March 13, 2018 (six minutes)
Ray was interviewed Tuesday about Gina Haspel, just nominated to be CIA director. He found it bizarre to discuss the exploits of the current CIA deputy director/war criminal Haspel, who in 2002 ran the secret prison where “terrorist suspect,” Abu Zubaydah, was waterboarded 83 times.
Such crimes were documented by a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, based on original CIA cables and other documents — a four year-long effort, a redacted Executive Summary of which was released in Dec. 2014. It revealed a number of heinous torture techniques used on kidnapped “detainees” and — equally important — gave the lie to claims by top CIA officials that useful intelligence was acquired by the torture.
As soon as Sen. Richard Burr (R, NC) became chair of the committee in Jan. 2015, he ordered all copies of the Senate investigation report returned to the committee. Ms. Haspel, who has demonstrated a penchant for destroying evidence, can be counted on to deep-six whatever copies may linger at the CIA, unless someone tucks one under his/her shirt and absconds with it. Haspel played a role in ordering the destruction of videotapes of the waterboarding and other torture she supervised at her secret little “dark-side” facility in Thailand, despite being specifically told by the White House Counsel to preserve them.