CLIFFORD: How long you been working on this project, Dan?
DANIEL: Five years.
CLIFFORD: Five, wow.
Every day? Nights, weekends?
DANIEL: It’s been very consuming.
Do you have a relationship, Dan? Family?
Just trying to get a better sense of who you are.
When it started, I was seeing someone, but, you know,
with the nature of the work and the hours...
I wasn’t a very good partner.
CLIFFORD: Five years, and it could all go away.
Just vanish in the face of these allegations.
I can certainly imagine
an ambitious young man like yourself
spends years with his head buried
in some terrible spectacle,
gets frustrated with the process,
sees an opportunity to get the truth out faster,
maybe crosses a line.
I’m assuming this is the most important thing
-you’ve ever been a part of. -I didn’t do it.
Or I can see an equally ambitious senator
encouraging you to do something.
Now would be a good time to tell me.
That did not happen. What I did, I did on my own.
I acted alone.
SECURITY GUARD: You ever sleep, bro?
-I used to. Got in the way of work. -(scanner beeps)
Anything in that bag contain the real names
of CIA officers, assets or partners,
or any information that would be in violation
of the agreement between the Central Intelligence Agency
and the United States Senate?
-Have a good night, Jay. -You, too, Dan.
CLIFFORD: So, you did steal the document?
DANIEL: I did not steal it. I relocated it.
CLIFFORD: Everyone has their own words.
The language is built to choose sides.
Now, why did you relocate it?
They could send you to jail, Dan.
DANIEL: I think I should start at the beginning.
(traffic passing in distance)
(camera beeps, clicks)
(phone ringing in distance)
-McDONOUGH: You Dan Jones? -Yeah.
-Denis McDonough. -Hi.
Thank you so much for meeting me.
Come on in, yeah. Absolutely.
So, thanks for coming in.
Uh, tell me your story.
My second day of grad school was September 11th.
I was headed to a lecture, and everything just... stopped.
The next day, I changed all my classes to national security.
Good man.
So, what’s the long-term plan?
Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Are you running for office?
Oh, uh, no. No politics for me.
I think I’d be more effective behind the scenes,
somewhere I can really make a difference.
So, what about before Harvard?
Uh, what’d you fill up your days with then?
Teach For America for three years in Baltimore.
Seventh-graders.
I read that you taught high school Spanish
in Saint Paul, Minnesota, after college?
And LBJ’s first job was teaching
at the Mexican school in South Texas.
Knowing how to deal with children
is a highly useful skill when working on the Hill.
(laughs)
But from my perspective as Senate staff,
I would wait until things turn around up here.
I think Senator Daschle would say the same thing.
Go get some real-world experience in counterterrorism,
in... foreign policy.
Try the CIA. Try FBI.
Have them teach you what they don’t teach you in a classroom.
-Then you can come back here, and... -(phone ringing)
help us fix all the things that Bush and Cheney are breaking.
McDonough.
Yes, Senator, uh, one second.
The boss. Here.
Keep in touch, huh?
-Thank you very much for your time. -Absolutely.
McDONOUGH: I do not have that information right now,
but I can certainly get that for you in the next 15.
-(door opens, closes) -Yeah.
DANIEL: In regards to the bomb plots in Germany,
three men were arrested in Medebach
with 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide
and 26 military-grade detonators.
The CIA suspects the Islamic Jihad Union...
-(door opens) -MORRIS: Excuse me.
Uh, can I borrow you for a minute, Dan?
Uh, Senator would like to see you.
Yeah, of course.
(phones ringing)
-FEINSTEIN: Morning, Dan. -DANIEL: Morning, Senator.
Have you seen the story today in The New York Times?
-No, Senator, I have not. -Evidently, the CIA destroyed
tapes of interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees.
Did the Intel Committee know there were tapes?
No. This is the first I’ve heard of it.
So, I want to find out what was on the tapes
and why they were destroyed.
We want you to lead the investigation, Dan.
But if the tapes were destroyed, how do we...
FEINSTEIN: They’re saying they have written records.
Thousands of pages. Let’s see about that.
I want you to find out exactly what they have
and read every word of it.
(gavel banging)
FEINSTEIN: This report on the destruction of tapes by the CIA
-has been two years in the making. -Thank you.
