ, he never showed humanistic sentiments towards the Hibakusha, still less a counter-proposal for medical treatment of them. He only betrayed such cold-blooded and calculating words as is cited above.

It is clearly reported in the 1948 Annual Report of the JNIH how eagerly and positively the staff of the JNIH, following the directive of the ABCC, drafted and submitted the “Atomic Bomb Casualty Research Program" to the GHQ. [4] At that time the JNIH branches were set up in the same rooms of the ABCC buildings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The directors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Branches of the JNIH served the vice-directors of the ABCC in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some of the directors of the ABCC were American high ranking military officers (e.g. colonels). 

The JNIH staff intimately helped and cooperated with the staff of the ABCC as a kind of branch of the U.S. Military Forces to check up on conditions of the Hibakusha, doing follow-up research. The staff of the ABCC-JNIH went around threatening the Hibakusha that they would be on trial before the military tribunal of the U.S. Forces if they would not cooperate. With such threats they took the Hibakusha to the ABCC buildings and took off their clothes to photograph them in the nude, took x-rays, collected blood samples, so they could record the relationship between the quantity of radiation and the after-effects of the atomic bomb. (Hiroshima City Council against A and H Bombs, 1966; Chugoku Shimbun, 1995) 

They did not respect the human dignity of the Hibakusha. They treated them as human guinea pigs and recorded them as “samples.” When the Hibakusha died, the ABCC-JNIH staff put pressure on the bereaved to consent to autopsies, and their inner organs, burnt skins and other parts were dissected and taken away.

In such cold and inhumane sentiments, Dr. Keizo Nakamura, the third Director of the JNIH, proudly wrote that the ABCC could not have attained their objective without the cooperation of the JNIH. [5] The information thus collected about the atomic mass experiment on humans was never made public in Japan. It was secretly reported to the U.S. Department of Defense, the Atomic Energy Commission (later the Department of Energy) and other military institutions to be utilized for the improvement of nuclear weapons and reactors.

The post-war Responsibilities of the Japanese Government and the JNIH in Violation of Human Rights of the Hibakusha

Some may excuse the Japanese government and the JNIH under the pretext that they were only forced by the authoritarian power of the GHQ. But this was not the case, because the positive cooperation of the JNIH with the ABCC continued for 28 years from 1947 through to 1975. In 1975 the ABCC had to reorganize itself, and the JNIH was also forced to divorce itself from the former in the face of increasing denunciation on the part of the Hibakusha and the Japanese people. The ABCC was reorganized and renamed the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), funded by both U.S. and Japanese governments. Of course, their character and tasks are almost the same. Their main operations have been and are the follow—up research on the Hibakusha and the renewed cooperation with U.S. military institutions and the nuclear industry.

Thus the physical sufferings and mental agony of the Hibakusha were and have been aggravated by the post-war policy of the U.S. and Japanese governments toward them.

Of course, the Japanese government is to blame for its aggressive wars against Asian countries and then the first-strike on Pearl Harbor. [6] However, this doesn’t justify the U.S. atomic bombing. The nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be denounced as the unheard-of cruel genocide and destruction as well as the most serious violation of international law. (NHK, l977: Committee, 1981) The further misery of the Hibakusha has also been aggravated by the nature of the atomic bombing as a massive test on innocent men and women, young and old.

Someone may still try to justify the atomic bombing on the pretext that it saved a number of lives. Even if true, such a pretext could never justify the fact that the U.S. government, supported by the Japanese government, has done so much to leave the Hibakusha abandoned, uncared-for and uncured after the end of the war. If the above pretext had been true, why didn't it do the best to give medical and other social aid to victims produced by an act of “mercy”? Its post-bombing and post-war policies themselves have demonstrated what so-called “mercy” of the atomic bombing was in reality.

For over fifty years since the bombing, both governments have arrogantly continued to treat and alienate the Hihakusha as human guinea pigs. It is evident that such a political attitude itself deprived them of the feeling of human dignity. If the Japanese government had resisted the U.S. government policy of neglecting the Hibakusha and had done their best to provide them with medical and other social aid immediately after the bombing, the life span of the dead Hibakusha would have been much longer. Their will to live would not have diminished.

The Japanese government and the JNIH should feel deeply responsible in this respect. Why don’t the prime ministers and the directors of the JNIH apologize for their negligence toward the Hibakusha? Why don't they try, in this way, to restore the feeling of human dignity which for almost a half century they have denied these people?

