CIA torture: Who are the medical professionals who umpired in this theatre of human misery?

Following the release of the US Senate report summary into the CIA's "enhanced interrogation program" we now know definitively that this amounted to torture and was not effective in acquiring intelligence. This is no surprise to those of us who rehabilitate those who have been tortured, writes William Hopkins, Senior Psychiatrist, Freedom from Torture.

At Freedom from Torture we see more than 1,000 torture survivors a year for psychological counselling. I can attest from years of clinical practice, seeing clients who have been subjected to 'waterboarding' or other forms of partial-asphyxiation that these do indeed amount to torture. I also know only too well from my clients' testimony that torture does not result in reliable information – they would have said anything to make the torture stop.

Above all I and other medical professionals everywhere should be deeply troubled by the numerous references in the report to the role of doctors and other health professionals in inventing, administering, and supervising CIA torture.

Torture does not result in reliable information – they would have said anything to make the torture stop.

"We learn that the CIA contracted two psychologists, since identified by the New York Times, to devise the enhanced interrogation programme. According to the report: "The psychologists personally conducted interrogations of some of the CIA's most significant detainees using these techniques. They also evaluated whether detainees' psychological state allowed for the continued use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques...

Other 'contract psychologists' were consulted about the psychiatric problems caused to detainees by the lack of human contact.

CIA doctors were also intimately involved in the torture of detainees. As is clear from the summary, while some medical personnel laboured under the illusion that they acted as a voice of reason in detainee centres, their main role was to provide cover for the CIA's torture; and in the centres themselves to ensure that torture could go on for as long as the interrogators deemed necessary.

For example, "CIA medical personnel treated at least one detainee for swelling in order to allow the continued use of standing sleep deprivation." A CIA physician seeing Hassan Gul during a period of 59 hours of sleep deprivation observed his "notable physiological fatigue" along with his "mild paralysis of the arms, legs and feet" but that he was showing "essential normal vital signs".

Doctors also oversaw waterboarding, with one who witnessed the repeated waterboarding of Khalid Shaykh Muhammad (KSM) commenting that waterboarding had passed from inducing a sensation of downing to "near drowning".

On noting that KSM's gastric contents were so diluted by water as to risk water intoxication and dilution of electrolytes, the medical officer requested that interrogators use saline in future waterboarding sessions.

Torture such as this is a deliberate assault on the body, the psyche, the identity and integrity of a person.

In the case of Aby Zubaydah who became "unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth" during a waterboarding session, the report goes on to note that medical intervention was required to revive him. He went on to expel "copious amounts of liquid".

Torture such as this is a deliberate assault on the body, the psyche, the identity and integrity of a person. It is designed to create victims; to dehumanise and degrade the individual until he or she is almost completely helpless.

The principles preventing doctors inflicting this suffering are enshrined in internationally agreed declarations, including the World Medical Association's 1975 Declaration of Tokyo which states that "the doctor shall not countenance, condone or participate in the use of torture".

Who are the medical professionals who umpired in this theatre of human misery? Doctors who collaborate in torture bring the medical profession into disrepute. It is imperative that we know who they are: we would certainly not want any of them ever coming to practise in the UK.

The world needs a full and transparent investigation into the role of medical personnel in CIA torture. Where appropriate, professionals must be struck off, licences to practise revoked and criminal investigations instigated to establish whether there are grounds for prosecution.

Who are the medical professionals who umpired in this theatre of human misery? Doctors who collaborate in torture bring the medical profession into disrepute. It is imperative that we know who they are: we would certainly not want any of them ever coming to practise in the UK.

At stake is public trust in the medical professions and particularly the principle that should underpin every doctor's work: 'I will use regimens for the benefit of the ill in accordance with my ability and my judgment, but from what is to their harm or injustice I will keep them'. Hippocratic Oath, 500 BC.