Return to Transcripts main page

Wolf

Spending Bill Stacked with Pork; Countries Take Shots at U.S. Over Torture Report; Could U.S. Officials Be Arrested for War Crimes in Other Countries; CIA Chief Lawyer John Rizzo Talks CIA Torture; New Disturbing Videos from ISIS

Aired December 10, 2014 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: As the federal government gets closer to a potential shutdown, top lawmakers here in Washington have agreed to a deal that will likely keep the government open as usual. The massive spending bill must pass by tomorrow night to keep the government running. Let's check in with our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash.

Dana, this bill raising some eyebrows, but what's going on? Is it likely to pass? Is the president likely to sign it and avert a government shutdown?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, yes and yes. The good news is that Congress is actually doing one of its basic constitutional functions, Wolf, which is funding the government. But because of dysfunction here on Capitol Hill, what were supposed to be 11 different spending bills are jammed into one giant piece of legislation. And it's the last train leaving the station, this Congress, so a lot of policy riders unrelated are on.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): A massive $1.1 trillion bill to keep the government running and avoid a shutdown. But tucked inside the 1,603- page bill, lots of add-ons that have nothing to do with funding government agencies, but lots of help with the powerful getting help for their priorities. Wealthy donors are allowed to give thousands more to political parties than they do now.

A federal program that helps feed women and children, can call white potatoes a fresh vegetable. It happens that Mike Simpson, who comes from Idaho, chairs the subcommittee in charge of that program. Other high-profile add-ons, no federal dollars will be allowed to implement Washington, D.C.'s new recreational marijuana law. No money either to stop manufacturing incandescent light bulbs. Yes, light bulbs.

When Republicans took control of the House four years ago, it was supposed to mean the end of these big deals negotiated in back rooms.

(on camera): This is exactly the kind of Christmas tree bill, throwing everything on that you campaigned on, and you, again, promised not to do. REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: All the provisions

in this bill have been worked out in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion where they wouldn't be worked in the bill.

BASH (voice-over): It's true all the extraneous things in this bill were agreed on by both parties, things like reversing regulations on truck drivers that require shorter workweeks and taking one bird off the endangered species list.

BOEHNER: When we get to the end of the session, members are trying to find a way to get their legislation across the finish line, because of not really issues on the House side, more issues on the Senate side, to facilitate their ability to move legislation, some of the stuff ends up in one bill.

BASH: There is a new money-shaving measure likely to make taxpayers happy. No longer will they pay for official portraits for presidents or members of Congress.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Wolf, this bill was posted online late last night. All through the morning, members of Congress and their staff have tried to read through it. As that's been happening, there's been growing opposition from a number of Democrats, high-profile Democrats, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, because there is something in here that rolls back some of the so-called Dodd/Frank law, more regulation on Wall Street. She was on the Senate floor saying it would hurt consumers and put more money in the banks of Wall Street -- Wolf?

BLITZER: And Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House, issued a statement expressing concern about various provisions in the legislation as well, right?

BASH: She did. On this provision and also that campaign finance provision that I had in the piece, allowing people, wealthy donors to give even more money to parties than before.

This is going to be bipartisan in support and bipartisan in opposition, which is exactly what people assumed. But that's what happens when you have a very, very big bill with a lot of different interests going the last minute before Congress leaves town.

BLITZER: Thanks very much, Dana. A critically important issue right now, the funding of the federal government.

Up next, we get a sense of world reaction to the report on CIA interrogations and calls for prosecution by the United Nations, the International War Crimes Tribunal. Stay with us. Much more coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Several countries around the world are now taking shots at the United States as a result of the information released in the Senate Intelligence Committee's controversial report on CIA interrogations. The new president of Afghanistan, for example, says interrogations in his country by the CIA in his words, "violated all accepted norms of human rights." And the former president of Poland, who hosted a U.S. interrogation facility, said details in the report could hurt intelligence cooperation between the United States and allies.

Joining us, two of our international correspondents, Karl Penhaul, joining us from London, and our senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, joining us from New York.

Nick, you're monitoring, gauging reaction around the world to the Senate Intelligence Committee report. What's been the general thrust around the world to the reaction?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There hasn't been that kind of burst of outrage at U.S. embassies around the world, but they have been in lockdown anticipating.

As for the Afghan president's comments, well, he is playing to a constituency there. He's been notably more pro-American, pro-Western than his predecessor. But we haven't seen a global outcry at this stage, partly because there's shocking new detail in the report. And it is part of a broad soul-searching. There's nothing in it that's breathtakingly new. We knew this happened. Many in the Middle East, in fact, knew this was happening and perhaps anticipated worse.

