Gitmo testimony sheds light on $81 million contract for black site interrogations

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — Testimony at Guantanamo Bay’s war court by the architect of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program shed light on what the government paid his company more than $80 million to do.

Speaking under oath in open court for the first time last week, former Air Force psychologist Dr. James Mitchell was pressed by defense lawyers representing alleged plotters of the 9/11 terrorist attacks about his major role in assisting the CIA’s rendition, detention, and interrogation program. The program involved at least 119 detainees held in agency black sites following the deadly attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Mitchell was hired in April 2002 as a short-term contractor to consult on the overseas interrogation of captured al Qaeda facilitator Abu Zubaydah, but by June of that year, the CIA asked him to help design and take part in the interrogation program. He and his business partner, Dr. Bruce Jessen, became two of the CIA’s three official waterboarders. Mitchell was paid more than $1.4 million and Jessen over $1.2 million from 2002 through 2005. The “physical coercion” techniques they promoted included walling, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and more.

Mitchell, 68, insisted that these techniques, stemming from the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape program, were approved by the president, buttressed by Justice Department legal memos, and given the green light by the CIA. Critics labeled them torture.

Zubaydah as well as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. He also waterboarded Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the alleged plotter of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 U.S. sailors in October 2000.

“The last enhanced interrogation I was involved in was in the summer of 2003,” the psychologist said.

Throughout his testimony, Mitchell condemned the mistreatment of detainees by other CIA officers who he said were acting outside his recommended interrogation guidelines.

Mitchell testified about work he did at a black site in Guantanamo Bay, where he “got requirements from" the 9/11 Commission, whose members were “interested in the details behind 9/11.” The psychologist said FBI agents were at the black site doing a similar job.

Mitchell described getting intelligence requests from the 9/11 Commission at a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility at the U.S. naval base and insisted his role at the time was that of a debriefer and no longer an interrogator.

The roles played by Mitchell and Jessen only grew from there.

The duo formed a Spokane, Washington-based consulting firm, Mitchell, Jessen, and Associates, in 2005. Between then and 2009, their company received $81 million out of a possible $180 million contract as they assisted the CIA’s rendition and detention group. The agency also gave Mitchell and Jessen an indemnification agreement protecting them from legal liability. As of 2014, the government had paid out $1 million — with an additional, undisclosed settlement paid in 2017 to representatives for three former detainees through an ACLU lawsuit.

Mitchell claimed that the company “existed prior to them coming up with the contract.” He said that it was “originally formed because [he] wanted to continue to provide continued medical education for war fighters” and that it wasn’t created to conduct interrogations.

“I was told that it was an open bid contract and that our proposal would be considered with other proposals,” Mitchell testified about the payment. “Later, I was told it was a sole source contract.”

“It was revenue, not profit,” Mitchell said of the $81 million, claiming the vast majority of the funds went to pay for his more than 100 employees. All of his company's interrogators were former CIA officers, he said. “The CIA would tell us what the qualifications had to be, and the qualifications were that you had to have worked the job before.”

Mitchell said his company’s year-to-year contract with the government was dropped after President Barack Obama’s election.

“They were being pressured by the White House and the Senate, and for the convenience of the government, they said that they were going to cancel our contract,” he said. “It was canceled after we’d been told it had been renewed.”

The CIA’s chief of medical services wrote in 2007 that the use of the waterboard against Zubaydah and Mohammed was “little more than an amateurish experiment, with no reason at the outset to believe it would be either safe or effective.”

The Democrat-led Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in 2014 that enhanced interrogations were “not an effective means of acquiring intelligence.”

Republicans and former CIA directors pushed back. "We have no doubt that the CIA's detention program saved lives and played a vital role in weakening al Qaeda while the program was in operation," Republican committee members wrote in response.

The CIA acknowledged “mistakes” but insisted the program “helped thwart attack plans,” crediting it with producing important information that could not be obtained through other means.

Obama banned the use of the techniques with a 2009 executive order, and a 2015 law further limited interrogation methods.