CIA: The Spokane connection

Taylor Winkel

Taylor Winkel Jul 4, 2025

Feb 6, 2018

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                <h1>CIA: The Spokane connection</h1>
                <h2><p>The U.S. Senate's new torture report found that more than $80 million was paid to a Spokane-based firm. Spokesman-Review columnist Shawn Vestal recounts how the firm was formed by two former Fairchild Air Force Base survival-school psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jensen. They started Mitchell, Jensen and</p></h2>
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               <p>By <a href="/author/taylorjwinkel-gmail-com/">Taylor Winkel</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Feb 6, 2018</time></p>
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            <p>The U.S. Senate's new torture report found that more than $80 million was paid to a Spokane-based firm.<a href="http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/dec/10/shawn-vestal-80-million-paid-to-spokane-firm-for/?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org"> Spokesman-Review</a> columnist Shawn Vestal recounts how the firm was formed by two former Fairchild Air Force Base survival-school psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jensen. They started Mitchell, Jensen and Associates to conduct interrogation work in 2005. They were paid as much as $180 million in taxpayer dollars before the program was disbanded in 2009. The Spokesman-Review says the consultants took survival techniques taught to soldiers so they could resist torture and “reverse-engineered them as techniques to produce intelligence.” The contractors developed a list of interrogation techniques that the Senate report deemed illegal, inhumane and “not an effective means of acquiring intelligence.” Mitchell and Jensen haven’t been talking recently but Vestal notes that they have defended their work as ethical and say they oppose torture. — T.W.<br><br></p>
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The U.S. Senate's new torture report found that more than $80 million was paid to a Spokane-based firm. Spokesman-Review columnist Shawn Vestal recounts how the firm was formed by two former Fairchild Air Force Base survival-school psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jensen. They started Mitchell, Jensen and Associates to conduct interrogation work in 2005. They were paid as much as $180 million in taxpayer dollars before the program was disbanded in 2009. The Spokesman-Review says the consultants took survival techniques taught to soldiers so they could resist torture and “reverse-engineered them as techniques to produce intelligence.” The contractors developed a list of interrogation techniques that the Senate report deemed illegal, inhumane and “not an effective means of acquiring intelligence.” Mitchell and Jensen haven’t been talking recently but Vestal notes that they have defended their work as ethical and say they oppose torture. — T.W.

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By Taylor Winkel

Taylor Winkel is a Journalism and Political Science student at the University of Washington. Follow her on Twitter: @twinkelnews. She can be emailed at Taylor.Winkel@crosscut.com.