At the risk of “Hoffman fatigue” I write my critique of Drs. Banks, Dunivin, James, and Newman’s message because I find it so distorted that I feel compelled to write down my reaction, even though I know others have done the same.
In response to the Kaufman report, Drs. Morgan Banks, Debra Dunivin, Larry C. James, and Russ Newman have written what they regard as a critique of the report. The first three are or were military psychologists who served in Guantanamo and Russ Newman is the spouse of Debra Dunivin. Dr. Dunivin was what is known as a “BSCT” or member of a Behavioral Science Consulting Team, the organization of mental health professional experts who participated in the interrogation of Guantanamo detainees. Dr. Banks, although not an APA member, was appointed to the PENS Task Force along with Dr. James, who is an APA member. The military connections of this group virtually consume their roles as psychologists. In fact, Dr. Banks’ presence on the PENS TF has been questioned by APA critics as a clear conflict of interest because Dr. Banks’ military occupation would seem to give him a personal stake in the outcome of the PENS process, and that is very definition of conflict of interest. Dr. Newman who as a supposed “observer” of the PENS meetings was vociferous and controlling of the discussion according to the civilian members of the TF,also had a conflict of interest because his wife was a BSCT in Guantanamo, and she could well be personally affected by the outcome of the PENS meeting. Dr. Newman, as her husband, clearly had a personal stake in the outcome, but he did not even reveal the fact that he was married to a military servicewoman who was employed in Guantanamo at the time the PENS group was convened.
I think there was a clear conflict of interest in the PENS process by two voting and one non-voting participant and the fact that the fourth author was a military person serving in Guantanamo as a BSCT at the time of PENS. BSCTs were the very group the PENS TF was supposed to be establishing principles and ethics for.. This is important because one of the authors primary charges is that Hoffman is biased. The authors have difficulty showing why Hoffman would be biased against them. The primary rationale offered is that Hoffman is a former prosecutor. But, nowhere in their three plus single spaced pages do they show any facts that Mr. Hoffman got wrong. In fact, Hoffman documents all his charges from emails, messages, and notes from the principals involved, whereas the authors do not point to any such evidence to substantiate their claim that Mr. Hoffman is biased. The best they can do is to claim that because he is a former prosecutor, he is ready to convict on paper. That is a stretch considering that Mr. Hoffman takes pains to say he did not find evidence of collusion with the CIA despite the abundance of evidence he found for collusion with the military. Where was his unflinching prosecutorial bias when discussing the CIA? The authors, like other apologists for the APA, emphasized that Hoffman found no collusion with the CIA, a fact they take to show that the APA was exonerated from any wrongdoing with the CIA. In this part of the report, they accept Hoffman’s findings without reservation. But, when Hoffman does find collusion with the Department of Defense (DoD), they regard him as biased.
Most importantly, while the authors make very serious charges that Hoffman is biased and uses “grandstanding rhetoric,” they do not provide any evidence, not even the slightest bit of evidence, to back up this claim. They claim their charge of bias is supported by the fact that the first few pages of the report are devoted to “attacks on the APA’s actions” but none to the views of those who “contributed to APA’s efforts to counter abusive interrogation methods….” The focus is of course on the critics because it is criticism of the APA that gave rise to the independent investigation. By calling the apologists for APA contributors to “APA’s efforts to counter abusive interrogation methods” they of course draw the conclusion before the investigation. Taking the authors at their word, if the report had purported to be looking at the claims of “contributors to APA’s efforts” to counter abusive techniques, the report would have been guilty of drawing conclusions before the investigation, that is to say, of egregious bias. And by using that phrase, the authors are guilty of precisely that. But, we can delete that bias by labeling the apologists of APA “APA supporters.” So, Hoffman is accused of bias by recounting the charges of the APA critics while giving no voice to the apologists of APA. This is a bogus charge because Hoffman had to begin with the purpose of the report which is instigated by criticism of APA. He does note that the defenders of APA have replied by attacking the critics because that is exactly how the APA and its supporters have responded. They have not given any credence to the critics of APA, being content to call them bullies and other names. And, the current statement by four APA apologists is yet another example of defending APA not with evidence but with unsubstantiated charges.
