Pick for new CIA chief is a career spymaster who once ran secret prison

WASHINGTON (AP) — US President Donald Trump’s choice to be the first female director of the CIA is a career spymaster who once ran an agency prison in Thailand where terror suspects were subjected to a harsh interrogation technique that the president has supported.

Trump tweeted Tuesday that CIA Director Mike Pompeo will replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and that he has selected Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo.

Haspel, the current deputy CIA director, helped carry out an order that the agency destroy its waterboarding videos. That order prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges.

Haspel, who has extensive overseas experience, briefly ran a secret CIA prison where accused terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002, according to current and former US intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

This combination of pictures created on November 30, 2017 shows US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo in Washington, DC. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP)

More than a decade after waterboarding was last used, the CIA is still haunted by the legacy of a tactic that the US government regarded as torture before the Bush administration authorized its use against terrorist suspects. There is no indication that Trump’s pick signals a desire to restart the harsh interrogation and detention program.

Haspel, who joined the CIA in 1985, has been chief of station at CIA outposts abroad. In Washington, she has held several top senior leadership positions, including deputy director of the National Clandestine Service and deputy director of the National Clandestine Service for Foreign Intelligence and Covert Action.

When she was picked as deputy CIA director, her career was lauded by veteran intelligence officials, including former director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who recently retired. But it also upset the American Civil Liberties Union and other rights advocates who found it unsettling that Trump chose someone who was involved in the harsh interrogation program.