Your points on the organizational aspects are well-taken. I think the old Kubark lived on more than you think, i.e., in the culture of the intel world, in the memories of some of the personnel, and in the torture program that SERE was supposed to be inoculating soldiers against (which didn’t all come from Communist China, no matter what the NYT says). But I agree, it seems likely it was less institutionalized than I have supposed.

I also agree that the politicians were sadists, and the CIA knew they had to get coverage for themselves, given what they were being asked to do. But what gets me is that they would even do it, i.e., follow these inhumane and cruel orders. There is something debased in that, not to mention criminal.

I will look forward to seeing your book.

Now, I’ve already documented that Tate saw quite an increase in contracts post-9/11. I guess everyone was cashing in. But what was David Ayers doing on MJA?

I do think the idea that the military and CIA sat around wondering how to handle AQ prisoners when they got them to be plain silly.

Silly? In US government activities, the simple reason is inevitably the right one. I trained hundreds of SOF personnel in prisoner handling pre-Iraq and even Pre-9/11 … no one remembers anything past kicking the hell out of prisoners. We had to remind them of the GC and the Five “S”s (Secure, Silence, Separate, Speed, Safeguard) I think the old CIA Kubarak programs, Psych programs or the people who developed these ancient programs had nothing to do with anything at all. Corporate memory is about 4 to 5 years unless it becomes doctrinal and taught in academy courses. Sad but true. Thats why everyone was surprised … no one gave it any priority since Vietnam.

As far as Tate not wanting to be involved with MJA, you have to understand how USG contracting goes … these are super compartmented contracts that say something like “Provide Services as indicated.” Tate knew MJA was going to get a special activity but apart from winks and hints they could not really know the intention or details of the designers … it was a classified no bid contract. Tate lost allot of staff to MJA and they were happy to keep their own multi-million dollar contracts managing USAF & JPRA SERE courses. Again its just simple contracting, not agreements or planned divisions.

I agree MJA was created to establish a torture and high value captive processing program and focusing on how that came about with JPRA blessing is an undocumented question. When it all falls out I believe you will be astounded at how simple the real excuses for how this started were … it gets sinister when it hits the politicians and they embrace it more than the CIA does. In my next book on the matter I just call it for what it is –Sadism. Thanks on the logo thing.

But let’s take one portion of what you said:

MJA was clearly created to reverse engineer basic SERE into a torture program. Thats critical because Tate Corp was the principle subcontractor to JPRA for manpower management -they provided the instructors and paid the staff. Tate did not want to be directly involved but Fairchild is a small base and the JPRA offices are even smaller … so MJA was formed to legally ensure no conflicting contracts for this activitiy with Tate and JPRA’s standing contracts.

So far, you corroborate everything I have written. MJA was a torture project to begin with. The Tate personnel are all over JPRA, and vice versa. Tate “did not want to be directly involved”… in what? In the torture program! Of course, that did not keep David Ayers, head of Tate from being on the governing board of MJA, maybe precisely to watch that things didn’t implicate his enterprise too directly.

Thats all… nothing sinister, just contract law. All of those guys -all of whom worked in those same craped offices saw BIG dollar signs after 9/11.

“Nothing sinister”? Just “contract law”? Standing aside to facilitate no conflicts around the construction of a torture program? Hmmm… It certainly shows they knew what was going on, and thought was put into how it would go forward without implicating too many people.

Though you are certainly right about one thing, and it validates what I and Scott Shane and others have said, that a number of people were in it for the money.

I thank harpie for pointing out the very interesting Matarazzo quote and the importance of Rumsfeld in construction of the torture program. In such a small article, dedicated to adding to our understanding of SERE, JPRA, and Mitchell-Jessen, much was going to be left out. I’d note that in the article, I chose to mention links to Matarazzo going back to 1996.

Mr. Nance’s comments purport to be critical of the article, but don’t offer a view that much different than my own. However, the more “incidental” POV regarding the migration of SERE techniques belies the command structure of the military, where individuals are responsible for decisions, and Standard Operating Procedures and training for duty are important components of essential military discipline.

As someone in a position to know, I’d think Mr. Nance could speak more specifically about the actual source of the Al Qaeda manual. As in my comment above, I determined it was the Manchester document, given the way the latter was discussed in relation of how to treat AQ prisoners at Guantanamo by Gen. Dunleavy.

In either case, it doesn’t matter, as the question still stands: how did a review of resistance techniques become a program for offensive, coercive interrogation methods?

