Thread by @carolrosenberg

Good morning from Guantanamo. Dr. James Mitchell, the psychologist who waterboarded for the CIA as a contract interrogator, resumes testifying this morning.
It is his sixth day on the war court witness stand.
(Court compound file photo)

Here is one aspect of the testimony so far. nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/…

Heading up to court shortly.
KSM defense lawyer David Nevin just played a clip of Drowning Pool's "Let The Bodies Hit the Floor," including the mind-numbing scream.

He asked CIA interrogator James Mitchell if he heard it at "Location 4," the Poland black site.

Dr. Mitchell: "Definitely don’t remember that.
That was tremendously annoying."

Dr. Mitchell also said keeping captives naked in the black sites was "a condition of confinement" -- not an interrogation technique.
Sometimes the CIA prisoner would be in a diaper. Sometimes he'd get a towel. Sometimes he'd get a pair of sweatpants, the psychologist testified.

What we're seeing via video feed from the court to the Camp Justice press room:
--KSM attorney David Nevin has donned black evidence- handling gloves and is showing Dr. Mitchell items from a former black site whose location has not been identified. They are now in FBI custody.

Now Mr. Nevin is holding up a chain with a red lock and a built-in blue metal attachment.

Dr. Mitchell says it looks like something you could cinch up "like a horse collar" but says the metal blue thing "it is completely unfamiliar to me."

Dr. Mitchell remarks that he's seen chains before, and even has some at his feet in the witness box.

The judge explains it as a shackle point that could be used on some witnesses, but that it is not intended for use on Dr. Mitchell.

KSM attorney Nevin is now showing a heavier, perhaps 10-foot chain that came out of a former black site cell.

Dr. Mitchell says he doesn't recognize that particular chain but offers that CIA did shackle prisoners to hard shackle points on the ceilings of some cells.

Now David Nevin is holding up a football helmet with a face guard that the lawyer said came from "1B56," maybe a cell?

Dr. Mitchell: I've never seen a helmet on any detainee anywhere.

The lawyer has a black duffel bag with a all black gear inside -- a black jump suit, a black balaklava, black slippers, other items.
Dr. Mitchell said he didn't wear a balaklava and he doesn't know if it was intended for a guard or detainee.

The duffel that looks like a go-bag also had duct tape, diapers and a black harness.

Dr. Mitchell: Those are all things that could have been used in a rendition.

Dr. Mitchell says when he provided the guards to the black sites, his employees didn't wear the type of black ski-mask and blackout sunglasses that David Nevin just held up.

Correction: The numbering is not a cell number but an FBI identifier for batches of evidence that agents have brought to court for Mr. Nevin to hold up.

For example, a sweatshirt with sleeves cut off from 1B59.

Mr. Nevin holds up black sweatpants with a hole that's been cut in it.
Dr. Mitchell says the CIA gave black site prisoners sweatshirts and sweatpants at times, but doesn't know why one would have a hole.
Nevin: You don't know about rectal hydration?
Dr. Mitchell: I do not.

With that, Judge Cohen thanks the evidence custodians (not agents) for their assistance and declares a 15-minute recess.

Or as he calls it, "a comfort break."

Seeing as I don't have time to make it up to the court before the recess ends, I will continue tweeting from here.

Recapping: In court, KSM's lawyer held up a series of FBI tagged items:
An assortment of short, long, light- and heavy-weight chains, shackles, a thing that looked like a football helmet, sound-muffling headphones, two types of black ski-mask- looking wear called balaklavas...

sunglasses with tape to prevent peripheral vision, adult diapers, duct tape, flexible baby spoons, sleeveless black sweatshirts, sweatpants with a hole cut out -- in a display of items from an unnamed, since destroyed black site that are now held in Gitmo's FBI evidence locker.

Recess is over, now Judge Cohen is allowing KSM lawyer Nevin to show the court about a minute of "The Report" movie portraying waterboarding and short shackling, and black-clad interrogators shouting at him. @thereportmovie

Dr. Mitchell interjects: "You got some fat boy playing me."

