news/notes2009.04.18a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
Albert Einstein
One of the most creative intellects in human history was Albert Einstein, who died in Princeton, New Jersey, this day in 1955 and whose advanced theories of relativity and gravitation revolutionized science and philosophy.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
1775: The midnight ride of Paul Revere
Paul Revere, a renowned silversmith, is better remembered as a folk hero of the American Revolution who this night in 1775 made a dramatic ride on horseback to warn Boston-area residents of an imminent British attack.


[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Donors line up $5 billion for Pakistan
（パキスタンへの経済援助：総額５０億ドル超を拠出決定）
Pledge to fight terrorists earns Zardari tranche of global aid

By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

About 50 nations and international groups pledged in Tokyo on Friday to give strife-torn Pakistan more than $5 billion in aid after President Asif Ali Zardari vowed to continue a war against extremists still raging eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Addressing the Friends of Democratic Pakistan Group Ministerial Meeting, Zardari said that although he has taken up the challenge of leading his country, progress cannot be made without international aid.

"We are willing to fight, despite the fact that I lost the mother of my children," Zardari said in his opening remarks, referring to his late wife, the assassinated former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

"I bring a message from the people of Pakistan — we are hurting," Zardari said, adding that the issues Pakistan faces don't end at its borders.

Japan and the U.S. each pledged $1 billion of the total aid package at the two-stage meeting. The aid will be delivered over two years.

"Pakistan has played a vitally important role in efforts of the international community to counter terrorism and extremism," Prime Minister Taro Aso said in his opening speech at the conference.

"The international community must show its solidarity by pledging concrete assistance," he said.

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, announced that Washington will match Japan's $1 billion contribution to Islamabad.

"The U.S. is committed to working with the government of Pakistan and the international community to assist the people of Pakistan," a statement by U.S. Department of State acting spokesman Robert A. Wood said.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi welcomed the donation, saying it will help his country fight terrorism and rebuild civilian institutions.

"I am more than satisfied. I am delighted," he said.

Despite a $7.6 billion International Monetary Fund infusion in November, Pakistan's balance of payments remains precarious.

Experts say that in addition to the negative impact of the global economic downturn, the cost of fighting the Taliban, who are partly funded by the drug trade, amounts to an annual $1.5 billion.

The Friends meeting, chaired by Zardari, detailed Islamabad's commitment to antiterrorism and strategies to boost the nation's economy.

According to a Foreign Ministry official who briefed reporters, Pakistani delegates stressed that terrorism is linked to the issues of poverty and education in the country, and cannot be eradicated without comprehensive steps.

The delegates came up with nine major tasks they intend to work on, including stabilizing Pakistan's economy, developing human resources and improving social welfare.

"We felt that Pakistan has its own strategic ideas (to deal with its problems) and the commitment to follow them," the official said.

Earlier in the meeting, Aso said he is "convinced that the strong commitment by Pakistan will strengthen the resolve of the international community to support the civilian government of Pakistan."

A chair's statement adopted afterward stated its support in boosting Pakistan's strength and capacity to meet its challenges. It also called on Pakistan to speed up economic reform by increasing private-sector growth, accountability and transparency.

Some 49 nations and international organizations taking part in the second half of the meeting, the Pakistan Donors Conference, chaired by Japan and the World Bank, agreed to provide loans and grant aid of more than $ 5 billion to the troubled state.

"The amount surpasses our initial target of $ 4 billion," Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone told reporters after the agreement, saying it resulted from an international consensus on helping Pakistan.

"We hope it will be used efficiently," Nakasone added.

Isabel Guerrero, vice president of the World Bank's South Asia region, expressed hope the money will help Pakistan's poverty-struck population through better education and health welfare. But the delegate also said Pakistan's needs may be much bigger than the amount pledged.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Job shortage hits Indonesia nurses
（就職難：インドネシアの看護師ら、受入れ困難に）

(Kyodo News) Japan may be unable to accept as many Indonesian nurses and caregivers this fiscal year as agreed under a bilateral agreement because of a shortage of jobs for them at Japanese hospitals and care facilities, sources said.

Under the economic partnership agreement reached in 2007, Japan is to accept up to 792 Indonesians in fiscal 2009, which began this month — the second year of the EPA program. But the number of jobs offered so far by Japanese hospitals and care facilities totaled only 169 as of April 1, they said Thursday.

The limited number of job offers can apparently be attributed to the burden on facilities of supporting the Indonesian workers, including Japanese language education, and Japan's acceptance of similar workers from the Philippines starting from this fiscal year.

The Japan International Corporation of Welfare Services, in charge of overseeing the Indonesian workers, has extended the deadline for job offers from Japanese facilities to April 20 from April 3 as planned earlier.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry plans to review the number of Indonesian workers to be accepted by Japan next fiscal year and after with the Indonesian government after monitoring how job offers pan out for this fiscal year.

Under the EPA program, Japan is expected to accept up to 400 nurses and up to 600 caregivers over two years starting from fiscal 2008.

A total of 208 Indonesian workers came in the first year of the program. Around 1,000 nurses and caregivers in Indonesia have registered as applicants to work in Japan.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Consumer bills clear Lower House
（消費者庁：法案が衆院通過）
New agency would be tasked with responding to public complaints, food scandals

By KAZUAKI NAGATA
Staff writer

The House of Representatives passed bills Friday to create a consumer affairs agency after both ruling and opposition forces reached a compromise.

The bills were immediately sent to the Upper House, where they are expected to be approved during the current Diet session, clearing the way for the agency's launch this year.

"I hope the agency will be established as soon as possible in the current year," Seiko Noda, minister in charge of consumer affairs, told reporters Thursday.

Prime Minister Taro Aso has also been a vocal backer of the agency.

"Since the Meiji Era, government policy has focused on developing producers," Aso told the Lower House's special consumer committee Thursday. "On the other hand, the idea of the consumer affairs agency is totally the opposite. It would be operated and would be standing on the consumers' side. . . . I think this would be a breakthrough to change the existing government structure."

Currently, consumer-related problems and claims are handled by various ministries and agencies depending on the nature of the case. But without a clear body responsible for such issues, consumers often find themselves bouncing between ministries as they seek to rectify their problems.

Consequently, the new agency, which would have about 200 officials, is expected to handle all consumer-related issues.

The bills also empower the agency to act to protect the rights and benefits of consumers. Along with the agency, a committee would be set up with the authority to admonish the prime minister and order reports from ministers.

Fewer than 10 people selected from the private sector would sit on the committee, according to the bills.

The Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition force, pushed strongly for a committee with genuine power after submitting a counterproposal to the Diet to create an ombudsmanlike organization instead of a consumer affairs agency.

Rather than forming a new agency attached to the Cabinet Office, the DPJ proposed an independent body with relatively robust authority.

From the beginning of the 10-hour session, both the opposition and the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc expressed willingness to make compromises on revising the bills.

Former DPJ policy research committee chief Yukio Edano said that under the current circumstances the revised bills were close to perfect.

The idea for the agency originated under former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who abruptly resigned last September. The bills were submitted that month in the wake of a string of consumer-related scandals.

news/notes2009.04.18b

[Sports: MLB] from [The Japan Times]

Saturday, April 18, 2009
Ichiro sets new record
（イチロー：新記録達成；日米３０８６安打）
Passes Harimoto with 3,086 hit

Compiled from AP, Kyodo

SEATTLE — Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki broke Isao Harimoto's record in Japan for most career hits when he singled to right off Joe Saunders in the fourth inning against the Los Angeles Angels on Thursday.

Mike Napoli hit a go-ahead, two-run single in a five-run sixth to send the Angels to a 5-1 victory over the Mariners.

Ichiro broke Harimoto's record with a characteristically sharp single, a one-hop smash into right field off Saunders (2-1) for his 3,086th hit.

Harimoto, who played 23 seasons in Japan, smiled and flashed a thumbs-up sign from the box seats. Ichiro tipped his batting helmet to the cheering home crowd.

"Although I didn't get the record just in Japan, I still want to express my respect for his record and what he did there," Ichiro said.

Seattle Mariners star Ichiro Suzuki runs to first base en route to a fourth-inning single, the 3,086th hit of his pro baseball career, against the Los Angeles Angels on Thursday in Seattle. With the hit, Ichiro broke Isao Harimoto's all-time Japan record.


