Psychologist Linked to CIA Torture Program Retired in Florida

While Americans grapple with the implications of Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s use of torture, one of the alleged architects of the terror interrogation program is reportedly retired, spending his free time enjoying Florida’s great outdoors.

Psychologist James Mitchell, 63, is the alleged co-founder of a company the CIA contracted with to run its interrogation program, Bloomberg reported. He now lives in Land O’ Lakes and spends leisure time kayaking, climbing and rafting, the news outlet reported.

The program Mitchell is linked with employed torture techniques in an attempt to get information out of post-Sept. 11 detainees, the New York Times reported. Those techniques included waterboarding, nudity and wall-slamming, the paper reported. Bloomberg noted that detainees Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were often housed in cold cells, some were force-fed rectally and at least one died.

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The Senate’s executive summary paints the picture of one of the detention sites:

“CIA detainees at the COBALT detention facility were kept in complete darkness and constantly shackled in isolated cells with loud noise or music and only a bucket to use for human waste,” the report states. “Lack of heat at the facility likely contributed to the death of a detainee. The chief of interrogations described COBALT as a ‘dungeon.’ Another senior CIA officer stated that COBALT was itself an enhanced interrogation technique.”

Those techniques, the report concluded, were “not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.”

For his part, Mitchell, who reportedly retired in 2011 and no longer practices or is licensed to do so in any state, said his situation is frustrating. He cannot confirm or deny involvement due to a non-disclosure agreement, Bloomberg reported. Unnamed U.S. officials, however, told Bloomberg Mitchell was involved with high-profile interrogations, such as the one conducted on 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

I’m in a box -- I’m caught in some Kafka novel,” Mitchell told Bloomberg. “Everyone is assuming it is me, but I can’t confirm or deny it. It is frustrating because you can’t defend yourself.”

While the full implications of the Senate’s report remain unclear, the New York Times calls it “the most sweeping condemnation of the CIA” since the 1970s Church Committee investigation into “domestic spying, botched assassinations and giving LSD to unwitting subjects, among other misconduct.”

That 1970s report prompted a number of laws and restrictions to reel in CIA activities, the paper pointed out.

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