Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Regarding the July 21 front-page article "Bush approves New CIA Methods":

Forms of abuse innocuously referred to by government officials and others as "enhanced interrogation techniques" should be seen for what they are: torture. This includes simulated drowning, sexual humiliation, stress positions, sensory overload and deprivation, and sleep deprivation. Such mistreatment can have devastating physical and psychological consequences and from a medical perspective, as well as moral and legal ones, are torture. Government officials and interrogators who would use such techniques should know this.

It is well documented that such methods do not provide useful and accurate information. Further, when we condone, sanitize or rationalize torture, no matter what we call it, it cheapens us as a society. It also puts in harm's way innocent civilians around the world who live under regimes that routinely torture. I know from colleagues who care for torture victims in other countries that the United States' credibility in speaking out against torture has been profoundly compromised in recent years.

President Bush's recent executive order, which woefully lacks detail about which interrogation techniques are permitted and which are not, will do little to restore this credibility.

ALLEN S. KELLER

Director

Bellevue-New York University Program

for Survivors of Torture

New York