GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — The man viewed as the architect of the CIA’s enhanced interrogations program said in a war court hearing that former CIA director John Brennan and other Obama appointees at the spy agency threw him "under the bus" by allowing him to be used by former Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Dr. James Mitchell, 68, a former Air Force survival school psychologist who worked for the CIA as an interrogator in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, leveled the accusation during hearings for the alleged plotters of the hijackings that left nearly 3,000 people dead.

During more than a week's testimony, the CIA psychologist was grilled by David Nevin, an attorney for self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The lawyer asked about a 2015 lawsuit filed against Mitchell and his business partner, Dr. Bruce Jessen, by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of three former CIA black site detainees. Those plaintiffs were Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohammed Ahmed Ben Soud, and Obaid Ullah as a representative of Gul Rahman, who died in agency custody in November 2002.

“You got sued by several people who were tortured wrongly,” Nevin said on Tuesday.

“I disagree with your characterization that it was torture,” Mitchell replied, adding that he sought medical attention for Rahman, an Afghan held at a black site dubbed “Location 2,” believed to be in Afghanistan.

“Gul Rahman — I saw him briefly for about 10 minutes, and I said to get him a physician,” Mitchell testified. When Rahman died, Mitchell said, the Obama administration allowed him and Jessen to take the blame and face litigation. “Brennan and Obama political appointees at the CIA threw us under the bus.”

When the then-Democrat-led Senate Intelligence Committee released a report in December 2014 criticizing the actions taken by the CIA and by Mitchell and Jessen, Brennan acknowledged the CIA “made mistakes” but argued the agency’s enhanced interrogation program “helped thwart attack plans.”

When Nevin pressed Mitchell on the outcome of the ACLU lawsuit, the psychologist demurred. “There is a settlement,” he said, but “there is a court order preventing me from saying the amount.”

During his testimony that began last Tuesday, Mitchell repeatedly criticized the dark and grim conditions at Location 2, where he said he only spent three hours during a one-day stop in the country. He defended himself and Jessen against accusations of wrongdoing.

“Let's just take the case of Gul Rahman,” Mitchell said last week. “Dr. Jessen made a number of suggestions, right? Get a physician involved. Get him some blankets. You know, get him adequate food. He suggested that they continue to interrogate the guy, but if they had been interrogating him, he wouldn't have died of exposure, you know.”

Mitchell said he sat with Jessen as he wrote a cable to CIA’s ALEC Station: “Well, he had been asked to do an assessment of whether or not EIT's would be — should be applied to Gul Rahman, the one who unfortunately died of exposure. And he determined that they shouldn't, that it would actually be a waste of time and increase his resistance because of the resistance posture that he had. But at the same time, when he wrote that cable back, he said get physicians involved, get him some blankets, get him some heaters, get him some better food, get — put Americans down there at night.”

He testified that he approached a physician's assistant to get help for Rahman, whose wrists appeared to be infected. "He cursed at me and said he didn't have time to do it," Mitchell said. "And so, in that circumstance, I would have got a physician down there immediately. And that is, in fact, what would have happened at a black site that I was at.”

The CIA psychologist quoted the medical officer as saying, “I’m not here to provide medical care for fucking terrorists!”

Mitchell criticized the fact that Location 2 used native guards, likely Afghans, to guard people they’d just been fighting.

A January 2003 investigation by the CIA found “no evidence to suggest that Rahman’s death was deliberate.”

“Hypothermia was the most likely cause of death of Gul Rahman,” the CIA concluded. “His death was not deliberate, but resulted from his incarceration in a cold environment while nude from the waist down, and shackled in a position that prevented him from moving around to keep warm. Additionally, this kept him in direct contact with the cold concrete floor leading to a loss of body heat through conduction.”

Mitchell and Jessen formed a consulting firm, Mitchell, Jessen, and Associates, in 2005. Between then and 2009, their Spokane, Washington-based company received $81 million for work with the CIA’s rendition and detention group. The agency gave Mitchell and Jessen an indemnification agreement protecting them from legal liability. As of 2014, the government had paid out $1 million, with an additional, undisclosed settlement paid in 2017 following the ACLU lawsuit.

Mitchell noted this week that “President Obama ended my involvement in the CIA on his second day in office.”

Two days after he was inaugurated in January 2009, Obama signed an executive order reversing President George W. Bush’s stance on enhanced interrogation techniques, ordering the U.S. government to stick to the guidelines outlined in the Army Field Manual and requiring the CIA to shut down any detention facilities it may have been operating.