War hero senator rejects CIA nominee

World

As Senate consideration of Gina Haspel to head the CIA quickly turned into a debate over torture, one voice weighed in from afar.

Republican Senator John McCain, a Navy pilot who was beaten in captivity during the Vietnam War, was watching from home in Arizona where he is battling brain cancer. He urged the Senate to reject the nominee.

McCain, pictured, is not expected to return to Washington for the vote, and he may not be able to sway his colleagues to stop her confirmation. Still, the senator who has defined his political career by going against the grain of party norms is doing it again in what may be his last battle in a decades-long fight against torture.

‘‘I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defence,’’ he said in a statement late Wednesday night. ‘‘However, Ms Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying.’’

He concluded, ‘‘The Senate should exercise its duty of advice and consent and reject this nomination.’’ McCain’s statement sent a warning to President Donald Trump, who has suggested reviving torture techniques. But it has had limited impact in the Senate, where Haspel was gaining support.

Several senators announced yesterday they would vote in favour, including McCain’s longtime ally Senator Lindsey Graham, who has said he expects Haspel will be confirmed.

‘‘Obviously, everyone has tremendous respect for John,’’ said Senator John Thune, ‘‘But I think most of our members are just kind of in a different place than he is, and Lindsey probably is most representative of that.’’

It’s not the first time Graham and McCain have split on the torture issue. In 2005, they led efforts during the George W Bush administration to stop enhanced interrogation techniques. But they parted ways a decade later when McCain teamed up with Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein to pass a law to ensure no future president could tear up President Barack Obama’s action banning torture.

Two days after taking office in 2009, Obama issued an executive order prohibiting all government employees from using any interrogation method that wasn’t spelled out in the Army Field Manual, a military guide that banned brutal interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

For McCain, getting the antitorture amendment passed in 2015 was personal. He was beaten and kept in solitary confinement as a prisoner of war in Vietnam in the 1960s.

Graham, who missed much of the Senate action this week to spend time with his friend at the McCain family home, said in an interview that it’s thanks to the Arizona senator’s work that Haspel will be required to follow the law, as she said she would do. ‘‘Senator McCain’s view of what the country’s doing won the day,’’ Graham told AP. ‘‘The reason we are where we are is from Senator McCain’s voice.’’

Haspel, the CIA’s acting director and a career intelligence officer, faced grilling at the Senate Intelligence Committee about her role overseeing some CIA operations in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Some senators asked about her morals.

Haspel told them believe torture works.

Haspel also said she believes the US should hold itself to the moral standards outlined in the manual.

The panel is expected to send the nomination on to the full Senate in coming weeks where confirmation will be tight.

The GOP’s narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate has been further slimmed with McCain’s absence. The 81-year-old senator was diagnosed in July with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. McCain left Washington in December and hasn’t yet been able to return.

But at least one Democrat, Sen Joe Manchin of West Virginia, announced he would vote in her favour. Vice President Mike Pence can be relied on to break a tie.

Feinstein said yesterday that she will oppose the nominee, calling the interrogation program part of ‘‘one of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history and it must not be repeated.’’ –AP executive she doesn’t