[Today's News] from [The Guardian]

G20 death: Met police officer may face manslaughter charge
• Officer may face manslaughter charge
• Ian Tomlinson 'died from internal bleeding'
• We were badly misled by police, say family

Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Saturday 18 April 2009
Article history

The police officer caught on film attacking Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests could face manslaughter charges after a second postmortem concluded that the newspaper vendor died from internal bleeding and not a heart attack.

The dramatic new evidence, made public yesterday, provoked an immediate response from the victim's family, who said that they had been "badly misled" by police.

It emerged last night that the Metropolitan police officer who had been suspended from duty has now been interviewed under caution on suspicion of manslaughter by investigators from the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Yesterday's developments came 10 days after the Guardian first revealed footage of Tomlinson being struck and pushed to the ground minutes before he collapsed and died in the City of London.

The New York fund manager who handed the Guardian the video evidence said last night that he felt vindicated by the findings. "Now I'm glad I came forward. It's possible Mr Tomlinson's death would have been swept under the rug otherwise. You needed something incontrovertible. In this case it was the video."

Tomlinson, a 47-year-old newspaper vendor, had been attempting to walk home from work the when he collapsed and died around 7.25pm on 1 April. Moments earlier he had been attacked from behind by a constable from the Met's territorial support group near the Bank of England.

The first postmortem results - which were released by police - said Tomlinson had died of a heart attack. The second postmortem was ordered by the family's legal team and the IPCC after the footage was broadcast.

Last night's developments will place enormous pressure on the IPCC. Initially, the watchdog allowed City of London police to conduct its own inquiry, even though witnesses were coming forward to say they had seen Tomlinson being in contact with police.

The second postmortem was conducted by Dr Nat Cary, who was able to scrutinise video evidence before conducting his examination. In a statement last night, City of London coroners court said Dr Cary had provisionally concluded that internal bleeding was the cause of Tomlinson's death. "Dr Cary's opinion is that the cause of death was abdominal haemorrhage. The cause of the haemorrhage remains to be ascertained.

"Dr Cary accepts that there is evidence of coronary atherosclerosis but states that in his opinion its nature and extent is unlikely to have contributed to the cause of death."

Jules Carey, the lawyer acting for Tomlinson's family, said: "The video footage of the unprovoked and vicious assault on Ian by the police officer would easily justify charges of assault being brought against the officer. The findings of Dr Nat Cary significantly increase the likelihood that the officer will now face the more serious charge of manslaughter."

Last night politicians and campaigners called for the IPCC to conduct its investigation with renewed urgency. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said that the watchdog should now come to "a fast and transparent conclusion". The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, said: "This is an alarming finding. It suggests that Mr Tomlinson's treatment by the police officer caught on video may have been the final contributing factor in his death. These findings put further pressure on the IPCC to investigate the matter with all urgency."

Neither the IPCC nor City of London police made any mention of the injuries or abdominal blood found by the pathologist Dr Freddy Patel when they released results of the first postmortem. City of London police said only that Tomlinson had "suffered a sudden heart attack while on his way home from work".

Tomlinson's son Paul King said: "We believe we were badly misled by police about the possible role they played in Ian's death. First we were told that there had been no contact with the police, then we were told that he died of a heart attack. Now we know that he was violently assaulted by a police officer and died from internal bleeding. As time goes on we hope that the full truth about how Ian died will be made known."

news/notes2009.04.18c

[Today's Paper] from [Los Angeles Times]

California unemployment rate reaches 11.2%
The state lost lost 62,100 jobs in March, half the number from February. The number of people who have been out of work for nearly a year has doubled in 12 months, to 211,000.

By Marc Lifsher and Ronald D. White
April 18, 2009

Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento -- Unemployment in California shot to 11.2% in March, the highest level since the state began keeping records. What's more, the number of people out of work for almost a year rose by 9.4%, and has now doubled in the last 12 months.

Carpenter Luiz Vasquez knows the frustration all too well. In the last year, he said, he worked only two weeks.

"I go through town, and I do not hear the sound of work," said Vasquez, 40, who is seeking help through a Chrysalis job center in Santa Monica. "I do not hear a single hammer strike."

