Psych Association ‘Complicit’ in Torture

A report by activists alleges the American Psychological Association colluded with the Bush administration to justify torture in the war on terror. Pointing to newly released documents, the report claims the APA’s decision to put psychologists in interrogation rooms—which quickly followed the fallout from prisoner-abuse photos at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib—was later used in secret legal memos to call the interrogations “safe.” A spokeswoman for the APA said there “has never been any coordination between APA and the Bush administration on how APA responded to the controversies about the role of psychologists in the interrogations program.” An independent review of the association’s involvement is underway.