Ex-CIA Chief: US Troops Could Ignore President Trump

Hayden says if he ordered waterboarding once in White House, troops obligated to not obey
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 28, 2016 1:15 PM CST
Ex-CIA Chief: US Troops Could Ignore President Trump
In this 2009 file photo, then-CIA Director Michael Hayden at a news conference at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.   (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez, File)

If a President Trump ever got serious about bringing back waterboarding or some of his more dire policies, he's got at least one former director of the CIA saying he'd have a hard time doing it, reports Politico. "I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the way that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign," Michael Hayden tells Real Time With Bill Maher. Prompted to comment on Trump's vow to kill ISIS militants' family members, he said, "Let me give you a punchline: If he were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act. You cannot—you are not committed, you are not required, in fact you’re required to not follow an unlawful order. That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict." (More Michael Hayden stories.)

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