Gina Haspel, next Russia's boogeyman
The numerous times that his head was submerged into the water while being interrogated are recurrent. They looked in each dive for one more detail about the attack on the destroyer Cole of the US Navy. The attack, which was perpetrated in 2000 by an al Qaeda cell off the coast of Yemen, killed 17 United States' sailors. Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri will not forget Gina Haspel. Those days remain in his memory as also does the woman who directed the interrogation and is now Director of the CIA after a closed election in the Senate for the confirmation of her position.
The United States Senate confirmed Haspel, 61, as the first woman to assume the leadership of the CIA, after a complicated nomination process that reopened a debate on the brutal interrogation techniques in one of the darkest chapters in the history of the espionage agency. Russia has been a priority target throughout Haspel's career.
The "submarine" lady is accused of committing war crimes during her work within the Agency's Counterterrorism Center. After the attacks of September 11, she was sent to a prison in Thailand where she supervised severe interrogations against war prisoners. There she implemented the simulated drowning or the “submarine”, a technique supported by then members of the George W. Bush’s cabinet. According to Haspel, she carried out orders.
Haspel had as her first destination Africa, where she met Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The rest of the places where she was located are not known because they are part of confidential files, belonging to covert operations in the United States. The truth is that even the Saudi Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri has a strong psychological trauma. The therapists responsible of his treatment in the Guantánamo prison point out that it is very likely that he will never recover. "Mr. al-Nashiri continues to have chronic nightmares and recurring memories", Dr. Sondra Crosby said recently. "His trust in humanity has been broken," the doctor said in an interview on the occasion of Haspel’s promotion.
The current CIA director sows certain doubts in the future forms of action that the agency will have, especially since she is the kind of person who has no second thoughts on the use of lacerate techniques with captives. Her role in that program sparked protests from human rights activists and other critics. Her confirmation vote was the narrowest compared to any other CIA director in seven decades.
Europe has also focused its questions on the past of Haspel's career. Her role in the agency's brutal former program covers her with a dark and somber mantle that many are afraid of.
However, the move of the United States is not questionable. On the contrary, Gina is the ideal person to be in charge of the agency. There are very simple reasons, Gina began her career as an agent in the former Soviet Union and she even continued working in that nation after the collapse of the Socialist camp.
It is no secret that currently, the main economic, political and military enemy of the United States is Russia. Even the current cabinet members remain under the watch of national security and espionage agencies due to the possible involvement of Russian spies during the elections and the filtering of these in several sectors of the political and economic life in the United States. Haspel, apparently, is the only one experienced enough to stop and break the growing Russian infiltration and interference.
According to President Donald Trump himself, he has said that this bilateral tension is worse than during the Cold War years. And he is true. Both nations are confronting each other indirectly in different regions of the world. Iran and Syria are two of the common strategic interests of both nations. The movements they will do will depend to a great extent on the secrets flat and centered on the table.
Nevertheless, the United States has another issue to solve, the constant filtering of the Russians in the American computer networks and the hacking of their big technology companies. Russian cyber-attacks are bigger and more severe. Gina has the great mission to make this situation reversible and to use all her knowledge about Russian intelligence according to the interests of her nation. While she points out the blind spots to attack and the flanks to cover, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri keeps waking up suddenly at night. Haspel still is his worst nightmare.