Do No Harm? Gitmo Medics Violated Ethics

(AP)  Medical professionals who monitored CIA interrogations at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility violated medical ethics, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a report disclosed Monday.

The 2007 report, based on interviews with 14 "high value detainees" who were sent to Guantanamo in September 2006, said the health personnel monitored detainees as they were subjected to techniques such as waterboarding - which simulates drowning - and prolonged stress positions.

In some cases, the Red Cross reported, medical staff recommended stopping the treatment; in others they "recommended its continuation, but with adjustments."

One detainee told the Red Cross "that a health person threatened that medical care would be conditional upon cooperation with the interrogators."

The report said the health personnel's "primary purpose appears to have been to serve the interrogation process, and not the patient."

"The interrogation process is contrary to international law," the Red Cross said, "and the participation in such a process is contrary to international standards of medical ethics."

The confidential 43-page report was published Monday on the Web site of The New York Review of Books.

Journalist Mark Danner, who obtained the report, revealed some of its findings last month in an article in the Review. [See CBS News: "Red Cross: Torture Committed At CIA Sites" (3/16/09)]

An excerpt:

"For certain methods, notably suffocation by water, the health personnel were allegedly directly participating in the infliction of the ill-treatment. In one case, it was alleged that health personnel actively monitored a detainee's oxygen saturation using what, from the description of the detainee of a device placed over the finger, appeared to be a pulse oxymeter. For example, Mr. Khaled Shaik Mohammed alleged that on several occasions the suffocation method was stopped on the intervention of a health person who was present in the room each time this procedure was used."

The neutral, Swiss-based ICRC is designated by the Geneva Conventions on warfare to visit prisoners of war and other people detained by an occupying power, to ensure countries respect their obligations under the 1949 accords. The ICRC was granted private access by the Bush administration to the 14 prisoners after they were moved from secret interrogation sites and prisons to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in 2006.

The report was written shortly after then-President George W. Bush publicly declared that the United States does not and had not tortured detainees at secret CIA prisons known as "black sites."

The Obama administration has ordered the sites closed and has restricted the CIA to using only those interrogation methods approved for use by the U.S. military until a complete review of the program is conducted.


For more info:

Red Cross report: ICRC Report on the Treatment Of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody ("Strictly Confidential," dated February 2007)

[casionova]

"Obama bows to Saudi king"

Yeah, but Bush liked to hold hands with him and pal around with Bandar

[nolies74621]

Obama bows to Saudi king
Greeting called 'most unbecoming for president of the United States'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: April 02, 2009
4:12 pm Eastern


By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily


President Obama greeted the king of Saudi Arabia with a full bow from the waist yesterday, a move one commentator described as a violation of protocol and not worthy of the office he holds.

"I am quite certain that this is not the protocol, and is most unbecoming a president of the United States," writes Clarice Feldman in an American Thinker commentary.

The situation developed as leaders of the world attending the G20 summit in London assembled for a photograph to mark the event.

In this first image, after the king extended his hand while Obama approached, Obama bends from the waist until his head is nearly at the monarch's waist:



OK! I saw the video and was shocked. How could the so called POTUS bow to a Monarch. I guess he wants oil. Any defense for the exhaulted messiahs' actions on this total lack of guts? He may as well have said to the world that America will BOW TO ANYONE and pretty much supplicated the US to the entire world. WEAK,WEAK,WEAK. So much for the intelligence and dignity factor. Now I have seen it all. Why is'nt CBS covering this?

[cmc1227]

This would be awesome training for the medics, having to revive someone after drowning. They do this in S.E.A.L. training as well.

[tincup356]

Our government used torture on Enemy combatants,,,,,,who is to say they will not rename any citizen who goes against their criminal actions and do the same?...............We should not allow our elected officials to do things like this....people will say ...you have to get information......but when the government uses methods that are terrorist...then what is their purpose? to be just like the enemy that they condemn? ......It is a sad day when those who claim to be in the interest of justice,,,,,BOW to the lows of what they say is terrorism.

[babooph]

The Bush bunch it seems had their own Dr Mengelas .

[inachu1]

Simple and effective way to stop water boarding. put the water boarder contoller family in same condition and have one man dressed as jesus upside down and ready to

[mgkonyx]

For those of you whinging about torture keeping you safe from terrorists, governments that allow such torture more often than not eventually use those techniques on their own citizens. By condoning torture for others, you put your own rights and safety at risk. The fact that you fail to realize this is short-sighted and naive in the extreme.

The Bush administration's hypocrisy over this issue has been blatant. While allowing our own personnel to torture suspected terrorists, the US was holding a trial for Charles Taylor, the son of Liberia's president, for the same activity.

The medical personnel watching their monitors are as guilty as those who poured the water.

[budmag06]

Yes CBS, Gitmo is being closed. Can we house the "behaviorally challenged" in NY?

[ka4nier]

Part of the continuing saga of post-G.W.Bush witchhunting in a genuine spirit of the bi-partisanship Obama has shouted from housetops.
Posted by zeitmin77 at 8:10 AM : Apr 7, 2009

DUDE: This has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican, Obama or McCain! This has everthing to do with HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS!!! I would expect anyone from the supporters of either party or candidate to be appalled by these charges and to demand an immediate investigation to determin if these charges are true or not.

As far as the detainees go, not all are terrorist. Many were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Isn't it time to give these individuals their "day in court", so that "We the People" can, at the very least, hear the charges that are brought against them. Again, EVERYBODY is allowed or should be allowed this one basic right.

[cmc1227]

You mean the attack where it has been proven our own government aided in bringing these towers down. Yeah, bush is just wonderful ain't he?
Posted by Kuei1248

Yes it was all in Bush and Cheney's evil plot to take over world. There code names for this operation was Pinky and the Brain. Not sure who the Brain was, LOL