Haspel Expected to Pledge To Never Restart CIA 'Torture' Program

Gina Haspel is expected to tell the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that she “will not restart” the CIA interrogation program she helped oversee during the Bush administration if she were confirmed to lead the agency, reports The Washington Post. This news comes before what is expected to be a very contentious confirmation hearing, and just days after Haspel reportedly offered to bow out so that she wouldn’t have to publicly discuss her role in the CIA’s program, which a 2012 bipartisan Senate Intelligence probe said routinely employed torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions. President Obama also admitted that the CIA had tortured several detainees in the years immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

Intelligence Committee members are reportedly divided over Haspel. Those who support her, mostly Republicans, point to her record as a career operative, the support she has from others at the CIA, and the fact that she would be the first woman to lead the agency. But those who criticize her, mostly Democrats, are worried about her role in the agency’s torture program and her refusal to declassify documents related to her time at the CIA. They have also expressed concern over her role in ordering the destruction of more than 100 videotapes of CIA interrogations of detainees at the agency’s “black sites” in the wake of the public furor over photos of inhumane treatment by U.S forces at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Haspel is expected to directly address the interrogation program and acknowledge her service “in that tumultuous time.” The Washington Post reports she is expected to reinforce her “personal commitment, clearly and without reservation,” not to usher in a new detention and interrogation program that could lead to agents violating the Geneva Conventions.