Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

NYC Protesters Demand Nationwide Change; Families Seek Justice For Slain Relatives; Senate Passes Short Term Spending Bill; ISIS Guidebook Claims Sex Slaves, Child Rape Are OK; Disturbing Findings in CIA Torture Report; Hayden Defends Rectal Rehydration; CIA Torture Report Full of Redactions; Defenders of CIA Torture Report Said Intelligence Committee, White House, and Congress Knew

Aired December 13, 2014 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi everyone, you are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you live from New York. It is 5:00 Eastern. And I am going to show you live pictures now of the Senate which just passed a bill to keep this government running, that's a good thing. Running at least through Wednesday. They are still working on the bigger $1.1 trillion spending bill that would fund the government through next September. A live report on that just ahead.

But first to this story. In several major American cities today thousands of people joining their voices and their bodies. Large crowds protesting marching through the streets of New York City. You are looking at a live picture of New York City. This is the city where Eric Garner died in a confrontation with police on Staten Island. People are marching and they are chanting "I can't breathe," a lot of them asking for change in the Police Department. To Washington, D.C. where prongs of protesters moved down Pennsylvania Avenue to the capital, their message, quote, "hold cops responsible and black lives matter." All of this happening also in Boston where a short time ago the protest movement turned very tense for a new moments. Some confrontations between protesters and police. Some people wound up in handcuffs.

Live right now to the streets of New York City. Alexandra Field who's been covering this all day long. It seems Alex as it is becoming nighttime here in New York City, it is getting a little bit more intense.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. Well, look, this crowd has not thinned out in anyway, Poppy. We are really struck by the fact that this march was supposed to begin around 2:30. But even before that people came to Washington Square Park to sort of congregate hours in advance. And now, two and a half hours, you can see that it has not thinned out. There are so many people who have stuck with this. We started at Washington Square Park and then Sixth Avenue is actually shut down. First Fifth Avenue and then Sixth Avenue as people flooded the streets as part of this march. We now over on Broadway. They've shut down Broadway to traffic as well so that people can continue to march. And as a native New Yorker, the sight will sort of blow you away to see this many people committed to this march for so long.

Everywhere we go, we can see people who are sort of on the street, in the intersections, who have stopped to watch and take pictures and putting their hands up in a gesture of solidarity. Even when you look up to the buildings, people are pressed against the glass just watching this happen. Because it is a significant moment for the city. (INAUDIBLE) happen in cities across the country but it certainly feels significant when you are down here on the street and a part of it. And that is what we are hearing right from people who came out to participate. And they feel that they are here not just to be in a march. They feel that this is a movement. It is about protesting violence in the police department and they really feel that by coming together their voices will be heard -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Well, Alex, where are they going? What is the end goal here at least for tonight?

FIELD: We're going down to one police plaza right now. So, it started in Washington Square Park. We walked to north, down the city again towards -- plaza which is the NYPD headquarters. Obviously, the selection was made to send an important and symbolic message because this march is about trying to -- within the police department, they're calling for a couple of things specifically. First of all, the removal of Officer Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who is involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, they're also calling for special prosecutors in cases of police misconduct. So, they are trying to send a message to NYPD. What's really interesting Poppy when you're out here is this is a protest that is about how communities are policed and at the same time the NYPD has to facilitate this?

And for hours this morning, we saw them getting ready. They knew that they would have a crowd of thousands that came in early. They set up some barricades in order to help the traffic. We have not seen any confrontations but we have some very heavy police presence in all the major intersections in winding this road. Because you have thousands of people in the roads. Police have to help them actually in order to get through the city in order to shut down traffic, in order to keep this moving.

