December 18, 2010

WASHINGTON – In response to recent news reports that the CIA agreed to cover at least $5 million in legal fees for two psychologists, Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who were the architects of the agency's interrogation program, Rev. Richard L. Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture released the following statement:

Today's allegations that the CIA authorized $5 million in government funds to pay the legal costs of the architects of the CIA's torture program demand a full and public accounting. If the CIA believed waterboarding was acceptable, then why did the agency feel the need to authorize five million tax-payer dollars to defend the interrogation program's architects from legal proceedings? What exactly did these two psychologists do for the CIA? How much of what they did was illegal?

Allegations of this nature are exactly why we need a non-partisan commission of inquiry to investigate our nationÕs past use of torture and to make recommendations for safeguards that will ensure that it never happens again. U.S. taxpayer dollars should not fund the legal defense of those who acted illegally and immorally when they decided to use torture."

According to today's Associated Press report, the psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen helped design and implement the CIA's interrogation program and were personally involved in the waterboarding of multiple detainees.

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is a growing membership organization committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Since its formation in January 2006, 300 religious groups have joined NRCAT, including representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Baha'i, Buddhist, and Sikh communities. Members include national denominations and faith groups, regional organizations and local congregations.

National Religious Campaign Against Torture