General Discussion

kentuck

(111,080 posts) Tue Dec 9, 2014, 06:25 PM Dec 2014

2 psychologists earned $81M from CIA torture tactics (report used pseudonyms Swigert & Dunbar)

http://nypost.com/2014/12/09/2-psychologists-earned-81m-from-cia-torture-tactics/

<snip>
The two contractors played a central role — they developed, operated and assessed its interrogation operations.

“The CIA relied on these two contractors to evaluate the interrogation program they had devised and in which they had obvious financial interests,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat of California, said in a statement on the Senate floor.

From 2005 to 2008, the CIA “outsourced almost all aspects of its detention and interrogation program to this company,” Feinstein said. The contract was worth $181 million but only $81 million was paid, she said.

The two contractors personally conducted interrogations, including waterboarding, of the CIA’s most significant detainees. They provided official evaluations of the psychological state of detainees to determine if the enhanced techniques would continue.

<snip>
The names of the two contractors were not provided, but they were referred to in the report by the pseudonyms Grayson Swigert and Hammond Dunbar.

11 replies

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Highlight:

2 psychologists earned $81M from CIA torture tactics (report used pseudonyms Swigert & Dunbar) (Original Post) kentuck Dec 2014 OP

WTFingF??? LeftInTX Dec 2014 #1

My understanding is this violates APA professional standards HereSince1628 Dec 2014 #2

The Justice Dept should prosecute these two contractors. kentuck Dec 2014 #3

The Justice Dept, eh? dixiegrrrrl Dec 2014 #7

Dr. Bruce Jessen and Dr. James Mitchell. They were named years ago. Solly Mack Dec 2014 #4

Thank you very much for those names! kentuck Dec 2014 #5

You're welcome. Solly Mack Dec 2014 #6

Where are they today? Hell I hope. jwirr Dec 2014 #8

Most likely spending their millions in Paraguay or someplace like that. bullwinkle428 Dec 2014 #10

the wages of sin n/t reddread Dec 2014 #9

exactly Liberal_in_LA Dec 2014 #11

LeftInTX

(25,271 posts)

1. WTFingF???

Reply to kentuck (Original post)

Tue Dec 9, 2014, 06:28 PM

Dec 2014

HereSince1628

(36,063 posts)

2. My understanding is this violates APA professional standards

Reply to kentuck (Original post)

Tue Dec 9, 2014, 06:30 PM

Dec 2014

People who torture should never hold a clinical license

But some names were changed to protect the guilty

kentuck

(111,080 posts)

3. The Justice Dept should prosecute these two contractors.

Reply to kentuck (Original post)

Tue Dec 9, 2014, 06:33 PM

Dec 2014

I'm sure they could get a ton of information from these characters.

dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)

7. The Justice Dept, eh?

Reply to kentuck (Reply #3)

Tue Dec 9, 2014, 07:08 PM

Dec 2014

The Justice Dept that WROTE the rules for torture.

Headed by a different man, to be sure, but nothing has changed, and I did not see the Justice Dept. bring any criminal charges against anyone who stole billions of our retirement funds since Obama got elected.

Solly Mack

(90,762 posts)

4. Dr. Bruce Jessen and Dr. James Mitchell. They were named years ago.

Reply to kentuck (Original post)

Tue Dec 9, 2014, 06:35 PM

Dec 2014

kentuck

(111,080 posts)

5. Thank you very much for those names!

Reply to Solly Mack (Reply #4)

Tue Dec 9, 2014, 06:42 PM

Dec 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-torture-report-shows-cia-infighting-over-interrogation-program.html

<snip>
And Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen, identified by pseudonyms in the report, had not conducted a single real interrogation. They had helped run a Cold War-era training program for the Air Force in which personnel were given a taste of the harsh treatment they might face if captured by Communist enemies. The program — called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape — had never been intended for use in American interrogations, and involved methods that had produced false confessions when used on American airmen held by the Chinese in the Korean War.

Yet the program allowed the psychologists to assess their own work — they gave it excellent grades — and to charge a daily rate of $1,800 each, four times the pay of other interrogators, to waterboard detainees. Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen later started a company that took over and ran the C.I.A. program from 2005 until it was closed in 2009. The C.I.A. paid it $81 million, plus $1 million to protect the company and its employees from legal liability.

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