On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced he will oppose the nomination of President Trump’s pick to run the CIA, Gina Haspel. Haspel is the current CIA deputy director, and Paul opposes her long history supporting torture during interrogations.
Paul is right. This woman who led immoral and ineffective programs should not be anywhere near one of the nation’s top law enforcement positions.
While former President Barack Obama supposedly ended the CIA’s controversial torture techniques (including waterboarding and sleep deprivation) in 2009, there is skepticism over whether that executive order is actually being followed.
Nominating someone who championed these policies is troubling. Haspel was not only in charge of America’s first black site interrogation camp in Thailand, she was one of the biggest cheerleaders of the torture that went on at these sites.
“Good job! I like the way you’re drooling; it adds realism. I’m almost buying it. You wouldn’t think a grown man would do that,” she told a suspect during a CIA torture session in 2002. That same suspect, Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al Qaeda operative, was waterboarded 83 times in a month and lost an eye during detention at this black site. It was later revealed that Zubaydah was never a member of al Qaeda, much less a high-ranking official of the terror group. While his innocence or guilt has not been proven, the Department of Defense argues he “plotted attacks against Israel” and “probably retains an extremist mind-set.” But he argues he had no intentions of committing an attack and has criticized the Islamic State for “going too far.” Since 2003, he has been detained at Guantanamo Bay without charges or trial.
Zubaydah’s plight was not unique. From 2002 to 2008, 119 people were detained at CIA sites, at least 26 of whom were held wrongfully. Of those detained, 39 were subjected to some form of torture, whether it was waterboarding, sleep deprivation, prolonged standing, or cold exposure. This led to at least one death, which was suspected to be from hypothermia.
Programs supported by Haspel led to the detention and torture of innocent people.
Putting aside human rights concerns, nearly two-thirds of Americans still support the use of torture in terror investigations. These people assume these programs will help law enforcement obtain information related to investigations — particularly terror investigations. But the data show that torture is actually counterintuitive. Suspects will intentionally falsify information in order to put an end to whatever they’re being put through, or they’ll lose memory of events due to disorientation from sleep deprivation, malnutrition, or waterboarding.
In a 2014 report, Amnesty International found that “states have a huge variety of ways to collect information on crimes — both past and planned — without losing their humanity. In particular, humane questioning techniques have proved to be efficient in obtaining information on crimes without the devastating personal, societal and legal consequences.” Even the CIA itself admitted in 2014, “The CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.”
On top of its ineffectiveness and the appalling human rights abuses that come with it, torture also threatens Americans abroad. It stands to reason that when we send a message that we’re cool with torturing foreign adversaries, then foreign governments will be far more likely to engage in similar practices with Americans abroad — that goes for both service members stationed in foreign nations and Average Joes who have run-ins with foreign law enforcement.
Look, for example, at what happened to American student Otto Warmbier when he was arrested in North Korea for supposedly attempting to steal a propaganda poster. He was brutally tortured and “intentionally injured,” leading to his death.
Nominating an outright vocal proponent for some of the most appalling practices in the CIA’s history sends a troubling message about where the Trump administration — which has come out in favor of waterboarding in the past — stands on torture.
As Paul said in his March 14 press conference, “Certainly there is a career officer at the CIA who did not directly participate in waterboarding that we could nominate … particularly picking and rewarding someone who was in charge of something so heinous, I think is a big mistake.”
Hard questions need to be asked of Haspel during her confirmation hearings. And if she doesn’t full-throatedly repudiate her support for torture, other senators must stand up and vote against her confirmation.
Dan King (@Kinger_Liberty) is an advocate for Young Voices and a journalist who covers surveillance, civil liberties and free speech.
