Trump’s CIA nominee Gina Haspel promises not to restart ‘torture’ tactics, including waterboarding
Haspel’s prepared remarks also recount her early days as a spy ‘in dusty back allies of third-world capitals’
Gina Haspel, US President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the CIA, is offering assurances that if she gets the job, the spy agency wouldn’t resort to waterboarding and other techniques that she once helped supervise and critics call torture.
“Having served in that tumultuous time, I can offer you my personal commitment, clearly and without reservation, that under my leadership CIA will not restart such a detention and interrogation programme,” Haspel plans to tell the Senate Intelligence Committee at her confirmation hearing on Wednesday, according to excerpts released on Tuesday night.
In 2002, Haspel oversaw a secret agency prison in Thailand, where The New York Times reported that an al-Qaeda suspect, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was waterboarded three times. She also wrote a memorandum approving the shredding of videos that documented such methods.
I recall my first foreign agent meeting was on a dark, moonless night with an agent I’d never met before
“I understand that what many people around the country want to know about are my views on CIA’s former detention and interrogation programme,” Haspel said in the excerpts released by the agency, where she has served as acting director since Mike Pompeo became secretary of state. “I have views on this issue, and I want to be clear.” But the excerpts offered no further statements, except for the pledge not to restart such a programme.
Senators are sure to press her to say more about her views and about her role in interrogation methods that have since been banned.