The authors go on to claim that they worked “diligently, energetically, and effectively” to prevent abusive interrogation methods. They then refer to two documents to support their claim that military psychologists did not participate in abusive practices: the Army Surgeon General report concluding that military psychologists did not participate in abuse; and the PENS TF report that states psychologists do not engage in torture. The Army Surgeon General Report is, of course, a case of the Army investigating itself. While the authors are vehement in their unsupported claim that Mr. Hoffman is biased, they do not even mention the clear bias in using the Army’s investigation of itself as evidence that military psychologists did nothing wrong. If the Army had concluded that military psychologists were engaged in abuse, it might well have come to light that such malfeasance was only a part of a general pattern of torture and cruel inhumane and degrading treatment. And in fact, the independent investigation conducted by the International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 2003 found rampant abuse including practices that meet the international definiton of torture and found that American trained psychologists and psychiatrists were consulting on the use of these techniques. In one case, the psychologist was in the room directing the torture.
In addition, one need only look at the Office of Inspector General report of 2004 to see documentation of routine behavior among the staff at Guantanamo , some of whom were psychologists, that constitutes torture under international law as well as practices that fit the definition of cruel, inhumane, degrading treatment. Psychologists were a part of the Standard Operating Procedure that included “softening up” detainees and sleep deprivation, clear violations of standard human rights and, again, torture under international law. This is stated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense, made public only pursuant to a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
As to the PENS report, it provides, of course, no evidence, only a statement that relies on the (at the time) American definition of torture which has no basis in international law and allows techniques that are torture by any accepted international definition, so it is not meaningful to refer to the PENS report as exonerating the APA or any individual. To the contrary, the loophole that allows torture while claiming to oppose it was a blight on the organization and motivated a backing away from it.
In fact, the wording of the PENS report is a function of the fact that Stephen Behnke ran every provision by Morgan Banks, for his approval before Behnke included it in the report. And, it is this collusion that is the heart of Hoffman’s charge that the APA colluded with the military without the knowledge of APA members. The statement by these four authors is so consumed with the claim that psychologists did nothing wrong that it makes no mention of the collusion between APA and the military that is the central charge of the Hoffman report. There is not one piece of evidence they point to that disputes that central claim. Their assertion that psychologists were innocent of any wrongdoing is belied by the facts as set forth by every independent investigation that has been conducted on the detention sites, and now ithe Hoffman investigation of the APA shows the collusion of the APA in ensuring that the military interrogations would not be any more restrictive than the military’s own rules.
In an effort to shorten this critique, I will refer only briefly to the statement’s final list of points.
1. The report’s conclusion that the APA motive was to curry favor with the military is attacked as “reprehensible” and “implausible” with no evidence whatsoever to support that claim. In fact, currying favor with the DoD would seem like the most likely explanation given the alacrity with which the APA leaped at the opportunity to claim a preeminent place for itself in the military after the American Psychiatric Association refused to condone participation by its members in coercive interrogations. One should also consider that Dr. Ron Levant, after a trip to Guantanamo said the purpose was to see employment opportunities for psychologists. Such was the mentality of the leaders of APA.
2. The Hoffman report contends that Col. Banks wanted to keep the emails private, not to hide the collusion, but because Col. Banks wanted to avoid others’ thinking he was speaking for the military. Since a simple disclaimer that “I speak only for myself” would do, this claim is implausible. It makes more sense to think that Col.Banks was trying to keep all secret so that no one would find out what the APA was up to. The entire process was hidden from the members, they even tried to keep the members of the PENS TF secret.
3. The role of staff that Mr. Hoffman finds has to do with Dr. Newman taking an active role in PENS despite being an “observer” and Dr. Behnke adopting policy himself with only military people in his decision making process, out of the view of APA members. The authors may find nothing wrong with this, but it amounts to staff directing the organization in a surreptitious manner without any knowledge of the members.
4. Finally, the report concludes with the charge that Hoffman is only interested in information that opposes APA policy, and, in fact, ignores the evidence that supports the APA position. The authors refer to three documents: the report of the Army Surgeon General 2005, the 2008 report of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the 2009 report ordered by President Obama. I have already indicated that the first is the Army investigating itself, and the other two do not, in my view, reach conclusions opposed to those of Hoffman, as claimed. Furthermore, the Senate Armed Services report on torture found rampant abuses with torture as a common occurrence in Guantanamo. And the 2009 DoD report ordered by President Obama found much less abuse because by then the situation had changed. But, that in no way opposes Hoffman’s conclusions. The DoD report did not go into the actions of the APA from 2002 to 2006 the way Hoffman did and they did not attempt to assess the actions of the APA in the same way that Hoffman did. Neither the Armed Services report nor the Obama inspired report exonerated anyone from that era. Again, these authors refuse to acknowledge all the independent investigation prior to Hoffman that found abuse at Guantanamo and other sites.
Frank Summers, Ph.D., ABPP APA Fellow