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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Torture Report Released; American Terror Suspect Arrested In Israel; Did CIA Torture Lead to Bin Laden?; American Man Arrested in Israel

Aired December 09, 2014 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The release of the U.S. Senate torture report has American officials at home and abroad on alert for any possible terrorist attack.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The national lead, sleep deprivation, near drownings, hypothermia, rectal forced feeding, all the things the CIA inflicted on detainees in the name of protecting you, according to a U.S. Senate report, all reasons why every single police department across the country and every single embassy around the globe is now preparing for a potentially violent reaction.

Add to this global tinderbox a downright bizarre plot out of the Israel, an American man, a Texan arrested with explosives and a plot for a terrorist attack, allegedly. Just what was he planning?

And the national lead, a winter storm barreling towards the East Coast, drenching rain, major flooding, four-hour delays at airports. And that is just the opening act.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We are going to begin today with breaking news in our national lead. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security just this afternoon warning all stateside law enforcement to be on guard as the U.S. troops and embassies and interests abroad are also bracing in places like Cairo and Baghdad and Riyadh, scouring jihadist message boards for any sign Islamic extremists or really protesters of any sort might be plotting a response, a response to the release of a massive report issued by the Democratic majority on the Senate Intelligence Committee today describing in detail the CIA's program of enhanced interrogation techniques, commonly referred to as torture.

Canada and the U.K. have closed their embassies in Cairo over those concerns. U.S. combatant commanders are on high alert at U.S. military bases throughout the world. Many in the CIA and the U.S. State Department urged against releasing this report.

The charges contained within the 6,800 pages are, well, stomach- churning. The torture was brutal as described. Detainees were water- boarded, some deprived of sleep for up to a week. One detainee froze to death, according to the report. Others unnecessarily force-fed rectally. And all the while, the CIA was lying about it to the Bush White House,

to Congress, to you. And the report says the torture didn't even work. It didn't even produce intelligence that saved any lives, they say. Both the CIA and Republicans on the committee today strongly disagreed with these assessments.

We're covering all the reaction to the story. Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon. Ian Lee is in Cairo.

But, first, I want to go to CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown, who broke the news that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are putting all federal, state and local law enforcement are being put on alert.

Pamela, what more can you tell us?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We're learning, Jake, that, as you point out, the FBI, DHS sending out this warning today to law enforcement agencies across the country surrounding the torture memo release.

This bulletin warns while it's unlikely, today's torture memo may spark online reaction and may actually influence homegrown violent extremists, those living in the U.S. to act out. It also says that terrorist groups may exploit the findings for recruitment purposes. But the warning, I'm told, was sent out just as a precaution.

Sources tell me, so far there is no new intelligence indicating there's anything in the works as a result of the memo. But, of course, Jake, these are the concerns we have been hearing from law enforcement sources leading up to the release of that memo today. So they're really just reiterating that to law enforcement.

TAPPER: And, Pamela, the director of the FBI, James Comey, also held an off-camera briefing for reporters today. What did he have to say?

BROWN: Of course that was one of the first questions he received, Jake, his reaction to the torture memo. In fact, he told us at the time he hadn't even read the memo yet.

He said, look, this is something that doesn't really relate to the FBI. He stayed very tight-lipped. But he did say, echoing the sentiment in this warning sent out today by the FBI, he did say the FBI is focused on any activity overseas and from homegrown violent extremists in reaction to the memo today.

TAPPER: We just had the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, on the show the other day, very concerned about the homegrown terrorists, the lone wolves.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Thank you, Pamela Brown. Appreciate it.

For more on the grisly details of this actual Senate report, let's go to CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. Barbara, just how barbaric did these torture techniques get?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, let's start with just one al top Qaeda operative, Abu Zubaydah. He suffered sleep deprivation for 17 days as part of his interrogation. And that's just the beginning of it all.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): The brutality is shocking. The report reveals at least five detainees were subjected to what it calls rectal feeding, interrogation procedures that went on for months. At least one detainee died from hypothermia.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Stripped naked, diapered, physically struck and put in various painful stress positions for long periods of time. They were deprived of sleep for days, in one case up to 180 hours.