HARLOW: Yes. But I'm glad to see Alex that it has really been peaceful throughout. Now, that is one of the beautiful things about this country, the right to peaceful protests. Let's hope it paid that way. Alexandra Field live from the protest and marchers in New York City. Also now I want to take you to the nation's capital where we heard not only from marchers but also from relatives of four unarmed black men who died by bullets or died at the hands of police. Relatives of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, that 12-year- old boy and also Eric Garner right here on Staten Island and New York, their families joining on that podium in Washington all seeking justice. They say they didn't get it yet for the death of their loved ones. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Hands up, don't shoot. I can't breathe. Please don't shoot. I want to grow up, too. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It hurts me to my heart to know that so many men

are getting away with shooting and killing our young people and not being held accountable for it.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Washington, thank you. Wow. What a sea of people. If they don't see this and make a change then I don't know what we got to do. And you know our sons, you know they may not be here in body, but they are here with us in each and every one of you. You brought them here today. Okay?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: My husband was a quiet man, but he is making a lot of noise right now. And his voice will be heard.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: My son was 12 years old, just a baby, a baby, my baby, the youngest out of four.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: People don't quite get it. They don't quite understand. They want to talk about we're not together. Take a look around. We are together. We are united.

(Crowd): Hands up, don't shoot.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: When we go home today we hope that they have heard our voices, they yield to our commands because no justice, no peace.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I don't have to tell not one single African- American about racial profiling because you guys know. So what I challenge you to do is talk to somebody that does not know. Talk to somebody and make somebody else knowledgeable and make somebody else aware and educate somebody else about what you are going through because long as we just talk to ourselves we are going to stay in our same circles. And we got to step out of that circle and we got to make positive change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: And those are just some of the voices asking for that change. A big question though, will those grieving families, understandably grieving, are they going to get the kind of justice that they are asking for?

Let me bring in again Defense Attorney Eric Guster joins me now. A lot of cases here. A lot of technicalities but let's discuss the case of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, the most recent one. This young boy, 12- year-old in Cleveland in a park wielding a toy gun. I mean, I have seen the gun. It looks like a real gun. Right?

ERIC GUSTER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right.

HARLOW: No indicator on it that it is fake. But the caller to 911 said someone has a gun. It might be fake. It's possibly fake. He was shot and killed by a police officer who is now on leave. Do you think we will see an indictment?

GUSTER: The Tamir Rice case breeds the type of case that leads to an indictment. This officer did not follow protocol --

HARLOW: Right.

GUSTER: -- pulled right up Tamir Rice.

HARLOW: Didn't keep distance.

GUSTER: Yes. Didn't keep distance because police officers are supposed to keep a long enough distance where they can engage the person and ask them to drop their weapon and then see of other nonviolent ways to diffuse the situation. But this officer did not. Within two seconds of driving within just about ten feet he shot Tamir Rice. So, there is no excuse for that. And in addition to that, that officer who is on paid leave now, he was fired or forced to resign from a prior police department where there was evidence that he was not mentally capable of handling that type of situation.

HARLOW: Right. His past a record that was not reviewed as far as we know when he was hired to this police department. Let me ask you about the case of Eric Garner. The grand jury did not indict New York City police Officer Daniel Pantaleo whether he is going to remain on the NYPD and what capacity is still in question. Do you think he will remain on the force? And also, could the family bring their own civil charges?

GUSTER: The family will definitely bring their own civil charges. The Eric Garner case is very interesting where this man died on tape. Not only did he allegedly -- Pantaleo says, I didn't choke him.

HARLOW: He says it was a wrestling maneuver that he learned at the police academy.

GUSTER: Right. That led to a man's death. Whether he wants to call it a choking --

HARLOW: Chokehold or not.

GUSTER: -- chokehold or not, that's what it was because this man sat there and died on the pavement. And the most chilling part about it is that they did nothing. The police officers did not render CPR which all of them are trained to do. They ignored his cries saying, "I can't breathe" 11 times, and he literally died in front of them which goes to show that they are criminally negligent.

HARLOW: So what Pantaleo says, look, I heard him say "I can't breathe" but I thought but because he was saying that, he could indeed breathe. But the question is, does he remain on the force?

GUSTER: He should not remain on the force.

HARLOW: But does he legally?

GUSTER: Legally, they will have problems keeping him on the force especially with the public outcry. Because when you have a police officer on the force who is known, he is in a very dangerous role at this point because people want to retaliate against him. So, he would be a danger to his fellow officers in the street.

