Aid and Comfort for Torturers: Psychology and Coercive Interrogations in Historical Perspective

The Association leadership has worked persistently to protect the ability of psychologists to participate in "national security" interrogations, even, at times, claiming an ethical obligation to do so to prevent harm to society, presumably from the "terrorists" imprisoned there for the last five years. [See also Olivia Moorehead-Slaughter’s report on the PENS Task Force she chaired: "as experts in human behavior, psychologists contribute to effective interrogations."]

These efforts have paid off: On June 7, 2006 the New York Times reported:

"Pentagon officials said Tuesday that they would try to use only psychologists, and not psychiatrists, to help interrogators devise strategies to get information from detainees at places like Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The new policy follows by little more than two weeks an overwhelming vote by the American Psychiatric Association discouraging its members from participating in those efforts.

Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told reporters that the new policy favoring the use of psychologists over psychiatrists was a recognition of differing positions taken by their respective professional groups."

Thus did psychologist score a major victory over their ancient enemy, the psychiatrists.

Guantánamo Today

On January 8, 2007, British attorney Brent Mickum wrote of his two clients, Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, in Guantánamo's lost souls on the website of the British newspaper the Guardian. These two men are known from extensive evidence almost certainly to be innocent:

Bisher al-Rawi is, slowly but surely, slipping into madness….

The diminution of Bisher's mental faculties has not taken place all at once. Gradually, over time, Bisher simply has worn down. He no longer has the power to withstand the ravages of psychological isolation and the constant abuse he suffers…. To be sure, Bisher is not the only affected prisoner; attorneys representing other prisoners at Guantánamo report that clients who are being kept in isolation are going insane.….

Bisher's world is a 6 by 8-foot cell in Camp V, where alleged "non-compliant" prisoners are incarcerated. After years and hundreds of interrogations, Bisher finally refused to be interrogated further. Despite the fact that Guantánamo officials have publicly proclaimed that prisoners are no longer required to participate in interrogations, Bisher is deemed non-compliant and tortured daily.

Solitary confinement is but a single aspect of the torture that Bisher endures on a daily basis. While in isolation, Bisher has been constantly subjected to severe temperature extremes and other sensory torments, many of which are part of a sleep deprivation program that never abates. Frequently, Bisher's cell is unbearably cold because the air conditioning is turned up to the maximum. Sometimes, his captors take his orange jumpsuit and sheet, leaving him only in his shorts. For a week at a time, Bisher constantly shivers and is unable to sleep because of the extreme cold. Once, when Bisher attempted to warm himself by covering himself with his prayer rug, one of the few "comfort items" permitted to him, his guards removed it for "misuse". On other occasions, the heat is allowed to become so unbearable that breathing is difficult and labored. For a week at a time, all Bisher can do is lie completely still, sweat pouring off his body during the day when the Cuban heat can reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature inside Camp V is even higher.

Bisher is allowed no contact with fellow prisoners. Bright lights are kept on 24 hours a day. Bisher is given 15 sheets of toilet paper per day, but because he used his sheets to cover his eyes to help him to sleep, his toilet paper - considered another comfort item…has been removed for "misuse". Accordingly, he is no longer receives his daily ration of 15 sheets of toilet paper. Imagine being in the position of having to make a choice between using your tiny allotment of toilet paper for the purpose for which it was intended or using it to sleep, and then having it removed altogether.

Dinner never arrives before 9.30pm and sometimes comes as late as 12.00am. It is almost always cold. Changes of clothing take place at midnight when prisoners are given a single, thin cotton sheet for sleeping. Thereafter, a noisy library cart is dragged through the corridors; Bisher has been denied library privileges for some time, but the library cart and the noise are constant reminders that he is afforded no intellectual stimulation. Prisoners are unable to sleep until close to 1.00am. They are awakened at 5.00am, when each is required to return his sheet. All of Bisher's legal documents and family photographs were seized in June and have never been returned."

About the other prisoner he represents, Jamil el-Banna, this attorney reports:

"I have see[n] letters from Jamil's youngest children on my visits to Guantánamo, one-page letters that are heavily redacted by military censors. What is the offending language that the military has seen fit to redact? Language like "Daddy, I love you" and "Daddy, I miss you." How do I know? Because on my instructions, Jamil's wife has saved copies of the letters her children sent."

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