Thread by @carolrosenberg

Good morning from Guantanamo's Camp Justice on what could be former CIA contract psychologist James Mitchell's last day of open court, unclassified testimony in the 9/11 case. The secret part has yet to be scheduled.

Expect Cheryl Bormann, the lawyer for Walid bin Attash, aka Khallad, to resume the questioning. Since Dr. Mitchell never interrogated Khallad, Ms. Bormann has been using him as an expert, using him to help translate cables about other people interrogating him in the black sites.

The lawyers and judge are getting an early start today with an 8:30 a.m. planning meeting before the hearing begins at 9.
The topic: What's on tap, who will testify at the February hearings.
Also, probably, will Dr. Jessen testify tomorrow.

Here's a story that emerged from these two weeks.
nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/…

The 9/11 hearing is starting. Only Ramzi bin al-Shibh has come to the court compound. KSM and the other three defendants have waived attendance, per the testimony of a Navy lawyer from Camp 7 who is new to the court.

Former C.I.A. contract psychologist James Mitchell is back to testify. Defense lawyer Cheryl Bormann tells him she saw Dr. Mitchell and his former black site waterboarding partner, Bruce Jessen, in conversation walking down the base's Sherman Avenue since yesterday's hearing.

Dr. Jessen has yet to testify.
She asks if they were discussing the case.
No, Dr. Mitchell replies, they are planning an ice-climbing trip to Alaska and were chatting about that.

Now Ms. Bormann is asking Dr. Mitchell about a psychological evaluation he did on her client, Walid bin Attash, at a black site in Poland in 2003. (In court, they call it Location No. 4.)
Dr. Mitchell didn't remember doing that. She showed him a form, refreshed his memory.

Ms. Bormann shows the psychologist a CIA account of her client's interrogation, not by Dr. Mitchell. The prisoner has a prosthetic leg.
"Bin Attash was put in the standing sleep deprivation position, naked, with feed shackled and hands shackled at approximately chin level..."

...Special attention will be paid to ensure there are no unintended injuries to his amputation as a result."

Dr. Mitchell replies that he experienced standing sleep deprivation too, had trainers stand him inside a claustrophobic box, shows it was very narrow with his hands.

Bormann briefly shows another black site report.
In it, Bin Attash is allowed "his leg prosthesis and sock."
It has items "forfeited due to deceptive/misleading/evasive answers," including a Quran and toothbrush.

Dr. Mitchell: The site manager would have had to approve that.

Context: A lot of documents are being discussed, being shown to Dr. Mitchell. We get quick looks at the unclassified cables and reports from the black sites. The quotes in this stream come from some of those.

The court camera operators are quick to shift from document to screen so some whiz past too quickly

Here's one from a black site Ms. Bormann showed Dr. Mitchell on the screen: "At 1900 interrogators returned to inform bin Attash that he had to drink sufficient water, or he would be hydrated rectally. Bin Attash indicated his complete understanding...

"Bin Attash said he had been thinking, and remembered that a mujahadin with whom he was acquainted, Abu Anas al Sharqi, had a brother who was a commercial airline pilot in Saudi Arabia."

Background on "rectal rehydration" here:
nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/…

Another document includes measurements of the swelling of bin Attash's only foot and ankle:
A medical expert "suggests no more than another day/24 of ceiling shackles/sleep deprivation in current standing position,"citing "appearance of limb and its clinical significance."

Dr. Mitchell: They planned for contingency of hospitalization for every detainee... You always have a plan.

Ms. Bormann has a secret photo of Mr. bin Attash's foot but we can't see it. It's evidence she wants to show Dr. Mitchell. In Gitmo 9/11 trial procedure, it's marked "displayable" to the owner of the foot, ISN10014, but nobody else without a top secret clearance.

Judge Cohen suggests "the issue would be HIPPA and whether or not your client wants to waive" a privacy right so the only other defendant in court, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, can see it too.
HIPPA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that was passed by Congress in 1996.

