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Psychologists Collaborated with CIA & Pentagon on Post-9/11 Torture Program, May Face Ethics Charges
A new independent review has revealed extensive details on how members of the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest group of psychologists, were complicit in torture, lied and covered up their close collaboration with officials at the Pentagon and CIA to weaken the association’s ethical guidelines and allow psychologists to participate in the government’s "enhanced" interrogation programs after 9/11. The 542-page report was commissioned by the association’s board of directors last year based on an independent review by former Assistant U.S. Attorney David Hoffman and undermines the APA’s repeated denials that some of its 130,000 members were complicit in torture. The Guardian reports the new details could provide grounds to file ethics charges against members of the APA. We speak with Dr. Stephen Soldz, professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Earlier this month, he was invited to address the APA’s board of directors, along with Coalition for an Ethical Psychology co-founder Steven Reisner, on the APA’s response to the anticipated Hoffman report. And we’re joined by Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo, a social psychologist, oral historian, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. She participated in the 2005 APA task force that condoned psychologists’ involvement in "enhanced" interrogations, and later blew the whistle. She has since established the APA PENS Debate Collection at University of Colorado at Boulder Archives.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with a story Democracy Now! has been closely following for about the past decade. A new independent review has revealed extensive details on how members of the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest association of psychologists, were complicit in torture and lied and covered up their close collaboration with officials at the Pentagon and CIA to weaken the association’s ethical guidelines and allow psychologists to participate in the government’s so-called enhanced interrogation programs after 9/11. The 542-page report was commissioned by the association’s board of directors last year based on an independent review by a former assistant U.S. attorney, David Hoffman. It undermines the APA’s repeated denials that some of its more than 130,000 members were complicit in torture. The report’s findings were first revealed Friday in The New York Times and conclude the association’s, quote, "principal motive in doing so was to align APA and curry favor with DOD"—that’s the Department of Defense.
Among the leading officials it implicates are the director of the APA Ethics Office, Stephen Behnke. After the APA received the Hoffman report, Behnke reportedly departed his position last Wednesday. It’s unclear whether he was fired or resigned. He has now hired former Clinton FBI Director Louis Freeh to defend him.
We invited a representative from the American Psychological Association to join us, but they declined.
Meanwhile, The Guardian reports the new details could provide grounds to file ethics charges against members of the APA. Recommendations for reform are expected to be made ahead of the APA’s annual convention in Toronto next month.
For more, we’re joined by two guests. In Boston, Dr. Stephen Soldz is with us, a professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Earlier this month, he was invited to address the APA’s board of directors with Steven Reisner on the organization’s response to the anticipated Hoffman report. And from Irvine, California, we’re joined by whistleblower Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo. She’s a social psychologist and oral historian, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. She participated in the 2005 APA task force that condoned psychologists’ involvement in "enhanced" interrogations, and later blew the whistle. She has since established the APA PENS Debate Collection at University of Colorado, Boulder, Archives.
We welcome you both back to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Dr. Stephen Soldz in Boston. Can you explain the scope of the Hoffman report and what he found?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: Well, as you know, Amy, and those who have watched the show for years, since at least 2005, there’s been a major debate in the association and the profession about the role of psychologists in national security interrogations and torture. The association has denied it, as you said. So, the report says that the association was wrong; the so-called dissidents, the critics were right.
So the main findings are that there was a years-long conspiracy to collude between the leadership of the association and representatives of the Bush administration intelligence agencies, the Defense Department and CIA; second, that there was a major duplicitous PR campaign to falsely present the APA as being concerned about human rights and detainee welfare, when, as Mr. Hoffman shows in the report, their actions were not motivated by that at all; thirdly, they—while claiming that they would investigate all claims of abuse, in fact they dismissed, without any reasonable investigation, claims of abuse that were filed with their Ethics Office. So, those are the main findings. There are many more. This 500-page report has extensive detail. They conducted over a hundred interviews. There are—you know, they had probably thousands of emails that documented this collusion in great detail.
And one of the things we find is that virtually every word in APA policy was approved by Defense Department officials before it was submitted to the membership or the Council of Representatives. It was all, as Mr. Hoffman calls it, pre-vetted. Everything was pre-vetted by the Defense Department to make sure that it did not in any way constrain the Defense Department psychologists, the military psychologists, active at Guantánamo and elsewhere, while sounding like it was opposing torture.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who David Hoffman is and how this report came into being, Dr. Soldz.
