Wippl Says CIA Should Have Said No to Torture
Prof. Joseph Wippl, a former CIA officer who now teaches intelligence studies at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, said the CIAagents should have refused to torture detainees, as was outlined in a recent Senate report documenting research into the agency’s practices in the years after 9/11.
Wippl’s remarks were featured on Dec. 9 in The Conversation, a nonprofit journalism initiative.
Wippl, a former CIA officer, said:
In retrospect, CIA officials should not have supported the administration in the use of some of the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. They should have said “no.” If good can come out of this report, it is that torture should never happen again even if the worst happens: a major attack on US citizens.
Wippl spent a 30 year career as an operations officer in the National Clandestine Service (NCS). Wippl has served overseas as an operations officer and operations manager in Bonn, West Germany; Guatemala City; Luxembourg; Madrid, Spain; Mexico City; Vienna, Austria; and Berlin, Germany. On assignments in CIA headquarters, he served as the Deputy Chief of Human Resources, as the Senior NCS representative to the Aldrich Ames Damage Assessment Team, as Chief of Europe Division and as the CIA’s Director of Congressional Affairs. Wippl has coordinated extensively with other members of the U.S. intelligence community. Prior to his arrival at Boston University, he occupied the Richard Helms Chair for Intelligence Collection in the NCS training program. Wippl has taught at BU since 2006.