Ms. Bormann is explaining that her absent client wouldn't mind Mr. bin al-Shibh seeing it... hears something off microphone, say: "Mr. Groharing tells me for the record they don't believe HIPPA applies."

Either way, she says he waives. Mr. bin al-Shibh gets to see it. Not us.

They're discussing photos of Mr. bin Attash's foot.
Dr. Mitchell: "The foot looks swollen to me and slightly discolored unless he's tanned on that part of the leg...
Sometimes my ankles are the size of a cantaloupe."

Dr. Mitchell did not interrogate Mr. bin Attash. The judge is allowing Ms. Bormann to ask Dr. Mitchell how he would have handled the interrogations, conditions in light of the medical reports. Over the prosecution's objections.

"I didn't help design this," Dr. Mitchell says of the accounts of what was done to Mr. bin Attash in standing-sleep deprivation.

Dr. Mitchell describes Mr. bin Attash, based on cables and evaluations he's seen, as sometimes cooperative and sometimes "a good jihadist," who brought resistance techniques to the interrogation room.

Ms. Bormann has a document showing an interrogator ripping a diaper off of Mr. bin Attash for lack of cooperation, asks Dr. Mitchell if he'd do that.
Dr. Mitch doesn't recall ever interrogating detainees in diapers. They were "nude, had a towel or had clothes," he said.

Ms. Bormann is discussing psychological assessments that prosecutors provided her as pretrial evidence -- and asking if they were done by Dr. Mitchell or his partner Dr. Bruce Jessen did of her client in the black sites. He thinks so. Prosecutors know but can't say at this time.

These are assessments of Mr. bin Attash as being cooperative in 2004 or 2005.
Dr. Mitchell offers that Mr. bin Attash was cordial as he volunteered that helped destroy "those Buddahs" with the Taliban.
Ms. Bormann notes that's not mentioned in the report.

In one exchange, Dr. Mitchell tells Ms. Bormann that the chief of RDG* psychology did assessments of the 9/11 defendants before their 2006 Labor Day weekend transfer to Guantanamo.
He reaches for his code-name key, and Prosecutor Groharing objects..
*=Rendition Detention Group.

The prosecutor says that because the world knows his job title, Dr. Mitchell cannot reveal the secret code for that particular man, which prosecutors and the CIA assigned him for the 9/11 trial.
(For example: A CIA officer known as the Preacher who helped waterboard KSM is NZ2.)

Judge Cohen is still unhappy with these double blind restrictions, announces that he'll need another conversation with the *OCA on that.

OCA=Original Classification Authority-CIA

And with that, we are in an extended lunch recess.
Court resumes at 2:05 p.m. with Dr. Mitchell returning to the stand for more defense questioning followed by redirect, prosecution questions and possibly more questions from the judge. The order of that is still unclear.

The court is back in session. Dr. Mitchell is discussing an idea of doing "social pairing" of prisoners in the black sites. The idea was to let two prisoners watch TV together -- to offset the fact that the captives could only see their captors.

Dr. Mitchell thought Abu Zubaydah should be paired with Abd al Rahim al Nashiri -- two men he waterboarded with his psychologist partner Bruce Jessen.
Abu Zubaydah was upbeat and Mr. Nashiri was glum.

Aside: It's still uncertain whether we will hear from Dr. Jessen today.

In court, the lawyer for Walid bin Attash shows Dr. Mitchell a document that says her client, aka Khallad, never was paired up with anybody as of July 2006 -- two months before his transfer to Gitmo.

Dr. Mitchell agrees that is what the document shows.

Now Ms. Bormann is turning to a new topic that hasn't been explored in Dr. Mitchell's eight days of testimony:

What the C.I.A. called "the endgame" -- planning for what to do about KSM and the others in the black sites.

Dr. Mitchell said "endgame" in 2003 was code for moving black site cooperators who "didn't require the conditions of the other locations" to Guantanamo "where it would be more comfortable for them."
--He's been shown a secret memo he's never seen before.

