The former head of the CIA has offered an unflinching defense of the horrific treatment of terror suspects outlined in a US Senate report – saying intelligence officers were carrying out ‘nation’s will’ and had developed a ‘social contract with the America people.’
Michael Hayden also blasted the Senate torture report, which detailed horrific abuse of detainees at the hands of CIA operatives, as a one-sided ‘prosecutor screed’ and said it was the result of a partisan investigation that began with a ‘predetermined outcome.’
‘Let me be very candid. We thought we were doing the nation’s will. And in fact, having lived through the period and even looking back on it now. I think this was indeed about the nation’s will,’ Hayden, who served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under George W Bush from 2006 until 2009, said on MSNBC on Wednesday.
(Read the rest of the story here…)