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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Fairchild official says base’s survival program not linked to CIA torture

Col. Jonathan Duncan, commander of Fairchild Air Force Base’s 336th Training Group, speaks to media about the SERE mission at Fairchild on Friday. (Colin Mulvany)

Fairchild Air Force Base’s survival school sought Friday to distance itself from the revelations contained in a scathing report about the CIA’s torture regime.

Although commanders refused to address the report directly, they organized a rare news conference to reinforce the important work of the 300 people in the Spokane headquarters of the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school.

“Obviously with the release of the report and a lot of mention of the U.S. Air Force survival school we felt it was important to set the record straight and show that we have nothing to do with the activities of those folks. And we actually have no comment,” said Col. Jonathan Duncan, SERE commander.

Two of SERE’s former psychologists are in the middle of the international uproar regarding the torture of terrorism prisoners in the years after the 9/11 attacks. The men, Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, retired from the military and began contract work for the CIA to “reverse engineer” methods used at the school to help U.S. flight crews cope with enemy capture. They established a company in Spokane to further that work with an $81 million CIA contract.

While SERE officials are not talking about the pair’s tenure at the survival school, they sought Friday to portray the program’s mission in a different way: helping thousands of pilots and flight crews learn everything from how to untangle from a parachute caught in trees to resisting torture.

“The 336th (Training Group) is aware of the two CIA contractors cited in the Senate report who worked at the SERE School more than a decade ago,” Duncan said. “It would be inappropriate to speculate about these individuals and what they did after retiring from the Air Force.”

The secretive SERE training was started in the 1950s and is now offered at four bases – in Florida, Texas, Alaska and Washington.

Airmen are subjected to the rigors of terrain and weather while trying to evade capture. They go through scenarios that simulate captivity. The training is designed to equip airmen to persevere through challenges in the military and then help them reintegrate into non-military life.