Jack Plunkett / AP Photo
In trying to avoid charges of torture, might the Bush administration have done something nearly as bad? A new report by Physicians for Human Rights charges the Bush administration with experimenting on terrorism detainees and violating laws on human testing that were put in place after the Holocaust. The report alleges that the CIA’s medical professionals monitored interrogations, recorded data on techniques and pain thresholds, and then used this information to “enhance” future interrogations. This information was frequently passed on to Bush administration lawyers, who would use it, for example, to determine how many times they would allow a detainee to be waterboarded. The Bush administration would also sometimes argue, as Mother Jones points out, that the medical monitoring protected it from charges of torture.