"An absolute prohibition against the following techniques": " isolation". Psychologists are absolutely prohibited from knowingly planning, designing, participating in or assisting in the use of all condemned techniques at any time and may not enlist others to employ these techniques in order to circumvent this resolution's prohibition.
The CITF/FBI interrogation plan for al-Qahtani indicates that Gelles clearly engaged in a prohibited activity: "knowingly planning, designing" the use of " condemned techniques" and may not enlist others to employ these techniques". Interestingly, when I raised concerns about the loophole regarding isolation in the 2007 Resolution at the APA convention the day after its passage, Gelles said to me "Steve, you have to understand that isolation is often used only very temporarily, only for a few hours [quote from memory]. He did not mention its use for months at Guantanamo nor his team's recommendation that it be used for up to a year on al-Qahtani.
Another ethical concern arises from the reported psychological distress that al-Qahtani was experiencing prior to the CITF/FBI interrogation plan being developed. The interrogation plan notes al-Qahtani's psychotic symptoms, but, other than suggesting a mental evaluation, they simply view his vulnerability as an opportunity for exploitation. This ignoring of al-Qahtani's mental distress violates the fundamental Principle A undergirding the entire APA ethics code:
"Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm. In their professional actions, psychologists seek to safeguard the welfare and rights of those with whom they interact professionally and other affected persons". When conflicts occur among psychologists' obligations or concerns, they attempt to resolve these conflicts in a responsible fashion that avoids or minimizes harm.
There is simply no evidence that Gelles and the other authors of this plan sought to "avoid or minimize harm. Rather, as the plan makes clear, their intention was to systematically increase and exploit distress and disorientation experienced by al-Qahtani, in violation of the ethics code.
The entire plan, with its emphasis on "exploit[ing] al-Qahtani's need for human contact violates the ethic's code's ban on exploitation:
"Psychologists do not exploit persons over whom they have supervisory, evaluative, or other authority such as clients/patients, students, supervisees, research participants, and employees. [Ethics Standard 3.08]
Clearly Gelles and the other mental health professionals had, at a minimum, "evaluative authority over al-Qahtani as they developed their plans to exploit his weaknesses.
Counterintelligence operative DeBatto also expressed concerns regarding the plan's proposal to impose additional stressors on al-Qahtani in order to render him more dependent upon the interrogator. As expressed by DeBatto:
"Depriving him of sheets, a mirror and adding other 'stressors' is utter nonsense and counterproductive. He has already endured months of stressors. Forcing him to endure more as a form of a 'stick and carrot' approach will produce nothing of value. It also violates the interrogators' ethical training and is blatantly in violation of U.S. and international law.
Gelles' proposals in the al-Qahtani case must be deemed unethical and, if executed, would have constituted gross violations of the APA Ethics code, as the APA itself asserted in detailing unethical conduct in detainee treatment in its resolutions of 2007 and 2008. The APA's parading Gelles as a "heroic upholder of ethical standards for military interrogations must be revisited. Gelles now joins the ranks of other APA psychologists, including Morgan Banks, Larry James, and Bryce Lefever, whom the organization upheld as models for ethical military interrogation processes, but who subsequently appeared sympathetic to or may have aided abusive practices.
As psychologist Jeffrey Kaye pointed out last summer in two articles [see my commentary here] ethical concerns about Gelles' pre-Guantanamo interrogation actions had already been raised with the APA long prior to APA's lauding him as the standard-bearer for psychological ethics in interrogations. Attorney Jonathan Turley reported filing an APA ethics complaint against Gelles for abuses in the prolonged isolation and interrogation of Navy Chief Petty Officer Daniel King, following an ambiguous polygraph result. As described by Turley in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, King requested a mental health consultation because he felt he was losing his grip on reality. Dr. Gelles met with King for a consultation and, according to Turley, ignored King's reports of suicidal thoughts. Instead, Gelles made help for King contingent upon King's confession to espionage charges he had denied. Turley, who represented King, reports that the APA did not respond to his ethics complaint against Gelles. To our knowledge, the APA has never commented publicly on Turley's charges, or on the ethics of Gelles' treatment of King.
In any case, it turns out that Gelles was well aware of the potential ethical conflicts involved in his work with the CITF. In a 2003 paper in the Journal of Threat Assessment, apparently written at about the same time, Gelles and colleague Patrick Ewing argued that psychiatrists and psychologists involved in national security work should not be subject to professional ethics codes:
"Given the grave dangers faced by the United States and its allies post September 11, the government can ill afford to lose the input of psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals in cases involving national safety and security. Such input has been and will continue to be vital to protecting the lives of many Americans, civilian and military, at home and abroad. In order to maintain the ability and willingness of these dedicated professionals to continue in these roles, we cannot continue to place them in situations where the ethics of their conduct will be judged, post hoc, either by rules that have little if any relevance to their vital governmental functions or by professional organizations or licensing authorities based upon the weight the members of these bodies chose to afford competing interests" (p. 106).
In 2005, two years after this article appeared, Gelles, along with James, Banks, and Lefever, was appointed by the APA, to the seminal APA Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS). This military- and intelligence-dominated group gave the ethical go-ahead for psychologists to aid detainee interrogations at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
In an open letter in 2007, psychologist Uwe Jacobs posed a series of questions to Dr. Gelles including:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
