‘Interrogation, Inc.’
Today’s must-read: the first, jaw-dropping article in the Times‘ important two-part series “Interrogation, Inc.” Bear with me as I quote at some length:
Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were military retirees and psychologists, on the lookout for business opportunities. They found an excellent customer in the Central Intelligence Agency, where in 2002 they became the architects of the most important interrogation program in the history of American counterterrorism.
They had never carried out a real interrogation, only mock sessions in the military training they had overseen. They had no relevant scholarship; their Ph.D. dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy. They had no language skills and no expertise on Al Qaeda.
But they had psychology credentials and an intimate knowledge of a brutal treatment regimen used decades ago by Chinese Communists. For an administration eager to get tough on those who had killed 3,000 Americans, that was enough.
(…)
At the C.I.A. in December 2001, Dr. Mitchell’s theories were attracting high-level attention. Agency officials asked him to review a Qaeda manual, seized in England, that coached terrorist operatives to resist interrogations. He contacted Dr. Jessen, and the two men wrote the first proposal to turn the enemy’s brutal techniques — slaps, stress positions, sleep deprivation, wall-slamming and waterboarding — into an American interrogation program.
By the start of 2002, Dr. Mitchell was consulting with the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorist Center, whose director, Cofer Black, and chief operating officer, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., were impressed by his combination of visceral toughness and psychological jargon. One person who heard some discussions said Dr. Mitchell gave the C.I.A. officials what they wanted to hear. In this person’s words, Dr. Mitchell suggested that interrogations required “a comparable level of fear and brutality to flying planes into buildings.”
What a colossally foolish notion. By the spring of ‘02, Scott Shane reports, the United States had captured Abu Zubaydah. In Thailand, the FBI used traditional–and legal–”rapport-building methods” to gain information from Zubaydah. “Then the C.I.A. team, including Dr. Mitchell, arrived,” Shane writes. “With the backing of agency headquarters, Dr. Mitchell ordered Mr. Zubaydah stripped, exposed to cold and blasted with rock music to prevent sleep. Not only the F.B.I. agents but also C.I.A. officers at the scene were uneasy about the harsh treatment.” According to one official Shane interviewed, within weeks Mitchell was directly questioning Zubaydah.
By the end of July, Mitchell’s partner arrived in Thailand to assist in the interrogation. “On Aug. 1, the Justice Department completed a formal legal opinion authorizing the SERE methods, and the psychologists turned up the pressure. Over about two weeks, Mr. Zubaydah was confined in a box, slammed into the wall and waterboarded 83 times.” Shane reports that it was only when Mitchell and Jessen decided they had gotten all the information Zubaydah would give up that the torture stopped. Even though Zubaydah surrendered the most valuable information before the Mitchell-Jessen techniques were tried, their methods were used on “at least 27 other prisoners,” including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed–who was waterboarded 183 times.
How much were these psychologists with no real-world interrogation experience and degrees in “family sculpting” and controlling hypertension paid for their services? One to two grand per day. According to Shane, “The company’s C.I.A. contracts are classified, but their total was well into the millions of dollars.”
Not bad retirement work, if you can get it. Well, not bad financially, at least. Read the rest right here.
on August 12th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
So our government constructed an interrogation program based on … an Al Qaeda interrogcation manual? Unbelievable.
on August 12th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
As I read this story, I kept thinking how much more powerful the reporting would be if it didn’t dance around using the word “torture.” An article this long exhausts every euphemism in the NYT style guide.
on August 12th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Glad you mentioned that, Mollie. I was thinking that as I read the piece this morning, and meant to gripe about it in the post. Rather stunning.
on August 12th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
FYI Vanity Fair had an article on them 2 years ago.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/07/torture200707?printable=true¤tPage=all
Mitchell and Jessen’s methods were so controversial that, among colleagues, the reaction to their names alone became a litmus test of one’s attitude toward coercion and human rights. Their critics called them the “Mormon mafia” (a reference to their shared religion) and the “poster boys” (referring to the F.B.I.’s “most wanted” posters, which are where some thought their activities would land them)….
on August 12th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Can we finally address this as a failure of Christian leadership. When even the amiable Archbishop Dolan of New York talks about “prudential judgment” we know he is continuing a long history of abuse from the Christian church. It is acknowledged that Augustine was the justification for the use of force to control heretics. When will we acknowledge that the clergy has too often encouraged the use of violence rather than seeking more peaceful ways.
Her are the words Augustine used; nisi hoc terrore perculisi — under the terror of this danger. By “terrorizing” the Donatists (Augustine’s word) they would return to the church and be faithful Catholics.
on August 13th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
It is disconcerting to find the story as reported sounding so like theatre of the absurd. But then look at those old films of Hitler and Mussolini. They seem such idiots, strutting about, that it is hard to imagine anyone ever took them seriously enough to have trusted them with power to torture, maim and kill at will. Or perhaps one should say to treat those who opposed them using “brutal techniques.”
on August 13th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
In his new novel, Stephen L. Carter’s hero (or maybe not such a hero) – spymaster retired – says he’s a “monster” bu tthat we need “monsters” we don’t know about.
Is that the real flavor inside the organization?