The state's economy has been particularly hard on construction workers like Vasquez. The downturn started in housing and has spread to retailing, international trade, finance and nearly every other sector.

An average of 211,000 Californians have been unemployed for more than 47 weeks over the last year, the state reported. These people now account for about 14% of California's approximately 1.5 million jobless.

The plight of the long-term unemployed such as Vasquez is characteristic of the deepening recession that has gripped the global economy and the Golden State since at least December 2007.

"This recession has features of a depression," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at UC Santa Barbara. "We get these very long-time people being out of work. They sort of disappear to a never-never land."

California lost 62,100 jobs in March, state officials reported Friday. In all, 637,400 jobs have disappeared in the last year and a total of 727,700 since the economy peaked in July 2007.

Despite the gloom, last month's loss was much smaller than the 114,000 posted in February, said Howard Roth, chief economist at the California Department of Finance.

"We're losing jobs at a slower rate. That's sort of the first step" toward recovery, he said.

The state has been scrambling to assist the unemployed with mixed success. The California unemployment insurance fund is insolvent and being bailed out with billions of dollars in federal money. The Employment Development Department's obsolete computer system and telephone call centers are swamped with hundreds of thousands of claims.

On Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an emergency proclamation designed to speed the hiring of 150 staffers to help ease the logjam.

California's unemployment rate remains stubbornly above the nationwide rate of 8.5% for March. Unemployment in much of Southern California is even higher. Los Angeles County reported 11.4%, Riverside 13.2%, San Bernardino 12.5% and Ventura 9.6%. Even Orange County, which historically has low unemployment, reached 8.5% in March.

Economists expect unemployment rates to continue rising at least through the summer even if the state and national economies begin to turn around as a result of President Obama's stimulus program.

The aid from Washington includes more than $3 billion to provide the long-term unemployed with as much as 53 extra weeks of benefits or a total of up to 79 weeks of assistance. The federal funds also will pay for computer and phone upgrades and the hiring of new claims handlers.

The money threw an immediate lifeline to 76,000 jobless, whose benefits were scheduled to run out this month. By the end of the year, an estimated 394,000 would be eligible for the extra help.

But even with benefits, months and months of fruitlessly searching for a job takes its toll on a worker's sense of self worth and productivity, said Alex Gerwer, 53, of San Diego. The former strategic business planner said he had a worldwide network of contacts to tap in searching for a position like the one he lost in March 2008.

"My clinical and technical background should be very important, but it's almost like I can't give it away," he said. "That has been very frustrating."

Gerwer said he had "sent out well over 1,000 copies of my resume in a targeted and personalized fashion."

The dearth of jobs in all sectors of the economy, from Gerwer's high-tech consulting to Vasquez's low-tech drywall hanging is more severe in California than in most of the country because of the state's "greater exposure to the housing downturn and related job losses in construction and finance," said Stephen Levy, chief economist at the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.

In addition, California's population continues to grow, and that often worsens the job picture, he said. Many of these new Californians arrive in search of jobs and become "instantly unemployed" when they can't find work because employers are shedding jobs, not creating them, Levy said.

Writer Lawrence Kootinkoff, of West Los Angeles, who has been without a job since 2005,said he still looks for work nearly every day, when he's not caring for two young children.

"I wanted a job in news, but everyone I talked to was either laying people off or not hiring," said the 47-year-old former foreign correspondent. "I was over-qualified. I had too much experience. I was too expensive. If I was 20 years younger, I might have had a better shot."

news/notes2009.04.18d

[Today's Paper] from [The New York Times]

Divisions Arose on Rough Tactics for Qaeda Figure

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: April 17, 2009

WASHINGTON — The first use of waterboarding and other rough treatment against a prisoner from Al Qaeda was ordered by senior Central Intelligence Agency officials despite the belief of interrogators that the prisoner had already told them all he knew, according to former intelligence officials and a footnote in a newly released legal memorandum.

The escalation to especially brutal interrogation tactics against the prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, including confining him in boxes and slamming him against the wall, was ordered by officials at C.I.A. headquarters based on a highly inflated assessment of his importance, interviews and a review of newly released documents show.

