Petraeus: Haspel will explain actions in nomination hearing

Former CIA Director David Petraeus on Thursday praised the woman up for his old job as “a very capable” leader but acknowledged that she was involved in now-illegal interrogation methods.

“She’s very capable, very bright, very personable, very good leader, all kinds of superlatives there,” Petraeus said of CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel at a Veterans in Global Leadership event in Washington.

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“She was a station chief in an undisclosed location when I was the director. Very highly regarded, but as you know, obviously, she’s associated with some activities that now, to put a point on it, are illegal.” 

President Trump last week fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, announcing that he’d seek to replace him with current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, promoting Haspel to Pompeo’s current role in the process.

Haspel has already received pushback from Congress over her role surrounding waterboarding and other “ehnahnced interrogation techniques” used on detainees at a secret CIA prison in Thailand in 2002.

Petraeus said he expects Haspel will address at the beginning of her nomination hearing questions surrounding her involvement in the interrogation techniques, which are now widely seen as torture, and her execution of an order to cover up the agency’s use of torture at the secret prison by destroying videotape evidence.

“My sense is an understanding that she is going to explain in her opening statement she gets it that this is now illegal and she would therefore never countenance it, and explain perhaps the context at the time,” he said.

Petraeus maintains that he does not support enhanced interrogation techniques and did not before they became illegal, but notes that “in the post 9/11 period, there was a sense of a ticking time bomb that people do need to remember.”

When asked if Haspel’s involvement in now illegal activities should bar her from top positions, including CIA director, Petraeus deferred.

“She’s going to have to explain what the context was. She’s going to have to explain what her actions were. She’ll have to explain why it was that she took certain actions, including the tapes that were destroyed later on,” he said.

The effectiveness of Haspel’s explanation, he said, will decide whether she sees an easy path to confirmation.

“But clearly there are already some who have come out against that so it’s going to be an interesting endeavor,” he added.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an outspoken critic of enhanced interrogation techniques, last week condemned Trump’s decision to nominate Haspel, arguing she was involved in “one of darkest chapters in American history.”