Thread by @carolrosenberg

Good morning from Guantanamo's Camp Justice. Former CIA black site contractor Dr. James Mitchell is due back in court at 9 a.m. for more defense lawyer cross-examination following his psychological observations of the 9/11 defendants for the prosecution.
nytimes.com/2020/01/30/us/…

After that, defense lawyers start their examination of psychologist John Bruce Jessen, Dr. Mitchell's black site business and waterboarding partner. The current thought is to resume Dr. Jessen's testimony in March.

I'm heading up to the court for the morning session. Will try to catch you up later.
For some related reading, here's this -- from the last time reporters were briefed by a Gitmo prison commander, invited to see Guantanamo's Law of War detention.
nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/…

Also, a correction: I've updated the names of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's eldest sons --Hamza and Zaid-- in this article about an interrogator threatening one.
For years, human rights organizations had provided their wrong names. And KSM's team caught me up.
nytimes.com/2020/01/28/us/…

Good afternoon from Camp Justice. Dr. Mitchell wrapped up the public portion of his testimony in the 9/11 case this morning by elaborating on what he told prosecutor Jeffrey Groharing yesterday.

The psychologist explained that, when he testified that he never observed any of the 9/11 defendants experience nightmares, anxiety or apathy in the black sites, he was offering an assessment that they did not suffer from PTSD.
nytimes.com/2020/01/30/us/…

It came through cross examination by lawyer Cheryl Bormann, representing 9/11 defendant Walid bin Attash. CIA records show Dr. Mitchell was with Mr. bin Attash on four occasions, thrice in 2003 and once in 2005.
Dr. Mitchell said CIA didn't track his black site "morale visits."

Dr. Mitchell doubled down on his diagnosis. He declared in the witness box, 30 feet from Mr. bin Attash, that the prisoner "has been smiling the whole time," leaving him confident in his assessment that the prisoner does not suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Psychologist Bruce Jessen, who was Dr. Mitchell's black site business and waterboarding partner, has begun testifying. He, Dr. Mitchell and their lawyers came down two weeks ago for this hearing.
Dr. Jessen started by quoting his reply to a prosecution request that he testify.

"My response was, 'I'll come for two weeks, and that is all and I am done,'" said the soft-spoken psychologist in a suit jacket and no tie. "I hope you remember that."

He's been waiting for his turn to testify but Dr. Mitchell's testimony consumed nearly the entire two-week hearing.
Unclear from his remark is whether Dr. Jessen will voluntarily resume his Gitmo testimony by video link from war court headquarters -- or will required a subpoena.

Ammar al Baluchi attorney Alka Pradhan is doing the questioning of Dr. Jessen. He has a PhD in applied clinical psychology, he tesitfy, but his psychologist license "is dormant right now," he testified.

Dr. Jessen is riffing in the witness stand. "I don't recognize these guys any more," he says. "They've all grown up."

He offers that he recognizes "mukhtar" with the red beard, using KSM's nickname, and asks to be told who's who sitting in court behind him. Ms. Pradhan does.

Ms. Pradhan has been questioning Dr. Jessen at length about his experience in POW resistance training as an Air Force officer. She has a paper he wrote and has had him explain portions of a chapter, "Understanding the POW Environment."
Here's his resume: thetorturedatabase.org/files/foia_sub…

Dr. Jessen, then a Department of Defense employee, is talking about how he came to join C.I.A. discussions on how to interrogate Abu Zubaydah. "It was like a whirlwind," he said. Contracts were being scribbled on papers.

Dr. Jessen on applying the SERE techniques to black site prisoners: Those been used for decades with no problems.

He said he was "completely comfortable recommending the use of them, and still am."

In the black sites, he said, the techniques "were applied more frequently and with more energy" than U.S. troops did to each other in the SERE program. In the "advanced capture courses," he said, U.S. troops "experience the same but not as many times."

Besides, Dr. Jessen said, a black site prisoner could stop his captors for doing these things to them. "All they had to do was talk basically."

Adds: "What the program was designed to do was to gather intel. We weren't concerned about confessions."

Dr. Jessen: "What we wanted was them to talk and give information that the analysts study over and collate and try to get intelligence."

"Any time they didn't want the techniques to be applied, all they had to do was talk."

Dr. Jessen is quieter, less bombastic than his black site business partner, James Mitchell. But he makes the same points. He called KSM "a strong guy, a resilient guy," who was able to thwart the waterboard's effectiveness on the second time. "He coped with it very effectively."

He saw Abu Zubaydah differently.
"Every time that Zayn was waterboarded I could tell that he disliked it very much. And I think that the last time that occurred, I saw a higher level of fear and anxiety in him than I ever saw in KSM. He just wasn't as composed about that."

About that last time...
Dr. Mitchell testified last week that he did it as a demonstration for a visiting delegation from CIA headquarters. "Some of the folks who were watching were tearful."
nytimes.com/2020/01/22/us/…

Dr. Jessen calls the "EIT" program misunderstood: "The objective of this program was not to beast people. The point was to get detainees to the point where they could willingly engage in dialogue with CIA analysts at some level. At a level that was not angry and unproductive."

In court now, the hearing is ending and Dr. Jessen isn't done. He has, however, left the courtroom.

KSM attorney Gary Sowards wants the judge to order the psychologist to return to Gitmo to resume testifying, probably in March. He calls video-link testimony second rate, faulty.

Judge Cohen says he doesn't have the jurisdiction to "get him down to foreign country," that he heard Dr. Jessen's vow earlier today to never again return to Guantanamo Bay and says: "Hopefully he will reconsider."

Colonel Cohen says he can look at his subpoena power later.

Mr. Sowards again asks the judge to bring Dr. Jessen back into court and issue an order. Lawyers Walter Ruiz and Cheryl Bormann for Mustafa al Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash appeared to try to join the request but... it looks like the judge walked off the bench.
Recess to February.