From: rpattree2@gmail.com   
      
   CIA torture architect breaks silence to defend 'enhanced interrogation'   
      
   * James Mitchell 'highly skeptical' of Senate report on CIA torture   
   * 'It was not illegal based on the law at the time'   
   * Mitchell said to have waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed   
   * Interview: 'I'm just a guy who got asked to do something for his country'   
   1384 comments   
   Guantanamo detainees   
   Mitchell insists the torture techniques he developed had produced results, and   
   is dismissive of critics of the CIA program. Photograph: US Department of   
   Defense/AP   
   Jason Leopold   
   Friday 18 April 2014 11.12 EDT   
      
   The psychologist regarded as the architect of the CIA's "enhanced   
   interrogation" program has broken a seven-year silence to defend the use of   
   torture techniques against al-Qaida terror suspects in the wake of the 9/11   
   attacks.   
      
   In an uncompromising and wide-ranging interview with the Guardian, his first   
   public remarks since he was linked to the program in 2007, James Mitchell was   
   dismissive of a Senate intelligence committee report on CIA torture in which   
   he features, and which    
   is currently at the heart of an intense row between legislators and the agency.   
      
   The committee's report found that the interrogation techniques devised by   
   Mitchell, a retired air force psychologist, were far more brutal than   
   disclosed at the time, and did not yield useful intelligence. These included   
   waterboarding, stress positions,    
   sleep deprivation for days at a time, confinement in a box and being slammed   
   into walls.   
      
   But Mitchell, who was reported to have personally waterboarded accused 9/11   
   mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, remains unrepentant. "The people on the   
   ground did the best they could with the way they understood the law at the   
   time," he said. "You can't    
   ask someone to put their life on the line and think and make a decision   
   without the benefit of hindsight and then eviscerate them in the press 10   
   years later."   
      
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   The 6,600-page, $40m Senate report is still secret, but a summary of its 20   
   conclusions and findings, obtained by McClatchy News, alluded to the role   
   Mitchell and another psychologist under contract to the CIA, Bruce Jessen,   
   played in the torture program.   
      
   The committee's chair, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, has said the report "exposes   
   brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation". She added:   
   "It chronicles a stain on our history that must never again be allowed to   
   happen."   
      
   Mitchell said: "I'm skeptical about the Senate report, because I do not   
   believe that every analyst whose jobs and promotions depended upon it, who   
   were professional intelligence experts, all them lied to protect a program?   
   All of them were wrong? All of    
   these [CIA] directors were wrong? All of the people who were using the intel   
   to go get people were wrong? And 10 years later a Senate staffer was able to   
   put it together and finally there's clarity? I am just highly skeptical that   
   that's the truth."   
      
      
   While he refused to discuss specific details of the program because he is   
   bound by a non-disclosure agreement, he defended it in general terms as a   
   success.   
      
   "I don't get annoyed about the program," he said. "I get annoyed the way the   
   good parts, and the bad parts, have been glossed over and how some good parts   
   have been vilified."   
      
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   He insisted that the torture techniques he developed had produced results, and   
   was derisive of critics of the program, such as former FBI special agent Ali   
   Soufan, who says standard rapport-building techniques he used in   
   interrogations were far more    
   effective for obtaining information from detainees.   
      
   Mitchell said: "You're asked to believe he [Soufan] was getting all of this   
   great information and the CIA said: 'Well, never mind. We're not interested in   
   that information. We're not interested in the truth. We're going to do this   
   other thing. Why?    
   Because we're mean?' I worked for a lot of different organizations and they   
   really care about results."   
      
   He said the context in which the program was developed, in the immediate   
   aftermath of the September 11 attacks, was being ignored in the current   
   debate: "The big fear was some sort of a radiological device ... It's really   
   easy, 13 years later, when there'   
   s been no device, when all those people who were trying to build them were   
   either killed or captured ... to come along later and say 'I could have done   
   it better, this stuff was illegal.' It was not illegal based on the law at the   
   time."   
      
   Starting in 2002, the Department of Justice issued a series of top-secret   
   legal opinions stating the interrogation techniques did not violate US laws   
   against torture. But according to the summary obtained by McClatchy, the   
   Senate report concludes that    
   these opinions were based on misleading information provided by the CIA.   
      
   The CIA is currently facing battles on two fronts over its use of torture on   
   terror suspects. The agency is embroiled in an unprecedented public row with   
   Feinstein, who has accused it of violating the law by monitoring computers her   
   committee's staff use    
   to compile the report.   
      
   Meanwhile, allegations of abuse have taken center stage in the prosecutions of   
   detainees at Guantánamo. The military judge overseeing the tribunals has   
   ordered the CIA to provide a detailed account of the detention and   
   interrogation in one of its secret    
   prisons overseas of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is charged with orchestrating   
   the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 US sailors. Lawyers for   
   Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others charged over the 9/11 attacks say they   
   are seeking similar    
   orders.   
      
   Mitchell, who said he was a supporter of Amnesty International, denied any   
   involvement in the abuse of detainees at Guantánamo. In 2009, a scathing   
   report from the Senate armed services committee report found that the coercive   
   interrogations originated    
   from techniques developed by the psychologists.   
      
   "We didn't have a damn thing to do with that," Mitchell said. Instead, he   
   said, the blame lay with Pentagon contractors and civilian staff "who wanted   
   to help out and made some dumb mistakes".   
      
   But Kathleen Long, a spokeswoman for the committee, said the information in   
   its report was accurate.   
      
      
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