Abu Zubaydah had provided much valuable information under less severe treatment, and the harsher handling produced no breakthroughs, according to one former intelligence official with direct knowledge of the case. Instead, watching his torment caused great distress to his captors, the official said.

Even for those who believed that brutal treatment could produce results, the official said, “seeing these depths of human misery and degradation has a traumatic effect.”

C.I.A. officers adopted these techniques only after the Justice Department had given its official approval on Aug. 1, 2002, in one of four formerly secret legal memos on interrogation that were released Thursday.

A footnote to another of the memos described a rift between line officers questioning Abu Zubaydah at a secret C.I.A. prison in Thailand and their bosses at headquarters, and asserted that the brutal treatment may have been “unnecessary.”

Quoting a 2004 report on the interrogation program by the C.I.A. inspector general, the footnote says that “although the on-scene interrogation team judged Zubaydah to be compliant, elements within C.I.A. headquarters still believed he was withholding information.”

The debate over the significance of Abu Zubaydah’s role in Al Qaeda and of what he told interrogators dates back almost to his capture, and has been described by Ron Suskind in his 2006 book, “The One Percent Doctrine,” a 2006 article in The New York Times and a March 29 article in The Washington Post asserting that his disclosures foiled no plots. (His real name is Zein al-Abideen Mohamed Hussein.)

But interviews with current and former government officials who have direct or indirect knowledge of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation suggest that the United States began the waterboarding, labeled as illegal torture by top Obama administration officials, based on a profound misunderstanding of its captive.

In March 2002, when Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan after a gunfight with Pakistani security officers backed by F.B.I. and C.I.A. officers, Bush administration officials portrayed him as a Qaeda leader. That judgment was reflected in the Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion signed by Jay S. Bybee, then head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

The memo summarizes the C.I.A.’s judgment that Abu Zubaydah, then 31, had risen rapidly to “third or fourth man in Al Qaeda” and had served as “senior lieutenant” to Osama bin Laden. It said he had “managed a network of training camps” and had been “involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by Al Qaeda.”

The memo reported the C.I.A.’s portrayal of “a highly self-directed individual who prizes his independence,” a deceptive narcissist, healthy and tough, who agency officers believed was the most senior terrorist caught since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

His interrogation, according to multiple accounts, began in Pakistan and continued at the secret C.I.A. site in Thailand, with a traditional, rapport-building approach led by two F.B.I. agents, who even helped care for him as his gunshot wounds healed.

Abu Zubaydah gave up perhaps his single most valuable piece of information early, naming Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom he knew as Mukhtar, as the main organizer of the 9/11 plot.

A C.I.A. interrogation team that arrived a week or two later, which included former military psychologists, did not change the approach to questioning, but began to keep him awake night and day with blasting rock music, have his clothes removed and keep his cell cold.

The legal basis for this treatment is uncertain, but lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters were in constant touch with interrogators, as well as with Mr. Bybee’s subordinate in the Office of Legal Counsel, John C. Yoo, who was drafting memos on the legal limits of interrogation.

Through the summer of 2002, Abu Zubaydah continued to provide valuable information. Interrogators began to surmise that he was not a leader, but rather a helpful training camp personnel clerk who would arrange false documents and travel for jihadists, including Qaeda members.

He knew enough to give interrogators “a road map of Al Qaeda operatives,” an agency officer said. He also repeated talk he had heard about possible plots or targets in the United States, though when F.B.I. agents followed up, most of it turned out to be idle discussion or preliminary brainstorming.

At the time, former C.I.A. officials say, his tips were extremely useful, helping to track several other important terrorists, including Mr. Mohammed.

But senior agency officials, still persuaded, as they had told President George W. Bush and his staff, that he was an important Qaeda leader, insisted that he must know more.

“You get a ton of information, but headquarters says, ‘There must be more,’ ” recalled one intelligence officer who was involved in the case. As described in the footnote to the memo, the use of repeated waterboarding against Abu Zubaydah was ordered “at the direction of C.I.A. headquarters,” and officials were dispatched from headquarters “to watch the last waterboard session.”

The memo, written in 2005 and signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that the waterboarding was justified even if the prisoner turned out not to know as much as officials had thought.