STEPHEN SOLDZ: Well, David Hoffman is an attorney at a law firm in Chicago, an expert in institutional corruption; as you said, a former federal prosecutor; and former inspector general of Chicago. So, last October, James Risen of The New York Times published a book in which he—one of his chapters reported on emails between Scott Gerwehr, a deceased CIA contractor, and APA officials, CIA officials and White House and Defense Department officials, that demonstrated collusion between the groups. The APA initially dismissed Risen’s claims; however, after a month, they backtracked and said, "Well, we think we’re—they’re not true. We know they’re not true, but we’ve got to show it. So we’ve hired this independent investigator to conduct a review of charges of collusion between us and the Bush administration." So, Hoffman and his team of six have been active for the last seven months. I know I and my colleagues decided to help him. We had a number of phone meetings and gave him all the documents we had, and encouraged others to do so. We were hopeful that he was the real deal, and it turns out that he was.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read from part of the press release issued by the APA in response to the report. They said, quote, "The organization’s intent was not to enable abusive interrogation techniques or contribute to violations of human rights, but that may have been the result. The actions, policies and the lack of independence from government influence described in the Hoffman report represented a failure to live up to our core values. We profoundly regret, and apologize for, the behavior and the consequences that ensued." Is that enough, Stephen Soldz?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: No, especially if—there are two things wrong with the APA’s statement. That first sentence, while it is true that—as the report shows, it wasn’t exactly about torture. The APA didn’t care about what was happening to the detainees. What it was about was making the Defense Department happy so that they would help psychology as a profession. So, in that sense, yes. But Mr. Hoffman also shows that there was a strategic decision made within the APA to not obtain any information about abuses occurring at Guantánamo, in CIA, elsewhere. In other words, they deliberately turned their heads the other way. So, they can’t claim that, you know, it was completely inadvertent, especially when there were thousands of people in the association and around the world telling them that this wasn’t working.
The other thing, which is elsewhere in there, is they blame a small group. And while this small group is like 20 of the top leaders of the association who were directly involved in the collusion, including the CEO, the deputy CEO, the current president, the director of their public affairs, their—as you said, their Ethics Office, the former science directorate, former practice directorate—in other words, the whole structure—but the report also documents that the group engaged directly in the collusion, were carrying out APA policy to make the Defense Department—to please the Defense Department. So, the association can’t claim it was just this group of rogue people. It was not. They were creative, let’s put it this way, in how they carried out the APA policy. But that they were carrying out the policy was clear. And the report documents that top leaders knew many of the things that were being done. So, we’re still open to see. I think the association has made many positive steps, come far from where they were, but they still have far to go.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this discussion, and we’ll be joined by one of the original whistleblowers in a 2005 task force of the American Psychological Association, what she exposed about this task force that weakened—recommended weakening the guidelines for the APA in dealing with torture. We’ll be speaking with Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo in addition to Dr. Stephen Soldz. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: "Waterboarding," Jonathan Mann. Back in 2009, the musician wrote a song a day for the entire year. That was song 109, with the lyrics taken from the torture memos of the Bush administration. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We are talking about this stunning exposé, this report that was commissioned, an independent report, by the American Psychological Association, significant globally because it’s the largest association of psychologists in the world with more than 130,000 members. We’re joined by Dr. Stephen Soldz, Coalition for an Ethical Psychology co-founder, and Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo. She is a social psychologist and oral historian who was asked to participate in the APA task force that convened in 2005, that ended up condoning psychologists’ involvement in "enhanced" interrogations, what would become known as torture. Later, she would blow the whistle. She established the APA PENS Debate Collection at University of Colorado, Boulder, Archives. She’s joining us from Irvine, California.
Start out by telling us what this PENS task force was, Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo. But first, your response to this report? Do you feel you have been vindicated?
JEAN MARIA ARRIGO: Yes, but that’s not my principal concern. My concern is that there’s significant reform in the APA. And so, we can all be vindicated and can be happy with the report, but unless there’s some progress from here, it’s just, you know, a kind of media event.
AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us about this report back in 2005, how you came to be a part of it and what actually took place.
JEAN MARIA ARRIGO: It was a presidential advisory committee, a task force that was set up under President Ron Levant at that time. And it was in response to—we were told, into the reports of psychologists possibly being involved at Abu Ghraib or wherever and that there was a great clamor among the membership. And so, they were asking for the leadership to give some response to this, and so the task force was the response. And I appreciate your saying that I was invited to participate; in fact, I was appointed to be duped, OK? Speaking frankly.
So, 10 of us met. One of them was the—Olivia Moorehead-Slaughter, who was the chair of the meeting. And I think it’s been described before that six of the other nine were in the national security sector. Some were military officers in uniform. That was significant to me, because I didn’t expect that officers in uniform would lie to us in that context. And so, we met for about three days, and we produced this report at the end.
And there were a lot of platitudes in it, but the heart of it was, as far as the operational aspect, was that operational psychologists, the BSCT psychologists, Behavioral Science Consultation Team psychologists, who were in the detainee centers, detention centers—the gist of the report, or the heart of it, was that psychologists had a legitimate reason to be there—to keep interrogations safe, legal, ethical and effective. That was one part. And the other part was that the psychologists would adhere to the definition of torture—torture was outlawed, of course—would adhere to the U.S. definition of torture, which was under the Yoo memos, instead of the international definition of torture under the conventions against torture.
AMY GOODMAN: When you say you were appointed to be duped, what do you mean?