So I think while the U.S. looks at this as an important part of respecting its own system, assessing where it's been and where it's going, many in the Middle East have consigned this the dark ages of the Bush era.

BLITZER: What are you hearing in London, Karl? What's been the reaction?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have heard a comment from Prime Minister David Cameron, on official visit to Turkey, spelling out what the CIA appears to have ignored for years, that torture is wrong and it undermines the moral authority of the government or the agency using it.

But what Cameron failed to spell out was that Britain may also be complicit in the U.S. torture program. Britain is accused of helping the United States send at least two Libyans back to Moammar Gadhafi's Libya where they awaited torture in Libyan jails. Also Britain is accused of allowing its territory, an island in the Indian Ocean, to be used as one of these black sites for U.S. interrogation tactics.

And of course, you mentioned the former Polish president. He came out today saying he, at one stage, did allow the CIA to use what he called "a quiet corner" for operations, but denied he knew what was going on there. He then followed it up by saying maybe we shouldn't talk too much about this because it will make it very difficult for the Americans to get intelligence cooperation in the future for these kind of dirty tactics.

BLITZER: Has there been any reactions, as far as you can tell, Nick, from ISIS, whether in Syria or Iraq?

PATON WALSH: Notably silent. Bear in mind, they have their own tactics. So they're probably not going to pick a moment where the U.S. is anticipating a response to make any response. But I think also, too, what's in that report probably doesn't, to them, change their narrative particularly. Their final admission by the U.S., they may use it in future propaganda.

You have to bear in mind, too, we've heard from former hostages held by ISIS that some of them were waterboarded. Obviously, that was an attempt to link their captivity to those held in Guantanamo and other black sites. But you have to also bear in mind the potential of some of the more barbaric techniques described in that report may be used on future U.S. or Western hostages. That's a chilling thought -- Wolf?

BLITZER: And, Karl, very quickly, I know you spent most of your time over there in Europe. Some U.S. officials who worked in these interrogation programs, CIA officials, other officials from the Justice Department who signed off on it, they now say they're reluctant to go to Spain or Belgium or France or Italy out of fear they could be arrested and charged with war crimes. Is that really credible?

PENHAUL: Well, there are a number of Spanish judges who are very keen on trying to pursue these international human rights cases. But in Britain, for example, there have been claims in the courts against the British government for their role in this CIA torture program. Those are still ongoing in British courts. It is a possibility. But what we can assume, based on current behavior, both the U.S. government and the British government may try and block these kinds of international claims.

And if you look at past experience as well, and I'm referring to the CIA's use of torture in Central America in the 1980s, those techniques based on manuals from Vietnam in the 1960s, a lot of these techniques being used in the war on terror in the 2000s, it has been very difficult to push forward and get the level of prosecution and find exactly those who were responsible for this -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Karl, thanks very much. Karl Penhaul in London.

Nick Paton Walsh visiting the United States. He's in New York right now.

Major players in the CIA's enhanced interrogation program are firing back at the critics out there and the accuracy of the Senate Intelligence Committee report. The former CIA lawyer who signed off on all these controversial techniques talks about what he knew. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Waterboarding, days of sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, all of that and a lot more were carried out by the CIA as part of its enhanced interrogation anti-terror program. But the CIA's chief lawyer at the time, John Rizzo, says none of that violated the anti-torture statutes.

I asked Rizzo last night exactly what he knew. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: You were the lawyer at the CIA during all of this enhanced interrogation technique, this debate right after 9/11, how far the U.S. could go in interrogating al Qaeda suspects, right?

JOHN RIZZO, FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL FOR THE CIA: Yes. I was the chief CIA lawyer.

BLITZER: Did you sign off on what is now widely seen as torture?

RIZZO: I was the first lawyer in the government briefed on these proposed techniques. I was the one who referred this matter over to the Department of Justice, which resulted, as we now know, in a top- secret memorandum coming back to me, addressed to me, the first of so- called "torture memos."

BLITZER: This was John Ashcroft, the attorney general?

RIZZO: Yes. It was actually signed by Jay Bybee, who was then head of the Office of Legal Counsel. But the attorney general did approve the memo.

BLITZER: Did you know specifically, you personally, what was going on with the waterboarding, the sleep deprivation, all the other really sordid techniques described in the Senate Intelligence Committee report?

RIZZO: Well, those were two proposed techniques. So, sure, I knew about them at the beginning. And I certainly knew that they were eventually approved by the Department of Justice.