Dr. Mitchell is reading a top secret email that he wrote on Oct. 13, 2005, and had forgotten.
"I'm fascinated by it," he says.
He adds: "This was not about the move to Guantanamo."

The document included something about prioritizing detainees based on their intelligence value.

(I missed the rest because of a disruption involving a wasp, and a soldier swatting his cap at it. Hoping it isn't redacted in the transcript of the public hearing when it comes out.)

Dr. Mitchell says he learned of plans to move the defendants to Guantanamo shortly before President Bush announced it in Sept. 2006. He says long-term planning ended with their transfer from CIA to DOD.
Ms. Bormann says she'll have more questions about that in the secret session.

Defense lawyers are over.
Prosecutor Groharing has questions about KSM's demeanor.
Dr. Mitchell says he started out as "hostile, kinda cocky, sarcastic and little bit belligerent."
After waterboarding, etc. "gradually over time he became a bit more forthcoming...

Dr. Mitchell said he set up a Terrorist Think Tank, where they had consolidated all the HVDs in one black site.
"They didn't know it," says Dr. Mitchell, explaining he would go "from cell to cell" and show pictures to a series of detainees. He called it "very synergistic."

Dr. Mitchell is very animated under cross examination by the 9/11 prosecutor.
He said the KSM he knew "was very charming," addressed him as "Abu Captain," never complained of nightmares or flashbacks.
"He never seemed to be particularly aroused."

Dr. Mitchell said he and KSM would hold hands, called it typical Middle East behavior and "part of his charm initiative."
He's "got a very intelligent mind... I found that he was one of the smarter guys that I dealt with."

Dr. Mitchell said KSM "had a pretty good grasp of English," because he had studied in in the United States.
KSM would "critique my questioning skills," he said, and suggest a different way to frame a debriefing question.

Dr. Mitchell and prosecutor Jeffrey Groharing agree that they've seen efforts at what the psychologist calls "a Perry Mason moment" in the war court these past days.
Dr. Mitchell says that debriefers who went for those were the least successful with KSM.

Dr. Mitchell says that KSM volunteered that he was responsible for the 9/11 attacks -- even before he waterboarded him. "That's the first thing he said to me before we did any EITs," said Dr. Mitchell, using CIA shorthand for Enhanced Interrogation Technique.

Prosecutor Groharing wants Dr. Mitchell to explain how KSM came to have an open/closed sign on his black site cell after the waterboarding, etc., ended.
The sign signaled when KSM would answer interrogators' debriefing questions.

Dr. Mitchell says KSM was studying Sufism and the guards would put a hood on KSM's head at random hours and move him into the "interrogation site, uh, the debriefing site" and leave him there.
Drs. Mitchell and Jessen said he did best with structured times of prayer, questioning.

Dr. Mitchell said in the black site KSM was very capable of advocating his self interests.
"He didn't like his headgear," and "wanted a particular kind of prayer rug." He complained that a guard gave him only the heels of the bread, and the CIA sent that guard home.

To keep KSM busy, the CIA would let KSM teach lectures. Dr. Mitchell said he was in the audience and found KSM's demeanor "professorial" and "teasing," assigned homework.

On Walid bin Attash, aka Khallad:
"I don't think he liked me. I don't think he liked any of us." Dr. Mitchell viewed him as a warrior, said Khallad volunteered that he helped the Taliban blow up the Buddhas because he, Khallad, "was an explosives expert on loan from Al Qaeda."

Dr. Mitchell described him as cordial and not friendly but un-threatening as he explained that he needed to blow up these "idol" as "false gods."

Dr. Mitchell said he engaged with Khallad as "warrior to warrior."
He said he never complained of flashbacks or nightmares.

Dr. Mitchell has his psychologist hat on, says there was free will. He said his reading of the C.I.A. cables from the black sites show that "they either chose to answer questions or chose not to answer questions."