JEAN MARIA ARRIGO: What I meant was that, apparently, as we see in the Hoffman report, that we were—there were background checks on us. We were looked at. I was supposedly—I thought that I was brought in because of my great expertise, OK? And this fantasy was brought home to me by the ethics director, Stephen Behnke. I was brought in, supposedly, according to the Hoffman report, as a Latina, for diversity. Unfortunately, Latina here meant someone with Sicilian Mafia background, instead of cross the border.
And the manipulation began very early on. So, for instance, I was seated—seating was not at random or by choice. I was seated between, on the one side, Morgan Banks, who was the head of the BSCT psychologists, and, on the other side, the now-president Barry Anton, who was at that time the liaison from the APA board to the task force. And as I felt later, not at the time, and as was borne out in the Hoffman report, Banks, especially, was the person chosen to manipulate me, and as well as Behnke. So we could see, for instance, in the hallway, that one of them would come up to me and say, "Oh, Dr. Arrigo, we’re so gratified that you’re here, with your other point of view, your dissident point of view. We really need to hear from you. Please keep informing us. What we’re doing here right now, you understand, is just a first stage, and the ideas that you’re bringing up will continue to the later, more important stages." So, both Michael Wessells, who was also a peace psychologist, and I were strung along with this idea.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, you, Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo, in this room, you attempted to take notes. You are known as being a prolific note taker. What happened? And how did the report get written that came out of this task force?
JEAN MARIA ARRIGO: OK, well, first, let me say that in a task force, normally, everyone is taking notes, and normally there is an agenda. In our task force, besides, you know, the 10 or so—I don’t know—eight or 10 never-acknowledged observers at the end of our long table, none of the task force members had any papers on the table and taking notes. And we were given no agenda. And, in fact, the person who set out to—who was the nominal chair did not actually run the meeting. That was another unacknowledged person. So, the fact that I was taking notes became very conspicuous in this stark situation.
I am a habitual note taker. I have, you know, notebooks always. I’m an oral historian. I take notes. Before I went into this meeting, also, I had talked with Brad Bauer, who was the archivist at Hoover Institution Archives, where I had—was archiving oral histories of moral development of intelligence professionals. And he said, "Well, maybe this will be a significant event, maybe not, but it’s a good thing to just collect everything while you’re there." You know, this would be good archival practice.
So, in fact, I did collect everything, just as a matter of good form. I had no clue that there was anything suspicious going on, beginning. It would be as if somebody had called a task force: "We are going to talk about school bullying," or something, so I had no clue that there was any sabotage afoot. But it’s normal for me to take notes and to collect everything, and so I happened to have all of those things. But I did not at all go at this suspiciously.
AMY GOODMAN: You told us on Democracy Now! years ago—you talked about the unbalanced nature of this task force. You said, "Six of the 10 members were highly placed in the Department of Defense, as contractors and military officers. For example, one was the commander of all military psychologists. Their positions on two key items of controversy in the PENS report were predetermined by their DOD employment, in spite of the apparent ambivalence of some. These key items were: [a] the permissive definition of torture in U.S. law versus the strict definition in international law, and, second, [the] participation of military psychologists in interrogation settings versus nonparticipation." You talked about the conflict of interest between the people who were participating, the observers who were higher-ups, who would be putting pressure on those who were participating. The significance of this in shaping APA policy for the next 10 years?
JEAN MARIA ARRIGO: All of this, I came by later. All right? At the time, I wasn’t somehow tipped off by having all the military people there. I’m accustomed to working with military people and have had a lot of respect for them, was an annual participant in the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics for a long time. And I thought, "Well, at least here we’ve got some people who know what’s going on." And in the years after the PENS task force meeting, when I was invited to give talks places, I always invited an interrogator along to speak with me, or some other intelligence person. So, I wasn’t alarmed by their being there, to begin with. I was just later shocked by their duplicity.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to 2005—we have been covering this issue for a long time—to Stephen Behnke, the director of ethics at the American Psychological Association, until last week, his appearance on Democracy Now!
STEPHEN BEHNKE: I don’t have firsthand knowledge of what went on at Guantánamo. I know that the APA very much wants the facts, and that when APA has the facts, we will act on those facts.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Stephen Behnke. Now, apparently, he was either forced out, he was—or he resigned last week. The significance, Dr. Stephen Soldz, of Stephen Behnke’s role in all of this?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: Well, he was—according to the report, he’s described in the report as the chief of staff of this collusion. He was the one—it was all centered around him. But I want to emphasize that the entire or large portion of the upper leadership of the organization was involved. But he was the mastermind of it.
So, in that quote you have there, "we want the facts," well, Mr. Hoffman, in the report, details that in fact they tried very hard to never be exposed to those facts, that they systematically ignored the facts when they were there, that on the task force, for example, the notes show that Jean Maria tried to get them to examine what psychologists were actually doing at Guantánamo, and she was slammed by the then-president-elect, Gerald Koocher, for doing that. In fact, he said, "If that’s what you want to do, you should have stayed home." So they were very careful to avoid learning those facts. And as the facts became public, they simply denied them and ignored them over and over again.
