Understanding the Mind Behind CIA's Controversial Interrogation Techniques

The Architect of the CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Program, James Mitchell

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Summary

In a revealing interview, VICE News delves into the contentious world of enhanced interrogation with James Mitchell, the psychologist often dubbed the architect behind the CIA's program. This detailed transcript uncovers Mitchell's views on the effectiveness and morality of these techniques, his personal experiences with interrogation, and the controversies surrounding his participation. As the debate around these methods continues, Mitchell expresses his desire to clarify his role amidst widespread speculation and reports. The conversation also touches on the broader impacts of 9/11 on interrogation policies, the ethical boundary of methods like waterboarding, and reflects on Mitchell's hopes to one day narrate his own perspective through a book.

Highlights

Mitchell, often labeled the 'architect' of enhanced interrogation, fishes among alligators in Florida. 🐊
He defends interrogation practices, arguing they fall within legal and ethical lines. ⚖️
The Senate report criticizes the program, which Mitchell disputes, aiming to pen his own story. 📕
Reflects on 9/11's impact, spurring his involvement in the program, driven by patriotism. 🇺🇸
Describes the EIT program as a strategic blend of psychological tactics— 'good cop, bad cop.' 🚔

Key Takeaways

James Mitchell, associated with the CIA's enhanced interrogation program, discusses his role and its controversies. 🔍
Mitchell reflects on the moral complexities and debates surrounding techniques like waterboarding. 🌊
He shares personal experiences, including undergoing waterboarding himself for public understanding. 🤔
Mitchell criticizes media portrayal and seeks to clarify misconceptions through future writings. 🖊️
Despite controversies, Mitchell is unapologetic about his intent post-9/11 and believes in his choices. 🎯

Overview

The interview with James Mitchell offers an introspective look at the mind behind the CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT) program. While relaxing in Florida, Mitchell, a retired Air Force psychologist, opens up about his involvement in the controversial program and the ethics that surround such methods. He reflects on the debates regarding the effectiveness and morality of interrogation tactics, revealing the complexities and personal beliefs that fueled his actions.

Mitchell consistently asserts that his role has been misrepresented in media and public discourse, emphasizing his adherence to legal and ethical guidelines. Despite facing accusations and ongoing scrutiny, particularly around the use of waterboarding, Mitchell stands by his actions, rooted in a post-9/11 landscape of heightened security concerns. His narrative is one of cautious justification mingled with a desire to set the record straight about the controversial techniques.

The conversation underlines a broader examination of the moral responsibilities in national security operations. As Mitchell discusses his past, there is an evident tension between operational necessity and ethical boundaries. With aspirations to write a book, he hopes to finally articulate the 'real story' behind the techniques, moving from public perception towards a nuanced understanding of the psychological defense strategies deployed in the war on terror.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to Jim Mitchell In the introduction to Jim Mitchell, a particular rumor is addressed regarding how he became involved with an agency. It suggests that he approached the agency voluntarily, expressing a willingness to engage in torturous activities. The tone implies a focus on the spread and impact of rumors about his character and involvement.
01:00 - 02:00: Meeting at the Makaka River The narrator is in Central Florida, on their way to meet Jim Mitchell, a figure known for his involvement in the CIA's enhanced interrogation program. Media outlets and investigations have identified Mitchell as the architect of this program, utilized in interrogating high-profile suspects during the global war on terror. The meeting is set to take place at the Makaka River, a place where Jim Mitchell enjoys spending time fishing and looking for alligators.
02:30 - 04:00: Discussion on SEER Program The chapter titled 'Discussion on SEER Program' involves a conversational transcript. Initially, participants are exchanging greetings, with one expressing enjoyment towards visiting wilderness areas, indicating they visit approximately four to five times a year.
04:00 - 05:30: CIA's EIT Program The chapter titled 'CIA's EIT Program' includes a conversation where Jim, presumably a psychologist, is questioned about his choice of relaxation activities, specifically paddling in a river known to have hundreds of alligators. Jim defends his unusual leisure activity by suggesting that it exhibits a sign of intelligence and explains that the alligators are not aggressive and more frightened of humans than the other way around. The discussion takes place in a secluded area, emphasizing the peaceful and non-threatening nature of the surroundings.
05:30 - 07:00: Senate Report and Mitchell's Involvement The chapter titled 'Senate Report and Mitchell's Involvement' seems to explore the theme of finding solitude to organize thoughts amidst life’s chaos. It mentions a person contemplating daily chores and political issues like the Senate's inability to pass a budget. Their reflective journey also involves a physical adventure, paddling through challenging environments and taking a break at a bar named Bad Monkey in Tampa. The narrative juxtaposes personal introspection with broader societal issues.
17:30 - 20:00: Mitchell's Background and Personal Reflections Chapter Title: Mitchell's Background and Personal Reflections The chapter provides insight into Mitchell's background, focusing on his expertise in the SEAR program. SEAR stands for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. The program is essential for individuals at high risk of capture, enabling them to serve effectively even in dangerous circumstances. The chapter also likely includes personal reflections from Mitchell, shedding light on his experiences and the significance of the SEAR training in his life and career.