As a professor of Hiroshima University, I have for many years been involved in the sociological, philosophical and ethical study of the agony of the Hibakusha. In this chapter as a result of my research, I tried to shed new light on one of the most important, but hitherto overlooked, aspects of the atomic bombing and the sufferings of the Hibakusha.

As explained, there is no doubt that the Japanese government is responsible for its post-war policy of negligence toward the Hibakusha as well as its violation of their human rights. If the government feels responsible for them, there must he no objection to legislation providing state compensation for the Hihakusha.

II. FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE U.S. MILITARY FORCES AND THE MANHATTAN PROJECT SCIENTISTS

In the previous chapter I submitted my thesis mainly on the basis of the analysis of the post-bombing and post-war policies of the U.S. government toward Hibakusha, especially the no-treatment policy of the ABCC-JNIH. 

As for the prebombing policy of the U.S. government, I don't think that all the principle characters at that time, including Truman, had a conscious intention to use the A-bombs as a means of experimenting on humans from the military and scientific viewpoints.

However, I am convinced there were surely some leading people who, with the cool eyes of an " experimental observer, "viewed the bombing as an experiment on human beings from the military and scientific points of view.

From the Military Standpoint

I checked the following main documents of the Manhattan Project (MP): 

---- Captain W.R. Parson's memorandum "Notes on Initial Meetings of Target Committee" to Rear Admiral W.R. Purnell (l2/12/1944);
---- Brigadier General L. Norstad’s memorandum to Director, Joint Target Group (28/ 4/45);
---- Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer’s memorandum to Brigadier General T.F. Farrell ( 11/5/45);
---- Major J.A. Derry's and Dr. N.F. Ramsey's memorandum to Major General L.R. Groves (12/5/45);
---- Brigadier General L. Norstad's memorandum "Notes of the Interim Committee" to Commanding General, XXI Bomber Command (29/5/45).

Having examined these documents (Yamagiwa, Tachibana & Okada, 1993), I came to the conclusion that the U.S. Armed Forces deliberately planned not only to use the A-bombs on civilians to make the destruction most effective, but also to gain as much information as possible about the “ effects" of the bombs. I think that my thesis is proved by the very quick organization of the Manhattan survey teams going to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Jones, 1985, pp. 543f.)

I cannot but conclude that the atomic bombings were nothing but a kind of massive experiment on human beings from the military point of view.

From the Standpoint of the Manhattan Scientists

I was shocked to learn about one terrible scheme of Oppenheimer in the Manhattan Project (MP). He had a plan to produce radioactively contaminated foods "sufficient to kill half a million men." (Oppenheimer’s letter to Fermi, 25/5/43 ) Such a plan should surely have needed a series of human experiments.

It seems to me that it was in this atmosphere that a number of scientists, in their studies on the effects of radioactivity on the human body. deliberately injected plutonium into humans, including children, hospital patients, veterans, and other people.

According to an important source (The Albuquerque Tribune and Hirose, 1994), Dr. D. L. Hempelman, a leading scientist in the Health Department, Los Alamos Laboratory, sent a plan for human experiments to Oppenheimer on 29/8/44.

Dr. Stafford Warren, chairman of the Radiology Department at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, who was a consultant to the MP, also proposed a program of experiments to compare the effects of radioactivity on human beings and mice.

In March 1945, medical scientists of the MP had a meeting in Los Alamos to make a program of experiments to inject plutonium into patients hospitalized at the University of Rochester and University of Chicago. In a letter of 29/3/45 Oppenheimer assured Stafford Warren that he would help with his plan of human experiments.

As a result, on 10/4/45 Ebeneezer Cade (HP-12), who was hospitalized in the hospital attached to the MP at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, became the first victim injected with plutonium. It was the first plutonium experiment committed by the MP staff.

On 26/4/45 Arthur B. Hubbard (CHI-1) was injected with plutonium at the hospital attached to the University of Chicago. He died on 3/l0/45. Two other patients were also injected with plutonium.

On 14/5/45 Albert Stevens (CAL-1) was injected with plutonium at the hospital of University of California, San Francisco.

As for plutonium experiments on Americans performed after August 1945, I would be able to add a long list of many who were made human guinea pigs, including several hundred thousand "atomic soldiers." (Rosenberg, 1980) 

It is noteworthy that the leading scientists of the MP systematically committed the crime of human experiments even during the pre-bombing period. They sacrificed many fellow Americans as human guinea pigs.

