{"id":152394,"date":"2020-01-27T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=152394"},"modified":"2020-01-26T06:09:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T06:09:29","slug":"architect-of-cias-torture-program-testifies-just-yards-from-accused-9-11-plotter-he-waterboarded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/01\/architect-of-cias-torture-program-testifies-just-yards-from-accused-9-11-plotter-he-waterboarded\/","title":{"rendered":"Architect of CIA\u2019s Torture Program Testifies Just Yards from Accused 9\/11 Plotter He Waterboarded"},"content":{"rendered":"
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James Mitchell, one of the two psychologists who helped devise the CIA\u2019s interrogation program after the 2001 terrorist attacks, in Hollywood, Fla., on July 5, 2017.\u00a0 Photo: Angel Valentin\/The New York Times via Redux<\/p><\/div>\n

21 Jan 2020 – <\/em>A psychologist who helped to design and execute the CIA\u2019s \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques\u201d testified in open court for the first time on Tuesday in connection with the trial of five men accused of planning the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspected from the beginning that I would end up here,\u201d James Mitchell told a Guant\u00e1namo Bay courtroom. Dressed in a charcoal suit and bright red tie, Mitchell stated that although he could have testified over a video link, he had chosen to come in person. \u201cI did it for the victims and families,\u201d he told James G. Connell III, an attorney for Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the accused plotters. \u201cNot for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cYou folks have been saying untrue and malicious things about me and Dr. [Bruce] Jessen for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell and his colleague Jessen were previously questioned in videotaped depositions<\/a> in a civil case, but the proceedings underway at the military court complex in Guant\u00e1namo represent the first courtroom appearances by the two psychologists as witnesses. On Tuesday, the accused architect of the 9\/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, sat just yards from the men who waterboarded him 183 times in a CIA black site in Poland in March 2003.<\/p>\n

The topic of Tuesday\u2019s hearing was a motion to suppress statements made by the 9\/11 defendants while they were being held in detention, even after they were brought from the CIA\u2019s black sites to Guant\u00e1namo. The defense attorneys allege that the statements the men made at Guant\u00e1namo were not voluntary\u00a0because of the profound impact of their prior torture<\/a>, which was overseen by Mitchell and Jessen.<\/p>\n

The torture techniques,\u00a0approved by the George W. Bush administration, were used by the CIA as part of the rendition, detention, and interrogation program from 2002 to 2008. These methods, including waterboarding, were designed to \u201ccondition\u201d prisoners to provide information to interrogators and debriefers.<\/p>\n

The CIA renounced the harsh interrogation techniques in 2009, and the Senate\u2019s torture report<\/a> later found that the program was a violation of U.S. and international law that failed to generate usable information for counterterrorism operations.<\/p>\n

Mitchell and Jessen\u00a0ran a contracting company\u00a0that provided interrogators and security personnel to the CIA program at a cost of $81 million over several years. During that time, the psychologists personally conducted interrogations, trained interrogators, participated in debriefings, and observed interrogations.<\/p>\n

In 2015, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the pair in federal court in Spokane, Washington, on behalf of two former detainees, as well as\u00a0the family of another prisoner who died in custody at a black\u00a0site. The two psychologists provided testimony in that case, which was settled out of court<\/a> in 2017. The terms of the settlement remain confidential. In a joint statement released by the parties, Mitchell and Jessen acknowledged \u201cthat they worked with the CIA to develop a program \u2026 that contemplated the use of specific coercive methods to interrogate certain detainees,\u201d but asserted that the abuses occurred without their knowledge or involvement and that as a result, they were not responsible.<\/p>\n

Mohammed\u2019s co-defendants Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, and Mohammed\u2019s nephew Baluchi also endured torture techniques proposed by Mitchell and Jessen, and they, too, were present in the courtroom on Tuesday. There were no audible reactions from the defendants during the morning testimony, which is expected to continue through next week.<\/p>\n

Related: Harrowing Cables Detail How the CIA Tortured Accused 9\/11 Mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Jeopardizing the Case against Him<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Questioning on Tuesday morning focused on Mitchell\u2019s 2016 book \u201cEnhanced Interrogation,\u201d written with former CIA chief spokesperson Bill Harlow, in which Mitchell vehemently objects to the findings of the Senate\u2019s 2014 torture report. In a bizarre twist, the book contains information that defense attorneys in the 9\/11 case may be barred from using under a new \u201cclassification guidance\u201d delivered by the government last Thursday and revised Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

The guidance \u2014 which is itself classified \u2014 contains a restriction on presenting information deemed a threat to national security. For example, although the names of countries where black sites were located are now known from books and European court proceedings, they cannot be\u00a0mentioned in the courtroom at Guant\u00e1namo.<\/p>\n

Mitchell proved an antagonistic witness. He confirmed that his book had undergone an intensive pre-publication review by the CIA and the Department of Defense, and said that prior to the new restrictions, no one had suggested that he had disclosed classified information. The book has sold 40,000 to 50,000 copies, Mitchell estimated.<\/p>\n

When asked what his reaction would be to the claim that the information in his book could harm national security, he responded, \u201cMy reaction would be: Buy the publication rights and take it off the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separated by a curtain from the press and observers from nongovernmental organizations, relatives of 9\/11 victims could be heard voicing their agreement with some of Mitchell\u2019s testy responses.<\/p>\n

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