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The CIA Torture Program: Techniques, Designers, and the Legal Void
At 1:10:54 · chapter starts 1:08:50
Kiriakou catalogues the torture techniques sanctioned by the CIA post-9/11. Waterboarding received the most media coverage, but he argues the cold cell — stripping detainees naked and chaining them to ceiling bolts in freezing temperatures — and rectal feeding (pumping hummus into detainees through tubes specifically to humiliate their cultural and religious identity) were worse. He reveals the entire program was designed by two contract psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who were paid $108 million by American taxpayers. Neither has ever been charged. The devastating legal consequence: because every confession was extracted under torture, all of it is inadmissible. There is effectively no prosecutable evidence against the men who killed 2,976 people. The CIA destroyed its own case.
The CIA had zero trained interrogators when they started catching al-Qaeda suspects after 9/11. They handed the job to two contract psychologists — James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen — who invented waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, the naked cold cell, and rectal feeding with hummus. Taxpayers paid them $108 million. Neither has ever been charged with a crime.
Waterboarding got all the headlines, but Kiriakou argues the cold cell — stripping prisoners naked, chaining them to a ceiling bolt in freezing temperatures — and rectal feeding were worse. The latter involved pumping hummus through tubes into detainees specifically to humiliate them by insulting their religious and cultural identity. All of it was approved by the U.S. government.
The CIA paid two contract psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, $108 million of taxpayer money to devise the agency's enhanced interrogation program.
The 9/11 plotters confessed everything under torture. Every single confession is inadmissible in court. There is now no usable evidence against them. The CIA's decision to torture effectively guaranteed the men responsible for killing 2,976 people would never face trial.
Because 9/11 suspects were tortured, all their confessions are legally inadmissible in court, meaning there is effectively no prosecutable evidence against them.
