More on: "Doctors Must Be Healers".

It is a great privilege to host this session and to welcome such a distinguished panel and guests. I wish to commend Mr. Denbeaux and his staff for organizing this important event and keeping the spotlight on the policies and ethical principles that lie behind our current military engagements. The timely publication of Bob Woodward’s State of Denial has inspired a number of side pieces on the culture of the senior military officers and the propriety of their challenge to the direction and guidance of our civilian leadership—either within the corridors of the Pentagon or publicly. There are many examples of the unhappy consequences of the tension between decisions made by the civilian leadership and the difficulty of implementing these changes by those who have made the military a career. But nowhere in the system can the consequences be measured more dramatically in human suffering than in the area of military medicine, and the practices and policies of military health professionals. As a retired Brigadier General, a medical doctor, psychiatrist, and someone who organized military medical support for the first Gulf War, I have sustained a special interest throughout the years, and particularly during our engagement in Iraq. The publicity surrounding Abu Ghraib in 2004 and Guantánamo, even today, has raised serious questions about the actions or, more to the point, the apparent inaction of medical personnel at both of these facilities. Over time, more reports have been published on the participation of health professionals in interrogations, treatment of detainees in hunger strikes, and deaths during incarcerations. It is becoming apparent that contemporary notions of