It seems therefore that it would be reasonable for us to assume that these MP scientists also observed “Japs" in atom-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki as human guinea pigs from their scientific point of view.

It was also interesting and not accidental that Dr. Warren, one of the pioneering scientists of human experiments in the MP, was one of two leading American scientists who later strongly recommended the establishment of the ABCC. Another person who also recommended setting up the ABCC was Dr. Shields Warren. The two Warrens were not related by family. (Lindee, 1994)

In the Light of other Facts

I submitted my conception of the atom bombings as human experiments in the light of the pre- and post-bombing policies of the United States government and the MP scientists toward Americans and Hibakusha. Their post-bombing policies toward the latter were assisted by the Japanese government as well, especially the JNIH.

I appreciate Lindee’s description of the inferiority of the JNIH very much. I think that she accurately describes the no-treatment policy of the ABCC-JNIH. I have to stress the fact that the U.S. government, assisted by the Japanese government, not only applied its no-treatment policy to Hibakusha, but also did their utmost to obstruct Hibakusha from receiving care as proved.

Why? In my opinion it can be explained only when we look at the bombings as human experiments. I would like to reinforce my argument by submitting some additional facts.

1. In the light of the above mentioned mentality and morals of some leading American scientists in the period of the pre-bombing, it seems that it was natural for them to see the bombing as such. In this context, the opinion of J.B. Koepfli, scientific advisor to the State Department, deserves to be cited. He wrote the following in a letter to Shield Warren, Director, Division of Biology and Medicine, AEC on 1/6/51:

"The atomic bomb casualty areas in Japan constitute an unparalleled natural laboratory and a unique opportunity particularly for pursuing certain long phases of the studies." (emphasis added). [7]

It seems to me that such an opinion represented a common understanding among most of the MP and ABCC-JNIH scientists.

2. According to a 5/2/93 story from the Kyodo News Agency at Los Angeles the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were described as "experiments" or "tests" in the official records of the nuclear tests issued by the Nevada Office, Department of Energy (DOE).

Every year since the beginning of the 1980s, the revised version of these records, supplemented with the record of new tests, has been published for the mass media and researchers by this Nevada office. Since the first version, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings have been recorded as the second and third "tests," following the first one at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The bombings have been counted as the second and third as a part of the subsequent test series that included the blasts on the Bikini Atoll, the Nevada site and others from 1945 through to the 1990s.

These facts were reported on 7/2/93 in a major article in the Ciwgoku Shimbun. This is an influential local newspaper with a circulation of 700,000 in Hiroshima Prefecture. It is important to recognize that even the Nevada Office, DOE, understood the bombings to be "tests."

III. NECESSITY OF A NEW WAY OF THINKING

Someone might disagree with me because I might have committed a mistake of confusing post-bombing curiosity about the A-bombs’ effects with pre-bombing motives. But I think that I have reconsidered and proved my thesis on the basis of the analysis of not only the post-bombing but also the pre-bombing policies of the U.S. government.

In connection with the above critical comment, I would like to cite my concept of history:

“What is history? History is a process in which, when the past is looked back on, the implication of the past becomes the present, and its historic significance is revealed. History is also a process in which the implication of the past is re-examined and re-written from the standpoint of the present, thereby making clearer the truth about the past, in which process the historic conception of both past and present is changed. This can be said about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the ‘damage’ of those events. The historic implication of this is found in the fact that its truth has been revealed in the process of history." (Shibata, 1982)

I applied this concept of history to the bombings and argued one of the motives of their being carried out was human experimentation.

ln this context, it is further noteworthy that Professor S. Harris submitted an important thesis toward the critique of all kinds of human experimentation in our age. [8] I would say the implication of my concept of the bombings might well be interpreted and understood in the light of his thesis. lt is also ironical that the ABCC was assisted by the JNIH as one of the heirs of the tradition of the medical scientists who committed experiments on humans in the Japanese biological warfare program. Their crimes were covered-up by the American Forces. I fully agree with Professor Susan Lindee, when she characterizes the ABCC and the JNIH as the "colonial science." (Lindee, 1994. Chapter Two)

