Report: Torture Program Architects Made Millions

(CBS)

Two military retirees and psychologists with "no relevant scholarship" made millions of dollars as the driving force behind the CIA's controversial interrogation program ultimately terminated under the Obama administration, according to a New York Times report Wednesday.

Beginning in 2002, the CIA contracted Dr. Jim Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen to devise an interrogation strategy for suspected al Qaeda operatives that included waterboarding, a technique later characterized as torture.

The ripple effects of the program are still being felt months after it was cancelled by the White House, as Attorney General Eric J. Holder Jr. weighs the pursuit a criminal investigation. He's expected to make a decision in the coming weeks. The CIA is also set to release a 2004 report on the program by the agency's inspector general, according to the Times.

Mitchell and Jessen, who both served as Air Force psychologists training service members in interrogation resistance, pursued completely different research while obtaining their degrees, according to the report.

After serving in the Air Force as an explosives expert, Mitchell completed his doctorate at the University of South Florida in 1986. His research compared diet and exercise in controlling hypertension.

Jessen studied "family sculpting" – where patients construct models of family members to define their emotional relationships – on his way to earning a doctorate from Utah State University.

Both men worked in the Air Force's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, or SERE, training program, which was created to prepare service members for the harsh Chinese-style interrogations undergone by Americans during the Korean War. Jessen served as the program's top psychologist during the 1980s before moving on to head a "graduate" training program. Mitchell replaced Jessen after the move.

Around the time of the 9/11 attacks, the now retired Mitchell created training company Knowledge Works. Using his extensive military contacts, Mitchell began circulating his theories on demoralizing al Qaeda suspects into cooperation, according to the report. His ideas were well received within the CIA and, with Jessen, he wrote a proposal that based American interrogation strategy on enemy practices - slaps, stress positions, sleep deprivation, wall-slamming and waterboarding.

In 2002, Abu Zubaydah, reportedly al Qaeda's third in command, was being interrogated at a CIA prison in Thailand. FBI investigators had originally used conventional techniques like rapport-building to obtain intelligence. Mitchell arrived later and directed a more coercive treatment for Zubaydah including sleep deprivation and 83 waterboarding sessions over several months. During the interrogation, FBI and even some CIA officials reportedly expressed reservations about the use of torture techniques.

Jessen joined his partner in July before both men determined that the suspect had no more information to yield.

With Justice Department authorization of the enhanced interrogation techniques, business was booming for the pair. The each made between $1,000 and $2,000 a day. What started out as a home-based operation became a 60-employee business with offices in Spokane and Virginia by 2007.

But it just as quickly dried up. Beginning in 2006, elements within the Bush administration, notably Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, started questioning the legitimacy of the program. Public opinion began to steadily deteriorate until the Obama administration took office and terminated the program.

Now in danger of becoming ensnared in a criminal probe, Mitchell and Jessen have retained well known defense lawyer, Henry F. Scheulke III, according to the Times.

[regimeofterror_com]

Extremely partisan story by CBS.

[hermes2009]

The architects of this program should be given the benefit of their program.
waterboard them.See how they like it

[babooph]

Where was Kudlow,the businessmans Rush,to tell investors how to profit from the torture policy ??

[wyodutch]

If it wasn't torture... Then I propose that the Internal Revenue Service be allowed to use those same techniques when interviewing taxpayers.

[fred-mertz]

"Sleep deprivation never killed anyone; waterboarding can and has." - an uninformed person

Actually, just 4 consecutive days and nights of total sleep deprivation can turn nearly anyone completely psychotic, and THAT can easily get them killed!

The whole TORTURE program was designed with ONE GOAL in mind: to get people the US had captured or purchased to LIE about the non-existent ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Husseain. Cheney wanted to "justify" his attack on Iraq, an attack that he had been planning for years (see PNAC) and had been pushing since his SECOND DAY as VP, long before we were attacked on 9/11.

Torture DOES NOT WORK. It does NOT produce ANY reliable information. But it DOES produce lots of MISINFORMATION.

Torture IS EVIL. Anyone who causes or condones torture is EVIL. There are NO EXCEPTIONS.

[dnamj]

I'm going to throw up now. I am so deeply ashamed of this. We should all work to bring these criminals to justice.

[Bigtaco2002]

If you watch video or film of WW1 and WW2 -- our enemy combatants were shown, walking single file with arms over their heads. GIs walked next to them with their rifles slung over their shoulders -- taking them to locations where they were interrogated or "debriefed", then showered, fed and possibly, given some clean clothes at times.

Now - you have all this mess that the Bush Admin felt is the way to treat prisoners. What happened? Evil. Plain and simple evil. We were a nation looked up to when involved in War and the "humane" treatment of the combatant -- as they killed our own --- we were a nation that still 'turned the other cheek '

NOW - that repub admin has forever tarnished the view of the world as "God fearing" and "humane" Land of the Free - United States of America peoples.

What a shame Bush and Dick (phallus) -- have turned us into a war-mongering, torturing nation of "let freedom ring" yellers for democracy!

[Bigtaco2002]

Geez - years later and "dirty hands" are still being revealed.

My goodness -- how much "money" did that administration "procure" for those that supported its lunacy????

[mjlewis6]

It is of import that no further documents be shredded, initial questions to those employed by this agency be answered clearly and completely.

The whole apparatus of the American Nazi-like syndrome of something clearly wrong can be painted "white" for use politically is criminal on its face. From the TOP of the Bush Administration down to the "Torture Engineers." No General is immune to violations of the Geneva Convensions, either. A real 'rip-out' of our CIA and military...to answer charges such as those kidnappings in Italy and Germany...

[dwilson59]

Both men worked in the Air Force's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, or SERE, training program, which was created to prepare service members for the harsh Chinese-style interrogations undergone by Americans during the Korean War.

They did nothing more then what we train our own for. As for the darkest days please. Americans need to get a backbone