Much of the news coverage of the CIA and Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to lead that agency, lacks honest context.
Take what happened on Tuesday, when the New York Times reported on the effort by former al Qaeda senior officer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM, to give testimony in relation to Gina Haspel. Apparently KSM thinks he can ruin Haspel’s nomination process.
Unfortunately, the Times doesn’t note that KSM’s efforts represent standard al Qaeda operating procedure for captured officers. Indeed, al Qaeda officers are literally textbook taught to mislead and manipulate the U.S. whenever possible. One might justifiably think that this context would be news fit for the Times to print.
That wasn’t the only failing in the Times piece.
Because it also unblinkingly endorsed Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s, D-Calif., partisan 2014 intelligence committee report on the CIA’s interrogation program. The Times laps up the Democratic report — which received no Republican votes due to its errors and mischaracterizations — encouraging its readers to think the report is wholly objective. To do so, it references the report’s claim that KSM gave no valuable information to U.S. authorities while undergoing enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding.
“While being subjected to that treatment, [KSM] made alarming confessions about purported terrorist plots — like recruiting black Muslims in Montana to carry out attacks — that he later retracted. They were apparently made up, the Senate report said.”
What the Times leaves out is that the Democratic report was riddled with errors and damaged allied intelligence relationships. As the architect of the CIA’s interrogation program James Mitchell explains, it was also based on subjective reporting so as to smear CIA personnel involved in the program.
Mitchell claims that in the report, “Feinstein maims us in every place she thinks she can smear us. And in those places where we could potentially be seen as doing the right thing, [she doesn’t give us recognition]. For example, [committee Democrats] say that Bruce wrote a cable in which he recommended EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques on a prisoner at a black site]. But what Bruce actually said — and this is a verbatim quote — is that ‘EITs are not the first, nor best option for getting information’ from [that suspect] because he’s too tough. What [Bruce] did recommend is heaters, food, blankets, get rid of the indigenous guards — get an American down there at night — and if you’re going to get interrogators down there, get people who are trained.”
Nevertheless, the Times only speaks to a broader problem when it comes to reporting on the CIA and Gina Haspel. Put simply, too much of that reporting is either deliberately biased or unwittingly so. It’s also often skewed by partisan biases in favor of Democrats. Consider the juxtaposition in media reporting on the aforementioned Democratic intelligence committee report and a 2018 Republican intelligence committee report on the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia.
Or consider the false reports about Haspel herself. Numerous critical details have been wrongly reported by a number of high-profile media outlets. Some have corrected the record, others haven’t even bothered to do that.
All of this matters greatly. After all, intelligence issues are profoundly important to our society; affecting matters of foreign policy, civil liberties, morality and political oversight. Yet because so many of the news organizations reporting on these issues are widely viewed as the nation’s most elite, they have an outsize impact on shaping opinion and policy. The problem is that they are all too often offering half a story or a misleading story.
Yes, Haspel has her supporters at home and abroad and her detractors at home and abroad, but if nothing else, she and the agency she wishes to lead deserve more objective and contextual coverage.
