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New Day

Military on Alert after CIA Torture Report Released; Nor'easter Batters New York, New England

Aired December 10, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: CIA, CYA, a new report expose as torture program that was ineffective and deceptive, officials insists the harsh methods worked. There are tales of torture and a lot of fall- out from the report's release. Are Americans in danger?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And a nor'easter drenching the northeast. Record rainfall, coastal flooding, some areas buried in snow and now the west coast could see its most intense storm in five years. What you need to know this morning before heading out.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: An unbroken man, Angelina Jolie, opens up about her new World War II movie, an epic story about one man's result and never give up despite unbelievable obstacles. What inspired the actress to tell his incredible story and why she calls it the hardest project she's ever done.

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY, with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira.

CUOMO: Good morning, welcome to NEW DAY. It's Wednesday, December 10, just before 6 a.m. in the east. Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota here. And Americans could be in real danger this morning as the fallout begins from the Senate's blistering CIA torture report.

CAMEROTA: The U.S. military telling CNN that extremists and home- grown terrorists could retaliate at any time. This as new questions are raised about the spy agency's pattern of deception. Why did agents use brutal tactics that the Senate report concludes were ineffective?

Let's get right to senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

Good morning, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Obama is standing by the release of this torture report. But former top CIA officials are only beginning to speak out and defend their actions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): It was stinging criticism for the CIA from a sitting president. In an interview with Telemundo, President Obama said the agency was wrong to use harsh interrogation techniques on terror detainees after the 9/11 attacks that amounted to torture.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think in the midst of a national trauma, and uncertainty as to whether the attacks were going to repeat themselves, what's clear is that the CIA set up something very fast, without a lot of forethought to what the ramifications might be.

ACOSTA: The president was responding to Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein's damning report on CIA interrogations that said detainees were water-boarded, kept in dungeon conditions; while others were naked, hooded and dragged, while being slapped and punched.

The report said the agency misled the Bush administration about the program and no CIA officer, up to and including CIA directors, briefed the president on the tactics before April 2006. In response to the report, CIA Director John Brennan said the brutal tactics "did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives."

Feinstein told CNN that's wrong.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: An examination of the records going back to the beginning of the program indicates that this is simply not true.

ACOSTA: But three former CIA directors say their program helped lead to the killing of Osama bin Laden. In an op-ed in the "Wall Street Journal," George Tenet, Michael Hayden and Porter Goss insisted they suspected bin Laden was planning to blow up New York City with a nuclear weapon, adding, "It felt like the classic 'ticking time bomb' scenario -- every single day."

Many top Republicans accuse Feinstein of unleashing a political attack.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R), SOUTH DAKOTA: It's very clear this appears to be simply an attempt to rewrite history by the Democrats; to bash the Bush administration.

ACOSTA: But one GOP senator, John McCain, a former prisoner of war, defended the report, saying torture does not work.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And the president was careful not to call any of these harsh interrogation tactics crimes. And so far the Justice Department has given no indication that it will prosecute former CIA officials for what happened during their interrogation program. And asked whether or not the president still stands by his claim that these interrogation tactics amounted to torture, a White House official said yes -- Alisyn and Chris.

CAMEROTA: OK. Jim Acosta, thanks for all of that.

The release of the report on the CIA's use of torture on terror suspects after 9/11 has law enforcement across the country on high alert. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security also issuing a warning about possible terrorist retaliation.

CNN's Pamela Brown is tracking developments live from Washington for us. What do you know, Pamela?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've learned, Alisyn, the FBI and DHS sent out a joint bulletin warning law enforcement agencies across the country that terrorists may want to exploit the torture memo findings as propaganda and use it as a recruiting tool.

This bulletin also says that it could spark online reaction and eventually influence home-grown violent extremists. So the big concern here is that, even though the memo is unlikely to lead to violence in the near-term, it could eventually inflame extremists as it circulates on social media and picks up steam.

Now there was a round table session with reporters yesterday with the FBI director, James Comey, and he echoed that sentiment. He said the concern in the FBI is whether the memo will generate any activity overseas or from homegrown violent extremists. Other than that, he stayed tight-lipped on the memo -- Alisyn and Chris.

CAMEROTA: OK, Pamela. Thanks so much. Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right. There's going to be a lot of debate here, political and otherwise. But let's kind of focus in on just what's right and what isn't. Let's bring in Mark Fallon, former official of the Department of Defense, criminal investigation task force. He currently is the director of Club Fed LLC.

Mr. Fallon, thank you for joining us.

MARK FALLON, FORMER OFFICIAL OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: You have personal and up-close knowledge of what was done and why. So let me ask you, does this report have it right?

FALLON: Yes, absolutely. The report is consistent with the facts as I know them. And this is a committee that has worked for years compiling the data, reviewing the documentary evidence. And so it's quite clear, it is finally establishing and illuminating the darkness to the public on things that those of us on the inside have known for years.

