WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s choice to be the first female director of the CIA is a career spymaster who once ran an agency prison in Thailand where terror suspects were subjected to a harsh interrogation technique that the president has supported.
Trump tweeted Tuesday that CIA Director Mike Pompeo will replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and that he has selected Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo.
Haspel, the current deputy director of CIA, helped carry out an order that the agency destroy its waterboarding videos. That order prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges. Haspel, who has extensive overseas experience, briefly ran a secret CIA prison where accused terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002, according to current and former US intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
More than a decade after waterboarding was last used, the CIA is still haunted by the legacy of a tactic that the US government regarded as torture before the Bush administration authorised its use against terrorist suspects. There is no indication that Trump’s pick signals a desire to restart the harsh interrogation and detention program.
Haspel, who joined the CIA in 1985, has been chief of station at CIA outposts abroad. In Washington, she has held several top senior leadership positions, including deputy director of the National Clandestine Service and deputy director of the National Clandestine Service for Foreign Intelligence and Covert Action.
When she was picked as deputy CIA director, her career was lauded by veteran intelligence officials, including the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who recently retired. But it also upset the American Civil Liberties Union and other rights advocates who found it unsettling that Trump chose someone who was involved in the harsh interrogation program.
Is it not the duty of everyone who knows something, must let others know, the same that will benefit others.
Let it be known that everyone who intentionally hurts others of their kind i.e. the humankind shall pay the price of their crimes one day. The day of judgement will never go away for anyone and no soul shall carry the burden of another soul on that day.
The sort of crimes people are committing today and committed in the past, in all probability, such people will never be allowed to come out of hellfire. Many do not take heed of such warnings, mankind has been given from time to time throughout the ages.
There is good news for those who care for their kind the humankind. They are always busy allaying the sufferings of the humankind. Blessed are such souls.
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