Dr. Mitchell says he watched the Preacher interrogate Ramzi bin al-Shibh, thought he did, then thought he didn't, now believes he did. If he thought abuse took place, he would have reported the Preacher "all the way up to Jose Rodriguez." Didnt.

On Mr. bin al-Shibh: He was difficult. He wanted assurances that the food he was fed was halal, says Dr. Mitchell, wanted to leave whatever black site he was in to go and "inspect the slaughterhouse."

Dr. Mitchell said Mr. bin al-Shibh would complain "about everything," from "things shaking" to the "C.I.A doing mental experiments on him, all sorts of stuff."
He didn't want to talk to female debriefers, Dr. Mitchell says, because they weren't dressed as these women are."

Background on how "these women" in court are dressed here:
nytimes.com/2019/12/27/us/…

Dr. Mitchell is answering prosecutor Groharing's questions about the accused one-by-one, saying each one of them never lost the free will to refuse to answer questions.

On KSM's nephew, Ammar al-Baluchi: He struck Dr. Mitchell as "an accountant type," who was interested in English, never mentioned having traumatic flashbacks or nightmares. Dr. Mitchell said he never observed any of that either.
"He was always pleasant," he said.

On Mr. al-Baluchi: "I think he was one of the more rational ones. I liked talking to him... He was always asking for something to be brought into his cell to keep him occupied," particularly involving English.

Dr. Mitchell on Mustafa al-Hawsawi called him a natural pleaser. He was always deferential and nice," said the thing that concerned Mr. Hawsawi the most was "the problems with his rectum."
Prosecutor: Was he apathetic?

Dr. Mitchell: "He wasn't apathetic. He spent a lot of time concerned about his bowel movements because of the pain it caused because of the hemorrhoid stuff." Dr. Mitchell added that Mr. Hawsawi never needed a behavior management "caregiver."

Defense lawyers are doing cross examination.
To a question from Baluchi laywer James Connell, Dr. Mitchell said his firm Mitchell, Jessen and Associates "probably" provided the security personnel on the flight that brought the 9/11 defendants to Gitmo in September 2006.

He said his guards did not, however, handle security at Camp 7, where they are now, because the CIA handed the men over to Department of Defense custody.

Dr. Mitchell offers this description of the large confinement box where Abu Zubaydah was kept in Thailand:
"He said it looked like a coffin. I didn't say it looked like a coffin. It actually looked like a refrigerator shipping box. It is what it is."
nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/…

KSM attorney David Nevin doing cross. Dr. Mitchell agrees with him that a debriefer telling Mr. Mohammed that "Washington won't be very happy" about this response or that was "an implied threat."

KSM lawyer Nevin is questioning Dr. Mitchell on his description of KSM as being "charming" toward him with a series of questions...

Nevin: You were the one who took him into your custody after going through the anal rape?
Prosecutor Groharing: Objection.

Judge Cohen: Objection for characterization?
Mr. Groharing: Yes.
Mr. Nevin: What would you call it?
Judge Cohen: I will note that there is an objection to characterization and that I have made no legal finding on this.

Nevin to Mitchell, who waterboarded KSM 183 times:
You are the one who conditionally threatened to cut his children's throat.
Mitchell: I did.
Nevin: Can you think of a reason why he would want to charm you?
Mitchell: I can think of a dozen reasons.

Nevin: He associated you with going back to all that stuff that he had gone through.
Mitchell: I have no idea what was in his mind. He never once complained to me about my relationship with him. He never once expressed any fear of me.

Nevin: You have him conditioned that if he expressed fear he's lying.
Dr. Mitchell: I think you're mischaracterizing. I brought him as many good things as bad things. That disrupts that kind of classical conditioning.

The hearing has ended for the day. Dr. Mitchell returns to the witness stand tomorrow morning for more redirect at 9 a.m. Judge Cohen is hoping it will only last an hour, and has asked for psychologist Bruce Jessen to be ready to testify next, at 10 a.m. Friday.