CUOMO: The former head of counterterrorism, Bob Grenier, said here yesterday, "We did it. It was not torture The lawyers told us that. And the government, the politicians who needed to know, knew what we were doing." Is he lying?

FALLON: Well, I don't know what he was told and who told him. I can tell you the assessment that we made within the Department of Defense at the time was that it was torture. We opposed it. The criminal investigation task force and those of us in the Department of Defense opposed what was going to occur. These tactics were gravitating to Guantanamo Bay and later went to Abu Ghraib. And so there's a direct linkage to what the CIA did to their detainees to the abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib.

So clearly, these policies made us less safe. But any legal analysis that I have heard, including my own review, shows me that these tactics, these techniques, are illegal.

CUOMO: All right. So let's check each of the boxes. You say it was torture. He said it wasn't and the lawyers say that. He says only three people were water-boarded. Do you believe that?

FALLON: Well, I don't know how many people were water-boarded. But the abuse was more than water-boarding. There was assaults. I mean, it is just -- if you look at the details in that report...

CUOMO: Right.

FALLON: ... it is just a terrible reflection of our country.

CUOMO: Right. But it just goes to whether or not people are being honest or not. That's why he mentioned the three. So I asked you about the three.

He said it was not deceptive, that it was open, and the people who needed to know knew. Do you believe that?

FALLON: No. I don't believe that is the case at all.

CUOMO: So you believe that a former head of CIA counterterrorism came on national television and just lied about what they were doing and how they were doing it?

FALLON: I didn't hear the interview. I don't know what he said, but I certainly do not believe that officials were told of the extent of this program as I know it.

CUOMO: The extent, is that giving cover to officials? Or do you think what they weren't told was material and relevant?

FALLON: Well, you know, you have to go back to even how the derivative product that they got out of this. I mean, there was no research done into what the effective way to interrogate a detainee was, because we had done this for years. The FBI, joint terrorism task forces, federal agents for years had been interrogating terrorists and eliciting accurate and reliable information.

And so when the CIA got this mission , I have no idea how they would have concluded that using techniques that are designed to harden resistance would actually be the type of techniques you would use to elicit accurate and reliable information. It just doesn't make sense.

CUOMO: Mr. Fallon, I've had people from all corners of the military come to me and say, "Stop acting like this is new. This maybe was one program, but these types of tactics happen all the time, by the U.S. and others, officially, unofficially, on the battlefield, on the fly. This happens. Don't treat it like it's new. That's being intellectually dishonest. Do you agree?

FALLON: Well, I can speak from my own experience. And I was the deputy commander of a task force of about 220 personnel with investigators and interrogators at Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq. And I can tell you we did not do this, and we did not observe this.

CUOMO: Why would they have done such horrible things as are detailed in this report, and I will not go into it on morning television. If they didn't think it was working, and they didn't think they were supposed to?

FALLON: I think it was a policy bred from ignorance. The core competency of the CIA is not to do interrogations, and they did have a core of interrogators within the CIA that they did not turn to. The CIA had some very, very good behavioral scientists, some operational psychologists. I know, because they were supporting me at the CITF. That's not who they turned to to design this program. They went to outside contractors.

So I was not at Langley at that time. You'll have to ask them how they actually did an analysis to determine that this was the way to actually do an interrogation. But as an interrogation professional, I don't know any interrogation professional that would concur that that is the way to do an interrogation.

CUOMO: Also, there's a little bit of mystery to why they would do something that so many people in the know would think wouldn't have worked and would have been sadistic. We're going to have to wait for those answers. But let me ask you, lastly: releasing the report, good idea, bad idea in terms of American safety?

FALLON: Well, you know, it's a price we continue to pay for torture. I think it's an excellent idea to actually illuminate the darkness. Believe me, other countries know what we've done. The bad guys know what we've done. So the people we were hiding it from was the American public.

So I think it's time to illuminate the darkness. We need to come clean with what we did, and we need to move forward. We have to determine now how do we best interrogate, detain suspects to protect our national security interests. And the government has done about $40 million of research into how to effectively do that. So we have to use science. So we blend the art with science, and we do this more effectively in the future.

CUOMO: They spent $40 million trying to figure it out. They spent hundreds of millions doing it the wrong way. I guess that's what we get for now. Mr. Fallon, thank you very much for giving us some straight talk on this.

FALLON: You're very welcome.

CUOMO: Alisyn. CAMEROTA: Chris, there is so much to dig into here. So we're going to look at this from all sides of the report this morning. The CIA's former top lawyer will weigh in next on why he says these techniques were not torture. In the meantime, let's go over to Michaela for more news.

PEREIRA: Yes, we've got lots of headlines this morning. Calm down.