HARLOW: That's an important point. We have to remember also, the Feds, the Department of Justice investigating both the Eric Garner death and the Michael Brown death, those investigations can take quite a while. We will be watching.

GUSTER: Yes, they will.

HARLOW: Good to have you on the program, sir. Thank you for joining me.

GUSTER: Thank you.

HARLOW: Well, the Senate, good news out of Washington. They have reached a deal, a short-term deal to keep our government funded and running but the clock is ticking. We will take you live to the White House after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Happening right now in Washington, D.C., the Senate trying to hammer out a $1.1 trillion overall package to keep this government funded and prevent it from shutting down. It has just in the last hour, passed a short-term spending bill to fund the government through Wednesday. That bill now goes to the House and then to the President.

Erin McPike is live at the White House. Erin, what do you think? Are we going to get the deal we need tonight?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, the votes are there certainly. It's a matter of procedure. And what the deal would have to entail is that Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas would have to be appeased. But there was some talk an hour or so ago that they would be able to reach some deal tonight so that President Obama could sign that $1.1 trillion bill that would fund the government through September 30 either tonight, early tomorrow. It looks at this point like there will still be this procedural vote at 1:00 a.m. that will kick the debate forward and then there will be a vote on final passage sometime early on Monday.

Again, there is not going to be a government shutdown tonight because they have passed that short term funding measure that funds the government through Wednesday but we will see a bill passed at some point most likely on Monday could be a deal tonight but at this point we are really looking now at Monday morning -- Poppy.

HARLOW: But is there -- after the disaster that the last government shutdown was and a lot of the blame falling on the republicans, is there any chance, you know, and a lot of people pointing their fingers at the republicans, is there any chance that it happens again there or is it just a matter of a bit of a delay but the government is not going to shutdown?

MCPIKE: Poppy, at this point it is very much just a delay. And we have heard from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell today. He says he was blindsided by Ted Cruz and by Mike Lee last night because it is very unusual once the leaders of the two parties in the Senate reach an agreement that they are going to move forward on a procedure that a rank in file sort of back venture member. Now, I don't know that we would call Mike Lee and Ted Cruz back ventures because they are so high profile. But they are junior ranking file members. And it did blind side McConnell that they went ahead and did this. But we are not going to see a government shutdown at this point. So many republicans want to avoid that. Democrats want to avoid that, as well. We heard a little bit of a rumbling earlier in the week from Elizabeth Warren because she was very unhappy with this bill as well because it rolls back some regulations on Wall Street.

HARLOW: Right.

MCPIKE: But she made her point. She is not going to stand in the way of it either. But we are not looking at a government shutdown at this point -- Poppy.

HARLOW: But there is still politics involved, right? Even if they get that $1.1 trillion bill passed, it is only going to fund the Department of Homeland Security through February because that is the department that would enforce President Obama's executive action on immigration. So, we could be ahead for a big fight on that one. Erin, we'll come back to you later in the hour. Thank you for the update from the White House.

Congressional spending bills are notorious for their pork, the nods to pet projects of individual lawmakers and really last-minute deals. And with all of the deals struck to get it approved this spending bill is no different as Erin was just saying. Our digital correspondent Chris Moody gives us his take on the bill.

CHRIS MOODY, CNN SENIOR DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: There is always talk about Congress can't get anything done.

You have one job.

You know how they do get things done? By slipping things into 1,600 page bills in the middle of the night. That's how.

Such as a ban on internet sales tax for a year prohibiting the federal government from designating two stage grouse bird species as endangered. Blocking the District of Columbia from implementing a marijuana legalization law that the people passed in November. There is a ban on using public money for official portraits increasing the amount of money you can give to a political party from about $97,000 to $777,600. It lets school districts avoid nutrition guidelines that would lower amounts of sodium in children's lunches because that would be tyranny. It sets a pay freeze on Joe Biden's salary.

