Former CIA chief Michael Hayden blasts Trump, Cruz

Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Michael Hayden has ripped into leading US Republican presidential contenders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for pumping up their national security credentials.

Speaking to CBS on Monday, Hayden, who has also directed the National Security Agency (NSA) from 1999 to 2005, slammed Trump over his torture remarks.

During the 8th Republican debate in New Hampshire on February 6, the real estate mogul pledged to support waterboarding, a torture method to simulate drowning, and "bring back a hell of a lot worse" if he became president.

Trump repeated the same claims last November in Colombus, Ohio, saying the brutal technic works. "Believe me, it works. And you know what? If it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway, for what they're doing. It works."

However, Hayden rejected that notion, saying "we never did anything to anyone because they deserved it."

"This was never looking backward. This was trying to keep Americans safe looking forward. People can argue about what we did, but it was never, never a form of punishment," the former spymaster said.

This is while a Senate report in December 2014 revealed that the CIA has used a wide array of torture as part of its interrogation methods against prisoners at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Asked about the effectiveness of Cruz’s plan to “carpet-bomb ISIS (Daesh) into oblivion,” Hayden again hit back with a firm response.

“No, and it would be immoral and it would be unworthy of a republic like ourselves," he said, noting that the presidential debates are taking difficult, nuanced issues with shades of gray and turning them "into bumper stickers."

It is interesting to note that the US and some of its allies have already been pounding alleged Daesh positions in Syria since 2014, without a UN mandate.

The US military has on several occasions acknowledged civilian casualties resulting from the airstrikes.

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