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<font size=3>Medics joined CIA 'torture' sessions: Red Cross<br>
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</a>WASHINGTON (AFP) US medical personnel took part in CIA torture
sessions in a "gross breach of medical ethics," the Red Cross
concludes in a confidential report leaked this week.<br><br>
Medical officers monitored and sometimes participated in waterboarding
terror suspects, and were present when the detainees were slammed into
walls, subjected to temperature extremes or deprived of food and sleep
for days, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC).<br><br>
The allegations were featured in a February 2007 report partially leaked
by the New York Review of Books last month and posted for the first time
in its entirety on the magazine's website Monday.<br><br>
ICRC spokesman Bernard Barrett confirmed to AFP the authenticity of the
leaked report, which had been intended only for high-ranking US
government officials.<br><br>
A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the report.<br><br>
The 40-page document is based on ICRC interviews with 14
"high-value" detainees sent to the US base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, in September 2006, following spells at secret CIA detention centers
abroad.<br><br>
In the interviews, detainees told the ICRC that medical workers took part
in torture and fine-tuned the harshness of treatment.<br><br>
They at times "gave instructions to interrogators to continue, to
adjust or to stop particular methods," detainees say in the ICRC
report.<br><br>
One medical official told detainee Encep "Hambali" Nuraman:
"I look after your body only because we need you for
information," the report said.<br><br>
It said the health personnel's alleged participation "constituted a
gross breach of medical ethics and, in some cases, amounted to
participation in torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment."<br><br>
Their main role was "to serve the interrogation process, and not the
patient," the Red Cross noted. "In so doing, the health
personnel have condoned, and participated in
ill-treatment."<br><br>
Alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said that his oxygen and
pulse were monitored when he was waterboarded, and that the simulated
drowning was stopped on several occasions at the request of a health
person.<br><br>
Walid bin Attash, a detainee who had had one leg amputated, said a person
he assumed to be a doctor checked his healthy leg for swelling while he
was held with his arms shackled above his head.<br><br>
The medical attendant eventually ordered bin Attash to be allowed to sit
on the floor.<br><br>
At least five copies of the report had been shared with the CIA and top
White House officials in 2007, but were barred from public release by
ICRC guidelines intended to preserve the organization's
neutrality.<br><br>
"We deplore that a confidential report was made public,"
Barrett said. "It was only intended to be shared with senior
officials in the US government."<br><br>
The report is a new embarrassment for the former administration of
president George W. Bush. It said that beyond the ill-treatment of the 14
prisoners interviewed, their detention amounted to "arbitrary
deprivation of liberty and enforced disappearance, in contravention of
international law."<br><br>
Shortly after taking office in January, President Barack Obama banned the
use of torture and ordered the closure of all CIA detention
facilities.<br><br>
Obama has so far been cool on calls for enquiries into alleged abuses
under his predecessor, but he has not ruled out possible
prosecutions.<br><br>
CIA spokesman George Little noted that the White House has ordered agents
to "not use interrogation techniques outside the Army Field
Manual."<br><br>
He also said that no one acting "on legal guidance from the
Department of Justice at the time" faced investigation or
punishment.<br><br>
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