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Biden Speaks on Torture Report; Report: CIA Torture More Brutal Than Thought; Heinrich Votes to Release Torture Report; CIA Statement on Torture Counters Intelligence Committee Findings; Hagel Speaks Out on Torture Report, Military on High Alert; Is Obama's Break from Past Torture Allegations Clear?
Aired December 09, 2014 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The vice president, just moments ago, spoke out on the release of this Senate Intelligence Committee report on enhanced interrogation techniques, which the critics call torture. He also strongly praised his former colleague, Senator John McCain. Listen to this.
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JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The most important piece is that we're big enough, strong enough and consistent enough to say we made a mistake. We made a mistake, we're exposing it. That will strengthen us worldwide. It will not weaken us. And that it will make it more difficult for the mistake to ever be able to be made again. That's the importance of the report.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it a black stain on the United States?
BIDEN: No. I think it's a badge of honor. Every country, every country has engaged in activities somewhere along the line that it has not been proud of. But, think about it. Name me another country that's prepared to stand up and say, this was a mistake, we shouldn't have done what we have done and we will not do it again. I think that's --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Here are some of the key findings from the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA interrogation techniques. They found it to be more brutal than originally thought, that it involved more detainees than originally thought. And the Senate report acknowledges that it lacks critical oversight. The CIA, in a separate statement, calls the Senate Intelligence Committee report flawed.
Let's discuss. Joining us from Capital Hill, one of the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Martin Heinrich, a Democrat from New Mexico.
Senator, thank you for joining us.
You voted to release this report now, right? SEN. MARTIN HEINRICH, (D-NM), MEMBER, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE:
I did, Wolf.
BLITZER: Why?
HEINRICH: You know, I think the key findings are critical to get out there to make this right. I think what people will find in the report is that it finds that any reasonable person -- that the activities engaged in by the CIA, I think any reasonable person would see as torture. More importantly, they find that it didn't work. And I think it's important in our oversight rule, the key finding, that the CIA repeatedly misled the Congress, it's going to be important for us to make sure this never happens again.
BLITZER: When Secretary of State John Kerry, over the weekend, called the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, and expressed concerns about the timing of the release of this report, saying that U.S. civilians, diplomats, military personnel, their lives could be endangered as a result of all of the information that is about to be made public and the Pentagon subsequently alerted Marines, thousands of Marines to go on a higher state of alert, did that concern you?
HEINRICH: It does. But I will say that it's important to realize that what has put Americans at risk for a number of years has been the actions taken that amounted to torture, not the fact that we are releasing this report. I think there will never be a good time to release this report.
But let's be clear, our enemies in ISIS, our enemies in al Qaeda, they don't need an excuse to attack us. We are committing air strikes against ISIS right now and they have plenty of motivation to come after Americans.
I think what's important here is that we have stood up, said we made a mistake, we're going to be on the side of good and righteousness moving forward, and we're going to acknowledge our mistakes.
BLITZER: But 9/11 occurred before there were any allegations of enhanced interrogation techniques. That happened before there was any alleged torture, right?
HEINRICH: There's no question.
BLITZER: Because you said that these enemies are going after the United States because of the allegations of torture.
HEINRICH: The information about detainee treatment has been in the media for a number of years now and there's no question that it's been used as a recruiting tool by some of these extreme organizations.
That said, I think, on balance, we need to own our mistakes. We need to move forward and we need to be a leader in the world in terms of human rights and, frankly, prosecuting terrorists as well. And I think this is a painful but necessary step in that. BLITZER: If any of your constituents in New Mexico are killed,
whether military personnel, diplomats, civilians, as a result of the release of this report, what will go through your mind?
HEINRICH: I think it's a very difficult decision to do this. However, I think it's necessary. And, in the long term, will be an important part of our war on terror and the fact that we need to hold the terrorists accountable. And, once again, I will tell you that it was the mistakes made to endorse this kind of arguably torture that will be the result.
And, you know, we are going to hold those terrorists accountable. We are going to take this fight to them with our allies, wherever is necessary.
But we also have a higher moral standard than they do. We're America. This was an un-American activity. We're not al Qaeda. We're not ISIS. We're much better than that. And this report confirms our mistakes but it's also a part of the healing moving forward and the restoration of our place in the world to have the moral credibility to lead this fight.
BLITZER: Senator Heinrich, thank you very much for joining us.
HEINRICH: Thank you for having me, Wolf.
BLITZER: Still ahead, a lot more coming up on the breaking news. More with the former CIA officer, Gary Bernstein; the former Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman. Stay with us.
We'll also hear from the defense secretary, Chuck Hagel. He is now reacting in an exclusive interview with CNN on this report by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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BLITZER: Let's bring back the former CIA officer, former Middle East station chief, Gary Bernstein; and the former Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harman, now head of the Wilson Center in Washington, a former ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.