The Architect of the CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Program, James Mitchell Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 you know one of the rumors that I I I don't remember which journalist it was started about me was that I somehow walked up to the front gate of the agency payed on the door and said you know there's torturing to be done let me in [Music]
00:30 - 01:00 I'm in Central Florida and I'm on my way to meet Jim Mitchell who according to numerous media outlets and several investigations was the architect of the cia's enhanced interrogation program the program that was used to interrogate suspects like KH shik Muhammad and Abu Zeda in the global war on terror and so right now we're headed to this river called The makaka River where Jim likes to hang out fish and look for alligator
01:00 - 01:30 okay so here's the plan morning Hi how are you guys good to see you how often do you come out here yeah four times five times a year I like the I I like the Wilderness Area a lot
01:30 - 02:00 Jim what is this place this is deep hole on the Maka River in the Maka River State Park Jim you're the psychologist but would some people think there's something crazy about your relaxation is paddling Out Among hundreds of alligators no I don't think so seems perfectly normal to me in fact I think it's a sign of great intelligence you know there's just nothing going on they're not aggressive they're not dangerous they're more scared of me than I am of them and U as you can see there's not another living
02:00 - 02:30 Soul around so if you're looking for Solitude or a place to think or it's just a perfect place everybody needs something to organize and structure their thoughts and whatever's going on in my life is what I'm thinking about normally um you know everything from got a mow the lawn to what the hell's wrong with the Senate you know why can't we get a budget or [Music] something after paddling the makaka and dodging alligators for 8 hours we stopped into Bad Monkey a bar in Tampa
02:30 - 03:00 owned by a former Special Operations General where Spooks and soldiers come to unwind I think it would be helpful in order for people to understand uh your background and your expertise um to explain uh what sear is and why it's necessary well the whole point of the sear program it stands for survival evasion resistance and escape and the whole point of the program is so that the men and women who are in positions of high risk of capture can can uh serve
03:00 - 03:30 with honor while they're in captivity and then return with their honor intact and the training is really focused on helping them um avoid providing actionable intelligence to the bad guys and avoid the kind of exploitation that you sometimes see and it was a program designed in case our US soldiers are captured yeah yeah I was I'm sort of thinking that was is well known the assertion is is that that they took all that data and all those principles and all those Lessons Learned From the sear
03:30 - 04:00 program and then reversed engineered it to create the enhanced interrogation program that's what Jose Rodriguez says in his book I mean I don't recall exactly but that's the myth anyway for more than a decade the United States has been locked in a fierce debate over the effectiveness of its controversial post 911 detention and interrogation policies involving high value detainees held by the CIA at top secret black sites there captives who included alleged 9911
04:00 - 04:30 Mastermind C shik Muhammad or KSM were subjected to a combination of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques or eits that were approved by the Department of Justice in 2002 these procedures were designed to be safe to comply with our laws our Constitution and our treaty obligations the methods devised from the sear program which Mitchell was a part of for over a decade included sleep deprivation painful stress positions wall slamming
04:30 - 05:00 and simulated drowning or water boarding the most controversial of all the techniques I believe that water boarding was torture and I think that whatever legal rationals were used uh it was a mistake independent investigations by human rights groups and journalists over the years have helped shed light on how the program worked and whether it prevented terrorist attacks one name that is continually surfaced in connection with the program is Dr James Mitchell
05:00 - 05:30 a retired Air Force psychologist who was under contract to the CIA Mitchell has been called the modern-day father of the Air Force sear training program and is widely believed to be the architect of the cia's EIT program the agency has never confirmed nor denied Mitchell's role in devising the EIT program but this week the Senate intelligence committee released its long- awaited report on the history of the E program it does confirm that two Air Force psychologists devised and M manage the
05:30 - 06:00 EIT program however the report stopped short of identifying Mitchell by name we met up with Mitchell in Suburban Florida we spoke to him about the Senate's report waterboarding radical Islam his military background and one of the darkest chapters of the war on terror this is the first time Mitchell has ever appeared on camera it's been reported in dozens of books and articles and investigations that you were the architect of the CIA
06:00 - 06:30 enhanced interrogation program also known as eits and that you personally were involved with the interrogation and water boarding of abuaba and K shik Muhammad are these reports accurate and what role did you have in designing the cia's enhanced interrogation program you know I'd really like to respond to those questions but I can't I have a non-disclosure agreement and until I'm released from that I can't answer those kinds of questions although I'd like to I'd love to be able to clarify some of the things that people are saying cuz a lot of what people are saying is