Of course, that's the postal service to deliver mail on Saturdays mandates the nutrition assistance programs includes white potatoes, it guts funding for Obama's education initiative raise to the top. It blocks a rule that requires a trackers to get more sleep before they start their work week. Demies funding for getting a facelift to the United Nations building in New York which is really seen better days. It allows $1 million to quote, "Compensate ranchers for livestock killed by wolves." Chupacabra attack, tough (bleep) and finally Congress cut $345.6 million from the IRS which they kind of had coming.

HARLOW: Thank you, Chris Moody for going to that entire report and bringing us those interesting highlights. Right. Coming up next, very, very disturbing. A new ISIS guide book condones raping young girls, it is shocking this memo also tries to justify keeping non- Muslim women at sex slave, the group handed this pamphlet titled questions and answers on female slaves and their freedom. They handed this out. It is disturbing. We will discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: ISIS militants have released a guide book on how to use young girls as sex slaves. In it ISIS justifies child rape, it offers tips on capturing and punishing young girls. Just yesterday, armed men handed out this pamphlet that they call questions and answers and female slave on their freedom after sunset prayers in Mosul. Our Ian Lee has more.

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This isn't really a surprise. We have known this has been going on for quite some time. But what this gives us is another window into the ISIS organization. This 27 point brochure really just details the rules for rape. And the Koran things like raping -- and really my impression from this is that these fighters, these people do not view their captives as human beings. They are property to be dealt with, to be used and abused however they like. One of them was lucky enough to escape and talk to our Ivan Watson a while back. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNA, ESCAPED FROM ISIS KIDNAPING (through a translator): They came to the room and looked around at the girls. And if they liked one they chose her and took her. If the girls cried and didn't want to leave, they beat the girl. The guy who chose me was 70 years old and he took me to his house. There were four Yazidi girls there already. They hit us and they didn't give us enough to eat or drink. They told us we were infidels. He put me to a room and put a gun to my head and I was on the ground. And he said I will kill you because you will not convert to Islam. That night they came and took an 11-year-old girl away. And when she came back, she told me they raped her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Reading that pamphlet also, there was another point, and they said that the greatest sin for one of these slaves is to escape from their master sending a very dire warning. And to give an idea of the kind of people who are buying them, take a look at this video, this shows a room full of ISIS fighters there getting ready to acquire their slaves and really they are joking about it. You can really get the impression of how little value for human life that these men have and really the living hell that these female slaves are living through.

Ian Lee, CNN, Cairo. HARLOW: Ian, thank you for that report. All right. I want you to

take a look at something. Take a look at this. See this? Almost 600 pages. It is a summary of the more than 6,000 page Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA interrogation tactics. Its findings are brutal, they are graphic, very disturbing, we're talking about things like near drownings, rectal feedings. One man chained naked on a concrete floor for days. Eventually believed to have frozen to death. Detainees forced to stand on broken legs and feet, others sexually threatened with a broomstick. Why release it now? Why did this happen? Here is Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRWOMAN: So, we submit this study on behalf of the committee to the public and the beliefs that withstand the test of time and with it the report will carry the message never again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What did this report find? What did it redact and keep secret? What is the CIA saying about it? And should our country fear retaliation from our enemies abroad?

With me to discuss this hour, CNN vice president of the Soufan Group, Robert McFadden, also a former NCIS interrogation and transnational terrorism expert. Michael Daly, author and special correspondent for The Daily Beast. And CNN National Security analyst and former CIA operative Bob Baer, joining us breaking this all down, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. We are back with our guests talking about this. This is just the executive summary, huge executive summary of very disturbing findings about the CIA's interrogation tactics after 9/11.

Bring in my guests again.

Gentlemen, I want to get your take on this report out of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the fact that the intelligence may or may not have come out, that real helpful intelligence may or may not have come out of the tactics used.

Let's begin and discuss detainee number one. This is Abu Zubaydah, a reported aid to Osama bin Laden. According to the report, he was tortured for 17 consecutive days, 24/7. That is 400-some hours of torture. The CIA even made plans to cremate his body should he have died in custody.