But Behnke was a mastermind at wordsmithing, among other things, so that as critics tried within the association to modify, to come out with anti-torture resolutions, he systematically worked with DOD officials to nuance the wording so that it would actually not constrain the military psychologists one bit, so that they would have these nice-sounding anti-torture things that actually did not mean a word. There were some of us at the time who were saying that. Of course, we were always described as "those who will never be satisfied." Well, the report shows that those of us who would never be satisfied were right, that those nice-sounding statements were just that, nice-sounding statements, but had no bite.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who Jessen and Mitchell was, very quickly, as we begin to wrap up this discussion, and what David Hoffman, in this report—now, again, this report was—is this right? Commissioned by the American Psychological Association—
STEPHEN SOLDZ: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —to look at it, an independent report, that has just been released? The question is: Will there be indictments? What will come out of this?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: Yeah. And it’s to their credit that they did commission this, definitely.
Mitchell and Jessen are two psychologists who designed and implemented much of the CIA’s "enhanced" interrogation program. They were retired military psychologists. One thing the report shows is that in 2003, that the top psychologists in the CIA’s own Office of Medical Services raised questions about what Mitchell was doing as he was torturing people. So, Mitchell got a Mel Gravitz, a psychologist who was a CIA contractor, we learn in the report, and who was also very connected to the APA, to evaluate and write a memo saying that the "enhanced" interrogation program, the torture program, was in fact consistent with APA ethics, and Mitchell was allowed to go on torturing people. So here we have APA ethics explicitly used to protect the torturer. And APA had a number of contacts with Mitchell and Jessen over the years that, until this report, they’ve hidden. We’ve tried to call attention to them. They’ve completely ignored it.
The report also shows that an ethics complaint was filed against James Mitchell in 2005. The Ethics Office looked in the membership directory—you can’t make this stuff up. They looked in the membership directory, saw that there were three James Mitchells, and they did nothing further. And they allowed Mitchell to resign, which you’re not supposed to be able to do while you’re under ethics investigation. You know, they would not even try and figure out which of the three it was, even though they had extensive contacts with them. They were on a first name basis, that he was Jim Mitchell to the staff. But, you know, they said, "There are three James Mitchells. We can’t tell who it is. Case closed."
AMY GOODMAN: Back to Stephen Behnke, who just left his position last week and has hired Louis Freeh, the former FBI director, as his legal counsel, the report said that while working at the APA, head of the ethics division—the report says the Pentagon gave Behnke a secret contract to help train interrogators. Is that news to you, Dr. Soldz?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: We learned it a couple of months ago. Psychologist and journalist Jeff Kaye wrote about it, and then we also heard about it from other sources. He was training the so-called BSCT psychologists, the behavioral science consultants, those who consult to interrogations at Guantánamo, at Fort Huachuca, which is the military facility which trains interrogators. This was evidently an APA contract. The money went to APA. And so, they were directly working—now, I want to say, the amount of money was not big. The big story here is not financial corruption, but it’s how close the ties were, that he was actually working for them—
AMY GOODMAN: Ultimately—
STEPHEN SOLDZ: —and the APA did not have trouble with that.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Stephen Soldz, ultimately, what did the APA have to gain by doing this? And you talked about turning a blind eye. But didn’t the involvement of American psychologists in the torture program actually allow it to continue, gave it the legitimacy that the Bush administration needed to continue this program, with the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association both saying they would not participate?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: Definitely. In addition to Mitchell and Jessen doing the interrogations and designing it, another major role for health professionals, including psychologists, was in the Justice Department torture memos. The basic argument is, if a health professional says it won’t cause severe and long-lasting harm—the U.S. definition—then—you know, even if it does cause severe and long-lasting harm, you can’t be accused of torture, because you were told by a health professional that it wouldn’t. So it was vital to have the psychologists present to say that it would not cause harm, to supposedly monitor. Safe, legal, ethical and effective was the mantra, and that’s what safe, legal and ethical meant. It meant we will say it won’t cause harm, so we’ll keep it legal, and we’ll keep it safe for the torturers.
AMY GOODMAN: What would satisfy you now, Dr. Stephen Soldz, for your association, the American Psychological Association?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: Well, that’s a long list that I’m sorry I can’t go over all of it. But we need—we need to see that they really understand the depth of what went wrong, to come to terms with what was wrong in the association that this could go on for so many years, change the policy—and they have proposed doing that, to ban psychologists participating in interrogations. There are possible loopholes, that we’re—that we have some concerns about that, that need to be worked out. But the whole culture of the APA needs to change. It’s a culture of getting along and doing whatever the leadership wants and not raising questions. And that allowed this to go on for a decade. That allowed even people in the top, who were told over and over again something’s not right here, to close their eyes to it. And we can’t have that happen again.
