Mitchell and Jessen are the two American psychologists who in late October 2001 pitched the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) program to Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet at a cocktail party. The CIA signed their contract in January 2002. The first detainee on whom the program was applied was Abu Zubaydah, captured in Pakistan in March 2002. James Mitchell is identified as a former U.S. Air Force psychologist; he is the author of a book that recounts the program.[1][2][3]
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| September 11, 2001 | World Trade Center attacks |
| Early October 2001 | U.S. bombing of Afghanistan begins |
| Late October 2001 | Mitchell and Jessen pitch enhanced interrogation techniques to George Tenet at a cocktail party |
| January 2002 | CIA signs Mitchell and Jessen’s contract |
| March 2002 | Abu Zubaydah captured in Pakistan |
| August 2, 2002 | EIT first applied to Abu Zubaydah |
| First week of May 2002 | John Kiriakou personally approached and asked whether he would be certified in the enhanced interrogation techniques; refused |
Theory: learned helplessness
Mitchell and Jessen’s psychological framework for the program was learned helplessness — Pavlovian conditioning intended to leave the prisoner trained to associate a specific sensory cue with imminent impact, such that eventual presentation of the cue alone would cause the prisoner to collapse. In the walling technique as designed, the rolled towel placed around the prisoner’s neck (originally intended as whiplash protection) was the conditioning cue: “All they would have to do is roll up the towel and the prisoner would just crumple.”[5]
FBI walkouts
Every time Mitchell and Jessen took charge of an interrogation session at a CIA black site, every FBI representative in the country would leave. “The FBI didn’t even want to be in the same country where this torture was taking place.” John Kiriakou attributes this consistent pattern as the strongest internal indicator that the program was a moral and operational failure.[6]
Failure to produce admissible evidence
Nothing obtained by Mitchell and Jessen’s program from Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, or Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is admissible at trial, “because the CIA tortured it out of him.”[7]
Kiriakou’s framing
Kiriakou believes Mitchell and Jessen genuinely consider themselves to be the good guys, and that the program’s existence reflects a CIA personnel-selection problem: “You put sociopaths in positions of authority where they come to believe that they’re above the law, and that because they’re the good guys they can and should do anything that they want to do. … I’m confident that Jose Rodriguez thinks he’s the good guy and that James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen think they’re the good guys.”[8][9]