To you, Robert, someone familiar with interrogation tactics that work and don't work, you are talking about a situation where he was waterboarded, bubbles rising from his opened full mouth. Do you believe that interrogation tactics like this get results? Because that is a huge criticism? ROBERT MCFADDEN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, THE SOUFAN GROUP: Absolutely

not. Not effective results, not results that produce quick, efficient, actionable intelligence. Absolutely not. In fact, one of the great things about the report finally being released, you can see in detail in the summary that Abu Zubaydah, which that was the crossroads where the decision was made to go that route, with the EITs, or to stick with the traditional --

HARLOW: Enhanced interrogation techniques.

MCFADDEN: Enhanced interrogation techniques or stick with the traditional effective ways that we, I and colleagues, know work. The bulk of the effective and actual intelligence take of Abu Zubaydah was in that period, from capture, up until around April of 2002. But when there was the introduction of that kind of route, you can see the preponderance of the good intelligence was under the traditional use of interrogation.

HARLOW: It is interesting, the report talks about the ETIs used on Asan Guel (ph), who helped lead them to bin Laden's courier, saying the important information from him came before these tactics were used on him.

I want to talk about page 20 of the report saying the CIA contracted with two psychologists to develop to operate, to assess interrogation operations. Neither had any experience as interrogators nor did either have special knowledge about al Qaeda or a background in counterterrorism or really anything relevant to this job.

Bob, as a former CIA operative --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: -- it is so hard just to be allowed to work in the CIA let alone get an $80 million contract.

BOB BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Poppy, it's more than that. I have done this for 20 years, questioned people on terrorism. That was my job. And the first condition of making that work was to know what I was talking about so I could know when a source was telling me something truthfully or making up a story. And without that background knowledge, you cannot begin to do a questioning or an interrogation. I find it completely offensive that these guys got $81 million for doing, what? They had never questioned anybody. They had no expertise. This is just a catastrophe when you look at it. There is no acceptable reason that these two guys should have been hired, none.

HARLOW: And to build on that, one thing that I will say -- and I want to bring in Michael here -- that those that are fighting back against that, pushing back against this, say you have to understand the context. You have to understand that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 things were different. You were right across from the South Tower when it fell --

MICHAEL DALY, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY BEAST: North Tower. HARLOW: The North Tower on 9/11. As a New Yorker, I was here. I

just moved to New York five days before. This was a traumatic time. But listening to this, can you respond to your thoughts on the fact that not only the torture tactics but the fact that the CIA contracted out $81 million contracts to two people with seemingly no experience to oversee this.

DALY: The only thing I can think -- almost everybody involved in this meant well. I think that it was a time right after 9/11 when we were all shocked. How did this happen? What do we do? Obviously, what we knew before wasn't enough to protect us. How can we stop it from happening again? I think people were panicked.

But I also think it was a mass murder and they would have done a lot better with a guy from Manhattan North Homicide talking to these guys than a couple of psychologists who, they took a theory based upon experiments that had been done with dogs in 1960s, and they tried to say that we have to create this state of helplessness, and then once we do that, they will be completely cooperative. And by the way, we are the ones who can do it. And then they talk in the report that there was a conflict of interest. They not only turned it over to them, they also put them in charge of evaluating how effective it was. Guess what they said? They said, yeah, let's keep doing it. The next thing you know it was $180 million contract. And then -- but when it finally got shut down, they took home $80 million.

I mean -- when their name reached the press I think it was in 2008, they built a government $600,000 for counter-surveillance to protect themselves. They got $1 million that's been paid out. We paid their lawyers for when they sat down with the Senate committee.

HARLOW: Yeah, I mean --

DALY: They lawyered up with the Senate Intelligence Committee.

HARLOW: So many shocking things about what was carried out in these secret prisons but also on how things operated from the government, the standpoint in contracts, et cetera, that no one ever knew until this.

Gentlemen, stick with me. We will take a quick break and get back to more of our discussion on this.

Coming up --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: These were medical procedures. And to give you a sense --

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT & CNN ANCHOR, THE LEAD: Are you really defending rectal rehydration?

HAYDEN: What I'm defending is history.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: We are going to talk about the former head of the CIA speaking out to CNN defending the agency's tactics, including rectal rehydration.

