Psychologists' $81M Torture Contract Exposes CIA's 'Remarkably Broad' Acquisition Authorities

Among many controversial CIA actions described in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s new report on the post-9/11 detention and interrogation program is the award of an $81 million multi-year contract to access advice on pain infliction from two psychologists.

Identified under pseudonyms of Swigert and Dunbar, the two Air Force veterans named James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen ran a firm out of Spokane, Wash., that, according to Senate staff,  “devised the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program.”

The contract psychologists developed theories of interrogation based on "learned helplessness" and developed the list of enhanced interrogation techniques, even conducting them personally, the intelligence committee report said.

The Mitchell Jessen & Associates contract has drawn criticism for questionable morality, effectiveness and price.

It is also an illustration of how much leeway the CIA had as part of the government’s response in the years following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden, asked about the expense of the contract, told Government Executive, “For purposes such as this, e.g. covert action, CIA has unique and remarkably broad acquisition authorities.”

Mitchell and Jessen’s firm -- which was quietly disbanded in 2009, according to news and investigative reports at the time -- was built around their experience from the Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school. “Neither psychologist had any experience as an interrogator, nor did either have specialized knowledge of al-Qaeda, a background in counterterrorism, or any relevant cultural or linguistic expertise,” the Senate report said. (According to the International Business Times, their doctoral studies focused on family therapy and high blood pressure.)

“The psychologists carried out inherently governmental functions, such as acting as liaison between the CIA and foreign intelligence services, assessing the effectiveness of the interrogation program and participating in the interrogation of detainees in held in foreign government custody,” the Senate report said.

Their goal, the psychologists said in an email published in the new report, “was to reach the stage where we have broken any will or ability of subject to resist or deny providing us information (intelligence) to which he had access. We additionally sought to bring subject to the point that we confidently assess that he does not/not possess undisclosed threat information, or intelligence that could prevent a terrorist event.”

In 2007, the CIA provided a multi-year indemnification agreement to protect the company and its employees from legal liability arising out of the program, an agreement that has cost the CIA $1 million so far, according to the Senate staff.

Reached on Tuesday by ABC News, Mitchell dismissed the Senate report as politically motivated. "I think it's despicable that they cherry-picked all of that stuff," said Mitchell, saying his ability to comment is limited by a nondisclosure agreement. "There were a lot of men and women in the CIA who put their lives on the line, and some of them died after 9/11 protecting the United States. And to suggest that they lied to the president, that they lied to the Senate, that they falsified intel reports so they could make a program look better than it was, is despicable."

At least one federal contract specialist is skeptical that the CIA needed to spend $81 million. “Not having read the contract or any justifications that are required to exist in the file,” said Michael Fischetti, executive director of the National Contract Management Association, in an email to Government Executive, “I made the below calculations:

Average hourly Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics [pay] data for psychologists from May 2013 is $42.35.  I then simply doubled, just presuming there to be ‘unique,’ national security requirements for psychologists for this particular role. That gives us a ‘fully burdened (include all overheads)’ rate of $84.70.  At that rate, the contractor would have had to provide at least 956,000 hours of service, or 191,263 hours for each of the five years, equating to at least 92 psychologists working full time over five years, not counting other direct costs, which would be travel, copying, training, etc.  That seems like a lot of interrogation advice, unless the report or the contract referenced has many more requirements included.”

Fischetti noted that “black contracts” are given less oversight and may not adhere to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which would require supporting documentation and recognized regional compensation survey data.

The work of Mitchell and Jessen has also been lambasted by the American Psychological Association, which in November launched a review to address charges published by New York Times reporter James Risen that the association had colluded with the George W. Bush administration to sanction interrogation methods that constitute torture.

On Tuesday, the association welcomed release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report, saying the document “recognizes American citizens’ right to know about the prior action of their government and is the best way to ensure that, going forward, the United States engages in national security programs that safeguard human rights and comply with international law. The new details provided by the report regarding the extent and barbarity of torture techniques used by the CIA are sickening and morally reprehensible.”  

APA noted that neither Mitchell nor Jessen are members of the APA, though Mitchell was at one time, having resigned in 2006. “Regardless of their membership status with APA,” the group said, “if the descriptions of their actions are accurate, they should be held fully accountable for violations of human rights and U.S. and international law.”