Back at the clip, the actor playing KSM is shackled to a waterboard nude. It's rough, loud and scary looking.

Nevin: Dr. Mitchell have you seen that before?
Mitchell: Never, I never watched the show.

Mitchell comments on what he saw in the short war court screening of two mini-clips: 'First of all we didn't wear masks. We didn't pour water from the buckets. I don't recall the shouting about an individual and that sort of stuff.'

More Mitchell: 'My recollection is, if they provide that information they provide it just before the waterboarding starts, not during waterboarding. We're highly suspicious of anything they say during waterboarding.'

Another difference between the film and what Dr. Mitchell says happened:
'KSM didn't scream grunt or do anything. KSM was surprisingly good at being calm.'

(At one point, Dr. Mitchell started to call the defendant Mr. Mohamm... stopped inself and referred to him as KSM.)

Dr. Mitchell says in the midst of waterboarding KSM kept count of each second of a pour while he was under a cloth with water pouring down on his nose and mouth, then used a finger to signal "cut" while under the cloth to indicate time's up.

Dr. Mitchell illustrated the type of signal, drawing a finger under his neck, while the judge described it for the court record.

(This suggests that KSM's arms were out, not strapped to his side on the waterboard.)

Dr. Mitchell also testified that when he waterboarded Abu Zubaydah and Nashiri (in Thailand) they had them on gurneys. Not KSM. It sounded like he said there wasn't enough room in the waterboarding cell (in Poland) to fit a gurney.

There's some back and forth between KSM attorney Nevin and Dr. Mitchell about what intelligence led to Hambali, disrupted threats or plots. Dr. Mitchell says he got it out of KSM. Nevin points to the Senate Intelligence Committee study, which suggests otherwise.

KSM lawyer Nevin is asking about the context of KSM disclosing, unprompted, that he killed @WSJ correspondent Daniel Pearl.

Dr. Mitchell: Psychologists Mitchell and Jessen were in the interrogation room, along with the CIA's "brilliant" WMD expert. (He doesn't know her name.)

Dr. Mitchell said at the time, KSM was cooperating with his captors and was concerned about whether they believed him.

More context from Nevin, reading from an intelligence report: KSM was talking to Dr. Jessen about how he was doing and got a medium rating on his cooperation, admitted to killing Daniel Pearl and asked if he could write a letter to his family.

Dr. Mitchell argues that the account Mr. Nevin showed him conflated two conversations. He says, the request by Mr. Mohammed to speak to his family happened at another time.

Mr. Nevin is asking about Dr. Mitchell's psychological license. He said he was licensed in Texas and he affirmatively retired the license, did not let it lapse. He says he separately quit the @APA because "I disagreed on their position of psychologists helping national security."

@APA The court is breaking for lunch. KSM's lawyer is to resume questioning Dr. Mitchell around 1:15, followed by Jim Harrington for Ramzi bin al-Shibh. Then Cheryl Bormann for Walid bin Attash has questions, followed by prosecution questioning and defense redirect.

Judge Cohen says he hopes the sides will wrap it all up in time to get some on-the-record testimony from Dr. Mitchell's waterboarding partner, Dr. John Bruce Jessen, on Thursday and this is how...

Judge Cohen has decided to postpone the counterpart classified questioning of Dr. Mitchell (which the public can't hear) until after February hearings when he hears argument on a request for KSM to listen in on the portion when Mr. Nevin has classified questions.

The psychologist who waterboarded KSM testified that, first he got guidance from a C.I.A. lawyer, and then he included caveats as a workaround to avoid allegations of torture.
nytimes.com/2020/01/28/us/…

Updated with a few more details on the lawyer Dr. Mitchell consulted before threatening to kill the child in 2003.

The same lawyer had watched psychologists Mitchell and Jessen waterboard Abu Zubaydah in 2002 in Thailand. #PJ1