Leon Panetta, another former director, told NPR: “I would hope that the Senate will look at her entire CIA career. Obviously there are questions about her at that point in time… she’s a pretty dedicated CIA officer who in my experience always did her job and did it well. But it is important for the Senate to ask those questions, because I think the United States needs to know that they do have a CIA director who understands what torture’s all about, but also understands what the responsibility of providing solid intelligence is all about.”

The director of the CIA’s office of public affairs has said that “the American people will get the chance to know Ms Haspel for the first time in the coming weeks.”

But is it actually possible ever to adequately know and understand someone who rose so high by doing work that even now cannot be fully disclosed and some of which will always be disreputable? Gina Haspel’s problem is that, like many before her, she is tainted because she played the role of the loyal accomplice in a bad regime. After all, she could have simply said “No” to doing the dirty work. But let’s at least remember that the architects of that regime, directed by the chicken hawk Cheney, were all guys who paid no price.