Former CIA Director Michael Hayden is warning Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump that the agency has no interest in returning to the controversial days of waterboarding captured terrorists.
"Multiple investigations, grand juries, presidential condemnations, and congressional star chambers have a way of doing that to you,"
Hayden told NBC News.
The former CIA director for President George W. Bush then repeated a quote he first made in a Showtime documentary, saying "Like the man said, if you want somebody waterboarded, bring your own damn bucket."
Trump in recent days has
talked about the need to get tough on Islamic terrorists, telling a rally in South Carolina before that state's primary Saturday the story of Gen. John Pershing "early in the last century."
"And they had a terrorism problem," Trump continued, referring to how the U.S. was battling radical Muslims in the Philippines. "And there's a whole thing with swine and animals and pigs — and you know the story.
"He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pig's blood," he went on to explain. "And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people.
"And the 50th person, he said, 'You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.' And for 25 years, there wasn't a problem.
"We better start getting tough and we better start getting vigilant," Trump concluded. "We better start using our heads or we're not gonna have a country."
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