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Ex-Gitmo Chief: Americans Share Presidential Hopefuls' Support for Torture

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US Republican presidential candidates’ support for torture is fully in line with the beliefs of the majority of Americans, first commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility Michael Lehnert told Sputnik.

A detainee is escorted to interrogation by U.S. military guards at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay. - Sputnik International
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik), Leandra Bernstein — "If 58 percent of the people in this country think that torture is okay, I am not necessarily as disturbed by the presidential candidates as I am by the American people," Lehnert said on Wednesday, referring to a 2014 poll.

Lehnert, who was appointed to open the Gitmo facility in January 2002, added that the candidates are reflecting the views of voters.

"If you want to make a claim towards American exceptionalism, you don’t make that statement without being truly exceptional. And torturing people is not exceptional," he asserted.

In recent months, Republican front-runner Donald Trump has advocated bringing back waterboarding terrorist suspects. He also told supporters at a campaign event that "torture works."

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Other leading Republican candidates including Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have repeatedly supported keeping the Gitmo detention facility open, though neither has openly advocated torture.

A 2014 ABC News-Washington Post poll revealed that 58 percent of Americans believe that the torture of suspected terrorists can be often or sometimes justified. The study also found that nearly two-thirds of US citizens believe that previous CIA practices of torturing terrorist suspects produced valuable intelligence.

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