AMY GOODMAN: Will there be firings?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: There better be. Behnke was fired. But we gave them a list of eight people from the report that, we believe the report documents, were involved enough in the collusion that they need to be fired, including—
AMY GOODMAN: Who are those people?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: Among them are the CEO and the deputy CEO, the chief of the public relations office.
AMY GOODMAN: Who is that?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: Rhea Farberman. I believe you’ve probably dealt with her in the past. You know, these people and the others were all shown to be deeply involved in the collusion. They were working with Behnke. They were informed of much of what Behnke was doing. They helped him. They helped select the members of the PENS task force, to vet them. They worked on the policies. They undermined the will of the membership, systematically, over and over again. And they have to go. If they remain—and then there’s another—
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think there should be indictments?
STEPHEN SOLDZ: There should be a legal investigation. You know, whether there were crimes, there’s issues of statute of limitations, but if the conspiracy continued to the last few years, then that would be overdone. Another thing there has to be is there’s a larger group of people who—in governance, who are not paid staff, who have to be banned from future roles in governance, because they systematically participated in the manipulating the governance structures to undermine the will of the membership.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Stephen Soldz, I want to thank you for being with us, professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. And thanks also to Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo, the social psychologist, oral historian, who participated in the 2005 APA task force that condoned psychologists’ involvement in torture. She would later blow the whistle.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to Vienna, Austria, to find out the latest on the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Stay with us.
With Historic Iran Nuclear Deal Expected, Can President Obama Sell It to Congress and the Public?
We go to Vienna for an update on what could be the final stages of a historic deal between Iran and six world powers that would limit Tehran’s nuclear ability for more than a decade in exchange for sanctions relief. Negotiators are still smoothing over key details, including what limits to set on Iran’s nuclear research, the pace of sanctions relief and whether to lift a United Nations arms embargo on Iran. If a deal is brokered, Congress will have 60 days to review it, keeping U.S. sanctions in place in the meantime. An extra 22 days are set aside for voting, a possible presidential veto and then another vote to see if opponents can muster 67 Senate votes to override the veto. We speak to Flynt Leverett, who is following the talks. He is author of "Going to Tehran: Why America Must Accept the Islamic Republic of Iran" and is a professor of International Affairs at Penn State. He served for over a decade in the U.S. government as a senior analyst at the CIA, Middle East specialist for the State Department, and as senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to what could be the final step in an historic deal between Iran and six world powers that would limit Tehran’s nuclear ability for more than a decade in exchange for sanctions relief. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program entered their 17th, and possibly last, day in Vienna today, as the interim agreement is set to expire at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time tonight. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters he is confident a deal is within reach, but negotiators in Vienna are still smoothing over key details, including what limits to set on Iran’s nuclear research, the pace of sanctions relief and whether to lift a United Nations arms embargo on Iran. If a deal is brokered, Congress will have 60 days to review it, keeping U.S. sanctions in place in the meantime. An extra 22 days are set aside for voting, a possible presidential veto and then another vote to see if opponents can muster 67 Senate votes to override the veto. Meanwhile, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is set to address Iran on the nuclear deal in the next few hours.
For more, we go to Vienna, Austria, where we’re joined by Flynt Leverett, who’s there following the talks, author of Going to Tehran: Why America Must Accept the Islamic Republic of Iran. He’s a professor of international affairs at Penn State, served for over a decade in the U.S. government as a senior analyst at the CIA, a Middle East specialist for the State Department and as senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council.
Flynt Leverett, welcome back to Democracy Now! What is happening at this moment in Vienna?
FLYNT LEVERETT: Thank you. I believe that a final agreement is going to be reached here. What we’re watching now is a very, very slow, excruciatingly slow, process. The negotiators here have basically finished their work. Texts have gone back to national capitals for final review. And especially on the U.S. side, this process of review within the Obama administration is moving along very, very slowly. To the best of my knowledge, the White House has not come back with specific concerns, specific points that it wants, in effect, to renegotiate, but it seems like the Obama administration is being very deliberate, to say the least, in reviewing the work that is done here. And that means—you know, if one of the parties is slow, it means it delays the time at which people can produce final text, text that can basically be released to the world when the parties are ready to announce. That’s what we’re watching right now. But I still think we’re going to get to a final agreement very soon.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the main issues that are in this agreement and those left to resolve?
FLYNT LEVERETT: Yes. The main issues, which, to the best of my understanding, have been resolved, are the nature of the limits on its nuclear activities that Iran will observe while an agreement is in place; the pace and scope of sanctions relief for Iran, sanctions lifting, has been worked out. Over the last few days, the main issues that needed to be worked through concern precise terms on specific parts of a new United Nations Security Council that will lift—that will nullify previous resolutions related to the Iran nuclear issue, remove international sanctions against Iran authorized by the Security Council, including the arms embargo, and formally launch implementation of this agreement. To the best of my understanding, the negotiators here have basically reached an understanding about the terms of the Security Council resolution, but, as I said, it’s being reviewed in national capitals, and that review process is going especially slowly in Washington.
AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the pending Iranian nuclear deal being sought by the international negotiators. This is what he said.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] Iran does not hide its intention to continue its murderous aggression, even against those with which it is negotiating. Perhaps there is somebody among the powers who is willing to capitulate to the reality that Iran is dictating, which includes its repeated calls for the destruction of Israel. We will not accept this.
AMY GOODMAN: Flynt Leverett, your response?
FLYNT LEVERETT: Well, I mean, certainly no surprise that Prime Minister Netanyahu would say that. You know, America’s traditional allies in the region—Israel and Saudi Arabia—both have been working to undermine a deal. Even if they are not able to stop a deal—and I don’t think they will be—they are working very hard to put as much pressure as possible on the United States so that a nuclear agreement doesn’t become a critical first step in a broader realignment of U.S.-Iranian relations.
My own view, my wife and I, both in government and in the years since we left government, have argued vociferously that, for its own interest, the United States desperately needs to come to terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran, this increasingly important power in the Middle East. It needs to balance its traditional, but increasingly dysfunctional, relationships with Israel and Saudi Arabia with strategically grounded engagement with Iran. This nuclear deal could be a critical first step in that direction. It’s one of the reasons that I’m here, to try and help make that argument.
But, you know, there are a lot of pressures on the Obama administration, and I’m not sure there’s a real consensus within the administration to use a nuclear agreement, which, as I said, I think we will get here within relatively short order—I don’t think there’s that kind of consensus within the administration to use a deal as the springboard for what I think is an imperative realignment of U.S. relations with Iran. The U.S. needs to revamp its approach to the Middle East. And a critical, essential step in that revamping will be realigning U.S. relations with Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested the Obama administration will have a difficult time convincing Congress to approve a deal with Iran.
MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL: Well, look, we already know that it’s going to leave Iran as a threshold nuclear state. We know that. It appears as if the administration’s approach to this was to reach whatever agreement the Iranians are willing to enter into. So I think it’s going to be a very hard sell, if it’s completed, in Congress.
AMY GOODMAN: The Republican majority is expected to vote against the deal and to try to convince at least 12 Democrats to join their ranks in an attempt to defeat a presidential veto. Flynt Leverett, explain what has to happen in the United States for the U.S. to approve this. What is the voting that will take place?
FLYNT LEVERETT: Yes. Both houses of Congress will have 60 days to review the agreement once it’s finalized. I think it is quite possible, if not likely, that a simple majority of members in each house will vote a so-called resolution of disapproval in regard to the agreement. At that point, President Obama has said that he would veto those resolutions of disapproval. And at this point, the White House seems pretty confident that they have the votes, at least in the Senate, and perhaps in the House, as well, to sustain President Obama’s veto. So, they are confident that if you can get to an agreement here in Vienna, that it will ultimately get through the congressional review process and will go into effect.
But obviously, during the next—you know, the 60 days following a conclusion of an agreement, the Israelis, the Saudis, their friends and allies in the American political system, others who don’t want to see this agreement go forward are going to be working very hard, trying to turn public opinion against the deal and trying to build congressional support to maximize the vote against the deal.
Public opinion polls would show that Americans are open to supporting this deal, but one of the things I really worry about is that President Obama himself has not really made the strategic case for why doing this deal and for why building a different kind of relationship with Iran is so strongly in America’s interest. He either talks about this as a kind of narrow arms control agreement, but Iran is still this very bad actor, or he talks about it in terms of it being an opportunity for Iran to rejoin the international community, as he puts it. This is not the way to sell this deal to Americans. Americans understand that what the United States has been doing in the Middle East for the last decade and a half has actually been profoundly against American interests. It’s also been very damaging to Middle Easterners. But it has been profoundly damaging to America’s position in this critical part of the world and globally. President Obama has a chance here to begin to turn that around and put U.S. policy toward the Middle East on a more different and more productive trajectory, but he is going to have to make the strategic case—
AMY GOODMAN: Flynt Leverett, we’re going to have to—
FLYNT LEVERETT: —spend the political capital necessary to make the strategic case.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, but we’ll continue to follow this, of course.
Headlines:
Greece and Creditors Reach Deal to Impose Harsh Austerity
Greece and its European creditors have reached a deal that will force Greece to accept sweeping, German-backed austerity measures in order to receive a third bailout and remain in the eurozone. Provided the Greek Parliament accepts the terms, the deal paves the way for a three-year bailout worth up to $96 billion. After European leaders pressed Greece to accept an austerity package seen as amounting to a surrender of its fiscal sovereignty, the hashtag "#ThisIsACoup" trended on social media. Talks continued overnight until Greece agreed to immediately implement measures including pension reform and the privatization of its energy transmission network. The deal comes after the Greek Parliament voted Saturday to accept austerity reforms proposed by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, just days after Greek voters rejected similar terms in a historic referendum. Speaking earlier today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would ask the German Parliament to back the bailout deal.
