By Colonel (Ret.) L. Morgan Banks, Colonel (Ret.) Debra L. Dunivin,
Colonel (Ret.) Larry C. James & Dr. Russ Newman
Based upon documents described in this response, we can now demonstrate the following:
Despite eight months of research and more than $4.1 million in fees, Mr. Hoffman’s report omits the key Department of Defense documents that governed military interrogations in the period leading up to the PENS report. Only that omission enables him to make the false claims at the core of his major conclusion: that DoD guidelines did not prohibit abusive interrogation techniques and that we wanted the PENS guidelines to be similarly “loose.” In fact, the DoD policies – some of which we helped to draft – were very restrictive. Moreover, the PENS report clearly states that psychologists are bound by those policies as well as by the relevant international treaties.
In the face of the documents Mr. Hoffman ignored, his major conclusion collapses. As this response will also demonstrate, that omission is part of a pattern of omissions, factual mistakes, and unsupported inferences that pervade the rest of his report.
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Colonel (Ret.) Larry C. James & Dr. Russ Newman
Based upon documents described in this response, we can now demonstrate the following:
Despite eight months of research and more than $4.1 million in fees, Mr. Hoffman’s report omits the key Department of Defense documents that governed military interrogations in the period leading up to the PENS report. Only that omission enables him to make the false claims at the core of his major conclusion: that DoD guidelines did not prohibit abusive interrogation techniques and that we wanted the PENS guidelines to be similarly “loose.” In fact, the DoD policies – some of which we helped to draft – were very restrictive. Moreover, the PENS report clearly states that psychologists are bound by those policies as well as by the relevant international treaties.
In the face of the documents Mr. Hoffman ignored, his major conclusion collapses. As this response will also demonstrate, that omission is part of a pattern of omissions, factual mistakes, and unsupported inferences that pervade the rest of his report.
VIEW ENTIRE DOCUMENT (PDF)