An informative article by Matt Apuzzo and James Risen in NYT on torture, bureaucracy and psychology:

“The agency’s Office of Technical Services commissioned a report by two contract psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. They had worked in the Air Force’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program, which subjected American military personnel to simulated capture and torture. Neither man had any experience as an interrogator or expertise on Al Qaeda, but in late 2001 or early 2002, the C.I.A. hired them to assess a recently discovered Qaeda manual that described how to resist interrogations.
The company that the psychologists created ultimately would be paid $81 million and revolutionize the agency’s approach toward detention and interrogation, the Senate report said. On Feb. 7, 2002, Mr. Bush declared that the laws of war did not apply to Qaeda suspects. That decision opened the door for the C.I.A. to interrogate prisoners in previously unthinkable ways.”

Read the article here.

There is a lesson to be learned here, if you want to make serious money as a psychologist torturing the patient is much more profitable than healing the patient. The decent psychologist will say: “I torture for money, but because you are my friend I will torture you for nothing.”