06:30 - 07:00 inaccurate the Senate report it's going to reinvigorate the debate about coercive interrogation techniques is that a healthy debate that we should be having I I think I think you should have some kind of a debate I can't believe I mean we must have an interrogation program that I don't know about it to me it seems completely insensible that slapping KSM is bad but sending a Hellfire missile into her family's picnic and killing all their children and you know killing granny and
07:00 - 07:30 killing everyone is okay for a lot of reasons one of the reasons is what about that collidal loss of life and the other one is is that if you kill them you can't question them where do you fall on that debate between hard and soft interrogations I think it's a policy decision I don't have a vested interest in any form of interrogation but what do you think works most effectively I would say that for 99% of the people who haven't been trained and sophisticated
07:30 - 08:00 resistance interrogation approaches some more poor based program probably works really well for them I don't really want to go into the details of it but there will be some people who will withhold information and some of those will be responsive to coer the suggestion that no coercion is ever used by our law enforcement or by the FBI or is just silly and so the first piece of the debate should be why don't we have an interrogation program at some level why
08:00 - 08:30 are we treating it like a law enforcement matter so there's a debate over whether hard interrogations I.E the enhanced interrogation program worked effectively to obtain intelligence information or whether the soft interrogations the sort of befriend uh the person that you're interrogating um and get them to reveal information through those Tech I don't know that that's the case Jose Rodriguez in his book hard measures and mark the in his book according to disaster both
08:30 - 09:00 described the enhanced interrogation program and the purpose of it and what they said in their books and slightly different language is that the purpose of the enhanced interrogation program was to get the detainee to be willing to engage with a debriefer or a targeter who was asking a question and that it wasn't um designed so that you would ask questions about actionable intelligence while the detainee was experiencing the enhanced interrogation prog program so
09:00 - 09:30 it's almost like a good cop bad cop kind of set up you know with a really bad cop um so that it was realistic enough that the person would be willing to engage it if you follow the way they've described it you're saying that the design and the purpose of the enhanced teration program wasn't necessarily to get actionable intelligence it wasn't it was to facilitate getting actionable intelligence by making a bad cop that was bad enough that the person would engage with a good cop I would be sted
09:30 - 10:00 if they found any kind of evidence to suggest that eits result as they were being applied yielded actionable intelligence I guess yeah if you think like it's 2002 there's we're starting to snatch up the first round of high value detainees and we got to figure out how to interrogate them right you're not there's no point in this conversation oh no I'm just saying theoretically right yeah I I think I mean without I'm not
10:00 - 10:30 going to acknowledge that it was me or it wasn't me but if you read Jose Rodriguez's book hard measures he says that the contractor that they sent job was to look at the resistance strategies that the detainee was employing and make suggestions to the FBI and CIA team that was there doing the interrogations and I'm not trying to imply that it's me I'm just saying that's what he says in his book
10:30 - 11:00 Mitchell's name first surfac in 2005 in a New Yorker article that highlighted the role of the psychologist in designing the EIT program and its connection to sear school since then human rights Advocates and a congressional committee have tried to hold Mitchell accountable Joseph margalus petitioned the Texas state board of psychologists to strip Mitchell of his license to practice psychology claiming Mitchel violated his profession's ethics margas is the lawyer for abuaba a notorious Al qaa facil Ator who was waterboarded 83 times in one
11:00 - 11:30 month zua is the only detainee subjected to all 10 of the eits Mitchell allegedly developed well James Mitchell was one of the two psychologists who was involved in the creation and implementation of the enhanced interrogation program they were really The Architects our position was and remains there was no foundation in science there was no foundation in Psychology for that and that James
11:30 - 12:00 Mitchell misrepresented his uh skills and his expertise and that what he engaged in uh with zubeda and others was torture and that there should be consequences to his license uh to practice psychology what he did was wrong what he did is something no psychologist should ever do clearly needs to be held accountable this is a Moroccan knife and that is a cutting Stone uh that I picked
12:00 - 12:30 up at the edge of the world about uh 90 maybe 100 km outside of Riad Saudi Arabia is this from when you retired yeah from service when I was in the military you might recognize a couple of the coins yeah sure do Mitchell Shel are lined with books on Islam he started studying the religion after his close friend was kidnapped and murdered this is the Sharia law and you really if you want to [Applause] understand not just the Coran this is the Cairo the English translation of the
