Tortures

Gina Haspel: CIA Should Not Have Carried Out 'Enhanced Interrogation'

The nominee to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel, said in a letter that the spy agency should not have undertaken a harsh interrogation campaign, which included waterboarding terrorism suspects, following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Shortly after her letter became public Tuesday, three Democratic senators announced their support for Haspel, effectively ensuring that she will be confirmed as the first woman to lead the CIA.

At her hearing before the Senate intelligence committee last Wednesday, Haspel said she would not initiate any new detention and interrogation program as CIA director. But in several sharp exchanges with Democratic senators, she did not disavow the previous program, from 2002 to 2008, in which she took part.

In a letter to Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat on the intelligence committee, Haspel wrote, "With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken."