Gina Haspel's secrets need sunlight -- May 10, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

As Gina Haspel tells it, her life was “right out of a spy novel.”

Haspel, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, joined the agency in 1985 and worked undercover for more than 30 years.  

“From my first days in training, I had a knack for the nuts and bolts of my profession,” she told senators Wednesday at her confirmation hearing. “I excelled in finding and acquiring secret information that I obtained in brush passes, dead drops or in meetings in dusty alleys of third world capitals.

“I recall very well my first meeting with a foreign agent. It was on a dark, moonless night with an agent I had never met. When I picked him up, he passed me the intelligence and I passed him an extra $500 for the men he led. It was the beginning of an adventure I had only dreamed of.”

It sounds like fiction all right, and that’s the way Haspel, 61, wants it.

There’s much the public doesn’t know about her career because the records are classified, and Haspel herself, as acting CIA director, decides how much – or, in this case, how little -- to declassify.

Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who have read the classified material about Haspel but can’t divulge what they’ve read, are frustrated.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, said Haspel has the knowledge and experience for the job, but “many people – and I include myself in that number – have questions about the message the Senate would be sending by confirming someone for this position who served as a supervisor in the counterterrorism center during the time of the rendition, detention and interrogation program.”

Haspel would be the first woman CIA director, and she has bipartisan support from former CIA directors. 

But  more than 90 former U.S. ambassadors and diplomats and more than 100 retired generals and admirals have signed letters, raising concerns about her nomination and the extent of her role in “enhanced” interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, as well as destroying evidence of the activities many call torture.

Most Senate Republicans support Haspel but Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who suffered torture for five and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, issued a statement Wednesday night urging the Senate to reject Haspel.

“I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defense,” McCain said. “However, Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying.”

In 2002, Haspel ran a CIA “black site” detention facility in Thailand where at least one suspected terrorist was waterboarded repeatedly.

In 2005, as Congress was about to launch an investigation, she advocated destroying more than 90 videotapes of the suspect’s interrogations. At the request of her boss, she drafted a cable ordering the destruction. He sent the cable himself.

Haspel proved a wily witness at her confirmation hearing. Often evasive, she repeatedly said she has a strong moral compass. She dodged questions about her role at the detention center but insisted the techniques were legal and approved by President George W. Bush.

She said she would not restart the “enhanced” interrogation program, even if Trump, who said during the campaign he might bring back waterboarding, ordered her to do so.

“We’re not getting back into that business,” she said.

The committee is expected to vote next week, with a full Senate vote in a few weeks. It appears Haspel may squeak through.

Republicans hold a 51 to 49 Senate majority, but McCain is battling brain cancer in Arizona. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has said he will vote no. But Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia will vote for confirmation, and a couple of other Democrats also facing tough re-election bids may do the same.

Haspel portrayed herself as “a typical middle-class American,” although one with no social media accounts.

It’s time she put more on the table than her spy novel stories. Haspel needs to declassify records of her career, so everyone can judge whether she’s fit for the job.   

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Portraits on taxpayers' dime -- Why? -- Sept. 11, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

A perk of being a Washington bigwig is to be immortalized the old-fashioned way -- in an oil painting paid for by taxpayers.     

The official portrait of former CIA Director Leon E. Panetta was unveiled Sept. 5 at the CIA, where a Directors Gallery honors every chief since the first in 1946.

What made Panetta’s painting different from his predecessors’ and most, if not all, the hundreds of official portraits on walls around Washington was his decision to be painted with his dog, Bravo.

Panetta, who served as CIA director from February 2009 to June 2011, has said his golden retriever was in the room during some of his toughest moments, such as planning the operation to kill Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

In the portrait, a smiling Panetta has both hands on his pet, making him look more like a genial professor than the spook who took out Public Enemy No. 1. The picture elicits appreciative “awws” from pet lovers, but it also raises a question:

Is an official portrait – even of a distinguished public servant like Panetta -- a good use of your tax dollars?

Taxpayers spent $300,000 last year alone on oil portraits of senior officials, reports “Wastebook 2013,” the annual compendium of wasteful federal spending published by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

The price tag of the CIA’s portrait of Panetta wasn’t disclosed. But if one picture is worth the cost, whatever it is, how about two? Of the same person?  

Panetta served eight terms in Congress and was President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. After his stint at the CIA, he was secretary of defense from July 2011 to February 2013. So, naturally, the Defense Department commissioned a Panetta portrait last year for its Pentagon Collection.

I say naturally because over the last decade the Defense Department has ordered 25 of at least 69 official portraits purchased by government agencies, according to “Wastebook.”

The Defense Department contracted to spend $31,200 on its Panetta painting, which hasn’t been unveiled yet. The sum is infinitesimal in the Defense budget, but it’s real money to many Americans who have no say how their taxes are spent.

Don’t get me wrong. I love portraits, especially those that give us a glimpse of the subject’s personality. Generations of school children might have no idea what George Washington looked like were it not for artist Gilbert Stuart. There’s still a place for portraiture in the 21^st century.

But as often is the case, the government is being free with other people’s (our) money. An official portrait shouldn’t be the default honor for a departing agency head.

In October 2012, then-Defense Secretary Panetta presided over the ceremonial unveiling of the official portrait of former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Speaking that day, Gates mentioned that the same artist had painted the official portrait of “a certain CIA director” two decades earlier.

“It didn’t seem all that different, a few pounds lighter, maybe a couple of inches taller. The hair a more useful shade of white,” Gates said, drawing laughter. He was CIA director from 1991 to 1993.

“A sure sign you’ve been in Washington too long,” Gates said, is when the portraitist has “more than one crack at your portrait a generation apart.”

You can argue Gates and Panetta deserve the honor. But people whose careers are not nearly as distinguished sit for artists on the taxpayer’s dime.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered a $20,000 portrait of former Sec. Steve Preston, who was in the job all of seven months. “Wastebook” also reports taxpayers forked over $20,000 for former Energy Secretary Steven Chu, $23,000 for former NASA deputy administrator Lori B. Gardner and $30,000 each for the first and second Homeland Security secretaries, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff.

Enough already.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t pick up the tab for a portrait that costs more than many hardworking taxpayers make in a year,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who is leading a bipartisan effort to rein in spending on portraits.

The proposed Responsible Use of Taxpayer Dollars for Portraits Act would prohibit federal funds for portraits of members of Congress and most agency heads and set a cap of $20,000 per painting of those in the line of succession to the presidency.  

Congress should stop spending taxpayers’ money on official portraits – even for bigwigs who have good dogs.

©2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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