12:30 - 13:00 Cairo version of the Quran if you want to understand the Quran you have to study the Hadith get several of those but you also have to come here and you have to actually read what they say about how people should be treated and what I do is I look stuff up that's interesting to me to just to see how they handle it like this is the description of how you handle apostasy and what it is and what you do with it that's John W you have John W book yeah yeah well I've read it yeah what do I do I mean most of these
13:00 - 13:30 books seem to be about understanding Islam I got interested in Islam probably around 95 particularly in fundamental Islam a very good friend of mine named Don Hutchins was captured by Kashmir separatists under the control of uh Omar shik the same guy that kidnapped Daniel Purl before he turned him over to KSM they let the women go but they eventually killed the men and I started trying to figure out what is this about
13:30 - 14:00 you know who are these people I can understand why people would think that okay I kind of deserve that sort of treatment if I get rolled up but Don was the most gentle man on the planet so even though personally I don't give a damn whether do you worship what God you worship which way you face when you worship what kind of building you Worship in I don't care but literally when you want to kill my friends and you want to kill my family and you want to destroy my way of life you've got my
14:00 - 14:30 full attention how has our understanding of the sort of Jihadi mindset increased say over the last decade they see us as their primary opposition they think that even if they can't deliver a devastating blow that cripples us if they continue to do these smaller attacks that what's going to happen is the public will lose its interest in the thing a number of Studies have been done on jihadists and
14:30 - 15:00 one thing that's clear is it's not a mental health disorder they're not crazy they're not Potter some cult we tend to think of them as sort of suicidal Fanatics as people who have some kind of problem with their identity and somehow are brainwashed what I would say is that it's less like becoming a suicidal fanatic and more like becoming a Jedi Warrior let's let's talk about water boarding a little something about waterboarding in 2007 and I was the first person waterboarded on national
15:00 - 15:30 television at the time the debate about the use of the technique was uninformed some of the politicians arguing for and against it had never even seen it done so I volunteered to be waterboarded because I wanted the public to see how the technique worked and make up their own minds about whether or not it constituted torture something are you getting ready to say something are you getting ready to say something what do you got to say what do you have to say yeah I've been water boarded too I saw you I saw you
15:30 - 16:00 waterboarded on a video I thought for I myself holy cow look at what they're doing to that guy you know I'm surprised you didn't get up and punch him yeah something about those restraints you know were you restraint I can't remember yeah yeah um is waterboarding an effective technique I'm not going to I'll give you my experience in the survival school right Bruce jesson and I spent most of our Air Force career
16:00 - 16:30 trying to get the Navy to stop waterboarding because we thought it did the enemy's job for us I can't tell you how many PS I interviewed who said I'm not going to put up with that if I'll tell them whatever they want to know I'm not going to go through that again if if you imagine that the task of a person is to sort of organize and execute the courses of action that are required to protect a piece of information that technique completely undermined a lot lot of our fighting men and women's
16:30 - 17:00 resolve to protect information does water boarding constitute torture well we know it didn't in 2001 through about 2006 or 7 I don't think it's the right thing to do I don't think it's the wrong thing to do I think you can do it in a way that it constitutes torture I think you can do it in a way that it constitutes training I think you can do it in a way that it helps a person shift their priorities so that they experience less abuse later on it's like every tool in the tool bag you can underuse it you can overuse
17:00 - 17:30 it there is New York Times article that came out and that talked about the treatment of the kidnapped journalist where they said or they said they were water boarded MH yeah I I'm I feel horrible about that I really do but I think the primary responsibility for that lies with the media because the program was classified they're the ones that spread it out in public made it a hotbed issue s signal to the entire world that you know that big segments of
17:30 - 18:00 the US population would be horrified by it so they kind of highlighted it as something you would want to do and I'm surprised more people aren't doing it maybe it's because of of where I sit like on the table now but I take some exception to the idea that the fault wise I didn't say all the fault right not that not with the act of doing it no I think it's shared I think it's 50/50 and do you stop doing something because the bad guys decide to I mean do we stop stop shooting people because the bad guys shoot people to be
18:00 - 18:30 candid with you if you're going to break somebody's legs or waterboard them they probably would prefer you break their legs because it's less distressing oddly enough but if you're rescuing them you would probably prefer they be waterboarded you could take any technique and turn it into torture the real torture as legally defined right you know my guess is they did some version of it that was much more horrific than anything that was actually done to the detainee do you think there are red lines in the techniques that we