Good morning, everyone.

It looks like a government shutdown will be avoided. Congressional Democrats and Republicans agreeing on a more than $1 trillion catch- all spending bill that will fund government operations through September of next year. Now the bill also includes extra money to fight Ebola and to fight ISIS.

Breaking this morning, a mixed decision from the judge overseeing the Oscar Pistorius case. An appeal of the "not guilty" verdict on murder charges can proceed, meaning the Olympian may face a conviction on a higher charge in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. But the judge dismissed a request from prosecutors to reconsider the length of the five-year sentence she gave Pistorius on the charge of culpable homicide.

MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber apologizing now for glib and insulting comments he made about Obamacare and the intelligence of American voters. Gruber, who was influential in shaping the Affordable Care Act, was grilled at a House Oversight Committee hearing yesterday. He came under fire last month when videos surfaced that showed him suggesting the Democrats purposefully misled Americans to get that law passed.

Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton is expected to be released from the hospital today after he was injured in a two-car crash in Charlotte. Newton suffered two fractures in his lower back when his truck flipped over. He was kept overnight for observation. It's unknown whether or not he will be able to play in the Panthers game on Sunday.

CAMEROTA: He might be able to play with two fractures in his back?

PEREIRA: I can't even imagine. I'm doubting that highly. But the fact that he's even being released is huge.

CAMEROTA: Right. Amazing.

CUOMO: Testament to what kind of athlete he is. And also...

PEREIRA: And what kind of shape he's in.

CUOMO: ... he lucky he got. We wish the best to him and the other driver involved in that accident.

CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, there are damaging storms on tap today from coast to coast. There's a stubborn nor'easter here that is sticking around for the next few days, while the West Coast faces its worst storm in years. Let's get right to meteorologist Chad Myers.

What's going on, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. I know you think I hate you by sending you that big nor'easter there. It was, although a rainmaker, a brutal storm in the northeast.

CAMEROTA: We agree.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS (voice-over): A powerful nor'easter packing heavy snow and torrential rain slammed the northeast overnight. The storm reportedly to blame for at least two deaths, one in New York, the other in Maine, as it bears down on the eastern seaboard.

Upstate New York and Vermont seeing upwards of 12 inches of snow in the past 24 hours. And may get ten more before this week is over.

Further south -- officials issuing flood warnings from Boston to New York. Record-setting rain in New York city nearing three inches, the most rain ever on Tuesday's date, December 9.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're stuck at home, you know, until this dies down.

MYERS: A bad day for air travel, too: over 1,000 flights canceled on Tuesday and more than 2,500 delays.

Near Boston, Massachusetts -- freezing rain creating treacherous black ice on roadways.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was terrifying, actually. I was out of control for, like, ten seconds.

MYERS: Causing multiple rollovers and spinouts. This SUV helplessly sliding into parked cars, sending it coasting down a neighborhood street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Couldn't stop the car, it was so icy.

MYERS: Even the sidewalk was dangerous.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS: And a lot of snow came down, as well. Killington, Vermont, although you will take it up there in the ski resort, 14 inches. Take that. Albany, only an inch and a half. So it really depends on where you are.

And more snow coming down today, especially here in the higher elevations. Around Buffalo, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus County, Syracuse, going to pick up another foot of snow.

Now that foot of snow is not going to get down to New York City; it's not going to get down to Philadelphia. But there will be flurries in the sky in New York for effect, I guess, for the next couple days as the storm does come, just sits there and spins for a while before it finally exits.

The next story we'll be talking about is a major storm in the west. We'll get to that in the next couple days. But this will put feet of snow in the Sierra, rain on the desert-parched areas of northern California. They really need this storm. They just don't need the flooding that's going to come with it.

CAMEROTA: All right. All right, Chad, thanks so much for that.

MYERS: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: All right. Now that we're seeing the grisly details of the CIA's torture tactics in the years after 9/11, we're going to be speaking with someone with direct knowledge of that situation. He's the -- he was the CIA's top lawyer during the Bush era. So how does he defend this? We'll ask him the tough questions.

CUOMO: Plus, it is not going away. The protests, calls for change, the outcry over unarmed black men killed by cops, it is spreading across the nation. Now a cause celebre, high-profile athletes joining in. The question is, what do you do with all this energy? What happens next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: The explosive findings in the Senate report on CIA torture have drawn a wave of criticism from the spy agency and members of the Bush administration, who say their point of view was left out.

So joining us now is someone directly involved in the decision to use those enhanced interrogation techniques. He's John Rizzo. He served as general counsel to the CIA during the Bush era. He is also the author of "Company Man: 30 Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA."

Mr. Rizzo, thanks so much for being here this morning.