Also this. Take a look at this. This is page 359 of this report. It looks more like an ink blot test. Almost every single word blacked out. Almost every page has redactions making it pretty tough to know the full story. We will discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: So 7 percent of the Senate report on the CIA's interrogation tactics after 9/11 is blacked out, names of countries involved, names of most of the CIA officers involved, all redacted. Take a look at page 45. Here is page 128. And next, I will show you page 359. A lot of redactions.

My panel is back.

Let me begin with Bob, former CIA operative, CNN security analyst.

When you look at redactions like this, all the officer's names are redacted, pseudonyms are not provided, which makes it really hard, if not impossible, to track down the chain of command, who knew what, when? Is that the right move?

BAER: Well, they could have substituted names. And some of these employees they have redacted out are overt employees. That means, in the public, they are known as CIA employees. They should have been left. They simply could have substituted other names to make the narrative more readable. It is important to figure out who made mistakes in the program because even Brennan in his press conference said this was abhorrent and mistakes were made. I think we need to know who the people are and hold them accountable or at least end their careers at the Central Intelligence Agency.

HARLOW: The Department of Justice, twice since this, has investigated members of the CIA for this. Nothing has come of it.

Let me ask you, Michael, of those CIA agents that interrogated these individuals, they weren't interviewed. Senator Angus King, the Impendent, was asked about that by Wolf Blitzer. And he defended that, saying, look, you had the investigation until 2007. But Wolf pushed back and said, yeah, you had from 2011 until now to do it. Do you think that is a mistake?

DALY: I think it's a mistake not to gather every single bit of information we can about this because -- I mean, never again is right. You want to know -- and to stop it from happening again you have to know what happened. You have to know how it happened.

The other thing is I think, for the sake of the people who are blameless, it should be made clear who is to blame, because there are a lot of decent people is in the CIA who are walking around, they have to sit down and anybody that knows what they do for a living --

(CROSSTALK)

DALY: They are not torturers.

HARLOW: -- risking their lives for this country --

DALY: Yeah. They're great Americans.

HARLOW: -- to keep us safe.

DALY: They are great Americans and they should be considered great Americans and they shouldn't be shamed by something a couple of knuckle heads did.

HARLOW: But you do think everyone should have been interviewed even after 2011 when the DOJ investigation ended? Just having as much knowledge as possible?

DALY: I think we have to know every single thing we can. One thing about the report, they didn't redact it for what was embarrassing and outrageous.

HARLOW: Right.

DALY: There are little details in there that tell you the truth. Like, there was no medical necessity for using rectal hydrating with KSM.

HARLOW: So we will talk about this now, this phrase, rectal rehydration, getting a lot of attention. At least five CIA detainees subjected to rectal feeding without documented medical necessity.

Take a listen to how CIA Director Michael Hayden defended it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: First of all, let's differentiate, if we can, for the sake of the conversation, between the abuses, they things that were not --

HAYDEN: Unauthorized, right.

TAPPER: Unauthorized, such as the rectal rehydration.

HAYDEN: No. Stop.

TAPPER: OK.

HAYDEN: That was a medical procedure. That was done because of detainee health. That the people responsible there for the health of the detainees saw they were becoming dehydrated. They had limited options in which to go do this. It was intravenous with needles, which could be dangerous for a non-cooperative detainee. It was through nasal passages.

TAPPER: -- humus and pine nuts and --

HAYDEN: Jake, I'm not a doctor and neither are you. What I'm told is this is one of the ways that the body is rehydrated. These were medical procedures. And to give you a sense --

TAPPER: Are you really defending rectal rehydration?

HAYDEN: What I am defending is history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: So, Robert, you have interrogated detainees. Where do you fall on this?

MCFADDEN: All I can say, that those kinds of things were so far off the reservation of the way we would go about doing an effective interrogation it is beyond belief.

I will say, though, too, that it is not a surprise to me because I was briefed into the program after September '06. When President Bush first established it, I interrogated some of the high-value detainees at Guantanamo. So it wasn't a surprise. But it was still shocking to read those things in black and white.

