Two U.S. psychologists who designed, oversaw, and participated in what the CIA dubbed “enhanced interrogation techniques” were called “pussies” by agency bosses when they asked to stop the practice of waterboarding, according to testimony from one of them. James Mitchell, an architect of the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation program, testified this week in a pretrial hearing in the case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed 9/11 mastermind. He said he and his colleague, John “Bruce” Jessen, waterboarded at least three men including Mohammed, but asked officers at CIA headquarters if they could stop the practice in 2002. “They said that we were pussies, that we had lost our spine,” Mitchell testified, adding that they were told that if another attack by al Qaeda occurred, they “would have the blood of dead Americans on their hands.” Mitchell told the officers he would continue only if they came and watched a waterboarding. When they did, according to Mitchell, many of them wept at what they saw. “Their decision after witnessing this is that we don’t need to do this,” he said.
