Nomination of Gina Haspel

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I just had a very productive and informative meeting with the nominee to be the next CIA Director, Ms. Gina Haspel. I wanted to come down to the floor and say a few words. I was very impressed. I am going to certainly support her when she is voted on, I believe as early as tomorrow.

There has been a lot of discussion about her background. She is the first woman to lead the CIA, first career member of the CIA. That is all important, but I think what is most important is that the American people and this body know that she is very well qualified. She is a very impressive person.

First of all, she has been very highly decorated in her 30-plus year career at the Central Intelligence Agency. Her honors include the Intelligence Medal of Merit, a Presidential Rank Award, the Donovan Award, which is one of the highest awards in the CIA, and the George H.W. Bush Award for Excellence in Counterterrorism. She is thoughtful. She is honest.

In many ways, she has overcome numerous obstacles. Let me talk a little bit about her bio. She is one of five children. Her father served in the Air Force, having joined at the age of 17. She grew up on military bases, like tens of thousands of Americans. Her original goal in life was to be a soldier. She told her dad she wanted to go to West Point. At the time, her father had to break the news to her that West Point was not admitting women. I think West Point lost out on that one. She ended up as a contractor for the military 10th Special Forces Group. Later, she realized that if she couldn't join the military, she was going to join the CIA, and that is what she did.

She has done an outstanding job at the CIA. She began working at the CIA in 1985 during the closing days of the Cold War. She was stationed literally all over the world--in Africa, for example. She recruited and handled agents and survived a coup d'etat. She worked with government partners during the first gulf war. She ran different CIA stations around the world.

She started with the Counterterrorism Center at the CIA on September 11, 2001, and essentially has spent her life since that time focusing on keeping our country safe. She became the Chief of Staff to the Deputy Director of Operations and the Deputy Director for the National Clandestine Service. She is now the Deputy Director of the entire CIA-- the first woman to rise from the ranks as an initial member of the Agency to that title. And if confirmed, as I mentioned, she will be the first career CIA official and female to lead the Agency. That is really historic, but again, more important than history and more important than these labels is that she is very qualified.

One thing that has been remarkable throughout this entire debate about her--and there has been a lot of debate in the Intelligence Committee--is the members of the military, members of the national security establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, and members of the Intel Committee who have come out and said: We support Gina Haspel. The list is extremely impressive. Let me give a couple examples: John Brennan, former Obama administration CIA Director; James Clapper, former Obama administration Director of National Intelligence; Senator Saxby Chambliss, former Senate Intelligence Committee vice chair; Representative Porter Goss, former CIA Director and House Intelligence Committee chairman; Gen. Michael Hayden, former Bush administration CIA Director; Senator Bob Kerrey, Democratic Senator from Nebraska, who was on the Senate Intelligence Committee and was the vice chairman; Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State; Mike McConnell, former Obama administration Director of National Intelligence; ADM William McRaven, former commander of USSOCOM; Michael Morell, former Obama administration Acting and Deputy CIA Director; Michael Mukasey, former Bush administration Attorney General; Leon Panetta, former Obama administration CIA Director and Secretary of Defense; Mike Rogers, Republican Congressman and former House Intel Committee chairman; George Shultz, an incredible statesman and former Secretary of State under President Reagan; and George Tenet, former Clinton and Bush administrations CIA Director.

That is impressive. That is an impressive list. That is the who's who--Democrat and Republican--of who has been in charge of our intelligence services over the last two to three decades, and they are all supporting Ms. Haspel. She is qualified. She has the support of everybody.

I want to briefly talk about essentially where the nomination has been focused. In Washington, a lot of times you can have an issue that comes up, and everybody focuses on it, and you miss the broader picture. The broader picture is that she is very well qualified and has the confidence, literally, of every senior official in the intelligence agencies she has served under, but the focus has been in many ways consumed by her role, which was a very low-level role, in what became known as the enhanced interrogation program that the CIA enacted after 9/11.

It is hard not to say that in the discussion of this, seeing what some of my colleagues have said and what some former Members of the Senate and House have said, there seems to be a lot of amnesia going on here.

I think it is important to take us back to the day that Ms. Haspel started at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, as I mentioned, on September 11, 2001. For those of us who remember, it was a very frightening time in our country. Almost 3,000 Americans were murdered and almost 8,000 were wounded.

I wasn't here then, but in Washington, DC, whether it was from the President or Members of Congress, there was one demand for the CIA: Find out who did this. Find out who was responsible, and make sure they don't do it again. Find out who did this. Find out who was responsible, and do everything in your power to make sure the United States of America and our citizens don't get attacked again.

That was the No. 1 focus from all the elected leaders in Federal Government to the CIA: Protect us. Find out where the next attack is coming from, and don't let us get hit again.

If what ended up happening during this period of U.S. history--and a lot of people forget about it. A lot of people forget how scared we were. Very few people predicted that we weren't going to get hit again. As a matter of fact, everybody thought we would get hit again, maybe with a weapon of mass destruction.

During the course of this time, the CIA started a program--when they started capturing terrorists who they thought had information--called enhanced interrogation techniques.

There was a lot of worry about getting hit again. I won't go through all the examples, but there are members of the Intel Committee in the Senate and members of the Intel Committee in the House who were briefed on exactly what the CIA was doing--exactly what they were doing with these enhanced interrogation techniques. And that is where the amnesia comes in, because we have seen some Members of this body say: That was horrible. Yet they were briefed. As a matter of fact, there are reports that many Members of Congress said: Do more; find out who did this. That was the order that the CIA and the members of our clandestine services were given.

