March 13, 2018

Trump names torturer to head CIA

Intercept -President Donald Trump named Gina Haspel the new director of the CIA, announcing the news on Twitter. Mike Pompeo, the previous director, will be moved to the State Department to replace the ousted Rex Tillerson.

In May 2013, the Washington Post’s Greg Miller reported that the head of the CIA’s clandestine service was being shifted out of that position as a result of “a management shake-up” by then-Director John Brennan. As Miller documented, this official — whom the paper did not name because she was a covert agent at the time — was centrally involved in the worst abuses of the CIA’s Bush-era torture regime.

As Miller put it, she was “directly involved in its controversial interrogation program” and had an “extensive role” in torturing detainees. Even more troubling, she “had run a secret prison in Thailand” — part of the CIA’s network of “black sites” — “where two detainees were subjected to waterboarding and other harsh techniques.” The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture also detailed the central role she played in the particularly gruesome torture of detainee Abu Zubaydah.

Beyond all that, she played a vital role in the destruction of interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and other secret agency locations. The concealment of those interrogation tapes, which violated multiple court orders as well as the demands of the 9/11 commission and the advice of White House lawyers, was condemned as “obstruction” by commission chairs Lee Hamilton and Thomas Keane. A special prosecutor and grand jury investigated those actions but ultimately chose not to prosecute.

BBC News  - As an intelligence officer, she was known for her harsh views: she ran a notorious black site in Thailand, a place where prisoners were waterboarded. She's now working for a president who's been ambivalent about the matter. He said in the past he wanted to bring back waterboarding. James Mattis, the defense secretary, convinced him otherwise.

No comments: