Fact Checker: Is it training, or is it torture?
Democracy Dies in Darkness The truth behind the rhetoric Is it training, or is it torture? Torture is back in the news because President Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA is Gina Haspel, a veteran intelligence official who once ran a black site prison in Thailand and was involved in the decision to destroy videotapes showing the waterboarding of al-Qaeda members during the George W. Bush administration. Talking about the “enhanced interrogation techniques” of the Bush years — and whether they achieved results — is a lot like talking about religion. Either you believe it or you don’t, and there is little bridging the chasm. Rep. Liz Cheney is a believer. She says these techniques did work , and she argues they are not unlike what you would see in Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, a program that helps train U.S. military personnel in survival techniques in case they are captured by an enemy. But these two programs do ...