This public speech on April 18th by Gina Haspel is one of the first occasions since her appointment as CIA Director a year ago to see and hear Haspel dance around the issues. Her questioner Lieutenant-General Ronald L. Burgess declares himself pretty much throughout the hour as a close friend and fellow member of what they both called “the intelligence business” of Gina Haspel.

Please don’t miss what happens at 9:17-9:59 when a questioner confronts Ms. Haspel over her torture record during her 34 years at the CIA and while she was at the Black Site in Thailand supervising and narrating the waterboarding of a detainee there, and stating that she should be behind bars. Her blithe smirking and dismissive discomfort during the brief intercession is quite revealing.

Though much of it is rather boring and unsensational, this speech is still worth listening to and watching as it offers a very partial opening to see Haspel’s and more widely the CIA’s current stance and structure are today.

Comment by Louis Wolf, June 30, 2019

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Source: Auburn University

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