Responding to the International Committee of the Red Cross report documenting the involvement of medical personnel in torture and abuse of detainees, the Times concludes:

The report underscores the need to have a full-scale investigation into these abusive practices and into who precisely participated in them. Only then will we know whether indictments or, in the case of physicians, the loss of medical licenses, are warranted.

An investigation into torture and abuse is not merely supported by both law and medical ethics, it is an imperative. The legal prohibition against torture, which includes attempt, complicity and participation, imposes the duty to investigate alleged abuse. The ethical principles enshrined in the Declaration of Tokyo, adopted by the World Medical Association and the American Medical Association, prohibits participation of physicians in torture and all forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. This includes providing “knowledge” to “facilitate the practice of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” It also prohibits the physician’s presence when any of these practices take place.

Continued inaction by Congress, the President, health professionals and American citizens makes a mockery of the rule of law, human rights and medical ethics. As evidence mounts and calls for accountability go unheeded, the shroud of torture hangs heavy.

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Abu Zubaydah, allegedly the first detainee held at the black sites, states the following:

Cold water from a bottle that had been kept in a fridge was then poured onto the cloth by one of the guards so that I could not breathe…. The cloth was then removed and the bed was put into a vertical position. The whole process was then repeated during about one hour. Injuries to my ankles and wrists also occurred during the water-boarding as I struggled in the panic of not being able to breath. Female interrogators were also present…and a doctor was always present, standing out of sight behind the head of [the] bed, but I saw him when he came to fix a clip to my finger which was connected to a machine. I think it was to measure my pulse and oxygen content in my blood. So they could take me to [the] breaking point.

Health professional supervision of torture is one of the gravest affronts to medical ethics and is illegal under both domestic and international anti-torture law. Danner’s disclosure of the ICRC report on detainee treatment in CIA custody is shocking but not suprising. For years evidence has been mounting through news articles, government investigations, and even the statements of Bush Administration officials that health professionals were centrally complicit in the breaking of bodies and minds at the black sites, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere.

Now, as pressure mounts on Capitol Hill for a commission of inquiry into detainee abuses, the work of PHR’s Campaign Against Torture is more relevant and critical than ever. PHR is leading the charge to ensure that violations of medical ethics, such as those documented by Danner, are fully investigated and perpetrators are held to account.

Scott Allen, MD, is Medical Advisor for Physicians for Human Rights

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“Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech a few hours before the documents were released. “Not only is that school of thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good.”

The newly released documents illustrate just how far off the reservation the Bush team went to violate Constitutional rights in the name of fighting terror.

The legal memos written by the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel show a government grappling with how to wage war on terrorism in a fast-changing world. The conclusion, reiterated in page after page of documents, was that the president had broad authority to set aside constitutional rights.

Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure, for instance, did not apply in the United States as long as the president was combatting terrorism, the Justice Department said in an Oct. 23, 2001, memo.

“First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote, adding later: “The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

Yep. Those same Republicans that preach the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution, willfully violated it.

Just earlier this week, Rush Limbaugh proclaimed:

We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Of course, Limbaugh apparently doesn’t know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution…but whatever, right?

He further stated:

Well, the Constitution doesn’t need to be redefined.

Oops. Bush did exactly that, Mr. Limbaugh. Are you going to chastise him? Is Bush Un-American? Is he a criminal?

Just wondering.

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