CIA Axes $1000-A-Day Waterboarding Experts

Psychologists Bruce Jessen, left, and Jim Mitchell shaped the CIA's interrogation program of al Qaeda detainees, including Abu Zubaydah. Both refused to speak to ABC News citing confidentiality agreements with the U.S. government.(ABC News)

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'Architects' of Enhanced Interrogation Program Among Recent Contractor Purge

Matthew Cole
June 16, 2009 - ABC News

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The CIA has reportedly cut its ties to the two psychologists credited for being the architects of the CIA's brutal interrogation program after 9/11, a news report said yesterday. Dr. James Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen, who suggested and supervised waterboarding at secret prisons around the world have been told their services are no longer needed. Mitchell and Jessen, according to their associates, boasted of being paid $1,000 a day by the CIA to oversee the use of the technique on top al Qaeda suspects.

Their firings came during a purge by CIA Director Leon Panetta of all contractors involved in the interrogation program. In early April, Panetta told CIA employees that contractors involved in the interrogation program and secret prisons were being "promptly terminated."