JOHN RIZZO, GENERAL COUNSEL TO CIA DURING BUSH YEARS: Good morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I want to go over the tactics that have been revealed in this report, at least those that I can say on morning television. Let's talk about what has come out. They say -- I also want to find out why you wouldn't qualify these as torture.

No. 1, they say the detainees were kept in complete darkness, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, in isolation. Also, they were kept in freezing temperatures. They believe that it was so cold that it contributed to the death of one of the detainees. Also, water-boarding as we've heard so much about, almost to the point of drowning.

And also, the sleep deprivation. I hadn't heard the details of what this was like before. But detainees were kept awake, sometimes for 180 hours. And the way they were kept awake was having their hands shackled above their heads so they could never be in a position to sleep. If these things don't qualify as torture, what would?

RIZZO: Well, first of all, Alisyn, just to parse through the four specifics there that you just described, the first two were abuses. I -- I would characterize them as torture.

CAMEROTA: Meaning the isolation, the complete darkness and the freezing temperatures?

RIZZO: Correct.

CAMEROTA: Those were not supposed to happen?

RIZZO: No.

CAMEROTA: Those were off the books?

RIZZO: Right. Those were not among the improved enhanced interrogation techniques that the Justice Department approved in writing in August of 2002.

CAMEROTA: OK.

RIZZO; So those were clearly abuses.

Now the water-boarding and the sleep deprivation -- yes. Those were approved techniques by the Department of Justice as not constituting torture. Therefore, we proceeded to include those in some of the ways we interrogated high-level al Qaeda terrorists.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

RIZZO: Now this is not -- I should emphasize, this shouldn't be entirely news, because the Justice Department memos were actually addressed to me in 2002, described in rather chilling and graphic detail exactly what I just set forth. And they are -- I mean, they're very tough. I'm not going to say that these techniques, the water- boarding and the extended sleep deprivation, I'm not going to minimize it; these were very tough tactics.

CAMEROTA: Yes. But I mean, you describe them as tough, but you don't believe they rise to the level of torture. So let me just read the legal definition of torture. This comes from the 1994 U.S. code.

And it says, "'Torture' means an act committed by a person, acting under the color of law, specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering, other than the pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions, upon another person within his custody or physical control."

If keeping someone awake for more than seven days in an uncomfortable position, whereby they can't sleep, and water-boarding them to within an inch of their life isn't inflicting severe at least mental pain and suffering, again, what is? RIZZO: Well, you know, I mean, you describe, I mean, that's the legal

-- U.S. legal definition of torture. And these tactics were -- were tough, were brutal. But I don't -- I'm a lawyer, and I didn't believe then and the Justice Department didn't conclude then, and honestly, I don't believe now that, as harsh as they are, and as they are harsh, they did not rise to that legal threshold in the statute you just read.

CAMEROTA: Don't they inflict mental pain and suffering?

RIZZO: Well, I mean, they are -- they are tough. I mean, they are tough. And they inflict, you know, psychological effects. I don't gainsay that. But again, I don't mean to repeat myself, but it -- these things do not rise to the legal -- to the legal threshold.

CAMEROTA: Well, Mr. Rizzo, the upshot of all this is that they didn't work. According to Senator Dianne Feinstein and the findings of this entire report, it's that they only produced false intelligence. Fabricated intelligence. Let me play for you what Senator Feinstein says her conclusion is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FEINSTEIN: 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)

CAMEROTA: Mr. Rizzo, do you know of one solid example of a terror plot that was foiled as a result of these techniques?

RIZZO: Well, first of all, I will say that I can't say that these -- during the seven years of this program there was the so-called ticking time bomb scenario described and uncovered. That's just not the way this program worked or what the -- what the threats were.

There were specific terrorist plans, intentions, that were uncovered through a maze of intelligence, but including intelligence derived by this program.

Now Senator Feinstein and the Democrats on the committee are certainly free to make whatever conclusion they choose to make. I will say that those conclusions are vigorously contested in the CIA rebuttal, in the Republican intelligence committee minority report. And to me, most significantly, in -- by Leon Panetta, President Obama's first CIA director, a man who was against the program, ended; they called it torture. Yet in his recent memoir, he'd say that there's no doubt that the interrogation program produced important, even critical intelligence in the fight against al Qaeda.

CAMEROTA: John Rizzo, we really appreciate you joining us on NEW DAY. We understand that hindsight is 20/20, and it's wonderful to get your perspective and explanation for how all this happened. Thanks so much for being here.

RIZZO: I appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn. And one of the concerns is that this isn't just some domestic debate. This has now been broadcast to the world. And the question will be, well, how will they react; and will it hurt our relations with other countries? Will it spur attacks against Americans overseas or at home? We're going to tell about the risks that the government sees.

Plus, the royals' final star-studded night in New York. Oh, and what a night it was. Who did they rub elbows with? And how about the dress that stole the show? That's just my opinion. Straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)