During the past decade, U.S. military doctors designed, enabled and engaged in the torture of suspected terrorists held at American detention centers – a violation of globally recognized ethics and medical principles that prohibits physicians from inflicting harm, according to a new study released Monday. The physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists who work in military branches or for U.S. intelligence agencies allowed "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners while acting at the direction of military leaders in both the Bush and Obama administrations, reported an independent task force of doctors, lawyers and ethics experts. A spokesman for the Department of Defense reviewed the allegations and called them "wholly absurd." The task force spent two years reviewing public records of the U.S. military's treatment of combat detainees at Guantanamo Bay and prisons on American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
