Doctor Group Blasts Manning's Shrinks

The military psychiatrists treating Bradley Manning are violating their ethical duties, according to a leading group of doctors. The advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights says that by allowing the accused WikiLeaker to be kept in solitary confinement in a military brig, the psychiatrists are not doing their duty as doctors to protect their patient. Psychiatrists have repeatedly recommended changing the conditions of his detention. But "by continuing to examine him and report back to the government on his condition, they are effectively taking part in security operations," says a spokesman for the group.

Manning is under a prevention of injury order that requires him to be checked every five minutes, and he is now being forced to sleep naked. One member of the group, a doctor who has worked with torture victims from other countries, likens Manning's treatment to that of Guantanamo inmates. "In the US, if a patient was treated in a psychiatric hospital in the same way the military is treating Manning, the federal government would stamp all over it," she tells the Guardian. The government "is disobeying its own rules." State Department spokesman PJ Crowley resigned recently after branding Manning's treatment "ridiculous." Click here for that story. (More Quantico stories.)