[News] CIA Granted Waterboarders $5M Legal Shield

[Anti-Imperialist News]

CIA Granted Waterboarders $5M Legal Shield



Ex-U.S. Officials say CIA Agreed to Pay $5M to Protect Private 
Architects - and Executors - of Technique from Lawsuits

Dec 17, 2010
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/17/national/main7159001.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.2

(CBS/AP)  The CIA agreed to cover at least $5 million in legal fees 
for two contractors who were the architects of the agency's 
interrogation program and personally conducted dozens of 
waterboarding sessions on terror detainees, former U.S. officials said.

The secret agreement means taxpayers are paying to defend the men in 
a federal investigation over an interrogation tactic the U.S. now 
says is torture. The deal is even more generous than the protections 
the agency typically provides its own officers, giving the two men 
access to more money to finance their defense.

It has long been known that psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce 
Jessen created the CIA's interrogation program. But former U.S. 
intelligence officials said Mitchell and Jessen also repeatedly 
subjected terror suspects inside CIA-run secret prisons to 
waterboarding, a simulated drowning tactic.

The revelation of the contractors' involvement is the first known 
confirmation of any individuals who conducted waterboarding at the 
so-called black sites, underscoring just how much the agency relied 
on outside help in its most sensitive interrogations.

Normally, CIA officers buy insurance to cover possible legal bills. 
It costs about $300 a year for $1 million in coverage. Today, the CIA 
pays the premiums for most officers, but at the height of the war on 
terrorism, officers had to pay half.

The Mitchell and Jessen arrangement, known as an "indemnity promise," 
was structured differently. Unlike CIA officers, whose identities are 
classified, Mitchell and Jessen were public citizens who received 
some of the earliest scrutiny by reporters and lawmakers. The two 
wanted more protection.

The agency agreed to pay the legal bills for the psychologists' firm, 
Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, directly from CIA accounts, according 
to several interviews with the former officials, who insisted on the 
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

The company has been embroiled in at least two high-profile Justice 
Department investigations, tapping the CIA to pay its legal bills. 
Neither Jamie Gorelick, who originally represented the company, nor 
Henry Schuelke, the current lawyer, returned messages seeking 
comment. Mitchell and Jessen also didn't return calls for comment.

The CIA would not comment on any indemnity agreement.

"It's been nearly eight years since waterboarding - an interrogation 
method used on three detainees - was last used as part of a terrorist 
detention program that no longer exists," CIA spokesman George Little said.

After the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mitchell and Jessen 
sold the government on an interrogation program for high-value al 
Qaeda members. The two psychologists had spent years training 
military officials to resist interrogations and, in doing so, had 
subjected U.S. troops to techniques such as forced nudity, painful 
stress positions, sleep deprivation and waterboarding.

But those interrogations had always been training sessions at the 
military's school known as SERE - Survival, Evasion, Resistance, 
Escape. They had never conducted any actual interrogations.

That changed in 2002 with the capture of suspected al Qaeda 
facilitator Abu Zubaydah (ah-BOO' zoo-BY'-dah). The agency believed 
tougher-than-usual tactics were necessary to squeeze information from 
him, so Mitchell and Jessen flew to a secret CIA prison in Thailand 
to oversee Zubaydah's interrogation.

The pair waterboarded Zubaydah 83 times, according to previously 
released records and former intelligence officials. Mitchell and 
Jessen did the bulk of the work, claiming they were the only ones who 
knew how to apply the techniques properly, the former officials said.

The waterboarding technique involved "binding the detainee to a bench 
with his feet elevated above his head," formerly top-secret documents 
explain. "The detainee's head is immobilized and an interrogator 
places a cloth over the detainee's mouth and nose while pouring water 
onto the cloth in a controlled manner."

The documents add that "airflow is restricted for 20 to 40 seconds 
and the technique produces the sensation of drowning and 
suffocation." The session was not supposed to last more than 20 minutes.

The psychologists also waterboarded USS Cole bombing plotter Abd 
al-Nashiri (ahbd al-nuh-SHEE'-ree) twice in Thailand, according to 
former intelligence officials.

The role of Mitchell and Jessen in the interrogation of confessed 
Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a bit murkier.

At least one other interrogator was involved in those sessions, with 
the company providing support, a former official said. Mohammed was 
waterboarded 183 times in Poland in 2003, according to documents and 
former intelligence officials.

The CIA inspector general concluded in a top secret report in 2004 
that the waterboarding technique used by the CIA deviated from the 
rules outlined by the Justice Department and the common practice at 
SERE school. CIA interrogations involved far more water poured 
constantly over the prisoner, investigators said.

"One of the psychologists/interrogators acknowledged that the 
agency's use of the technique differed from that used in SERE 
training and explained that the agency's technique is different 
because it is 'for real' and is more poignant and convincing," the 
inspector general's report said.

It was not clear whether Mitchell or Jessen made that remark.

Justice Department prosecutor John Durham is investigating whether 
any CIA officers or contractors, including Mitchell and Jessen, 
should face criminal charges.

In at least two instances, Mitchell and Jessen pushed back. During 
Zubaydah's interrogation, the psychologists argued he had endured 
enough waterboarding, believing they had reached the point of 
"diminishing returns." But CIA superiors told them to press forward, 
two former officials said.

In another case, Mitchell and Jessen successfully argued against 
waterboarding admitted terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh in Poland, the 
official said.

On top of the waterboarding case, Mitchell and Jessen also needed 
lawyers to help navigate the Justice Department's investigation into 
the 
<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/11/politics/main7043826.shtml>destruction 
of CIA interrogation videos.

Mitchell and Jessen were recorded interrogating Zubaydah and 
al-Nashiri and were eager to see those tapes destroyed, fearing their 
release would jeopardize their safety, former officials and others 
close to the matter said.

They often contacted senior CIA officials, urging them to destroy the 
tapes and asking what was taking so long, said a person familiar with 
the Durham investigation who insisted on anonymity because the case's 
details remain sensitive. Finally the CIA's top clandestine officer, 
Jose Rodriguez, made the decision to destroy the tapes in November 2005.

Durham investigated whether that was a crime. He subpoenaed Mitchell, 
Jessen & Associates last year, looking for calendars, e-mails and 
phone records showing contact between the contractors and Rodriguez 
or his chief of staff, according to a federal subpoena. They were 
ordered to appear before a grand jury in northern Virginia in August 2009.

Last month, Durham closed the tapes destruction investigation without 
filing charges.



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20101217/4f55d890/attachment.htm>