nbcnews | One of two psychologists whose firm
was 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 always sleep comfortably at night," James Mitchell told NBC News on Wednesday.
"I think the American
people ought to know the men and women of the CIA and the armed services
have given up their lives and their security to protect them. It's not
always pretty," he added. "I wish this report had come out in a
bipartisan way."
In an earlier interview
with the Associated Press, Mitchell said Senate report's accusation that
he and his partner did not have experience as interrogators or an
understanding of Al Qaeda is "flat wrong." He said he understood the
shocked reaction to the report's claims. "I would be upset by it too, if
it were true," he said.
"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 told the AP.
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.