Chancellor Angela Merkel: "I think we found ways where it’s true what I have repeatedly said, that advantages clearly dominate disadvantages. The basic principles which we always followed to rescue the euro are there, namely, on the one side, solidarity among member countries and, on the other side, the responsibility of the country where changes need to take place."
Yemen: Saudi-Led Airstrikes Kill 10 Civilians Despite Truce
In Yemen, Saudi-led airstrikes have continued despite a U.N. truce aimed at delivering much-needed humanitarian aid. Clashes between Houthi rebels and fighters loyal to ousted President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi killed at least 35 people Sunday near the southern port city of Aden. Meanwhile, Saudi-led strikes targeting the Houthis killed at least 10 civilians across Yemen, including a family of eight. On Saturday, a mass funeral was held for 53 soldiers killed when Saudi-led strikes erroneously hit a military base filled with troops fighting on the same side as the Saudis. The United States backs the Saudi campaign in Yemen, despite widespread civilian casualties.
Report: Top Psychologists Aided U.S. Torture Program
A new independent review has revealed how members of the the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest group of psychologists, lied about their close collaboration with officials at the Pentagon and CIA to weaken the association’s ethical guidelines and allow psychologists to participate in the government’s interrogation programs after 9/11. The 542-page report was commissioned by the psychological association’s board of directors last year. It undermines the APA’s repeated denials that some of its members were complicit in torture. We’ll have more on the report after headlines.
Iran Nuclear Talks Near Completion
Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have entered their 17th, and possibly final, day in Vienna, Austria, as an interim agreement is set to expire tonight. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters he is confident a deal is within reach, but negotiators are still smoothing over key details, including the pace of sanctions relief and whether to lift a United Nations arms embargo on Iran. We’ll have more on Iran later in the broadcast.
Iraq Receives F-16s from U.S., Launches Anbar Assault
Iraqi forces have reportedly begun a long-awaited campaign to oust the self-described Islamic State from the western province of Anbar. The announcement comes as Iraq has received a first batch of long-delayed F-16 fighter jets from the United States. Iraq had ordered 36 F-16s from the United States; four have now arrived.
Afghanistan: U.S. Drone Strike Said to Kill ISIL Leader
In Afghanistan, intelligence officials say a U.S. drone strike killed a former Taliban leader accused of leading ISIL in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Afghan intelligence agency said Hafiz Saeed was killed along with 30 other people it identified as insurgents in the province of Nangarhar. Meanwhile, a suicide car bomb killed at least 33 people near a military base formerly used by the CIA in the eastern Afghan province of Khost.
Notorious Drug Lord Chapo Guzmán Escapes from Mexican Prison
One of Mexico’s most notorious drug lords has escaped from a maximum-security prison for the second time. Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, head of the Sinaloa cartel, escaped through a rectangular opening in a shower area, into a mile-long tunnel under the prison west of Mexico City. Guzmán’s arrest 16 months ago was lauded as a signature achievement of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who vowed to crack down on drug traffickers. The United States sought unsuccessfully to extradite Guzmán, in part over concerns he might escape again, after he fled another Mexican prison in a laundry cart in 2001. Mexican President Peña Nieto said he had ordered the attorney general to investigate whether prison officials helped Guzmán escape.
President Enrique Peña Nieto: "We are also aware of the very unfortunate incident that has angered and outraged Mexican society. I am deeply shocked by what happened, the escape of one of Mexico and the world’s most wanted. This is undoubtedly an affront to the Mexican government. But I am also confident that Mexican institutions, particularly those charged with public security, rise to the challenge, with the strength and determination to recapture this criminal."
Serbian PM Pelted with Stones at Srebrenica 20th Anniversary
The Serbian prime minister was forced to flee a ceremony commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre on Saturday, after he was pelted with stones and plastic bottles. The Bosnian presidency condemned Saturday’s attack on Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, saying he had attended the ceremony in a "spirit of reconciliation." The event marked 20 years since the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serbs led by General Ratko Mladic during the Bosnian War. It’s recognized as Europe’s single worst atrocity since the end of World War II.
Personnel Director Resigns After Data Breach
In the United States, the director of the Office of Personnel Management has resigned, following revelations hackers stole the personal information of more than 22 million people from agency databases, far more than initially disclosed. The hacks, said to have originated in China, compromised Social Security numbers, health histories and financial information. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest announced Katherine Archuleta’s departure on Friday.
Josh Earnest: "I can tell you that Director Archuleta did offer her resignation today. She did so of her own volition. She recognizes, as the White House does, that the urgent challenges currently facing the Office of Personnel Management require a manager with a specialized set of skills and experiences. That’s precisely why the president has accepted her resignation and assigned Beth Cobert to take on the responsibilities of the OPM director on an acting basis."
