James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen, the ex-military psychologists identified as primary architects of the CIA's "enhanced interrogations techniques" torture program, apparently did not spend all their time on the battlefield. As the Bush administration-approved coercive interrogation techniques spread from Guantanamo and Afghanistan to the new war in Iraq, Mitchell and Jessen were cashing in on their new-found influence.
According to a news blurb in October 2003, from conservative columnist John McCaslin, Mitchell and Jessen, along with fellow survival instructor David Dose (of whose Fort Sherman Academy in Idaho, more in a minute), were speakers at a "'Homeland Security Training Seminar,' billed as an 'intense three-day experiential training seminar. . . for avoiding and surviving hostage detention.'" The hoity-toity affair, for which federal and state officials were to receive a governmental per diem, was held at the Ritz Carlton resort on Maui.
The seminar was organized by Randall Spivey's Spokane-based company, RS Consulting. Spivey is a former hostage training instructor for the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, or SERE program, as well as chief of the Policy and Oversight Division at SERE's parent organization, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA). But perhaps most notoriously, Mr. Spivey was a principle member of Mitchell, Jessen and Associates. The relationship may have been even closer, as according to a Google search, both MJA and RS Consulting appear to have shared the same telephone number (see here and here).
How nice for Mr. Spivey to arrange a tony gig like this for his buddies from MJA. He also thought to invite along another friend, David Dose. Dose is another survival training instructor (and former "Defense Department consultant") who operates a private training firm in northern Idaho, Fort Sherman Academy (FSA). According to its website, FSA claims 50+ employees, who have worked in 27 different countries serving "clientele in multiple environments," including government, military, law enforcement, church/Mission groups, and NGOs and Corporations. Spivey worked as Dose's "security adviser" from 2002-04, the same period he was involved in helping institute the reverse-engineered SERE program as the torture program of choice for U.S. interrogators.
The thing about these contracting agencies is, as I pointed out in a recent article, they never seem to be far from allegations of corruption.
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