WASHINGTON // John Brennan, President Barack Obama's nominee to head the CIA, had detailed, contemporaneous knowledge of the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on captured terrorism suspects during an earlier stint as a top spy agency official, according to multiple sources familiar with official records.
Those records, the sources said, show that Mr Brennan was a regular recipient of CIA message traffic about controversial aspects of the agency's counter-terrorism programme after September 2001, including the use of "waterboarding".
How deeply involved Mr Brennan was in the programme, and whether he vigorously objected to it at the time, as he has said he did, are likely to be central questions legislators raise at his Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing, scheduled for February 7.
After Mr Brennan temporarily left government service in 2005, he publicly disavowed waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, and other physically painful techniques that are often described as torture.
The official records, which include raw CIA operational message traffic that remains classified, are silent on whether he opposed the techniques while at the spy agency, said the sources. Mr Brennan served as deputy executive director of the agency beginning in 2001.
Some former officials familiar with deliberations about the programme said they don't recall Mr Brennan voicing objections to the use of harsh interrogation techniques.
But other former officials say Mr Brennan was among agency officials who were uncomfortable with the use of physically coercive tactics, despite the legal opinions that supported their use. He expressed concern, according to these officials, that if details of the programme became public, it would be CIA officers who would face criticism, rather than the politicians and lawyers who approved them.
"If John says he expressed reservations about some techniques, I believe him because he's an honest guy," said John McLaughlin, who was deputy CIA director at the time.
"Mr Brennan had significant concerns and personal objections to many elements of the EIT [enhanced interrogation techniques] programme while it was under way," a senior administration official said in response to Reuters' inquiries. "He voiced those objections privately with colleagues at the agency."
The question of whether and to what extent Mr Brennan raised objections will be a focus of his confirmation hearing for Republican and Democratic senators alike.
"I have many questions and concerns about his nomination to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, especially what role he played in the so-called enhanced interrogation programs while serving at the CIA during the last administration," Senator John McCain, who was tortured during captivity in North Vietnam, said recently.