Not only Japanese but also Americans, including soldiers who were affected by the atomic blast, were treated as guinea pigs. (Sternglass, 1972; Rosenberg. l9B0; Freeman, 1981; Saffer & Kelly, 1982; Wasserman, et al, 1982; Haruna, 1985; Lifton & Mitchell. 1995)

A pioneering American, Hermann Hagedorn had an admirable insight into the atomic bombing i.r1 his poem. (l-lagedorn, 1946) He pointed out that the bombs were dropped not only on Japanese but also on Americans. Another pioneering American philosopher. John Somerville coined the word “ omnicide. " According to him. a nuclear war is no longer a kind of war, but an "omnicide." (Somerville, 1980) This was already proved by the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The victims of nuclear destruction are humanity as a whole, including the so-called enemy as well as friends and allies.

It is in this context that Albert Einstein warned us, "If mankind is to survive, then we need a completely new way of thinking." I hope that those who have tried to justify the Truman argument and supported the Senate Resolution 257 cited at the beginning of this paper will listen to Einstein and reconsider the implication of the nuclear age from the new way of thinking.

Notes

1. The US. Army 406th Medical Laboratory was to be a research unit for preparation of biological warfare in Asia. lt was set up in Yokohama and then in Tokyo immediately after the beginning of the occupation. Later it moved to Sagamihara City near Tokyo and existed there until around 1965. I have no space here to deal with the second hidden aim. 

2. The 1956 Annual Report of the NIH, Tokyo. 1957. p. 30, emphasis added, in Japanese. 

3. See the documentary report entitled "The Unit [or Bacteriological Warfare still Exists," Monthly Shinsu (Truth), N0, 40, April 1959. in Japanese; Williams, P. & Wallace, D. 1989, p. 238. 

4. The 1948 Annual Report of the NIH, Tokyo. 1949. pp. 58-61, in Japanese. 

5. NIH and ABCC, 20 Years of the ABCC, Tokyo, 1966, p. 1, in Japanese. 

6. When we Japanese declare, “No More Hiroshimas!”, Americans very often reply, "Remember Pearl Harbour”. We completely understand and support Americans when they do so. ln fact, Americans and Japanese have to remember Pearl Harbor forever, firstly because those who committed the war crimes in the invaded Asian and Pacific countries including Pearl Harbor have not always been punished, secondly because the bombing of Pearl Harbor was nothing but the first-strike. Nevertheless, it is the U.S. government that has continued to support these Japanese war criminals including Shiro Ishii, the Commander of the infamous Unit 731 and Nobusuke Kishi who was one of the then ministers of the Tojo government. Ishii was later hired and Kishi supported by the U.S. government. It is also strange to see that the U.S. government still sticks to the first-strike policy in a possible nuclear war. Isn't it another Pearl Harbor in a nuclear war, more correctly a global nuclear omnicide? 

7. I am grateful to Mr. Kazuo Yabui, a reporter of the Chugoku Shimbun, who kindly provided me with a copy of this letter. 

8. His thesis deserves to be cited: "Most distressing is the tact that the ultimate disclosures in the mid to late l940s of Japanese biological warfare human experimentation did not appall those individuals who were apprised of these criminal acts. Instead, the disclosures whetted the appetites of scientists and military planners among both the victors and the vanquished. Rather than being motivated to abandon such actions, research using involuntary or uninformed subjects has proliferated over the past fifty years. Scientists in the United States alone conducted at least several hundred tests with human subjects who were not informed of the nature of the experiments, or of the danger to their health." (Harris, 1995, p. x) 

 [The Bibliography goes here in the document. See link to original or embedded version above.] 

Postscript and Acknowledgment

The original version of the chapter I of this paper was written in 1994. A condensed text of it was published in Japanese in the Evening edition of the Mainichi Shimbun, 6/9/1994. Its condensed but longer text in English in the Mairtichi Daily News, 11/11/1994.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 1995. I had an opportunity to meet Dr. Klaus Gottstein, Emeritus Professor at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, and gave him a copy of the paper for his comment. He kindly paid much attention to my paper and sent it to Professor Barton Bernstein at Stanford University, Stanford, California, and asked him to make a comment on it. The kind comments of Professors Gottstein and Bernstein, scientists of international repute, meant a great deal and honor to me. It motivated me to reconsider my thesis and to write a long letter to reinforce my argument as a reply to them. This letter was rewritten and incorporated as Chapter II of this paper. This text is a new enlarged one with added references. I am grateful to both of them for their warm and sincere comments.