There are two narratives: the impulse came from below (and I am charging Aldrich, Mitchell and Jessen, and various CIA/Spec Ops types with that), or it came from above (Cheney ordered it, or Bush, or high CIA officials, and the machinery was set in motion).

In the dynamic confusion of crisis, and the usual mosaic of historical events, we can assume that both took place, in a synergistic fashion. However, I believe Mr. Nance downplays the existence of previous torture activities and research by the military and CIA, which predisposed or preconditioned the events that took place. I intend to emphasize this aspect of the picture in an article on SERE research by the CIA.

I note that Nance takes no umbrage with my switch of emphasis from Mitchell and Jessen to Roger Aldrich, as the person responsible for making a business out of reverse-engineering the SERE techniques.

I do think the idea that the military and CIA sat around wondering how to handle AQ prisoners when they got them to be plain silly. It asks us to assume that everything from the Kubark manual to the Army Field Manual to the Geneva Conventions did not exist, much less endless discussions on topics like this in the military journals and colleges. Come on, Mr. Nance. Others may believe the naive CIA agent/Special Ops personnel, but I don’t. What a sad happenstance that when kicking it around, JPRA suddenly showed up. That disguises the close association of the three, although it does capture the avaricious behavior of JPRA, who eagerly sought their place at the table by bargaining their wares and selling their souls (not to mention, violating their charter).

Finally, I am not in charge of graphics used with my stories, and will pass along Mr. Nance’s complaint to the people upstairs.

April 16, 2002 – […] At a meeting just before 9/11/01 military psychologists were visited by former APA President Joseph Metarrazzo, whose words “crystallized their sense of mission”. They determined that their “marching orders” were to “help America and use our skills in any way we possibly can as a psychologist”, according to military psychologist and SERE instructor Bruce Lefever. [137]

I think “another point of entry” [JK @6] is Rumsfeld at DoD and SF. He engineered a coup in Intelligence by wresting power from CIA and vesting it in Special Forces.

I wrote a series of three comments outlining this process [from reading Seymour Hersh’s work] at Glenn Greenwald’s Blog, beginning here:

http://letters.salon.com/opini…..bee93.html

on this thread:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..index.html

MJA was clearly created to reverse engineer basic SERE into a torture program. Thats critical because Tate Corp was the principle subcontractor to JPRA for manpower management -they provided the instructors and paid the staff. Tate did not want to be directly involved but Fairchild is a small base and the JPRA offices are even smaller … so MJA was formed to legally ensure no conflicting contracts for this activitiy with Tate and JPRA’s standing contracts. Thats all… nothing sinister, just contract law. All of those guys -all of whom worked in those same craped offices saw BIG dollar signs after 9/11.

As for who issued the key orders? I think you are correct on how the paper orders came down the chain but the idea of revere engineeing SERE surely went up the chain informally at first. When the question of “What do we do with AQ members we capture?” was asked I think it was kicked around DoD and CIA until it found JPRA ready to lend a hand … it was then briefed up the chain of command by the military and it leaped over to the CIA (all of whom remember their terrifying SERE experience) and then back briefed the White House about SERE -and I am sure they LOVED the idea. So to avoid the “illegalities” it went to the OLC for scrubbing.

As for which AQ document JPRA was briefed on, I don’t think it was the Manchester document … that wasn’t found until 2003, I believe … I think it was from the copies of the Encyclopedia of Jihad that were all over South Asia. I had a copy in 1997 at my anti-terror survivial program. The interrogation resistance stuff from that book was copied directly from US and UK military manuals from WWII, Vietnam and public sources like the SAS survival handbook and Andy McNabb’s BRAVO 2-0.

I have met Scott Shane and I think he is still working out the kinks, but the entire process up to the office of the VP was WAY less formal than you all think.

One last request Jeff. Please stop using the Navy SERE school North Island logo here for these threads. SERE has nothing to do with implimenting torture or this program, it was corrupted into torture by people who used SERE information. Using my school’s logo is like using the Red Cross logo to represent the Spanish Inquisition. Its not fair not respectful of the true meaning of SERE.

As for a cover, what else could it be a cover for? We need to see Jessen’s document. But the manner of a “review” to cover for an operational CONOP makes sense, especially as you see what activities follow its release.

