Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror

Description

The graphic photographs of U.S. military personnel grinning over abused Arab and Muslim prisoners shocked the world. That the United States was systematically torturing inmates at prisons run by its military and civilian leaders divided our nation and brought deep shame to many. When Dr. Steven H. Miles, an expert in medical ethics and an advocate for human rights, learned of the neglect, mistreatment, and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay, and elsewhere, one of his first thoughts was: "Where were the prison doctors while the abuses were taking place?" In Oath Betrayed, Miles explains the answer to this question. Not only were doctors, nurses, and medics silent while prisoners were abused; physicians and psychologists actually provided information that helped determine how much and what kind of mistreatment could be delivered to detainees during interrogation. Additionally, these harsh examinations were monitored by health professionals operating under the purview of the U.S. military. Miles has based this book on meticulous research and a wealth of resources, including unprecedented eyewitness accounts from actual victims of prison abuse and more than thirty-five thousand pages of documentation acquired through provisions the Freedom of Information Act: army criminal investigations, FBI notes on debriefings of prisoners, autopsy reports, and prisoners' medical records. These documents tell a story markedly different. from the official version of the truth, revealing involvement at every level of government, from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to the Pentagon's senior health officials to prison health-care personnel. ISBN:9781400065783