BLITZER: So you were OK with it?

RIZZO: Yeah -- well, once the Department of Justice said that they did not violate the torture statute, yes, I deferred to the Department of Justice.

BLITZER: In the unclassified report -- there's hundreds of pages -- we went through it. There's a reference to you to an e-mail that you wrote in which you said, "It is clear to us from some of the run-up meetings we had with White House counsel that the White House is extremely concerned Secretary of State Colin Powell would blow his stack if he were to be briefed on what's been going on." That was an e-mail from John Rizzo, that's you, on date, July 31st, 2003.

Explain the background, why you believed and the White House believed that the then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four-star general, former national security adviser, would blow his stack if he were briefed on what the CIA and its contractors were doing to these al Qaeda prisoners.

RIZZO: Sure. Just indulge me for a second. I haven't seen that report. I was denied access to it. This is the first time in the 12 years since I wrote that e-mail that that it's been shown to me. So I'm trying to recall here on the fly. That e-mail is accurate and it was true. Now, it's important here, as you read -- I wrote the e-mail because I was to go to the particular meeting with the White House lawyers. It was not I who said "Colin Powell would blow his stack." I was reporting back to my bosses of the reaction of senior lawyers at the White House that they thought that he would blow his stack if he were to learn about these proposed techniques.

BLITZER: Could you tell us who at the White House wanted to deny this information to the then-secretary of state, General Colin Powell?

RIZZO: The White House counsel at the time was Alberto Gonzales.

BLITZER: Later became the attorney general?

RIZZO: Yes. And he was chairman of the meetings that I describe in that e-mail. Now, if I said he said that, he said that, but I don't know if this was Mr. Gonzales himself or someone higher than him told him and he was relaying it. I'm just not sure after all these years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: I invited Alberto Gonzales to join me in "The Situation Room" later today, who was then the White House counsel and later became the attorney general. He'll be my guest at 5:00 p.m. eastern later today. We'll talk about this memo that Colin Powell was not informed of what was going on, even though he was secretary of state, because he would supposedly "blow his stack." Michael Hayden, former CIA director, will join us in "The Situation Room" later today as well.

New disturbing videos are being released right now by the terror group ISIS. Brian Todd is standing by. He's got the latest information.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Turning to the fresh propaganda released by the terror group ISIS.

Brian Todd is tracking this story for us, the shocking, gruesome image.

What have we learned?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this video shows ISIS images from inside the contested Syrian city of Kobani. ISIS shows overhead video, at first, from a drone in one of these videos the areas of Kobani where it's battling Kurdish forces. In one sequence, a quick camera zoom down to street level and then you see this heart-pumping video, ISIS fighters running and scrambling for cover, firing, and trying to secure positions. They are blasting away on the streets and blasting away from inside shelled-out buildings.

Now, in another video, ISIS claims what it shows here are Iraqi soldiers deserting their positions and running away from ISIS forces. A narrator says in English, quote, "The Iraqis are fleeing like the cowards they are."

Wolf, these are often very effective. The question now is, why are they coming out now with this with the city of Kobani still very much contested.

BLITZER: Is the ISIS strategy, the media strategy, if we like to call it, is it actually working?

TODD: Some analysts say it's a sign of desperation that ISIS is putting out this propaganda because it's one of the most effective weapons that it still has. Others say these videos are still very effective for recruitment. They get a lot of recruits online from posting videos like that. And others say they have to keep putting these videos out to show the world they're not back on their heels. This is their way of doing that.

BLITZER: What about what's going on in Kobani? It's a relatively small town. Not a big town on the Syrian Turkish border. The fighting has been intense.

TODD: Yes, it has.

BLITZER: Nick Paton Walsh was recently inside and risked his life to bring us those images. What are you hearing?

TODD: We're hearing that ISIS has been rolled back there. U.S. officials telling us that Kobani is no longer the safe haven for command-and-control for ISIS fighters that it once was. But the fact remains, Wolf, that the U.S. And allies have not driven ISIS completely out of that small city as you mentioned. It's a big question why. We're posing that question to Pentagon officials, why three months after the bombings in Kobani started, you still haven't driven them out of that small town. We're trying to get answers from them and we'll have more on this in "The Situation Room."

BLITZER: We'll see you then, Brian. Thanks very much.

That's it for me. I'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room." Once again, the former CIA director, Michael Hayden, will be among our guests, and also the former attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, who was the White House counsel that signed off on those torture memos, as they're called. He'll join us as well.

For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is next.

For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)