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https://scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2146674/gina-haspel-confirmed-first-woman-head-cia-after-six
World/ United States & Canada

Gina Haspel is confirmed as first woman to head CIA, after six Democrat senators side with Republicans

Most Democrats opposed Haspel because of her links to waterboarding, with one calling her confirmation vote a ‘referendum on torture’

Gina Haspel prepares to testify at her Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing as the next CIA director on Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 9. Photo: Reuters

Veteran spy Gina Haspel will become the first female director of the CIA on Thursday after six Democrats joined Republicans in a Senate confirmation vote that overrode concerns about her role in the spy agency’s harsh interrogation programme after 9/11.

The 54-45 vote split both parties, and the margin was the closest for a CIA nominee in the nearly seven decades that a nod from the Senate has been required. Haspel, who has spent nearly all of her 33-year CIA career in undercover positions, is the first career operations officer to be confirmed since William Colby in 1973.

Haspel, 61, is a native of Kentucky but grew up around the world as the daughter of an Air Force serviceman. She worked in Africa, Europe and classified locations around the globe and was tapped as deputy director of the CIA last year. She worked under former CIA director Mike Pompeo until President Donald Trump moved him to secretary of state.
CIA director nominee and acting CIA Director Gina Haspel is sworn in to testify at her Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on May 9. Photo: Reuters
CIA director nominee and acting CIA Director Gina Haspel is sworn in to testify at her Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on May 9. Photo: Reuters

Haspel was backed by many in the CIA rank-and-file and was robustly supported by senior intelligence officials, including six former CIA directors and three former national intelligence directors, who said she earned the chance to take the helm of the nation’s premier spy agency. National Intelligence Director Dan Coats said Haspel has integrity and both frontline and executive intelligence expertise. “We salute Director Haspel, a trailblazer who today becomes the first woman to lead the CIA,” he said.

The Senate has now rewarded that atrocious conduct by promoting someone that reportedly administered it to lead one of the government’s most powerful agencies Daphne Eviatar, Amnesty International USA, on Gina Haspel’s link to waterboarding

Her opponents argued that it wasn’t right to promote someone who supervised a covert detention site in Thailand where terror suspects were waterboarded, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning. They said the US needed to slam closed what was one of the CIA’s darkest chapters that tainted America’s image with allies abroad.

Several senators said Haspel was not forthcoming in answering questions about her role in the torture programme or the CIA’s decision to destroy videotaped evidence of the sessions. They also had questions about her rejection of the now-banned techniques.

Democrat Senator Ron Wyden said in a floor speech that Haspel “offered up almost the classic Washington non-apology.” He asked how the Senate could take seriously Haspel’s “conversion on torture?”

Fellow Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy said the world was watching the confirmation vote, which he called a “referendum on torture.” He said the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” the CIA used at black sites, including slamming detainees against walls and confining them in coffin-shaped boxes, amounted to “government-sanctioned torture.”

Haspel has vowed never to restart such a programme and says her “strong moral compass” would prevent her from carrying out any presidential order she found objectionable. That was enough to coax some senators into the “yes” column. But Leahy said he still questioned her judgment and lamented that she has never publicly condemned torture as “immoral.”

He wondered aloud what Haspel would do if she’s asked to do something that goes against America’s core values. “Should we trust that she will have the moral compass to stand up and say ‘No?’” he asked. “Based on what we’ve seen, I do not.”

Among Democrats supporting Haspel were several up for re-election this fall in states where Trump is popular, including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Senator Bill Nelson in Florida. Also voting yes were senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking member of the intelligence committee.

“This has not been an easy decision,” Warner said, adding that he’d met and talked with Haspel many times in the past several weeks. He said he’s convinced that Haspel could and would stand up to Trump, who has voiced support for waterboarding and has said “torture works.”

After the vote, human rights groups quickly issued statements denouncing the confirmation and the now-defunct programme.

“The Senate has now rewarded that atrocious conduct by promoting someone that reportedly administered it to lead one of the government’s most powerful agencies,” said Daphne Eviatar at Amnesty International USA.