Spring Break
Symposium discussion turns into heated debate
Issue date: 3/13/08
What began as a "coffee-table discussion" between Director of National Intelligence Mike McConell and political science professor Steven David soon devolved into a tense back-and-forth Wednesday afternoon, with frequent jabs over issues such as waterboarding, warrantless wiretapping and nuclear proliferation.
McConnell signaled his expectation that the sit-down with David, sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS) before overflow crowds in Shriver Hall, would become testy early on.
"I suspect that if Professor David has his way I'll likely be on the nightly news. If I have my way, this would never have happened," he quipped in his introduction.
Twenty minutes later the light-hearted mood had quickly dissipated when David, the discussion moderator, began posing tougher-than-expected questions.
David brought up the controversial issue of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Many human rights organizations classify the technique, which the Central Intelligence Agency employed in the past, as torture.
When asked if he considered waterboarding a form of torture, McConnell replied, "[Waterboarding] is not on our list of techniques. If it was not illegal and would prevent an attack on a city, I would be inclined to use it."
In at least one instance when waterboarding was employed, he pointed out, "I would be willing to say that [the information we obtained] saved the lives of people known by people in this room."
However, McConnell emphasized that the intelligence community "will abide by the laws of the nation," which banned waterboarding as an acceptable interrogation technique.
When responding to David's suggestion that many Americans lost faith in the intelligence community after the Cold War, McConnell said, "It's convenient for a professor or a journalist to say, 'you didn't predict the collapse of the Soviet Union.' However, we won the Cold war."
David also directed the discussion toward the red tape that many applicants, including Hopkins students, experience when applying to jobs in intelligence agencies and departments. The ineptness of the intelligence community's human resources department, David said, "makes the Baltimore Department of Motor Vehicles look efficient."
McConnell signaled his expectation that the sit-down with David, sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS) before overflow crowds in Shriver Hall, would become testy early on.
"I suspect that if Professor David has his way I'll likely be on the nightly news. If I have my way, this would never have happened," he quipped in his introduction.
Twenty minutes later the light-hearted mood had quickly dissipated when David, the discussion moderator, began posing tougher-than-expected questions.
David brought up the controversial issue of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Many human rights organizations classify the technique, which the Central Intelligence Agency employed in the past, as torture.
When asked if he considered waterboarding a form of torture, McConnell replied, "[Waterboarding] is not on our list of techniques. If it was not illegal and would prevent an attack on a city, I would be inclined to use it."
In at least one instance when waterboarding was employed, he pointed out, "I would be willing to say that [the information we obtained] saved the lives of people known by people in this room."
However, McConnell emphasized that the intelligence community "will abide by the laws of the nation," which banned waterboarding as an acceptable interrogation technique.
When responding to David's suggestion that many Americans lost faith in the intelligence community after the Cold War, McConnell said, "It's convenient for a professor or a journalist to say, 'you didn't predict the collapse of the Soviet Union.' However, we won the Cold war."
David also directed the discussion toward the red tape that many applicants, including Hopkins students, experience when applying to jobs in intelligence agencies and departments. The ineptness of the intelligence community's human resources department, David said, "makes the Baltimore Department of Motor Vehicles look efficient."
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