As for the rest, I don’t think we’re in disagreement re chain of command. The orders come from Cheney’s office to (most likely) Addington (perhaps one or two others), and thence to CIA (of which only one is Rizzo; Tenet should have gotten the orders first) and Special Ops, running under Cheney; and SecDef. Haynes was detailed (with pretty good documentation) to go to JPRA, that could have come from Addington/Cheney, or via Rumsfeld, we just don’t know for sure. I’m talking here about how it went operational, not about the OLC matters, which was always running behind events, as you’ve pointed out.

I didn’t mention Addington going to CIA, for instance, to give the order, because I don’t have that info. But I do have a source telling me who went to Mitchell-Jessen. We have Mitchell at Ft. Bragg (Special Ops), and we have a “legendary” leader who can bridge the two worlds (higher-ups and operational).

The importance of adding Aldrich (and to certain extent Spivey) is to place the necessary link between the upper layers and the operational layers, that’s all. Of course, it’s important to know that Aldrich reportedly was part of the reverse-engineering. My source says he originated the idea, not Mitchell. This source has been reliable on much else, though we will still need some corroboration on that.

If you leave out Aldrich and that level of JPRA, then you don’t have the links to CIA/Special OPs and above. What you’re left with is the bad apple scenario that will set up Mitchell and Jessen for the fall. And that’s not how it went down, although I think it was setup that way from the beginning, so there could be deniability.

I am certain (and wrote some about this in my “Targets of Opprortunity” article) that some of the SERE techniques had already migrated to Special Ops pre-9/11. I know some other mainstream reporters think or know this, too. I think that links to Aldrich, who was big at PRA [Personnel Recovery Academy], where Col. Moulton was bragging he could get all the great interrogators. But as for the early migration, that’s why we have the hooding and special positions, etc., from the get-go when Special Ops hits the ground in Afghanistan in Oct-Nov. 2001, way before Mitchell-Jessen enter the picture. Of course, the hooding, etc. didn’t have to come from SERE. The British were using this on IRA in the 1970s. But then SERE was a repository of torture knowledge, much as Jane Mayer portrayed it in her book.

Shane was right or picked up on one thing. This was worked out in part with a lot of informal conversations and meetings, like the one at Seligman’s house. It’s possible, for instance, that the spook psychologists at a high level (like Shumate or Hubbard or Banks, or psychiatrist Morgan) had a lot more influence than we think.

I think the chain of command and execution I’m trying to establish is important, and takes us one step closer to putting the puzzle fully together. But it is not meant to be a definitive history or explanation. In my view, the operational side doesn’t get the attention it deserves. I think it’s because most of the torture critics who are writing are attorneys, and have found more meat in the OLC memos aspect of the controversy. Hang the lawyers… and let the generals gently out to pasture. (Or in McChrystal’s case, give them a promotion.)

And the “terrorism”, that’s what we call violence when it’s used by the other side. I, for one, can’t see much difference between sending suicide bombers to kill innocents, or sending flying drone aircraft or cruise missiles, killing innocents. Each type of terror attack aims supposedly to have a military aim. Even terrorizing of civilian targets is nothing unique to Al Qaeda. Anyone remember what “shock and awe” (a Nazi-like term if there ever was one) was all about? Or much earlier, the bombing of North Vietnam, the napalming of North Korea, or the firebombing of Toyko? (I won’t even elaborate upon the tens of thousands of civilians incinerated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) Killing of innocents by terrorists, my ass.

Not that I condone any killing of civilians by anyone. I just hate the hypocrisy put out by the U.S. side.

A couple of questions. First, do we actually KNOW that it was the Manchester manual? I ask only bc I’ve at time wondered whether the subsequent reporting has said it was the Manchester manual bc that is public and unclassified and–as you point out–not all that exciting.I agree it feels like a cover story, but I’m not convinced it’s a cover story in the direction you’re arguing it is (though I’m not sure how it is a cover story).

Also, while I agree there are tons more people in the loop here, I’m not sure I understand why we need a different chain of command from what we know. One of the key elements, it seems to me, is the relationship of Addington and Rizzo (from CIA days), and Addington and Haynes, which gives you the prior involvement and knowledge, and the two acolytes in the place to orchestrate it. Yes the question is how do you get from Haynes (who was technically probably working out of chain of commend, since he was working on what was primarily a CIA issue at that point, but your point about JSOC of course mitigates that issue) to Mitchell and Jessen. And I absolutely agree that this is not (just) about MJA figuring out how to get rich off of torture.