And he did not, according to the former intelligence officer involved in the Abu Zubaydah case. “He pleaded for his life,” the official said. “But he gave up no new information. He had no more information to give.”

Abu Zubaydah’s own account, given in 2006 to the International Committee of the Red Cross, corroborates that what he called “the real torturing,” including waterboarding, began only “about two and a half or three months” after he arrived at the secret site, according to the group’s 2007 report.

Since 2002, the C.I.A. has downgraded its assessment of Abu Zubaydah’s significance, while continuing to call his revelations important.

In an interview, an intelligence officer said that the current view was that Abu Zubaydah was “an important terrorist facilitator” who disclosed “essential raw material for successful counterterrorist action.”

His interrogation “made it possible for the United States to chip away at Al Qaeda, link by link, disrupting its operations and saving lives,” the intelligence officer said.

news/notes2009.04.18e

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

Psychologists Helped Guide Interrogations
Extent of Health Professionals' Role at CIA Prisons Draws Fresh Outrage From Ethicists

By Joby Warrick and Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 18, 2009

When the CIA began what it called an "increased pressure phase" with captured terrorism suspect Abu Zubaida in the summer of 2002, its first step was to limit the detainee's human contact to just two people. One was the CIA interrogator, the other a psychologist.

During the extraordinary weeks that followed, it was the psychologist who apparently played the more critical role. According to newly released Justice Department documents, the psychologist provided ideas, practical advice and even legal justification for interrogation methods that would break Abu Zubaida, physically and mentally. Extreme sleep deprivation, waterboarding, the use of insects to provoke fear -- all were deemed acceptable, in part because the psychologist said so.

"No severe mental pain or suffering would have been inflicted," a Justice Department lawyer said in a 2002 memo explaining why waterboarding, or simulated drowning, should not be considered torture.

The role of health professionals as described in the documents has prompted a renewed outcry from ethicists who say the conduct of psychologists and supervising physicians violated basic standards of their professions.

Their names are among the few details censored in the long-concealed Bush administration memos released Thursday, but the documents show a steady stream of psychologists, physicians and other health officials who both kept detainees alive and actively participated in designing the interrogation program and monitoring its implementation. Their presence also enabled the government to argue that the interrogations did not include torture.

Most of the psychologists were contract employees of the CIA, according to intelligence officials familiar with the program.

"The health professionals involved in the CIA program broke the law and shame the bedrock ethical traditions of medicine and psychology," said Frank Donaghue, chief executive of Physicians for Human Rights, an international advocacy group made up of physicians opposed to torture. "All psychologists and physicians found to be involved in the torture of detainees must lose their license and never be allowed to practice again."

The CIA declined to comment yesterday on the role played by health professionals in the agency's self-described "enhanced interrogation program," which operated from 2002 to 2006 in various secret prisons overseas.

"The fact remains that CIA's detention and interrogation effort was authorized and approved by our government," CIA Director Leon Panetta said Thursday in a statement to employees. The Obama administration and its top intelligence leaders have banned harsh interrogations while also strongly opposing investigations or penalties for employees who were following their government's orders.

The CIA dispatched personnel from its office of medical services to each secret prison and evaluated medical professionals involved in interrogations "to make sure they could stand up, psychologically handle it," according to a former CIA official.

The alleged actions of medical professionals in the secret prisons are viewed as particularly troubling by an array of groups, including the American Medical Association and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

AMA policies state that physicians "must not be present when torture is used or threatened." The guidelines allow doctors to treat detainees only "if doing so is in their [detainees'] best interest" and not merely to monitor their health "so that torture can begin or continue."

The American Psychological Association has condemned any participation by its members in interrogations involving torture, but critics of the organization faulted it for failing to censure members involved in harsh interrogations.

The ICRC, which conducted the first independent interviews of CIA detainees in 2006, said the prisoners were told they would not be killed during interrogations, though one was warned that he would be brought to "the verge of death and back again," according to a confidential ICRC report leaked to the New York Review of Books last month.

"The interrogation process is contrary to international law and the participation of health personnel in such a process is contrary to international standards of medical ethics," the ICRC report concluded.