I am also grateful to Professor Seiitsu Tachibane, Dr. David Tharp and Mr. David Jordan for their kind and informative suggestions.

When I almost completed this paper for the Seisen Review, Dr Rosalie Bertell, the editor of the International Perspectives in Public Health, Toronto, kindly told me that she would like to print its original text in this journal. It is a great honor to me. However. needless to say, I don’t like to see the old text published in any journal. In this context I asked her to print this new text in her journal as well. I hope the readers of the Seisen Review kindly understand the present paper would soon be printed in the International Perspectives in Public Health, too.

Communication to the author should be addressed : 1-18-6 Toyame, Shinjuku-ku, Toyko 162....

I would add that this copy of Dr. Shingata's essay is reproduced as a public service and under fair use criteria. No money is, has, or will be received for this publication, which is published here to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Additional reading:
"Japanese Biomedical Experimentation During the World-War-II Era" by Sheldon Harris, Ch. 16 of Military Medical Ethics, Vol. 2

"The Pentagon and the Japanese Mengele: The Abominable Dr. Ishii" by Christopher Reed, published at Counterpunch, May 27, 2006

Commission and Omission of History in Occupied Japan (1945-1949) by Stephen Buono, Journal of History, SUNY Binghamton, no date (Accessed 12/8/2012)

Promoting Health in American-Occupied Japan: Resistance to Allied Public Health Measures, 1945-1952 by Sey Nishimura, PhD (see especially the section, ""Suppression of Reports on Medical Effects of Atomic Bombs")

The Atomic Bomb Suppressed: American Censorship in Japan, 1945-1948, by Monica Braw

"Medical Censorship in Occupied Japan, 1945-1948" by Sey Nishimura, Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Feb., 1989), pp. 1-21.

Commission and Omission of History in Occupied Japan (1945-1949) by Stephen Buono, Binghamton University website

New Document Details Arguments About Torture at a JSOC Prison

Journalist Michael Otterman, author of the excellent book, American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond, was kind enough to forward to me some months ago a document he obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. The document consists of the after-action reports made by Colonel Steven Kleinman and Terrence Russell, two of the three team members sent by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) to a top-secret special operations facility in Iraq in September 2003.

The reports, written shortly after both JPRA officials finished their assignment, present two starkly different accounts of what took place that late summer in the depths of a JSOC torture chamber. Even more remarkable, Col. Kleinman, who famously intervened to stop torture interrogations at the facility, had his own report submitted to Russell for comment. Indeed, Kleinman's report as released contains interpolations by Russell, such that the documents become a kind of ersatz debate over torture by the JPRA team members, and at a distance, some of the Task Force members.

This extraordinary document is being posted here in full for the first time. Click here to download.

"Cleared Hot"

Kleinman told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), which in 2008 was investigating detainee abuse in the military (large PDF), that he thought as Team Leader (and Intelligence Director at JPRA's Personnel Recovery Academy) he was being sent to the Special Mission Unit Task Force interrogation facility to identify problems with their interrogation program.

Much to his surprise, he and his JPRA team were being asked to provide training in the kind of techniques originally used only for demonstration and "classroom" experience purposes in the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, or SERE program. (JPRA has organizational supervisory control over SERE, though the constituent arms of the military services retain some independence in how they run their programs.)

But not far into his mission, JPRA's Commander, Colonel Randy Moulton, told Kleinman and his team they were "'cleared hot' to employ the full range of JPRA methods to include specifically the following: Walling - Sleep Deprivation - Isolation - Physical Pressures (to include stress positions, facial and stomach slaps, and finger pokes to chest) - Space/Time Disorientation - White Noise".

The story of the JPRA team visit and how it went bad, how Kleinman intervened when he saw a kneeling prisoner being repeatedly slapped, how he refused to write up a torture interrogation protocol for use at the TF facility -- widely believed to be Task Force 20 (as reported by Jane Mayer in her book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals) -- has been told at this point a number of times.

But never has the degree of acrimony and conflict that went on between Kleinman and his other JPRA team members, and the back and forth with superiors and TF personnel been so carefully detailed.

Russell, who was a civilian manager for JPRA's Research and Development division, was in particular open about why the team had been sent, and who they were helping. Kleinman, on the other hand, explained in his report at the outset that a nondisclosure agreement put "significant limitations on the details of our actions that can be reported herein."