There are numerous quotes from that time. Let me give one from former Senator John D. Rockefeller, West Virginia, who was the ranking member on the Senate Intel Committee. In 2003, on CNN's ``Late Edition,'' he was talking about how we had captured Khalid Shaikh Mohammed--KSM, as he was known--who was known to be the mastermind of 9/11. It was very clear that at least Senator Rockefeller was saying: Make sure that we get as much info as we can from this guy.

Here is what he said:

Happily, we don't know where [KSM] is.

Meaning he was offsite, not in the country.

He's in safekeeping under American protection. He'll be grilled by us. I'm sure we'll be proper with him, but I'm sure we'll be very, very tough with him.

There are presidential memorandums that prescribe and allow certain measures to be taken, but we have to be careful. On the other hand, he does have the information. Getting that information will save American lives. We have no business not getting that information.

This is a year and a half after 9/11, and this is the vice chairman of the Intel Committee saying: Get it. Press it.

The CIA used these techniques, but here is the important thing. At the time they were told to go do this, it was reviewed by the Justice Department, which said: This is legal. You are allowed to use these techniques to try to get additional information. This is legal. Go do this. The Government of the United States is telling you that you have the authority to do it. It is legal.

That is undisputed. As a matter of fact, the enhanced interrogation techniques were actually developed at our military training facilities that we have in different parts of the country, called SERE schools-- ``Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape'' schools. That is where the techniques were developed.

There was another reason why people at the time thought that this could be legal, because these interrogation techniques and training are actually used on our own military. For years, members of the military had been going to SERE school, and they underwent these interrogations. They underwent waterboarding. It was our own citizens. As a recon marine, I went to SERE school, and these techniques were applied to me, including waterboarding.

The CIA was told: Make sure this doesn't happen. The Members of Congress were briefed. Intel committee members, like Senator Rockefeller, were saying: Do more. The Justice Department comes out and says: This is all legal. Go do it. Make sure we are not attacked again. Oh, by the way, you are using techniques that we use on our marines and soldiers.

And that is what they did.

Gina Haspel was not high up. She had nothing to do with this. She was a GS-15 when this was going on. Yet my colleagues who are looking for reasons to vote against her are using this as an episode, saying: Well, because she was involved at a low level, we are going to vote against her.

Think about that. Members of the clandestine service were going out and risking their lives, being told to do something by the government, being told it was legal to do something by the government, being encouraged by Members of this body and the House to go do it, and now that one of them has risen through the ranks, with a stellar career, we are going to have Members come to the floor and say: No, we are going to consider her not qualified because she was a GS-15 and didn't design the program during this very, very difficult and challenging time in American history. If you don't think that breeds cynicism or if you don't think that breeds distrust between the Congress and the intelligence service, well, it does. It does.

I even had a friend of mine, and I got recalled to Active Duty for a year and a half at the end of 2004. We were staff officers to the CENTCOM commander. So we were in the Middle East most of that time. He was an agency representative, and he actually predicted this was going to happen to me a long time ago. I don't think it is appropriate for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to somehow use this against Ms. Haspel, a low-level employee, who was told to go do it. Congress is aware. Some Members even said do more--legally justified, used it at SERE school with our military. Now we are going to hold that against this very well-qualified nominee.

Let me just add something because I know it is part of the discussion. In retrospect, over time, many Members look back on that period and say: Well, maybe we shouldn't have done that. Maybe these enhanced interrogation techniques aren't legal. Maybe that is a bad reflection on our country.

So there was a debate on this. That is fine. That is the way it should be.

As a matter of fact, one of the Senators whom I have the most respect for in this entire body, Senator McCain--who knows a lot about torture and a lot about interrogation and has been a hero and is well respected--led that debate on the Senate floor that said that these enhanced interrogation techniques--waterboarding--aren't what we should be doing in this country. So let's clarify this. Yes, a previous administration said this is legal. We do it to our own soldiers and marines and Navy SEALS, but we are going to look at a higher value on what we believe is right and what Americans should be doing or should not be doing.

So we actually had a debate in 2016 on this floor as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, where Senator McCain led an effort with an amendment that said: From here on out, the techniques that our CIA operatives would be able to use and that should be approved are only those in the Army Field Manual. Those are OK--not the rest of what happened in terms of the enhanced interrogation techniques. Then this body passed that. As a matter of fact, I voted for the McCain amendment out of respect, appreciation, and the arguments that John McCain was making. So we clarified the law.

In many ways, that is how the system is supposed to work. In challenging times with a lot of turmoil, yes, these operatives were pushing the envelope, but it was legal. We should take a step back and say: Maybe that shouldn't be what we should be doing going forward. And we changed the system through debate on the floor, led by Senator McCain.

Let me just end by saying that here is how it is not supposed to work. We have a very dangerous situation, like we had after 9/11. We asked our best and brightest to risk their lives to defend this country, to do really tough operations all around the world. We go tell them to do things. This body is briefed on it. We tell them it is legal, and then later, we said: Do you know what? Now we are going to hold that against you.

Not only is that unfair, but if we continue doing that, how hard do you think it is going to be to get the top people in our country to want to join the CIA or the special forces or the military? We tell them to go do this, to protect your Nation; it is legal. And then 10, 15 years later, we say: No, maybe it wasn't.

I want to thank Ms. Haspel for wanting to serve her country at the highest level, for her example, and all the other members of the CIA's clandestine services, who have been on the frontlines protecting this Nation. I certainly hope my colleagues who are looking at that period of history, looking to hold it against her, recognize the broader context. Not only were she and the other members of the Agency asked to do that kind of work, but they were told it was important to protect the country and that it was legal.

When her nomination comes to the floor tomorrow, I certainly hope my colleagues keep this all in mind, look at her broad qualifications, and vote for her to be the next CIA Director.

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