But what is important in some of the things we are already talking about, when we are talking about the contract psychologists brought into the program, they sold snake oil and junk science that were bought.

For my view, the report doesn't detail yet as to what was the decision process and who were involved --

HARLOW: The chain of command.

MCFADDEN: -- in making those decisions. A good friend of mine, a operational psychologist, Michael Gellis (ph), who is one of the best in advising interrogations, he said there was something known as force creed. When you have a situation like this, 100 days of isolation isn't enough when you are getting this kind of bad advice. So then it is 110. And then 120, et cetera, and these are the kind of things that happen.

HARLOW: All right, we have to get a quick break in, gentlemen. Stick around. We will talk more about this.

While, Hayden, you just heard the former head of the CIA admitting he was familiar with rectal rehydration and this was a medical procedure. The man who was running the CIA's secret operations at the time said he had never heard of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSE RODRIQUEZ, FORMER HEAD OF CIA CLANDESTINE OPERATIONS: So I am telling you I do not know any of the information that they are talking about and some of it in the report about abuses and this being one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Who knew what, when? We will discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. Let's continue our discussion about the CIA's enhanced interrogation tactics, what the government, what leaders knew about the program and, frankly, what the people in the report that the names redacted, what they're saying about it now. Some defenders of the CIA's enhanced interrogation program say the Senate report claims they were hiding from what they did and hiding what they did from Congress. They say that's absolutely false. Congress knew, the White House knew. That's what they're saying. In particular, CIA defenders attacking Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein's claim that she was kept in the dark.

Here is former CIA Director Michael Hayden speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper.

((BEGIN VIDEO CLIP))

TAPPER: She's saying that you misled Congress. Your response?

HAYDEN: My response is, you've got to be kidding. I'm the one who argued within the administration, frankly, with the strong support of the president, in 2006, during that first summer when I was director, that we had to go full Monty to the committees. This could not be just the president's program. It had to be America's program.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Bob, your former colleagues in the CIA, some are named in this report. You say their names are redacted. Are they in line with Hayden on that, that it's not true that leaders in Washington didn't know what's going on?

BAER: They have told me over and over again that the -- the gang of eight, the two committees, Intelligence Committees, were informed in general terms. I'm quite sure the committees weren't told about rectal hydration or leaving someone out to die of hypothermia. But it's normal in Washington for the committees not to be given those details.

What the CIA does is, if there a mistake made like that or a crime, they refer it to the Department of Justice. It's up to the Department of Justice to bring a prosecution or not.

What a lot of them say, they didn't like this program from the beginning. It was going to -- the wheels were going to come off. It was going to blow up at some point. They were against it. That's one reason a lot of contractors were brought in, because CIA people simply didn't want to do it. They knew it was a disaster, waiting to happen.

HARLOW: Michael, to you. This brings up a very important ethical debate about whether drone strikes are any better than enhanced interrogation techniques. When you have drone strikes that, according to some accounts, have killed upwards of 2,000 people, including innocent lives, as well as suspected terrorists and terrorists, do you -- do you see a difference here? Is one program better than the other? DALY: How can you -- that's when you really -- that is the argument

one of these psychologists brought up when he had an interview with vice. Well, it's much worse than doing the drone thing. That has nothing to do with what he did. But we're here talking about --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Well, but it's about America's war on terror, right? And how do you best get the information you need and get the bad guys to stop?

DALY: Yeah, but you don't -- that is the question, how do you get the best information you can, to get the bad guys to stop? Clearly, what you don't do is do it with rectal hydrating and waterboarding. There is some question, people say it saved lives. I want to know if the question is, did it cost lives. You have people who were cooperating with interrogators, and along come the waterboard, and they stop cooperating. You wasted huge amounts of time on interrogations that produced almost nothing. You have to wonder, you know, did that hamper more than help? And if you start getting into drones and all that stuff, that is something worth talking about.

HARLOW: You don't think we should be talking about this.

DALY: I think we should. But I think we shouldn't stop talking about the torture at the expense of that.

HARLOW: Understood.