Jane, you were there, privy to a lot of the information. When the CIA puts out a statement today, a press release, saying that these enhanced interrogation techniques did, in fact, work, they provided useful information, important information that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save American lives, do you agree with the CIA? Because this is totally counter to what the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein's report, put out today, saying it was useless and counterproductive, these enhanced interrogation techniques.
JANE HARMAN, DIRECTOR, PRESIDENT & CEO, WOODROW WILSON CENTER & FORMER CONGRESSWOMAN: Well, the Senate Intelligence majority report meticulously documents these issues and how we found out about where different high-value targets were. And John McCain, on the Senate floor, just an hour ago said that the abuse of prisoners produces more bad than good intelligence, that captors will say that -- that detainees will say whatever their captors want them to say.
BLITZER: So, excuse me. So you're say, Jane Harman, the CIA in their official statement that they released today is flat-out lying?
HARMAN: No, I'm not saying that they are lying. There are obvious different view points. And I haven't read the complete CIA report or the Senate Republican report. But I'm saying, based on the years I served on the House Intelligence Committee, I never believed that these techniques produced the intelligence that we desperately need. And, yes, we were worried about an imminent attack. I think the way we got that intelligence was to build trust with prisoners, the way the FBI and military traditionally have done that. And I think that these practices, as the Senate majority report documents, were out of line with our values and were not as effective as using the traditional interrogation techniques.
BLITZER: The CIA statement, Gary, also goes on to say -- and this, once again, is in total contradiction to what the Dianne Feinstein, Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded -- "That information the CIA obtained from these al Qaeda detainees through these enhanced interrogation techniques together with other streams of intelligence," they say, "helped find Osama bin Laden."
You agree with the CIA or do you agree with the Senate Intelligence Committee report, which says that that is not true?
GARY BERNSTEIN, FORMER CIA OFFICER: What I would say, Wolf, and it's in line with what Congresswoman Harman just stated, that sometimes, it works when you're asking people nicely and you're doing a regular interview. Other times, pressure works. Pressure works, whether it's the cold, sleep deprivation or all those kinds of things. I'm not just talking about CIA experience. Authoritarian governments have done this for years. And we don't want to be an authoritarian government. I'm saying there's two questions here. Do these mechanisms work? Yes. Two, should we be doing them? That's a separate issue. And we don't want to be doing them unless we have an imminent catastrophic threat to the United States where we'll lose millions.
BLITZER: All right.
BERNSTEIN: That would be my viewpoint on this.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: We're going to hear from Chuck Hagel in a moment. So I have to wrap it up right now.
Chuck Hagel speaking out to CNN. The bottom line question is, do you believe Senator Dianne Feinstein's report or the CIA Director John Brennan when he comes out with a very, very different assessment of the effectiveness, as he calls it, of some of the techniques. We're going to continue our analysis.
To both of you, Gary Bernstein, Jane Harman, thanks very much.
Once again, the Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is now speaking out on the Senate's report, the preparation at the Pentagon for possible retribution by terrorists in the Middle East against American diplomats and military personnel and civilians. We're going to hear what Chuck Hagel told our own Jim Sciutto. That's coming up next.
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BLITZER: In anticipation of the release of the Senate's CIA interrogation report, American embassies and interests around the world were put on alert. The fear of retribution over the details in the report is very, very real.
Let's go to CNN's chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. He's joining us right now.
You've been traveling with the Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. You've had a chance to speak with him a while ago. You spoke with him in an exclusive interview. Give us a sense of the reaction you're getting from the outgoing defense secretary about the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'll tell you, Wolf, when I asked him a question about that report, he said it was the president's decision to make this public and that his focus is very much on how U.S. troops are affected by this, both across the border here from Kuwait in Iraq, where we visited today, but also Afghanistan, where we visited with Chuck Hagel this weekend. And he said he has put all combatant commanders on alert as a result of this report.
Here's how he described that threat to me earlier today.
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SCIUTTO: In light of the danger that it poses to the troops in the field, do you think it's a mistake to release that report?
CHUCK HAGEL, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Well, you know, the president has said we need to be honest and get this report out. The administration's worked very closely with the Congress. The Congress feels pretty strongly about this. 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've directed all of our combatant commanders to have all of their commands on alert because we want to be prepared just in case. We have not detected anything specific anywhere, but we want to be prepared, and we are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: And, Jim, did you get a sense from Chuck Hagel, the outgoing defense secretary himself, a long-time Senator, Republican Senator from Nebraska -- he served on these committees over the years -- that like John Kerry, he was concerned about the timing, the release of this report right now because it potentially could endanger Americans? I know he's walking a little bit of a delicate line right now, but did you get a sense he would have preferred this report not come out?
