[url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/18/james-mitchell-cia-torture-interview]James Mitchell: 'I'm just a guy who got asked to do something for his country'[/url] [i]Dr James Elmer Mitchell has been called a war criminal and a torturer. He has been the subject of an ethics complaint, and his methods have been criticized in reports by two congressional committees and by the CIA's internal watchdog. But the retired air force psychologist insists he is not the monster many have portrayed him to be. ... Mitchell is featured prominently in a new report prepared by the Senate select committee on intelligence, which spent five years and more than $40m studying the CIA's detention and interrogation program. The findings, according to a summary leaked to McClatchy, are damning: that the agency misled the White House, Congress and the American people; that unauthorised interrogation methods were used; that the legal opinions stating the techniques did not break US torture laws were flawed; and perhaps most significant, that the torture yielded no useful intelligence. But Mitchell said the program's successes had been deliberately ignored. "I'm sure there are people out there who believe that if the United States acknowledged that coercion worked, there is an increased probability that people would use coercion against our people," Mitchell said. "Never mind that they do anyway. In the fairyland they live in, all you have to do is give somebody some tea and a cookie, and everything will be OK." ... Mitchell spoke to the Guardian by phone from his home in Land O'Lakes, Florida for two hours last Friday – the "longest conversation I had with any reporter," he said. He mounted a full-throated defense of the Bush administration's counter-terrorism policies and attacked "partisan Democrats" for "throwing me under the bus" and "rewriting history." He also criticized Obama's healthcare policy – a "shit sandwich" – and his administration's approach to global warming. Mitchell believes it's a myth.[/i] Definitely a colorful character.