August 3 , 2005
Medical Ethics in the Age of Terrorism
The Role of Military Medical Professionals in Interrogations
The recent series of bombings in London and the hunt for those responsible for the second wave of attacks have once again ignited the debate over what limits should be placed on the authorities in their effort to protect civilians from terrorists. It is well-documented that the Bush administration has sought to push the envelope of authorized interrogation techniques in the war on terrorism. Evidence has now surfaced that U.S. military physicians, psychiatrists, and psychologists have used detainee medical records to capitalize on illness, phobias and other vulnerabilities to devise strategies to elicit information from detainees. The Center for American Progress brings together a panel of experts to discuss the role of military medical professionals in the interrogation process.
Video & Transcript
• Introduction: Video
• Dr. M. Gregg Bloche: Video
• Reuel Marc Gerecht: Video
• Mr. Jonathan H. Marks: Video
• Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis: Video
• Discussion: Video
• Q&A: Video
• Transcript: Full text (PDF)
Panelists
Dr. M. Gregg Bloche is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center and the Co-Director of the Georgetown-Johns Hopkins Joint Program in Law and Public Health. His work has appeared in medical and health policy journals, law reviews, books, newspapers, and online media. Dr. Bloche received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research for 1997-2000 to support his research and writing on the legal and regulatory governance of managed care organizations, and he edited and contributed to The Privatization of Health Care Reform: Legal and Regulatory Perspectives (Oxford Univ. Press, 2003). Along with co-author Jonathan Marks, he has written two articles on medical ethics and interrogation for the New England Journal of Medicine, “When Doctors Go To War,” January 6, 2005, and “Doctors and Interrogators at Guantanamo Bay,” July 7, 2005.
Reuel Marc Gerecht is a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, and a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. A former Middle Eastern specialist in the CIA, Mr. Gerecht is a contributor to Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign Policy (Editors Robert Kagan & William Kristol; Encounter Books, 2000) and is the author under the pseudonym of Edward Shirley of Know Thine Enemy: A Spy’s Journey into Revolutionary Iran (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997). He has also been a commentator on the Middle East, Shi’ism, terrorism, Afghanistan and intelligence issues in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other leading American and international publications. He appears regularly on CNN, Fox News, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNBC, MSNBC, ABC News, NPR and the BBC.
Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Senior Adviser to the Center for Defense Information. Prior to joining the Center, he was a Senior Fellow and Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. From July 1998 to October 2002, he was Council Vice President, Director of Studies, and holder of the Maurice Greenberg Chair. Prior to joining the Council, Mr. Korb served as Director of the Center for Public Policy Education and Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, Dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, and Vice President of Corporate Operations at the Raytheon Company. Mr. Korb served as Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics) from 1981 through 1985.
Mr. Jonathan H. Marks is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for American Progress, a barrister at Matrix Chambers in London, England, and a Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics, Health Law and Policy at Georgetown University Law Center and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Marks has taught at Worcester College, Oxford, King’s College, London, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and UNC Chapel Hill Law School. Mr. Marks is the author of “Doctors of Interrogation” Hastings Center Report, July/August 2005, and along with co-author M. Gregg Bloche, he has written two articles on medical ethics and interrogation for the New England Journal of Medicine , “When Doctors Go To War,” January 6, 2005, and “Doctors and Interrogators at Guantanamo Bay,” July 7, 2005. He received his MA (Jurisprudence) and B.C.L. (LL.M. equivalent) from Worcester College, Oxford University.
Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis is the Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington. Dr. Xenakis has had a distinguished career in the U.S. Army, as well as in healthcare management, academic medicine, and clinical practice. He retired from the Army in 1998 at the rank of Brigadier General and had held many high level positions, including Commanding General of the Southeast Regional Army Medical Command. Dr. Xenakis has been a Clinical Professor at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and the Medical College of Georgia. He directed the combined fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry for Eisenhower Army Medical Center and the Medical College of Georgia, and is the First Visiting Professor for Telepsychiatry for The Menninger Clinic. Dr. Xenakis recently wrote “From the Medics, Unhealthy Science,” in The Washington Post on February 6, 2005, and he has published award-winning papers in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry with Dr. Peter S. Jensen on ADHD and rating scales.