Russell was not so reticent. He's quite clear the purpose of the TDY (temporary assignment) was "To provide support to on-going interrogation efforts being conducted by JSOC/TF-20 elements at their Battlefield Interrogation Facility (BIF).... At the request of JSOC, a JPRA support team was formed to advice [sic] and assist in on-going interrogations against hostile elements operating against Coalition Forces in Iraq. The mission of the TF-20 interrogation element, J2-X, was to exploit captured enemy personnel and extract timely, actionable intelligence to support operations that would lead to the capture of 'Black List' and other high-value and terrorist personnel."

According to Russell, "TF-20's deputy commander and JPRA/CC [that is, Commander, who was Col. Randy Moulton] approved the support team to become fully engaged in interrogation operations and demonstrate our exploitation tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) to the J2-X staff."

"A lack of clear guidance"

Whatever the understanding of the team when it arrived, from the very beginning there was a debate over the "effectiveness" of the techniques being discussed. Kleinman noted "a lack of clear guidance on the legal status of the detainees and the absence of definitive directions pertaining to the treatment of those detainees."

According to the 2008 SASC report, TF-20 was operating under the same interrogation SOP that a similar special forces task force had used in Afghanistan. But this was also a time when there was a lot of turmoil with the Department of Defense over exactly what interrogation techniques were "legal." Indeed, only days before Kleinman and his team arrived at the BIF, Major General Geoffrey Miller had come to Iraq to assess detention and interrogation operations five months after the invasion of Iraq by U.S. forces. He counseled the military in Iraq to "get tougher with detainees."

The 2002 Special Forces TF interrogation SOP for Afghanistan is apparently still classified, but we know from other sources that it included use of sensory overload ("loud music"), sleep deprivation, 20-hour interrogations, stress positions, "controlled fear," and use of dogs, among other torture techniques.

Once at the BIF, Kleinman saw "clear violations" of the Geneva Conventions and "acted to terminate the activity," according to his own after-action report. It's amazing to then have the opportunity to see what the other senior JPRA-SERE official at the site had to say.

Russell commented on this portion of Kleinman's report: "I think the clear violation of the TF policy was of a minor nature -- that being a 10-minute extension of the kneeling policy. The use of insult slaps was, in the opinion of [one or two words redacted], serious enough to stop the interrogation -- an action I did not then or now feel warranted his [Kleinman's] direct intervention.... This direct intervention by JPRA staff, vs. having their own chain of command step in, resulted in irrevocable damage of our relationship with [TF] staff."

While Russell was given an opportunity to counter Kleinman's narrative, Kleinman received no such reciprocal courtesy. He told me in a voicemail message in January 2012 he had written his report assuming it was "eyes only for the commander."

He continued: "And oddly enough, I never saw Terry’s [i.e., Terrence Russell's report] until months and months later, I think when the investigation started. And what I didn’t know was Terry was given immediate access to mine and was able to try to respond point for point without me being able to respond to his responses. Also my copy, when I went to look for it on the official email, had disappeared for quite a while. And so anyway, there was a lot of weird things going on at the time, as you can imagine."

The "Effectiveness" Question

A full analysis of this remarkable document would take up too much space for a blog post, but it's important to point out one exchange between Kleinman and Russell in regards to differences over the "effectiveness" of the SERE and other interrogation and torture techniques, as the discussion strangely presages the debate about the efficacy of torture that has surrounded the controversial film Zero Dark Thirty.

Kleinman argued to his commander in his after-action report, "While JPRA simulates methods employed by nations not compliant with the GC [Geneva Convention] provisions, U.S. interrogators are bound by federal law to operate in strict accordance with those guidelines. [2 lines redacted] Intelligence interrogation involved, to a considerable degree, the recruitment of a detainee's willing cooperation through the skilled employment of psychological levers that do not include the presentation of threats either explicitly or implicitly."

Russell countered: "While some few of the tools employed, namely some physical pressures, are outside GC guidelines, [1-1/2 lines redacted] This is routinely done with little use of tactics prohibited by the GCs."

Kleinman then discussed his own experiences as an interrogator, concluding, "... the use of non-coercive methods have proven far more effective in obtaining reliable and actionable intelligence than coercive methods. Recent studies of interrogation in support of the global war on terrorism corroborate this finding; conversely, the use of coercive methods has consistently proven to be ineffective and counterproductive."

