President Donald Trump has chosen Gina Haspel to be the CIA's deputy director, the first female career CIA officer to serve in that role. | AP Photo Trump taps former 'black site' prison operator for CIA deputy Gina Haspel previously oversaw a 'black site' prison in Thailand where terrorism suspects reportedly faced harsh interrogation tactics — including waterboarding. 
 
 President Donald Trump has chosen veteran CIA officer Gina Haspel to serve as the agency’s deputy director, a decision that alarmed some lawmakers apparently worried about the new president’s stance on torture. 
 
 Haspel, who joined the agency in 1985, will be the first female career CIA officer to serve as deputy director. Her experience includes having overseen a “black site” prison in Thailand where terrorism suspects faced harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, according to multiple media reports. 
 
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 It’s not clear if Haspel’s elevation is a sign that the CIA will return to using such methods. But Trump has repeatedly voiced support for waterboarding and other tough measures, even though many in the intelligence world are deeply uncomfortable with resuming such methods, and leading lawmakers, such as Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, have warned the president to avoid them. 
 
 In announcing her new role, CIA Director Mike Pompeo called Haspel an “exemplary intelligence officer” with “an uncanny ability to get things done.” “We are fortunate that someone of her intellect, skill, and experience will be our deputy director,” Pompeo said in a written statement. 
 
 The No. 2 CIA job does not require Senate confirmation. But some senators expressed wariness about whether Haspel would adhere to unspecified laws, by which they likely meant statutes banning torture. [Much of the CIA's post Sept. 11, 2001, work remains classified, limiting the lawmakers' ability to directly state concerns about individual agency officials.] 
 
 Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), said they had written a classified letter to Trump expressing their concerns about Haspel, a letter whose contents they urged the president to immediately de-classify. 
 
 "Her background makes her unsuitable for the position," the senators wrote in an unclassified letter also sent to the president and dated Thursday. 
 
 Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, expressed similar, vaguely worded concerns. 
 
 "I want some reassurance from her that she intends to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law," he said. "I plan to meet with her as soon as possible to secure that commitment from her." 
 
 Still, Haspel’s promotion gained praise from several top people in the intelligence world, including some who have spoken out against Trump. 
 
 “I found her to be simply exceptional,” said Mike Morell, a former CIA acting director and prominent Trump critic. “She provides advice based on facts and analysis of facts. She gets things done in a quiet, yet effective way, and she is calm under fire.” 
 
 Haspel has held several top positions at the CIA, including deputy director of the National Clandestine Service. Her awards include the Presidential Rank Award, a coveted award for the federal civil service. 

 Updated March 13, 2018: President Trump announced that he had ousted Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and intended to replace him with Mike Pompeo, now the C.I.A. director. 
 
 Mr. Trump also named Gina Haspel as his choice to become the next C.I.A. director. 
 
 WASHINGTON — As a clandestine officer at the Central Intelligence Agency in 2002, Gina Haspel oversaw the torture of a terrorism suspect and later took part in an order to destroy videotapes documenting the brutal interrogations at a secret prison in Thailand. 
 
 On Thursday, Ms. Haspel was named the deputy director of the C.I.A. 
 
 The elevation of Ms. Haspel, a veteran widely respected among her colleagues, to the No. 2 job at the C.I.A. was a rare public signal of how, under the Trump administration, the agency is being led by officials who appear to take a far kinder view of one of its darker chapters than their immediate predecessors. 
 
 Over the past eight years, C.I.A. leaders defended dozens of agency personnel who had taken part in the now-banned torture program, even as they vowed never to resume the same harsh interrogation methods. But President Trump has said repeatedly that he thinks torture works. And the new C.I.A. chief, Mike Pompeo, has said that waterboarding and other techniques do not even constitute torture, and praised as “patriots” those who used such methods in the early days of the fight against Al Qaeda. 

 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A veteran CIA clandestine service officer who ran one of the agency’s “black site” prisons set up after the 9/11 attacks was named deputy director of the U.S. spy agency on Thursday by U.S. President Donald Trump. 
 
 The lobby of the CIA Headquarters Building in Langley, Virginia, U.S. on August 14, 2008. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo - 
 
 Gina Haspel, who will serve under new Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo, was the first woman spy to reach the CIA’s second-highest position, and her selection won applause inside the agency’s Virginia headquarters and from many longtime U.S. intelligence professionals. 
 
 However, Haspel once ran a secret CIA prison in Thailand where two suspected al-Qaeda members were waterboarded, intelligence and congressional officials said on condition of anonymity. She helped carry out an order to destroy videotapes of the waterboarding, which simulates drowning and is considered a form of torture, these people said. 
 
 Her promotion, combined with the possibility Trump could seek to reopen black site prisons and has endorsed waterboarding, may be controversial, despite the fact Pompeo and defense secretary James Mattis have rejected so called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” 
 
 A draft executive order requesting a review of whether the U.S. should reopen CIA prisons in other countries and revisit other interrogation methods not considered torture has been circulating within the White House, but it is not clear if it will be issued, and if it is, whether any nations would agree to host such facilities again, the officials said. 
 
 “I appreciate Ms. Haspel’s many years of service at the CIA, yet I want some reassurance from her that she intends to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law, like Director Pompeo testified that he would during his confirmation process,” said Democrat Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. 
 
 Christopher Anders, the deputy director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he was “gravely concerned” about Haspel’s appointment. 
 
 Haspel has served in a number of overseas posts, including as chief of a major CIA station, and although she was briefly acting head of the National Clandestine Service in 2013, Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking minority member of the intelligence committee, opposed her permanent promotion to that job. 
 
 Other veteran officials, though, praised Pompeo for choosing her. 
 
 “It speaks well of him for picking a seasoned veteran of the agency who is widely and deeply respected by the workforce as well as those outside the agency,” said former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who resigned on January 20 after 50 years of military and intelligence service.
– Gina Haspel ran a "black site" CIA prison in Thailand where detainees were tortured—and now she's a step away from running the entire CIA. The veteran officer was named Thursday as deputy director, making her the first female spy to hold the No. 2 position, reports Reuters. Critics fear this could signal a return to waterboarding, though many in the intelligence community praised President Trump's choice, with CIA Director Mike Pompeo calling her an "exemplary intelligence officer" with "an uncanny ability to get things done," Politico reports. At the CIA site in Thailand, one of the things Haspel got done was destroying videotapes of al-Qaeda suspects being waterboarded, congressional and intelligence sources tell Reuters. Haspel oversaw "harsh interrogation" at the site in 2002 that included having detainee Abu Zubaydah waterboarded 83 times in a month, among other methods, the New York Times reports. As second-in-command, she won't require Senate confirmation, though some senators joined the ACLU in expressing deep misgivings about Haspel's appointment. "I appreciate Ms. Haspel's many years of service at the CIA, yet I want some reassurance from her that she intends to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law, like Director Pompeo testified that he would during his confirmation process," said Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. (Trump says he believes torture works.)