Behavioral Science Consultation Team

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Guantanamo guards receiving a Behavioral Science briefing.

The Department of Defense authorized Behavioral Science Consultation Teams to study the detainees it holds in extrajudicial detention.[1]

The teams are controversial because some critics consider their participation in what is called enhanced interrogation of detainees in the war on terror a breach of medical ethics.[2] Such was the consternation of the American Psychological Association that it released the "Reaffirmation of the American Psychological Association Position Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Its Application to Individuals Defined in the United States Code as “Enemy Combatants" to make clear that any torture and other cruel, Inhuman, or degrading treatment was unethical, whatever the situation.[3]

Lieutenant Colonel Diane Zierhoffer a senior member of the team, exercised her right against self-incrimination when called to testify over her role in directing that teenage captive Mohammed Jawad should be subjected to a month of sleep deprivation.[4] Prosecutor Stuart Couch decided he had to drop the charges against Mohammed Ould Slahi, in spite of feeling he had committed crimes, due to the tortuous interrogation techniques Zierhoffer had directed.[5]

See also

References

  1. Shanita Simmons (Friday January 4, 2008). "Hard work of BSCT validated by peers". The Wire (JTF-GTMO). p. 4. http://www.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil/wire/wire/WirePDF/v8/Issue48v8.pdf#page=4. Retrieved 2008-02-10.  mirror
  2. Katherine Eban (July 17, 2007). "The War on Terror: Rorschach and Awe". Vanity Fair magazine. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/07/torture200707?printable=true&currentPage=all. Retrieved 2008-03-02. 
  3. "Reaffirmation of the American Psychological Association Position Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Its Application to Individuals Defined in the United States Code as “Enemy Combatants”". American Psychological Association. August 19, 2007. http://www.apa.org/governance/resolutions/notorture0807.html. Retrieved 2008-03-02. 
  4. Rozina Ali (2010-03-23). "Release of Guantanamo detainee has everything to do with torture: A judge has freed Mohamedou Ould Salahi. Some on the right want to blame ... Obama? But it's the torture, stupid". Slate magazine. http://www.salon.com/2010/03/24/slahi_release/. Retrieved 2013-04-26. "An October 17, 2003 email from a JTF-GTMO interrogator to LTC Diane Zierhoffer, a JTF-GTMO Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) Psychologist, stated that ‘Slahi told me he is “hearing voices’ now… He is worried as he knows this is not normal…. By the way… is this something that happens to people who have little external stimulus such as daylight, human interaction etc???? Seems a little creepy.’ …LTC Zierhoffer responded ‘sensory deprivation can cause hallucinations, usually visual rather than auditory, but you never know…In the dark you create things out of what little you have …’" 
  5. Jess Bravin (2013). The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay. Yale University Press. p. 109. ISBN 9780300189209. http://books.google.ca/books?id=F2ymUUljfYsC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=%22Diane+Zierhoffer%22+OR+%22Diane+M.+Zierhoffer%22+slahi+OR+salahi&source=bl&ots=E1nW5NBWfO&sig=HfjMJBSshZx4Uko3-ZlHCrhOKVI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hEJ7UZ6zLtHrrAH1pYDQAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22Diane%20Zierhoffer%22%20OR%20%22Diane%20M.%20Zierhoffer%22%20slahi%20OR%20salahi&f=false. Retrieved 2013-04-26. "The sensory manipulation apparently worked. "Slahi told me he is 'hearing voices' now, an interrogator wrote in an email to Lieutenant Colonel Diane Zierhoffer, an Amry psychologist on the special projects team. "He is worried as he knows this is not normal ... By the way ... is this something that happens to people who have little external stimulus such as daylight, human interraction etc.???? Seems a little creepy," the interrogator wrote."