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

“If law be the bedrock of civil society, it can no more undergird torture than it could support slavery or genocide.”

–from the Introduction

The graphic photographs of U.S. military personnel grinning over abused Arab and Muslim prisoners shocked the world community. That the United States was systematically torturing inmates at prisons run by its military and civilian leaders divided the nation and brought deep shame to many. When 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 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 of 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.

Oath Betrayed is not a denunciation of American military policy or of war in general, but of a profound betrayal of traditions that have shaped the medical corps of the United States armed forces and of America’s abdication of its leadership role in international human rights. This book is a vital document that will both open minds and reinvigorate Americans’ understanding of why human rights matter, so that we can reaffirm and fortify the rules for international civil society.

The revelation that the United States was systematically torturing inmates at prisons run by its military and civilian leaders divided the nation and brought deep shame to many. When

Steven H. Miles, M.D., is an expert in medical ethics, human rights, and international health care. A professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a faculty member of its Center for Bioethics, Miles is also a practicing physician. He has served as the chief medical officer for a Cambodian refugee camp and worked on AIDS prevention in Sudan and on tsunami relief in Indonesia with the American Refugee Committee. He has also worked with the research committee of the Center for Victims of Torture. The recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, Miles is widely published on a wide range of health- and health-care-related topics. He lives in Minneapolis.

Torture — Medicine and torture — Interrogation — Homicide — Neglect — Silence — Grave breaches — Why oppose torture?