STARR: One detainee had his lunch pureed and poured into his rectum. He eventually attempted to cut his wrists, two into his arm and cut a vein in his foot. Much of the information kept from President George W. Bush's own secretary of state.

FEINSTEIN: There are CIA records stating that Colin Powell wasn't told about the program at first because there were concerns that -- and I quote -- "Powell would blow his stack if he were briefed."

STARR: A former top CIA official says some of the details were held close.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those who needed to know were absolutely brought in and made parties to the conspiracy. As I said, we were very, very clear that -- about what it was that we intended to do, what we were doing to make sure that we had the necessary assurances from the Justice Department that what we were doing was legal.

STARR: Some of the worst abuse occurred at a secret location called Cobalt, where detainees were walked around naked or were shackled with their hands above their heads for extended periods of time. CIA officers dragged detainees hooded down hallways, slapping and punching them, and an admission in CIA documents that water-boarding did cause physical harm.

Abu Zubaydah, repeatedly water-boarded, became completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth. Internal CIA records called Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's water-boarding 183 times a series of near drownings, torture that wasn't even effective, according to the report.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: It produced little useful intelligence to help us track down the perpetrators of 9/11 or prevent new attacks and atrocities.

(END VIDEOTAPE) STARR: And then there is this. The report says that some of the CIA personnel involved in this had records of violent and abusive behavior towards others, the report suggesting they had no business being part of this program -- Jake.

TAPPER: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thanks.

Right now, thousands of U.S. Marines on stand by throughout the world ready to respond to any possible retaliation because of this CIA torture report. As we speak, security officers are standing guard outside the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan. We're monitoring other potential flash points around the globe.

Let's go now to CNN international correspondent Ian Lee. He's in Cairo.

Ian, what kind of security presence are you seeing there now?

IAN LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, there's a heavy security presence outside the U.S. Embassy. I talked to one of the officials earlier today. They said they weren't going to comment on it.

But it is quite the fortress. There are cement barriers protecting it, as well as a heavy police presence and the military close by in case anything were to happen. This report had the potential to be very embarrassing for the Egyptians. They had been a longtime partner of the CIA in their rendition program, where they take suspects from around the world, bring them here to Egypt to interrogate them.

The Egyptians wouldn't want their dirty laundry aired out in the public. And we scoured this report for any mention of the Egyptians' involvement. And when we were looking, it seemed like all countries that were involved in the rendition program, their names were redacted. That's something the Egyptians are going to be very happy about.

But also there is quite a famous case of this renditioning when the CIA nabbed a man, an Italian man, Abu Omar, off the streets of Milan, Italy, brought him here to Egypt, how the Italian courts didn't like that and almost two dozen CIA operatives were found guilty in that case.

TAPPER: Ian Lee in Cairo, thank you so much.

CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is now traveling with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. He's in Kuwait City.

Jim, you're the only reporter to speak to Hagel about this report. What did he have to say?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Jake, Secretary Hagel supremely focused on the safety of U.S. troops deployed to this region. Keep in mind, remember, 11,000 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan through 2015. The president's authorized a further 1,500, making 3,000 troops in

Iraq just across the border here, major Navy base on the Persian Gulf in Bahrain, all of them exposed to potential retaliation and that's where Secretary Hagel is very concerned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: In light of the danger that it poses to U.S. troops in the field, do you think it's a mistake to release that report?

CHUCK HAGEL, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, the president has said that we need to be honest and get this report out. We have had an opportunity to redact some of the most sensitive parts of that to protect our people.

SCIUTTO: Do you believe the military in the field is prepared for the fallout, even with the redactions?

HAGEL: Well, I have directed all our combatant commanders to have all their commands on alert. We have not detected anything specific anywhere. But we want to be prepared. And we are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Secretary Hagel told me some of those redactions did help mitigate the threat to U.S. forces, but he still says those forces are on, in his words, high alert.

While they have no specific threat, they are looking to Friday's prayers in just a few days' times as a potential flash point for protests and any possible retaliation -- Jake.

