1 Boring Old Man

Internal Rifts on Road to Torment
Interviews Offer More Nuanced Look At Roles of CIA Contractors, Concerns Of Officials During Interrogations
By Joby Warrick and Peter Finn
Washington Post
July 19, 2009

… At the secret prison, dissent over Mitchell’s methods peaked. First Shumate left, followed by Soufan. At the site, Shumate had expressed concerns about sleep deprivation, and back in Langley he complained again about Mitchell’s tactics, according to the former U.S. official and another source familiar with events in Thailand. Then one of the CIA debriefers left. In early June, Gaudin flew to Washington for a meeting on what was happening in Thailand, and the FBI did not allow him to return.

Jessen, newly retired from the military, arrived in Thailand that month. Mitchell and his partner continued to ratchet up the pressure on Abu Zubaida, although Bush administration lawyers had not yet authorized the CIA’s harshest interrogation measures. That came verbally in late July and then in writing on Aug. 1, paving the way to new torments. Interrogators wrapped a towel around Abu Zubaida’s neck and slammed him into a plywood wall mounted in his cell. He was slapped in the face. He was placed in a coffin-like wooden box in which he was forced to crouch, with no light and a restricted air supply, he later told delegates from the Red Cross.

Finally, he was waterboarded.

Abu Zubaida told the Red Cross that a black cloth was placed over his face and that interrogators used a plastic bottle to pour water on the fabric, creating the sensation that he was drowning. The former U.S. official said that waterboarding forced Abu Zubaida to reveal information that led to the Sept. 11, 2002, capture of Ramzi Binalshibh, the key liaison between the Hamburg cell led by Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and al-Qaeda’s leadership in Afghanistan.

But others contend that Binalshibh’s arrest was the result of several pieces of intelligence, including the successful interrogation by the FBI of a suspect held at Bagram air base in Afghanistan who had been in contact via satellite phone with Binalshibh, as well as information gleaned from an interview Binalshibh gave to the television network al-Jazeera. Abu Zubaida was waterboarded 83 times over four or five days, and Mitchell and Jessen concluded that the prisoner was broken, the former U.S. official said. "They became convinced that he was cooperating. There was unanimity within the team."

CIA officials at the Counterterrorist Center were not convinced.

"Headquarters was sending daily harangues, cables, e-mails insisting that waterboarding continue for 30 days because another attack was believed to be imminent," the former official said. "Headquarters said it would be on the team’s back if an attack happened. They said to the interrogation team, ‘You’ve lost your spine.’" Mitchell and Jessen now found themselves in the same position as Soufan, Shumate and others.

"It was hard on them, too," the former U.S. official said. "They are psychologists. They didn’t enjoy this at all." The two men threatened to quit if the waterboarding continued and insisted that officials from Langley come to Thailand to watch the procedure, the former official said. After a CIA delegation arrived, Abu Zubaida was strapped down one more time. As water poured over his cloth-covered mouth, he gasped for breath. "They all watched, and then they all agreed to stop," the former official said.

A 2005 Justice Department memo released this year confirmed the visit. "These officials," the memo said, "reported that enhanced techniques were no longer needed."

I thought of Eichman as I read this article. James E. Mitchell and John "Bruce" Jessen were two clinical psychologists who are looking pretty bad right now. They were the driving force advising the C.I.A. in their interrogation of Abu Zubaida in Thailand using theories borrowed from clinical psychology [learned helplessness] and techniques lifted from the worst of the Communists in the Korean War and the Middle Ages. I expect that from their point of view, they were just doing their jobs.

In other accounts, they were chomping at the bit to have a crack at some high value detainee. Here was a chance to be the force that prevented another 9/11. And they were up against a hardened F.B.I. interrogator who used other techniques – getting close to the captive by changing  his bandages, praying with him. There was a lot of pressure to get a lot of information in a big hurry. So they began an escalating program trying to force information to flow from Abu Zubaida. All of this discussion with phrases like "borderline torture" is completely silly. What they did was just plain torture – nakedness, bombardment with loud music, confinement in a box, sleep deprivation, boarding, water-boarding – all of it.

Like with Adolph Eichman, the people "upstairs" were clamoring for results. Adolph Eichman, James E. Mitchell, and John "Bruce" Jessen were just trying to please their voracious superiors in offices somewhere else. "Headquarters was sending daily harangues, cables, e-mails insisting that waterboarding continue for 30 days because another attack was believed to be imminent,. Headquarters said it would be on the team’s back if an attack happened. They said to the interrogation team, ‘You’ve lost your spine.’" But finally, "Mitchell and Jessen now found themselves in the same position as Soufan, Shumate and others. The two men threatened to quit if the waterboarding continued and insisted that officials from Langley come to Thailand to watch the procedure."