Confirming President-elect’s 53-year-pld CIA Director Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Ks.) [66-32], the Senate Intelligence Committee replaced former President Barack Obama’s CIA Director John Brennen. Trump was no fan of Brennen after he insisted Dec. 16 that Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered with the 2016 election. Offering no proof, Brennen got FBI Director James Comey to agree, largely because Comey was blamed by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for sabotaging her campaign. Shifting the blame to Putin, it’s easy to see why Comey agreed with Brennen. While that all water under the bridge, Pompeo’s confirmation raises more questions about reinstating so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques at CIA black sites off U.S. soil. “We are not bringing back torture,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
McCain, a decorated Vietnam War hero, was a prisoner of war at the infamous Hanoi Hilton from Dec. 26, 1967 to March 14, 1973, after his navy jet was shot down by the North Vietnamese. While in captivity for five-and-half-years, McCain was subjected to unspeakable cruelty, tortured by the North Vietnamese for much of his stay in captivity. Expecting President Donald Trump to issue executive order to reinstate black sites overseas, McCain stated publicly his opposition to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques not permitted under the Army Field Manual. Former President Barack Obama ended the CIA’s black site operations, collecting terrorists off the battlefield in Afhanistan and Iraq. On Jan. 29, 2009, Obama signed a presidential order ending black site operations. McCain fears that Pompeo could reinstate black site operations at various places around the globe.
McCain is no fan of Trump after Trump was quoted as saying July 18, 2015, “I like people who weren’t captured,” implying McCain “wasn’t a war hero” because he spent his time incarcerated in a prisoners of war camp. Trump’s comments sparked a maelstrom of outrage with Republicans and Democrats saying it disqualified Trump from running for president. “The president can sign whatever executive order he likes. But the law is the law. We are not bringing back torture in the United States of America,” McCain said in a prepared statement. Since 2015, bipartisan legislation required all branches of the U.S. military to adhere strictly to the Army Field Manual, prohibiting Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, including water-boarding, the controversial method simulating drowning. McCain knows that CIA black sites are not in the U.S., not subject to the 2015 law.
Pompeo said during his confirmation hearing that would “absolutely not” reinstate Enhanced Interrogation Techniques defined as “torture” under restrictions in the Army Field Manual. When McCain insists “we are not bringing back torture in the United States,” he not ruling it out a CIA black sites around the globe. Back in 2014, Pompeo insisted that CIA interrogators “are not torturers, they are patriots” getting into semantics over what constitutes “torture,” whether inside or outside the U.S. McCain knows torture firsthand, subjected to North Vietnamese physical and mental abuse. No one involved in the CIA’s EIT program at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, including it’s creators, Air Force’s Survival Evasion Resistance Escape [SERE] psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jansen. Neither had any interrogation experience before landing at Guantanamo Bay to interrogate Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorists.
Under the microscope since Obama ended the reverse SERE program in 2009, both Mitchell and Jansen could not conform the effectiveness of EITs, including water-boarding, sleep deprivation, isolation, exposure to extreme temperatures, enclosure in small spaces, bombardment with noxious sounds and religious and sexual humiliation. Whether it worked or not, Trump said during the campaign he wanted to reinstate Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. Claiming that the enemy subjects U.S. soldiers to “a hell of a lot worse,” Trump insisted “torture works” or “if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway,” prompting strong objections from McCain and others. McCain said that Pompeo promised during private meetings that “he will comply with the law that applies the Army Field Manual’s interrogation requirements to all U.S. agencies and the CIA,” yet the doubt persists.
Watching the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] behead captives, drown prisoners in steel cages and use blowtorches to burn detainees alive, Trump said “we have to fight fire with fire,” showing his continued support of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, whether they work or not. McCain’s concern about EITs stems from his own experience as a prisoner of war, not whether the U.S. must, as Trump say, “fight fire with fire.” McCain made clear he wants to abide by the U.S. Army Field Manual on U.S. soil, not applying to CIA operations overseas. Trump wants Pompeo to have all options when dealing with the most treacherous criminals on the planet. Fighting the war on terror promises to heat up as Trump and his Defense Secretary Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis gear up for a more active battle against ISIS. No one in the Pentagon wants its hands tied by Congress fighting terrorism.