18:30 - 19:00 should use to interrogate people sure I don't think you should do anything that violates the torture convention I think it's hypocritical when you send a a captive to Egypt or you send a captive to Yemen or you send a captive to someplace else where they're going to be interrogated by people who who are not following us Law whatever it happens to be at the time they do not question people the way we question people when it comes to actionable intelligence does
19:00 - 19:30 that also speak to a problem is that uh people will say anything to stop certain types of harsh interrogations you can make people say anything to stop harsh interrogations if you apply them in a way that does that the publicly available record is that Mitchell and jessen reverse engineered uh skills that they had developed as mock interrogators uh for the military resistance training program that is to
19:30 - 20:00 resist training they turned that into offensive training techniques to be used for uh alleged Al-Qaeda suspects the fact that he says he was qualified doesn't make it so he never conducted a hostile interrogation in his life uh he always worked on phony interrogations and to represent that he had is simply untrue We Stand by our allegations with all the times your name has appeared in the Press lately with all these articles with these investigations do you feel in
20:00 - 20:30 any way that you've been misrepresented or or thrown under the bus or that information about you is not accurate I don't feel particularly like I was thrown under the bus you know not by I feel that way about the Democrats and the Senate right but I don't feel that way about any of the other organizations that I worked with I do think that my credentials have been misrepresented there's a Wikipedia page if you go to that page it says I had no experience in Special Operations but I had years experience in Special Operations I was
20:30 - 21:00 in a special Mission Unit you know it says I have no forensic experience well that's not true I was a bomb tech for 5 years and what do you think you do as a bombtech I was a trained hostage negotiator I was on the hostage negotiation team I did uh sanity board evaluations for the court critical incident analysis I went to uh uh an aeromedical U psychology course where I was trained to do aircraft investigations uh psychological autopsies I was an operational psychologist most of my military career
21:00 - 21:30 13 years something like 14,000 hours inside the lab taught me about the sort of mental states that are associated with uh you know interrogation particularly that using course of pressure because we got an opportunity to see a variety of people all kinds of races all kinds of intelligence all kinds of backgrounds attempting to withhold actionable intelligence that sort of stuff gets completely misre
21:30 - 22:00 [Music] represented so you have this entire military career but it's all it's pre 911 and then you get out in August of 2001 but you basically thought you're going to retire from the military with your military salary maybe do some nice contracts and then September 11th happens right and you remember where you were yeah I was at home it was I I still tear up a little bit about that but because uh to me it
22:00 - 22:30 was horrific that people had to choose between burning to death or jumping off of buildings I don't think that should happen to anybody and so I called one of the people that was managing my one of my contracts and said I want to be part of the solution really not knowing anything about anything you know other than I just like everybody who watched that who had a background in the military you know we all wanted to be part of the solution you could just tell
22:30 - 23:00 everything had changed right for me it just completely changed my life at one point in a conversation with a person I thought somebody ought to do something I said that out loud to the person and he said if uh give me just a second here what he said was if you're not willing to do it how come we ask anybody
23:00 - 23:30 else and I uh kind of thought back to all those people that died for no reason and U so I was willing to help any way I could you know when somebody asked me that if I would be willing to help I was willing to help you know so that's what that's that's where that's
23:30 - 24:00 where it was that's where it is what do you think when you reflect on on the last decade I think I wish had a chance to tell my story you know because I think I should be 100% responsible for everything I did I think I should be zero% responsible for things people dream of that I did the Senate intelligence committee spent 5 years and $40 million investigating the cia's enhanced interrogation program the committee's
24:00 - 24:30 report concluded that the program was a failure that the intelligence gleaned from detainees was neither unique nor valuable and in some cases exaggerated Senator Diane Feinstein the chairwoman of the committee said the investigation is one of the most significant oversight efforts in the history of the United States the committee hopes that its report will finally settle the debate over whether eits should ever be used again Mitchell thinks they're wrong and that they're trying to rewrite history
24:30 - 25:00 one day when he can Mitchell May write a book to set the record straight about the EIT program until then he intends to spend his retirement fishing and kaying among the Gators [Music]