TAPPER: And, Jim, amid all of this today, we're still -- the U.S. is still engaged in a war against ISIS. What did Secretary Hagel have to say about that?

SCIUTTO: He said that he was encouraged by what he heard both from U.S. commanders and from Iraqi officials. He met the Iraqi prime minister today. And he said that Iraqi forces finally coming off a defensive footing slowly, some minimal offensive operations. That said, a lot of expectations management here.

Meeting with American commanders, Jake, they're saying that, listen, it's going to be several months before there's any major operation by Iraqis to take back any significant pieces of ISIS territory.

TAPPER: All right, Jim Sciutto in Kuwait, thank you so much.

How much valuable intelligence, if any, was gathered from these harsh interrogations? That depends on whom you ask. The CIA today defending the program, saying it was effective. Were any potential terrorist attacks thwarted? Did it help lead the U.S. to find Osama bin Laden? Those questions for two former CIA operatives coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

Continuing our top story today -- the shocking, controversial, and long-anticipated report on the CIA's use of torture, well, that report has been publicly released, reigniting not only the debate over the morality of torture but its effectiveness, whether, for instance, it saved American lives, whether it helps the U.S. capture and kill Osama bin Laden. Former Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, have argued that the CIA's enhanced interrogation program or what is commonly referred to as torture helped them interrupt terror plots, gain valuable understanding of al Qaeda, and led them to bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Intelligence Committee, Democrat from California, blasted the CIA today for overstating the importance of the techniques in fighting the war on terror.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: At no time did the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques lead to the collection of intelligence on an imminent threat that many believe was the justification for the use of these techniques. The committee never found an example of this hypothetical ticking time bomb scenario.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The CIA disagrees strongly with that.

Let's bring in former CIA officers, Bob Baer and Reuel Marc Gerecht.

Gentlemen, let's set this aside for the purposes of our discussion, the morality of torture here. I want to discuss whether or not it was effective, because this Democratic Senate report says, no.

What do you say, Bob?

BOB BAER, FORMER CIA OFFICER: I see no evidence that it was effective. Abbottabad, the raid on bin Laden's compound, was multiple sources. It wasn't due to hostile interrogations. This has been bipartisan as well as gone through the record and seen no evidence that it stopped an imminent threat against the United States. It just -- you know, if it has, I think it's time for the CIA to produce that evidence to tell us why torture works.

TAPPER: Well, the Republicans issued a minority report today and they challenged the Democratic assumptions very, very strongly saying, for instance, there was a plot to destroy hotels in Karachi and interrogation of one of the detainees, torture of one of the detainees led to information that led them to foil this plot.

What do you say?

REUEL MARC GERECHT, FORMER CIA OFFICER: I don't know. I think you have to look at the intelligence. I really don't think we can have this debate with our hands tied behind our back. You'd have to look at the intelligence produced through enhanced techniques. You'd have look at all the other intelligence produced. You'd have to put them together. You'd have to have a chronology of it, and then you'd see.

Now, you know, senior CIA officers are always prone to defend their product. I mean, that's beyond a shadow of a doubt. But it is -- I'm somewhat skeptical that these efforts produced as little intelligence as Senator Feinstein has suggested. But there really is no way to know how productive they were, how many lives they saved, if any, unless you get to see that intel and really work through it.

TAPPER: Now, as I said, the CIA strongly disputes the report's conclusions and accused the committee of reaching the conclusions by working backwards. They said almost as if it's like it's getting Wednesday's answers to the crossword puzzle and figuring out what you could see on Tuesday's. A CIA spokesman put it as a "what if" approach that's highly speculative doesn't accurately reflect how counterterrorism operations work in the real world.

Now, Bob, let me ask you -- do you know of times when you were with the CIA where enhanced interrogation techniques produced actionable intelligence?

BAER: Well, let me just first say, I totally agree with Reuel. We have to see the intelligence. We have to see it line by line. He's absolutely right.

And, yes, I have seen cases where torture was used. And, yes, I have seen cases where torture was used, and it was the first embassy bombing in Beirut in 1983. And the report that the Lebanese produced from torture was abysmal. It didn't get one thing right, it misled us, forced us to close our embassy in Lebanon and leave.

