WASHINGTON (AP) — The director of the CIA says his spy agency will not engage in waterboarding or other so-called enhanced interrogation techniques even if ordered to by a future president.
CIA chief John Brennan tells NBC News that he will not agree to carry out such techniques because “this institution needs to endure.”
President Barack Obama banned waterboarding shortly after taking office in 2009.
Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have suggested they would not continue Obama’s ban. Trump has gone as far as to say that he would bring back waterboarding and “worse” tactics to get information.
The CIA used such interrogation techniques after the Sept. 11 attacks. Brennan told NBC News in an interview released Sunday that he would not agree toCIA officers carrying out waterboarding again.
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GOP candidates respond…
I’ll listen to and trust the advice of the senior military and professionals… unless and except when it conflicts with my visceral need to exact punishment on people I don’t like because it makes me feel good…
id will override ego and super-ego…
He won’t agree to CIA officers carrying it out again. What about private contractors?
I have to give Brennan credit for publicly repudiating the use of torture. Whether or not he is held to this promise is another matter, entirely, but my crystal ball is not functioning at the moment. Are we now so cynical that we assume a government official is lying?? And, thanks, “W,” for invading Iraq; I"m sure our armed forces are enjoying the “candy and flowers” being tossed at them. Oh, wait, that was the real President, Richard Bruce Cheney, unindicted war criminal.
And if a Republican is elected president, John Brennan would not remain as CIA Director. That job would probably go to John Bolton, Frank Gaffney, or maybe Ted Cruz’s father.
Beat me to it!