Newly Declassified Documents Shed Light on Gina Haspel's Involvement at
Guantanamo
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
08 January 19
Last week, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified what at first glance
appears to be an innocuous transcript of a request for discovery and
witnesses made by Guantánamo defense attorneys during a hearing in the
trial of 9/11 suspect Khalid Shaikh Muhammad. In the transcript, the
attorney complains to the judge that the defense team has not been able to
interview the witnesses they want and need, and that they are not receiving
the discovery necessary to mount an adequate defense. I say the transcript
is innocuous because, while much of it is redacted, including entire pages,
what is left is generally pro-forma back-and-forth between the judge and the
attorneys. I learned nothing until, that is, I got to the bottom of page
22,088. Thats right, page 22,088.
On that page, one of the defense attorneys is arguing that CIA Director Gina
Haspel changed classification guidance for the identification of CIA
officers and others who had served at Guantánamo once she became director in
order to protect the identities of any CIA officers who served there. The
attorney told the judge, So what incentive would she have to change the
classification guidance? By doing so, it makes it impossible to find out
more about her involvement. It makes it impossible to find out other people
who saw her there. It makes it impossible for people at Guantánamo, who may
have seen her when she was here as chief of base [emphasis added], to
identify her and talk about it. Because the classification guidance means
that we cant go talk to those people.
If true, this is blockbuster information. It has never before been public.
That torture took place at Guantánamo is not in dispute. We know it thanks
to the courageous whistleblowing of former Navy Department General Counsel
Alberto Mora. And its all entirely plausible.
Dont forget that Haspel was in charge of a secret site where al-Qaeda
prisoners were tortured mercilessly. There were credible reports that she
personally supervised the torture of USS Cole bombing mastermind Abd
al-Rahim al-Nashiri. During her Senate confirmation hearings, Haspel refused
to say that the torture program was a mistake. She also refused to say
whether she had personally participated in the torture.
Dont forget that Haspel destroyed videotaped evidence of the torture of Abu
Zubaydah. Abu Zubaydah was the first al-Qaeda prisoner to be tortured. CIA
officers waterboarded him, deprived him of sleep, beat him, kept him in a
coffin-sized box for weeks at a time (throwing insects in with him because
he had an irrational fear of them), kept him in a dog cage for weeks at a
time, and twice tortured him so severely that his heart stopped beating and
he had to be revived. All of this was filmed. But Gina Haspel put those
tapes in an industrial grinder, despite the fact that the Justice Department
and the White House Counsel had specifically ordered her to preserve them.
Again, she showed no contrition in her Senate confirmation hearings.
According to the recently-declassified court transcript, the defense
attorney complained to the judge that what the CIA is not willing to talk
about is the names of the people involved in the torture. She then
specifically named Haspel. The CIA and Defense Department agreed to the
declassification. Would they have declassified the information knowing it
was false? Probably. Would they have declassified it knowing it was true?
Thats impossible to say. But most of Haspels CIA career is still shrouded
in mystery. Her official CIA biography notes that she has served overseas
for most of her 30-plus years at the Agency and that she likes movies and
ice hockey. Any specifics about her career have come from dogged
journalists.
This new revelation raises an entire host of questions. When was Haspel at
Guantánamo? Did she oversee the torture of prisoners there? Did she have
personal contact with prisoners, including Khalid Shaikh Muhammad? Was there
also video evidence of prisoners being tortured at Guantánamo? If so, did
she destroy that, too? Did she disclose her time at Guantánamo to the Senate
Intelligence Committee prior to her nomination hearing? Why was the
information classified in the first place? Why was it declassified now? Was
it an accident?
The CIA, of course, has no comment on the document. One former CIA officer
with whom I spoke simply said, I cant believe they would declassify that.
Maybe its not true. I have no idea if Gina Haspel served as the CIA base
chief at Guantánamo. The attorney may have misspoken or may have been
misinformed. Either way, the CIA owes the American people an explanation. It
owes the Senate Intelligence Committee answers to the above questions.
I have long maintained that Gina Haspel has no business running the CIA
because of her deep involvement in the torture program. She has no business
running the CIA because of her direct involvement in the destruction of
evidence of the torture. This revelation only strengthens the argument that
Haspels appointment as CIA Director was a mistake in the first place. That
mistake can be corrected by sending her into a quick retirement.
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John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage
Act a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a
result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
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