U.S. senators want info on spy’s torture history
The CIA’s use of secret prisons and torture has recently come to the fore. Trump’s pick for CIA director once led secret Thailand prison that interrogated prisoners
WASHINGTON— Gina Haspel’s long spy career is so shrouded in mystery that senators want documents declassified so they can decide if her role at a CIA black site should prevent her from directing the agency.
It’s a deep dive into Haspel’s past that reflects key questions about her future: Would she support U.S. President Donald Trump if he tried to reinstate waterboarding and, in his words, “a lot worse?” Is Haspel the right person to lead the CIA?
Haspel’s upcoming confirmation hearing will be laser-focused on the time she spent supervising a secret prison in Thailand. The CIA won’t say when in 2002 Haspel was there but, at various times that year, interrogators at the site slammed terrorist suspects against walls, kept them from sleeping, held them in coffin-sized boxes and forced water down their throats — known as waterboarding.
Haspel is also accused of drafting a memo calling for the destruction of 92 videotapes of interrogation sessions. Their destruction in 2005 prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges.
“We should not be asked to confirm a nominee whose background cannot be publicly discussed and who cannot then be held accountable for her actions,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, who joined other Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee in asking the CIA to declassify more details about Haspel.
Court filings, declassified documents and books written by those involved in the CIA’s now-defunct interrogation program suggest Haspel didn’t arrive at the secret prison in Thailand until after one detainee, Abu Zubaydah, was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002. But they indicate she arrived before another detainee, Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, was waterboarded at least three times in November 2002.
Details about the two detainees’ treatment were disclosed in a 2014 Senate report. It said the prison was shut down in December 2002.
Even if Haspel was at the prison site for just a few months, said Steven Watt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, she was deeply involved in the interrogation program. For much of its existence, Haspel was deputy director of the CIA’s counterterrorism centre that ran the program using “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
At least 119 men were detained and interrogated as part of the program, said Watt, who represented two detainees and the family of another in a 2015 lawsuit against a pair of CIA-hired psychologists. It’s unknown if Haspel ever was or currently is a gung-ho proponent of the brutal methods.
Several colleagues and former intelligence officials have come to her defence.
Although some of assignments have come under political fire, “in each case she was following the lawful orders of the president,” said Mike Morell, an acting director of the CIA. “And, in each case, she carried out her responsibilities within the bounds of the law and with excellent judgment. Any criticism of her in this regard is unfair.”
Ret. air force Col. Steven Kleinman, a longtime interrogator with lengthy experience during the first Gulf War, isn’t so sure. He said there’s no indication she ever tried to halt the interrogations.
“That question has to be asked by the Senate: ‘Did you at any time suggest that it be stopped because it’s ineffective, immoral or illegal?’ ” Kleinman said. “I think we all deserve an answer to that.”