TWI’s Spencer Ackerman caught up with John Kiriakou, a former CIA official who oversaw the interrogation of a high-profile Al Qaeda prisoner, to talk about President Obama’s executive orders to close Guantanamo Bay and ban so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

“It’s a great leap forward in terms of respect for human rights,” said John Kiriakou, the retired CIA official who supervised the interrogation of Al Qaeda detainee Abu Zubaydah in 2002. “From the very beginning, the CIA should not have been in the business of enhanced interrogation techniques and detentions.”

Check out Spencer’s full story here.