Russell took umbrage at this, and referencing studies on interrogation done at Guantanamo, made his case for the use of coercive techniques, unconsciously echoing the words of Bruce Jessen, made years before in notes for the construction of a SERE instruction class that he and James Mitchell (and possibly others) would reverse-engineer into the "enhanced interrogation program" of the Bush years.

"In regards to the recent study on effectiveness at GTMO," Russell wrote, "of which there is plenty of room to debate whether or not that have had [sic] much success, there are a number of major variables not here addressed. GTMO is a strategic interrogation/debriefing facility -- not a battlefield interrogation facility. In addition, a key component of the process of exploiting a source is to get them to a mental state of despair and recognition of the omnipotence of the interrogator. Once in that state, the exploiter can offer a way out -- namely cooperation via non-coercive methods. At GTMO they have the luxury of holding a person for 18-24 months in a facility cut off from family, country, and support systems, with seemingly no end in site [sic], that would cause most rationale [sic] persons to move into a state of despair. A battlefield/tactical interrogation facility does not have that time luxury -- the requirement to put a resistant detainee into a state of despair must and can be accelerated though the use of coercive exploitation applied IAW [in accordance with] directives, well-considered SOPs and ROEs [Rules of Engagement]. Once there, non-coercive methods are employed to gain the reliable information sought."

Russell's statement is remarkable enough, but I asked Kleinman some time ago what "effectiveness" studies he and Russell were referring to. Kleinman told me that he was referring to many different kinds of studies going back to the Cold War years. He didn't believe Russell had any "study on effectiveness at GTMO" that he could actually refer to.

But after checking around, I discovered there appears to be such a study done by Major General Miller himself. In early 2003, Miller, who was then Commander Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, had submitted a document to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's Working Group on interrogations, looking into what extended set of coercive methods would be allowable for use by DoD interrogators. Miller titled his four page paper, Effectiveness of the Use of Certain Category II Counter-resistance Strategies. It was published later as Enclosure 66 of the Schmidt-Furlow Report, "Investigation into Federal Bureau of Investigation Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantánamo Bay Detention Center."

According to the ACLU, the memo "is a response to the Director's request for info concerning the effectiveness of interrogation techniques approved by the Secretary of Defense. 'Included with this memo is a timeline of interrogation techniques used, info obtained as a result and justifications for their use', but this info is either redacted or not present. 'Numerous detainees demonstrated counter-resistance techniques. Consequently, [redacted] Commander, JTF-170 requested authorization to employ specific techniques in addition to those in the Field Manual. These techniques were approved by the Secretary of Defense.'"

I can't know for sure if this was Russell's GTMO "effectiveness" document or not, but it would seem like a prime candidate (unless Kleinman was right and Russell never knew of any actual study). Since the document is nearly entirely censored, we can't know for sure, nor we do know how such "effectiveness" was studied.

I was unable to find a way to reach Russell to obtain his comment.

Today, Kleinman is Director for Strategic Research for The Soufan Group, according to a webpage at the company's website.

High-Value Interrogation Group and Current Research on Interrogation "Effectiveness"

The current official DoD directive on interrogation specifically disallows the use of SERE-derived interrogation techniques. However, it does task the Director, Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC), with "assessment of the effectiveness of intelligence interrogations."

According to a March 2011 report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (large PDF), the administration's High-Value Interrogation Group (HIG) is currently responsible for some of this research. The report states, "The HIG also has responsibilities concerning improving the training of interrogators and sponsoring research on interrogation." Presumably, that includes research on the "effectiveness" of interrogation methods.

How that research is conducted, and the ethics that inform such a project, are kept secret. Recently, however, one HIG researcher, psychologist Susan Brandon, who also works for DCHC, was known to be involved in research on the case of the supposed (and confessed) Iranian-American would-be assassin, Mansour Arbabsiar.

The HIG's tasking for interrogation research was echoed in remarks to the press by then Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair in February 2010, according to a story by AFP.

An elite US interrogation unit will conduct "scientific research" to find better ways of questioning top suspected terrorists, US intelligence director Dennis Blair said Wednesday.

"It is going to do scientific research on that long-neglected area," Blair told the House Intelligence Committee, without elaborating on the nature of the techniques being tested.

A spokesman for Blair, Ross Feinstein, also declined to detail "specific research projects" but stressed that any such projects would follow US law, which forbids torture, and abide by internal review safeguards.