Last week the world was treated to more of the never-ending merry-go-round the Trump Administration has become.
After a series of events which likely made the writers of “House of Cards” think they played it too safe, it appeared Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was dismissed via Twitter.
The next nominee announced to lead the State Department would be Mike Pompeo, the current director of the CIA. The Trump Administration indicated they wished for deputy CIA director Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo.
Haspel’s nomination, though, appeared to reopen a can of worms for the intelligence community. Specifically, the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program,” which they employed during the early years of the war on terror in the 2000’s. Haspel was reported to have several connections to the programs, although some of those reports have undergone recent clarifications.
According to Raymond Bonner at ProPublica, there was a news report from ProPublica in February of 2017 which stated Haspel was in charge of a black site for the CIA in Thailand. There, she reportedly oversaw the torture of Abu Zubaydah, a man who at the time was thought to be a leader in al-Qaeda. ProPublica later retracted this statement and said it appeared Haspel took over the site after the torture of Zubaydah had occurred. However, their other reporting on some of the activities of Haspel has held up.
Those other details include her time in charge of the station beginning in November of 2002, after Zubaydah had left the facility, when another suspected terrorist arrived. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was waterboarded three times at this facility under Haspel, according to Adam Goldman at The New York Times.
There are also reports on Haspel’s involvement with the destruction of videotapes of waterboarding from the black sites. When Haspel worked as chief of staff to the head of the CIA’s clandestine service, Jose Rodriquez, in 2005, she was a strong proponent of getting rid of the waterboarding tapes.
So, when it came time to send out the orders to carry out the destruction of the tapes, Rodriquez handed the task off to Haspel. Goldman also noted in his article how these claims came back to haunt Haspel when it looked as if she was going to be promoted to chief of the clandestine service. She was unable to get the promotion because of her connection to the infamous black site and the tapes.
Despite what was dug up about Haspel’s career over the past few years, there are many people formerly of the national security establishment who have defended her professionalism and skill.
To be clear, I have no reason to believe Haspel is not extremely good at her job. Obviously, she would not have advanced so far in her field if she was not such a consummate professional.
With this being said, I think it is both fair and necessary for the members of the Senate to carefully scrutinize her record when she comes before them to be confirmed as the new CIA director.
As Ali Soufan pointed out in a piece for The Atlantic, there is a great need to enforce more accountability for people who involved in a program which was both ineffective and an affront to the values we as Americans claim to hold dear.
If there is anyone who would know about the improprieties of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation,” it is Soufan. He worked as an FBI agent handling counterterrorism cases during those years. He also conducted many interviews and more legally sanctioned interrogations of terrorism suspects, which ultimately led to more actionable intelligence than the shameful waterboarding episodes.
Ultimately, this all comes down to how we want our intelligence services to be held accountable. I understand there are those who would readily defend Haspel and any actions she took.
Again, putting her reputation aside, it is essential for the senators to make sure she answers questions about her involvement with the program, and to see if she has learned anything from that ignoble episode of America’s history. For instance, does she still think it was wise for us to torture those prisoners, or does she feel any shame for her involvement with the program?
We may never get to fully come to terms with what was done in the name of protecting the country, but holding those accountable is a wise step. I can only hope the members of the Senate will agree with this position and are willing and able to carefully scrutinize Haspel. It will be better for the country writ large if they do.