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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (53717)	8/20/2004 2:16:26 PM
From: abuelita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

some nasty news... U.S. military doctors complicit in torture report: Canada urged to call for inquiry into medics' coverup of prisoner abuse Margaret Munro CanWest News Service August 20, 2004 CREDIT: Associated Press Doctors collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, bioethicist Steven Miles says. Canada is being urged to push for an independent inquiry into the way U.S. military doctors and medics collaborated in the mistreatment, torture and coverup of the killing of Iraqi and Afghan prisoners. "Canada has provided leadership to the world community with regards to the landmines treaty as well as to other important international instruments," says bioethicist Dr. Steven Miles of the University of Minnesota. "So I would think Canada should exercise both its powers as a member of the coalition and its moral suasion in the world to call for an independent inquiry." Miles is the author of a graphic report in Saturday's edition of the respected British medical journal The Lancet citing mounting evidence that U.S. military medical staff falsified death certificates, helped cover up evidence of beatings and, in some cases, even assisted in torture. It also points to evidence that doctors collaborated in the design and implementation of psychologically and physically coercive interrogations. Shocking photographs of U.S. military staff shackling and abusing naked prisoners in the now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad have sparked global outrage and led to charges against several military personnel and a number of on-going investigations. Miles says the role of doctors, nurses and medics in the abuses deserve special attention since "medical personnel are the first, and in some cases, the last barrier to human rights abuses of PoWs." The editors of Lancet are calling on the health-care workers to break their silence. "Those who were involved in or witnessed ill-treatment need to give a full and accurate account of events at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay," says an editorial accompanying Miles's report. It calls on the non-military medical community to unite in support of their military colleagues and condemn torture and inhumane and degrading practices against detainees. Miles, former president of the American Association of Bioethics, chronicles the support and, in some cases, active roles played by U.S. doctors, nurses and medics in the abuse. He cites close to 3,000 pages of sworn statements by detainees and soldiers, testimony at congressional hearings as well as media accounts. "I'm inviting people to go take a look at the primary documents, don't just take my word for it," he said in an interview from Iceland where he is on vacation. In one instance cited in his Lancet report, Miles says a U.S. "medic inserted an intravenous catheter into the corpse of a detainee who died under torture in order to create evidence he was alive at the hospital. "In another case, an Iraqi man, taken into custody by U.S. soldiers was found months later by his family in an Iraqi hospital. He was comatose, had three skull fractures, a severe thumb fracture and burns on the bottoms of his feet. An accompanying U.S. medical report stated that heat stroke had triggered a heart attack that put him in a coma; it did not mention the injuries." He describes how death certificates were falsified and delayed for months and deaths were not properly investigated. "In one example, soldiers tied a beaten detainee to the top of his cell door and gagged him. The death certificate indicated that he died of 'natural causes ... during his sleep'."