Brainwashing

Getting Specific with Biderman

On October 11, 2002 Lieutenant Colonel Jerald Phifer sent a memorandum to the Commander of the Joint Task Force overseeing the Guantanamo detainees requesting the approval for a new interrogation plan. The memo, which became known as the Phifer Memo after it was declassified, stated that "[t]he current guidelines for interrogation procedures at GTMO limit the ability of interrogators to counter advanced resistance". The plan that followed, intended to overcome this "advanced resistance" contained a detailed request to use strategies from SERE training - based on the model of Biderman's principles - to "interrogate" prisoners at Guantanamo.

Following the Senate Arms Services Committee hearing on the role of psychologists in creating the SERE-based interrogation techniques, Dr. Steven Reisner appeared on Democracy Now to explain how the interrogation practices were crafted and criticised the role of psychologists in creating and implementing torture procedures.