The newly released Justice Department memos place medical officials at the scene of the earliest CIA interrogations. At least one psychologist was present -- and others were frequently consulted -- during the interrogation of Abu Zubaida, the nom de guerre of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, a Palestinian who was captured by CIA and Pakistani intelligence officers in March 2002, the Justice documents state.

An Aug. 1, 2002, memo said the CIA relied on its "on-site psychologists" for help in designing an interrogation program for Abu Zubaida and ultimately came up with a list of 10 methods drawn from a U.S. military training program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE. That program, used to help prepare pilots to endure torture in the event they are captured, is loosely based on techniques that were used by the Communist Chinese to torture American prisoners of war.


The role played by psychologists in adapting SERE methods for interrogation has been described in books and news articles, including some in The Washington Post. Author Jane Mayer and journalist Katherine Eban separately identified as key figures James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two psychologists in Washington state who worked as CIA contractors after 2001 and had extensive experience in SERE training. Mitchell, reached by telephone, declined to comment, and Jessen could not be reached yesterday.

The CIA psychologists had personal experience with SERE and helped convince CIA officials that harsh tactics would coerce confessions from Abu Zubaida without inflicting permanent harm. Waterboarding was touted as particularly useful because it was "reported to be almost 100 percent effective in producing cooperation," the memo said.

The agency then used a psychological assessment of Abu Zubaida to find his vulnerable points. One of them, it turns out, was a severe aversion to bugs.

"He appears to have a fear of insects," states the memo, which describes a plan to place a caterpillar or similar creature inside a tiny wooden crate in which Abu Zubaida was confined. CIA officials say the plan was never carried out.

Former intelligence officials contend that Abu Zubaida was found to have played a less important role in al-Qaeda than initially believed and that under harsh interrogation he provided little useful information about the organization's plans.

The memos acknowledge that the presence of medical professionals posed an ethical dilemma. But they contend that the CIA's use of doctors in interrogations was morally distinct from the practices of other countries that the United States has accused of committing torture. One memo notes that doctors who observed interrogations were empowered to stop them "if in their professional judgment the detainee may suffer severe physical or mental pain or suffering." In one instance, the CIA chose not to subject a detainee to waterboarding due to a "medical contraindication," according to a May 10, 2005, memo.

Yet some doctors and ethicists insist that any participation by physicians was tantamount to complicity in torture.

"I don't think we had any idea doctors were involved to this extent, and it will shock most physicians," said George Annas, a professor of health law, bioethics and human rights at Boston University.

Annas said the use of doctors to monitor prisoners subjected to torture is "totally unethical" and has been condemned by the American and World Medical Associations, among other professional bodies.

"In terms of ethics, it's not even a close call," he said.

Steven H. Miles, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota and author of "Oath Betrayed: America's Torture Doctors," said the actions described in the memos were the "kind of stuff that doctors have been tried, convicted and imprisoned for in other countries -- and that's what should happen here."

But Michael Gross, a professor at the University of Haifa in Israel and the author of "Bioethics and Armed Conflict: Moral Dilemmas of Medicine and Warfare," said that if physicians think particular harsh interrogation techniques do not constitute torture, there is no reason they should not participate.

"Physicians are faced with a hard dilemma," he said. "They have professional obligations to do no harm, but they also have a duty as a citizen to provide expertise to their government when the national security is at stake. In a national security crisis, I believe our duties as citizens take precedence."

news/notes2009.04.18f

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

The Torture Never Stops

By Ben Whitford
Posted Saturday, April 18, 2009, at 5:21 AM ET

The New York Times leads with word that senior CIA officials ordered the use of waterboarding and other rough treatment against an Al-Qaeda detainee, despite interrogators' conviction that the prisoner had already revealed everything he knew. In a similar off-lead story, the Washington Post investigates the role of psychologists and other health officials in condoning and facilitating the abuse of detainees; medical ethicists say the supervising psychologists and physicians violated their profession's basic standards by participating in the interrogations.

ThePost and the Wall Street Journal lead on news of a major shift in US environmental policy: the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday declared greenhouse gases to be pollutants, clearing the way for their regulation. Meanwhile, President Obama arrived in Trinidad yesterday for a gathering of Western Hemisphere leaders; the Los Angeles Times leads on his efforts to broker warmer relations between Washington and Havana. "The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba," Obama declared, before heading off for a chummy photo opportunity with Hugo Chávez.

