Michael Hayden Quotes
Renditions before and since 9/11 share some basic features. They have been conducted lawfully, responsibly and with a clear and single purpose: Get terrorists off the street and gain intelligence on those still at large. Our detention and interrogation programs flow from the same inescapable logic.
Hayden, Michael V. Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror. Penguin Press, 2016.
In the War on Terror, some CIA officers had gotten a George W, Bush Administration green light to torture some captured terrorists using a torture technique known as “water boarding”—a practice for which American military personnel were court marshaled and convicted in the Philippine War. The torture sessions had been videotaped, a normal procedure with CIA interrogations. The fact of the torture had leaked and a national scandal ensued with Americans on both sides of the question. President Bush and his Vice President publicly stated that the United States does not torture. Rodriguez then ordered the tapes destroyed. Later he gave his reasons after the Obama Administration decided not to investigate the matter or determine which, if any, CIA officials might have broken the law, by wither doing the torturing or destroying evidence—“obstructing justice.”
The “Principals Committee” is the senior interagency forum for consideration of policy issues affecting national security. It includes the National Security Director (Chair), the CIA Director, the Secretary of Defense and his Deputy, the Secretary of State and his Deputy, the Chairman of the Jount Chief’s of Staff, The Special Representative to the United Nations and other staff as invited. Clarke was almost always invited to these meeting when terrorism was discussed but he did not have a vote. This is a very important quotation for several reasons. First, it shows the influence that the Defense Department and CIA leaders had with President Bush before the 9-11 attack. It also illustrates dramatically how reluctant our military and CIA were to use drones. It was President Obama who overruled them and changed America policy to use Drones to protect American interests. It also indicates how there was a split regarding the perception of the danger of Al Qaeda and bin Laden with Clark and some of the other Principals placing more value on a military strike than the military and covert action leaders. This is not uncommon despite the fact that public perception is that it is always the military leaders who are the hawks. Also, it illustrates the problem of allowing the military point of view to always prevail in national policy making involving use of force. See {639322}.
Michael Vincent Hayden is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Hayden currently co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center's Electric Grid Cyber Security Initiative. In 2017, Hayden became a national security analyst for CNN.
