'Flat Wrong': Big

One of two psychologists paid $81 million to design the CIA's interrogation techniques for terror suspects is blasting a Senate report that criticized the program's brutality and effectiveness. 'I completely understand why the human rights organizations in the United States are upset by the Senate report,' James Mitchell told the Associated Press in a phone interview. 'I would be upset by it too, if it were true.'

'What they are asking you to believe is that multiple directors of the CIA and analysts who made their living for years doing this lied to the federal government, or were too stupid to know that the intelligence they were getting wasn't useful,' Mitchell said, adding that the report's accusation that he did not have experience as an interrogator or an understanding of Al Qaeda is 'flat wrong.'

Mitchell, who spent 30 years in the U.S. Air Force, is identified by the alias Grayson Swigert in the report. His former business partner, John 'Bruce' Jessen, is identifed as Hammond Dunbar. The report says that their firm had a $180 million contract but collected just $81 million before the contract was terminated in 2009.

IN-DEPTH

First published December 10 2014, 10:57 AM