An already-cooperative Al-Qaeda prisoner, initially believed to be a senior leader but later determined to be merely a personnel clerk, was waterboarded, slammed against walls, confined in boxes and deprived of food, despite his captors' belief that he knew nothing of further value, reports the NYT. An official involved in the interrogation said the treatment, carried out on direct orders from CIA headquarters, plunged the prisoner into the "depths of human misery and degradation", but produced no new breakthroughs. "He pleaded for his life," the official said. "But he gave up no new information. He had no more information to give."

Inside, the NYT reports that further revelations are likely, with members of Congress and human rights lawyers pushing for more details about CIA interrogations in the light of the torture memos released this week. "These are the first dominoes," said one ACLU lawyer. "It will be difficult for the new administration to now argue that other documents can be lawfully withheld." On the other hand, the LAT reports that the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee are in the early stages of conducting studies to determine whether waterboarding produced useful evidence - a process that "may determine whether the methods banned by President Obama will ever be used again by the US." (Looks like Slate's Dahlia Lithwick may have been onto something.)

The Obama administration took the first step yesterday towards directly regulating greenhouse emissions, declaring carbon dioxide and five other warming gases to be pollutants. As the LAT notes, that's a sharp break with the Bush-era policy of simply ignoring climate change, and opens the door for the EPA to regulate the gases directly. That could affect broad swathes of the US economy; still, agency officials said there would be a lengthy review process, and the WSJ reports that new regulations could be years away. The Post notes that the move puts added pressure on Congress to move to limit greenhouse gases through new legislation, as the President would prefer. "Whether Congress can rise to the challenge this year is an open question," sighs the NYT.

As an undemocratic nation, Cuba is barred from attending the Summit of the Americas; still, arriving in Port-of-Spain Obama had warm words for Raúl Castro, prompting speculation that a historic thaw in Cuban-American relations is in the offing. "I know there is a longer journey that must be traveled in overcoming decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day," the President said, adding that he was prepared to engage directly with Cuba on a wide range of issues. The carefully stage-managed move went down a storm at the summit, earning Obama plaudits from regional leaders and a hearty handshake from Hugo Chávez; from Havana, Raúl Castro welcomed the comments and said he was ready to discuss "everything, everything, everything" with the Obama administration.

While Obama's gesture - and Hillary Clinton's admission that America's past regional policies had failed - went down well, it's unclear exactly what happens next. The NYT calls for Obama to go all-in and lift the economic embargo of Cuba, and to demand that in exchange Havana releases political prisoners and respects human rights. The Post is more restrained, noting that some observers question Castro's willingness to change his policies as well as merely his rhetoric. "This was nothing new," said Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue. "This wasn't an overture at all."

Back home, Citigroup raised eyebrows by clawing its way back into the black yesterday, posting a strong first-quarter profit despite the continued deterioration of many of its core businesses. The NYT accuses the banking giant of engaging in legal but "creative" accounting to gloss over its problems, in the hope of attracting private investment and extricating themselves from the strings attached to government bailout money. The Post similarly notes that with increasing numbers of consumers defaulting on loans, America's bankers don't have much to smile about. "We don't see the light at the end of the tunnel," admits Citigroup's chief financial officer.

Under new guidelines being circulated by the National Institutes of Health, researchers will soon be able to receive federal funding for stem-cell research using spare fertility-clinic embryos. In an effort to placate anti-abortion campaigners, however, scientists will not be permitted to create new embryos for research purposes. The NYT notes that while the move drew criticism from both sides, researchers generally greeted the new rules as a step in the right direction. The Post calls the move "an intelligent solution", but argues that the White House should have made the decision directly rather than lumbering the NIH's scientific experts with a political hot potato.

The captain of a freighter hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia returned home to Vermont yesterday to be greeted by cheering, pompom-waving crowds. A pirate captured during the Navy Seal rescue operation also will also soon be heading to America: the NYT reports that law-enforcement officials plan to try the pirate in a Manhattan courtroom. "Just what New York needs - another show trial," grumbles one defense attorney.