U.S. Army Doctors Involved in Abu Ghraib Torture Abuse

U.S. military doctors working in  Iraq collaborated with interrogators in the abuse of prisoners  at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, an article in the British  medical journal The Lancet said on Friday. A U.S. military spokesman said the article was inaccurate,  and a spokesman for an American physicians group said that if  the accusations are true, the doctors and other medical  personnel should stand trial. The Lancet report by University of Minnesota professor  Steven Miles suggested that some doctors falsified death  certificates to cover up killings and hid evidence of beatings,  and one detainee who collapsed after a beating was revived by  medics so that the abuse could continue. "Army officials stated that a physician and a psychiatrist  helped design, approve and monitor interrogations at Abu  Ghraib," Miles wrote, citing U.S. congressional hearings, sworn  statements of detainees and soldiers, medical journal accounts  and aid agency information. The Pentagon denied Miles' report. [more ]

• One of the most startling charges in the articlele by Steven H. Miles  was that medical personnel collaborated with the military in "designing and implementing psychologically and physically coercive interrogations," profoundly breaching medical ethics and human rights.
• Iraq prison abuse report set to revive furore [more ]