SCIUTTO: Well, I think it's a tough call because, on the one hand, he is very aware of the timing. Here's a defense secretary and an administration that is running two wars again in this region in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and expanding that war in Iraq pretty much every day. So you have that balance. But on the other hand, I think there's resignation that there was knowledge out there of CIA use of enhanced interrogation techniques, that people in this region already know it, that this will give certainly more detail about it and spark reactions, but that they couldn't control it, they couldn't stop it. So resigned to the fact that they have to deal with it and deal with it as best they can now.
BLITZER: Jim Sciutto traveling with the secretary of defense. More of his reporting coming up later in "The Situation Room" here on CNN.
One of the president's first acts in office was to ban torture by Americans. He did so in the first days of his first term. Does the release of today's Senate report bring more transparency to his opposition to enhanced interrogation? CNN's top analysts are standing by. We'll discuss.
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BLITZER: One of President Obama's first acts taking office in January 2009 was to sign an executive order barring U.S. officials from using torture practices. The Senate report released today by the Intelligence Committee, by Democrats mostly, would seem to be a fulfillment of the president's desire for public accountability of those CIA operations during the Bush administration. But is the president's break with past torture allegations completely clear?
Let's bring in our senior political analyst, David Gergen. He's been a White House advisor to four presidents. And CNN's chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.
Gloria, it's pretty unusual. You have Dianne Feinstein on one hand giving you this impassioned speech. She got the backing of John McCain. But John Brennan, issues a statement strongly disagreeing. You've got the other Republicans on the Intelligence Committee saying this is a disaster. John Kerry concerned about U.S. diplomats and their security right now. There seem to be so many conflicting messages out there coming from these folks here in Washington.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Look. And, Wolf, why shouldn't there be. This is the most sweeping condemnation of the Central Intelligence Agency in over 40 years. And what it shows when you lift the veil is what was very often a rogue operation, disagreement in the CIA, whether what they were doing was appropriate or even worked, deception at all levels, including to Congress, and perhaps to the president of the United States. And I think that there's got to be conflict over whether this should be released, particularly if you're sitting at the CIA. These people are not going to be prosecuted. Leon Panetta saw to that. But if you're sitting at the CIA, it's like a scab has been removed. And there are people there who are trying to do their jobs under difficult circumstances. And they're all now being lumped together. And I think it's a real problem over there for morale.
And it's also a moment this country can step back and sort of set the reset button on how we continue to address the war on terror. And it's a public conversation that actually, I think, we ought to be having.
BLITZER: All right.
David, you've heard all of the sides now. What goes through your mind?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Wolf, I'm mostly concerned about what may happen to American personnel, American troops, American diplomats overseas. I thought Secretary Kerry, in calling Dianne Feinstein and asking her to delay the publication of the report, should have been taken seriously. I have enormous respect for Dianne Feinstein. She's been a pillar of the Senate for years. On this particular issue, I think it's tragedy for the country that we have so many voices speaking at once, that there was no agreement before this was all done among the parties about how this might be handled. And, instead, we looked like we're at sixes and sevens to the world. And by the way, we also have a brutal CIA.
I don't think the report shows that we had a rogue operation. I think the report alleges there was a rogue operation. And what the CIA did or didn't do is still very much in question.
But to go back to John Kerry, it would have been so much better if this report had been held until a time when ISIS is in retreat so that they can't use this as a recruiting tool, they can't exploit this against us and against our American personnel overseas. And there is that danger now.
BORGER: You know, the timing of this --
BLITZER: Gloria, hold on one second.
Politically speaking, if they didn't release it this week, it probably wasn't going to be released for a long time because the Republicans are going to be the majority in the Senate starting January.
BORGER: And if I had to guess, that was clearly Dianne Feinstein's thinking, which is that she is no longer going to be chairman of that committee. And there's a long history here, Wolf. They've been working on this report for years. They have accused the CIA of spying on Senate investigators. This is a total breach of trust between the people who oversee the CIA and the CIA itself.
And, again, I totally see David's point about the timing on this. We know why Dianne Feinstein did this. But I also think it's a moment where we can, as a country, take a look at what we're doing and our behavior and understand the fear that drove it and what we ought to be doing going forward.
BLITZER: David?
GERGEN: I just don't agree that this is an appropriate time. Of course, we need to be transparent over time. I think there are time and places where you can do that, when you can have a more rational, calmer conversation. But when you're in the middle of a conflict with people who are beheading their hostages and dressing them up as if they're detainees of Americans and want to use this against us, I'm not sure I'd want to play into their hands. And frankly, at a time when Americans -- so many Americans are questioning authority coming out of Ferguson and all these race issues, I'm not sure this is a time to put another log on that fire.
BLITZER: All right, guys. We're going to continue this discussion, full analysis. A lot more of the details. All of our reporters and producers, they're going through -- and I have it right here -- these hundreds of pages with all sorts of amazing details in this Senate Intelligence Committee report. The official title, Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program.
Thanks very much.
That's it for me. I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."
For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is next.
For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right after a quick break.
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