Spokane Psychologists Helped Craft CIA’S Harsh Interrogation Tactics

[Purveyor]

Source: The Seattle Times

Two Spokane psychologists helped the CIA establish an interrogation program that utilized “brutal” techniques that violated U.S. law, treaty obligations and the nation’s values, a Senate report released this week says.

By Hal Bernton and Kyung M. Song
Seattle Times staff reporters

From their office in Spokane, two psychologists who once worked with an Air Force survival school there launched an extraordinary covert business that, after the 2001 terror attacks, offered one-stop shopping for a CIA wanting to use harsh interrogation tactics.

James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen provided the CIA a list of tactics that ranged from facial slaps to waterboarding, deployed them against some terror suspects, and assessed the effectiveness of the efforts, according to a U.S. Senate report released this week that identified the two contractors under pseudonym.

The CIA even turned to the two men in June 2007 to help gain support for the interrogation program from then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to the Senate report.

In return, the CIA paid a total $81 million to the company formed by the two men before their contract was ended in 2009. At one point, in 2008, 85 percent of personnel in the CIA’s main unit for detention and interrogation were outside contractors, and most were employed through Mitchell and Jessen.

Read more: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2025211316_spokanepsychologistsciaxml.html

[ErikJ]

1. CIA torturers crying?

'.............The Senate Intelligence report released Tuesday said the tactics were intended to simulate what U.S. service members might face from a ruthless, lawless enemy. Yet Mitchell proposed a list of 12 of these techniques for possible CIA use on terror suspects, and he and Jessen “played a role in convincing the CIA to adopt such a policy,” the Senate report said.

The CIA thought so highly of the two men that, in August 2002, they were the only ones approved to apply waterboarding and other enhanced techniques against Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi citizen of Palestinian origin who was the first person detained as an enemy combatant after the 2001 terror attacks.

Waterboarding simulates drowning by pouring water into the nose and mouth.

Zubaydah, held in Thailand, was suspected of having knowledge of plans for terrorist operations against the United States. In at least one waterboarding session, he became unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open mouth, according to the Senate report.

Zubaydah remained unresponsive until medical intervention, when he regained consciousness and expelled copious amounts of fluid.

The report cited a CIA email that said the tactics affected some members of the interrogation team, “some to the point of tears and choking up.”

Later Mitchell and Jessen participated in waterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The North Carolina-educated Mohammed, a citizen of Kuwait, planned the 2001 terror attacks and was captured in March 2003 in Pakistan.

In all, Mohammed was waterboarded at least 183 times, the report said. The site was believed to be in Poland, according to news reports."

[roguevalley]

2. jail them all. all of them. prosecute them, take their

licenses, SHUN them. All of them.

[GreatGazoo]

9. good catch. I think it is also wrong to call them "interrogation" techniques

since they were modeled on techniques used by the Chinese and Koreans to produce false confessions for propaganda, and not to acquire useable information.

[nilesobek]

4. Gee Whiz, Spokane is just down the road 100 mi from me.

[blkmusclmachine]

5. Das ist sehr interessant. Ja wohl!

[riderinthestorm]

6. Shades of the "doctors" who were "helping" in Nazi concentration camps

Horrific

[TM99]

7. This so infuriates me!

As a psychologists, this utterly disgusts me. I am not often able to act on the rage that can arise when political events occur at a distance from me.

But, not this time. I will be fight to have these two men stripped of their licenses and their professional memberships.

This is abhorrent behavior reminiscent of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. I wouldn't shed too many tears if something bad happened to these guys.

Karma can be a bitch.