. McCaskill called them `` a great recruitment tool for those who want to do harm to our country . '' White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel dismissed Hayden 's assertion that releasing the memos had undermined U.S. intelligence efforts by giving al Qaeda critical new information . `` One of the reasons the president was willing to let this information out was that already the information was out , '' he said on ABC 's `` This Week . '' `` Go get the New York Review of Books . It 's there . '' Hayden said he called several senior White House officials to express his opposition before the president released the documents . Hayden also noted that four previous CIA directors , as well as current agency director Leon Panetta , opposed the release . The memos said , among other things , that interrogation tactics such as waterboarding , sleep deprivation and slapping did not violate laws against torture absent the intent to cause severe pain . Obama prohibited the use of so-called `` enhanced interrogation techniques '' such as waterboarding shortly after taking office in January . Such techniques `` undermine our moral authority
WASHINGTON -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- A former head of the CIA slammed President Obama on Sunday for releasing four Bush-era memos , saying the new president has compromised national security . Former CIA chief Michael Hayden said Sunday it is wrong to make interrogation methods public . Michael Hayden , who served as former President Bush 's last CIA director from 2006 to 2009 , said releasing the memos outlining terror interrogation methods emboldened terrorist groups such as al Qaeda . `` What we have described for our enemies in the midst of a war are the outer limits that any American would ever go to in terms of interrogating an al Qaeda terrorist . That 's very valuable information , '' Hayden said during an appearance on `` Fox News Sunday . '' `` By taking -LSB- certain -RSB- techniques off the table , we have made it more difficult -- in a whole host of circumstances I can imagine -- for CIA officers to defend the nation , '' he said . But Sens. Claire McCaskill , D-Missouri , and Lindsey Graham , R-South Carolina , said certain techniques should not have been allowed in the first place