John Kiriakou
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Everything from a smack across the face to waterboarding and sleep deprivation and freezing.
Freezing.
They called it the cold cell.
I can describe it in a moment.
I said, that sounds like a torture program.
He said, it's not torture.
The president approved it and the Justice Department said we can do it.
I said, give me an hour.
I need to think about this.
I walked out of the cafeteria.
I went up to the seventh floor of the CIA.
That's the executive floor.
And I asked a very, very senior official for whom I had worked in the Middle East 10 years earlier for some advice.
I knocked on his door, no appointment.
And I said, listen, I was just approached and asked if I wanted to be trained in these enhanced interrogation techniques.
What do you think of that?
And he said, first of all, let's call a spade a spade.
They can use whatever euphemism they want.
This is a torture program, and torture's a slippery slope.
And you know how these guys are.