It was just -- it was junk. It was produced by torture, and every other intelligence service in the Middle East and South America that uses systemic torture has very bad intelligence. And that's been my experience over 20 years.

TAPPER: Well, and, Reuel, that's an argument that we heard today from Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona who was in a Vietnamese POW camp for five-and-a-half years, was tortured himself. He made the argument that torture produces false information.

GERECHT: Well, that -- I mean, false information can come from any type of interrogation. I don't think enhanced techniques are about whether it's likely to produce more truthful intelligence than, say, one where you're just trying to mentally coerce or have someone essentially, you know, voluntarily give you everything they've got. It's that you want to get people talking. After that, you use different methods to try to verify the information.

Now, I have to say historically there's a pretty strong argument that pain matters. I think the real debate in the United States is not whether pain is effective in gathering up intelligence. I think historically, the argument there is, yes, in the past, if agents were compromised, if soldiers were taken hostage, you would assume that everything was blown because they would be tortured. They would be -- different levels of pain would use and people would crack.

So, I think the argument is the types of techniques they used. Are they morally acceptable to us or no, they're not? I think that's really probably a better historical argument. Now, it's entirely possible the way the agency conducted itself produced limited information. That may be because the information wasn't there to be had. It may be because they did it in a sloppy manner or because they had bad officers doing the work.

I mean, there are lots of unknowns and variables. That's why you need to look at the intelligence. You need to assess it.

TAPPER: And, Bob, let me ask you, going forward, what does the CIA still do? President Obama has said that publicly, the U.S. does not torture. We still do extraordinary rendition, though, right, which is basically outsourcing torture?

BAER: We do. And so does the military as well.

You know, it's not -- this isn't a CIA problem. This is an American government problem. It's a policy problem. And I don't think the CIA's a rogue agency that struck out on its own. It may not have given all the details to Congress and the White House, but that's sort of par for the course.

But this was a decision made in the White House in 2001. And what we need to do is go back and examine that and see what we got out of this very aggressive foreign policy, whether we're worse off today or better off. And, frankly, I just still do not see the point of torture.

You know, the Chinese use waterboarding. The North Koreans did. But it was to get false confessions out of our soldiers.

But even the SEALs don't use waterboarding for confessions. They use it to break people in their practice sessions. We really need to look at this -- and the CIA, don't forget, outsourced waterboarding to two contractors in Washington state who knew nothing about it. And so, if we just did this on the run, it shows.

TAPPER: All right. Bob Baer and Reuel Marc Gerecht, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up, an American arrested in Israel with ammunition and explosives, accused of plotting terrorist attacks on Muslim holy sites. How did police catch him?

Plus, Uber under fire abroad, backlash against the tech giant grows. Why are so many countries seeming to ban the car ride-sharing company?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. With so many U.S. officials worried that the just-released Senate torture report could ignite a powder keg of violent protests in the Muslim world, another spark of news comes from Israel where officials and the U.S. government are now trying to piece together the alleged conspiracy of an American man whom they say planned to attack some of Islam's most sacred sites using ammunition and explosives stolen from the Israeli army.

Live in Jerusalem, I want to go to CNN's senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman.

Ben, how close was this American man to allegedly carrying out this plot?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Fairly close, it seems, Jake. He had the explosives, which he obtained from his roommate who was an Israeli soldier who had stolen those explosives from the Israeli army and sold them to this man, Adam Everett Livix, identified as a Christian, 30-year-old from Texas.

Now, Livix told his investigators that he had staked out some of those sites for a possible attack. So clearly he had made a lot of preparations. Now, the question is, could he?

He did tell his Israeli acquaintances that he was a former Navy SEAL that doesn't seem to be the case. He didn't tell his Israeli acquaintances, however, that he had a criminal record from the United States. But Israeli officials very concerned about this possible plot to attack Muslim holy sites, given the level of tension here on the ground at the moment, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Ben Wedeman in Jerusalem, thank you so much.