I want to follow up, Robert, with you on this question. I want to play some sound from former attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, reacting to this report. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERTO GONZALES, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We have no way -- I have no way of knowing how much of this information is, in fact, true, because there is a lot of information, quite honestly, that surprised me. And I'm sure there's a lot of information to hear that surprises President Bush.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Your take? Do you believe he is surprised? President Bush is surprised? We know he wasn't fully briefed, the president, President Bush on this, or briefed really in-depth until April 2006.

MCFADDEN: No, I find that plausible. As Bob said, at the very top of government, that level of detail, you would think wouldn't ordinarily come into it, the briefings. But, you know, when you're talking about the report and rebutting the report, even if one looks at the first 19 pages of the major findings, any objective read of that report, heavily footnoted, it talks about things that take of the intelligence, at most, either affirmed information that was already available, or was not all that important. It's there to rebut, and to go over where that information came from. So, again, it's there. If a high-level official wants to say that it's a bunch of hooey or doesn't make any sense --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: You're quoting Vice President Dick Cheney, who said that, and said this did lead to actionable intelligence.

MCFADDEN: Right. So I think the public then would demand, OK, where is the evidence of that, because a report lays it out that -- it didn't say there was no information. I know for a fact the information was produced.

HARLOW: But did that lead to --

MCFADDEN: Exactly.

HARLOW: -- important captures.

MCFADDEN: Important and actionable information.

HARLOW: Appreciate it, gentlemen. We can talk about this all night.

Michael, Robert, Bob Baer, thank you for being with me.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Coming up here on CNN, moments away, "Smerconish."

Michael, what do you have lined up for tonight?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST, SMERCONISH: Hey, Poppy.

Controversy continues to swirl around the campus of UVA, because of that "rolling stone" piece about an alleged case of rape. We'll explore that and we'll do it from a men's perspective with a very interesting guest.

Also, new revelations pertaining to Bill Cosby.

And the former head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA here to talk about what he says wasn't torture.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: After serving in Afghanistan, our CNN Hero of the Year said about reuniting soldiers with the animals that they had come to know and love during their service. Here's Pen Farthing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, CNN HEROES, AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE: Pen, Congratulations. You've been named CNN Hero of the Year. Were you surprised? PEN FARTHING, NAMED CNN HERO OF THE YEAR: Surprised is an

understatement. I'm absolutely amazed. This is such an honor. I feel so proud of everybody involved. It's just amazing.

COOPER: Tell me about the idea. When did you first come up with the idea for this organization?

FARTHING: I was in a supermarket when I had finished my tour, and I just -- I was like -- I was getting shot at two days ago and now we're shopping. And what did I leave behind? And you just can't forget about it. And I felt I wanted to do something more.

COOPER: Was the idea initially just to reunite soldiers with animals they had met?

FARTHING: You would come in off patrol, and it didn't matter how bad the patrol had gone. This little dog -- this little stumpy tail was wagging away and he was happy to see me. And it's just normality, and it's totally crazy.

COOPER: Bringing an animal back they met while there, it helps with their transition coming home, too.

FARTHING: Wives have come to us after and said my husband has come back from Afghanistan, there was a little bit of him he didn't bring back. And I sat and looked at him, and he's not responding. And then he would get up and take the dog out for a walk, and then when he comes back, he's the old guy I used to know.

COOPER: Do you know what you're going to do with the money? It was $25,000 and now you're getting an additional $100,000.

FARTHING: Over 1,000 Afghan kids die each year from rabbis, bitten by a stray dog. Within 24 hours, you need to be vaccinated, otherwise that's it. We're trying to humanely control the stray dog population. So this $100,000 is going to go a long ways to help Afghan kids avoid being bit by a rabid dog in the first place.

COOPER: Congratulations.

FARTHING: Thank you so much. This is absolutely amazing. Thank you, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Congrats to Pen Farthing. And thank you for your service.

Thank you all for joining me tonight. I'm Poppy Harlow. I'll see you back here at 7:00 eastern time with our top stories, including those marches.

"SMERCONISH" begins right now.