Katherine Archuleta was the first Latina to lead the Office of Personnel Management.
Protesters Target Gov. Cuomo’s Hedge Fund Backers in the Hamptons
Here in New York, hundreds of people gathered at the East Hampton home of hedge fund billionaire Daniel Loeb, who was hosting a $5,000-a-plate fundraiser for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Outside Loeb’s estate Saturday evening, protesters chanted,"Cuomo, Cuomo, you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side," and "Hey, Governor One Percent, who do you represent?" The group Hedge Clippers says Loeb and fellow hedge funders are driving school privatization and income inequality in New York, while fueling the financial crisis in Puerto Rico. Dubbed "America’s Greece," Puerto Rico has $73 billion of debt, up to half of which is held by hedge funds.
London: Environmentalists Lock Down on Heathrow Runway
In London, environmental activists chained themselves together on the runway at Heathrow Airport to protest plans to build a third runway. The protesters cut through a fence and locked down on the northern runway, prompting a number of flight cancellations. They are from a group called "Plane Stupid," which seeks to highlight the role of the airline industry in climate change.
Israel Releases Palestinian Hunger Strike Khader Adnan
Israel has released Palestinian activist Khader Adnan following a deal which saw him end a 56-day hunger strike last month. Adnan had been held for more than a year without charge under Israel’s policy of "administrative detention." He was one of a number of Palestinians arrested after the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli youths last year. It was the 10th time he has been detained without charge. Adnan spoke out following his release Sunday.
Khader Adnan: "I see the happiness among Palestinians flowing and the Palestinian pain and hope for the freedom of all prisoners, God willing. The occupation made a mistake in arresting me the first time and the second time and all previous arrests. Today, the occupation makes the mistake of releasing me, because they think that they’ll abort the Palestinian happiness if they release me earlier, which is not typical. This is a cowardly act of the occupation that fears the Palestinian happiness and love for the Palestinian prisoners."
Video Appears to Show Top Israeli Soldier Shot Fleeing Palestinian Teen
Adnan’s release comes as the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has released video which appears to show a high-ranking Israeli soldier fatally shooting a Palestinian teenager as he runs away. The Israeli military has claimed Colonel Israel Shomer, a brigade commander, killed 17-year-old Mohammed al-Kusbah last week because his life was in danger and he had exhausted all other options. But footage of the incident appears to show the teenager throwing a rock at Shomer’s vehicle, then running away before Shomer stops, gets out of the vehicle and charges at him. Palestinian authorities have said Kusbah was shot in the back three times.
Alabama: Black Man Dies After Being Pepper-Sprayed by Police
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, an African-American man has died after being pepper-sprayed by police. Police say they responded to a report 35-year-old Anthony Ware was sitting on a porch with a gun. They say they chased Ware into the woods, where they claim he resisted arrest and was pepper-sprayed and placed in handcuffs. Ware collapsed and was later pronounced dead. His death is under investigation.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Announces Presidential Run
Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker has announced his candidacy for president. Walker is known for gutting collective bargaining rights for public sector workers in 2011. On Sunday, he signed a state budget which slashes funding for the University of Wisconsin, expands the voucher program for private schools and eliminates the state’s living wage law.
Key Voting Rights Trial Opens in North Caroli
A key trial on voting rights opens today in North Carolina. After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, North Carolina passed a series of restrictions, ending same-day registration and reducing early voting days. A federal judge will now consider whether those restrictions unconstitutionally discriminate against African Americans.
NAACP Ends Boycott of South Carolina After Confederate Flag Removed
The NAACP has voted to end its 15-year boycott of South Carolina after the state removed the Confederate battle flag from the Capitol grounds. In a statement, the NAACP said the flag’s removal does not end discrimination, but "does symbolize an end to the reverance of and adherence to values that support racially-based chattel slavery." The flag’s removal came just over three weeks after nine African-American churchgoers were massacred in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white suspect who embraced the Confederate flag.
FBI: Failures in Background Check System Let Dylann Roof Buy Gun
The FBI has admitted failures in the federal background check system allowed the Charleston massacre suspect, Dylann Roof, to buy the gun used in the attack, when he should have been prevented from doing so. FBI Director James Comey said Roof attempted to buy the gun on April 11, triggering a background check by an FBI examiner. But the examiner was confused over which police department to contact, and failed to obtain a police report which showed Roof had admitted to drug possession. A local prosecutor also failed to respond to the examiner’s request for information. Since federal law gives the FBI only three business days to provide evidence to block a purchase, Roof was able to return to the shop and buy the gun when the waiting period expired. Gun-control advocates have called for Congress to approve funding to enter the records of prohibited people into the FBI’s database.
Obama to Become First Sitting President to Visit a Federal Prison
And President Obama is set to become the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. On Thursday, Obama will tour the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison in Oklahoma. Obama is also expected to commute the sentences of dozens of nonviolent offenders this week, and deliver a speech on the need for sentencing reform before the NAACP on Tuesday.
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