The findings are very troubling,
but it will remain classified.
Based on these revelations, a larger study into
the entire CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
is clearly in order.
All in favor, say "yay."
-CLERK: Mr. Whitehouse? -WHITEHOUSE: Yay.
-CLERK: Mr. Burr? -BURR: Yay.
-CLERK: Mr. Rockefeller? -ROCKEFELLER: Yay.
CLERK: Mr. Chambliss?
-CHAMBLISS: Nay. -CLERK: Mr. Risch?
CHAMBLISS: I think this is a waste of time.
Now, I know you voted against this, Saxby...
But you already had your tapes investigation.
Yes, but the rest of us voted to go further, 14 to one.
It’s our job to provide oversight.
All during the campaign, you got candidate Obama saying
how he wanted to be the first post-partisan president.
Saxby, you know me.
It’s my intention that this report be seen
as coming from the entire Intelligence Committee,
not just the Democrats.
So, who takes the lead?
Well, I was thinking Dan Jones.
He spent four years doing counterterrorism at the FBI.
He’s already got the security clearances.
The rules are the same as the tapes investigation.
No politics, no bias,
and the senator isn’t interested
in opinions or theories, just facts.
Based on what you found out already,
this could go to a pretty dark place.
You need to keep your personal feelings out of it.
That’s the first thing Republicans are gonna look for.
No talking to the press or your girlfriend
or any family members.
Nobody outside of the committee.
You’re gonna get a team of six--
three Republicans, three Democrats--
but there can’t be any Republican sentences
or Democratic paragraphs.
And how long do we have?
We’re hoping you can wrap it up in a year or so.
You’re gonna have to keep the senators updated on your work.
Nobody wants any surprises.
There’s a covert CIA off-site in Virginia.
You start tomorrow.
-Jones, right? -Sean.
-Hi. Dan. -Sean Murphy from the Agency.
-Let’s go inside. -Okay.
SECURITY GUARD: Identification, gentlemen.
-The room we’ve designated is a SCIF. -(scanner beeps)
No phone reception, no photos-- you know the drill--
-lead walls. -(scanner beeps)
DANIEL: And, per the agreement,
the room is off-limits to everyone
-except committee personnel. -Absolutely.
No one inside without your permission.
(door opens)
(door closes)
-And the computers? -Right here.
Your own dedicated server, air-gapped workstations.
We’ll be updating the database as we go.
The files will be loaded on here as we collect them
-from across the Agency. -Great.
We’ll want all relevant documents as soon as possible.
-Well, we got to vet it first. -Vet?
There’s a lot to...
Director Panetta agreed to give us
everything pertaining to the program.
Wh-Who would be, who would be vetting it?
It’s a big agency.
We got to make sure you don’t get anything
you’re not supposed to.
(keypad beeping)
(light switches clicking)
(lights clinking)
Make yourself at home.
There’s... no printer?
No paper.
No documents are allowed to leave the room
without CIA approval.
Paper has a way of getting people in trouble at our place.
I think at some point we’re gonna need a printer.
And paper.
At our place...
paper’s how we keep track of laws.
Okay.
(mouse clicking)
(TV reporter speaking faintly)
TV REPORTER: ...calling this an obvious terrorist attack
based on very preliminary information,
-(phones ringing) -the information that
intelligence officials are getting...
MAN: You’re not gonna like this.
TV REPORTER: ...a possible hijacked plane, and of course
the-the very horrifying video of the plane...
We confirmed some of the names.
The hijackers?
Two of the guys from the Malaysia meetings.
The San Diego guys. They took down Flight 77.
Pentagon.
TV ANCHOR: ...the coordination that took place
to have two planes hit the towers...
Attention, everyone, please.
We have reason to believe the Counterterrorism Center
is a potential target.
We’re asking all personnel to evacuate, immediately.
-(crowd murmuring) -TV REPORTER: Jim Miklaszewski
there from the Pentagon.
Of course, the president has the authority
to scramble military, uh, forces,
and, uh, this is a case, obviously,
in which, uh, retaliation, if indeed it proves to be
a terrorist incident,
-will be contemplated. -(door closes)
DICK CHENEY (over TV): We also have to work, though,
sort of, the-the dark side, if you will.
We’ve got to spend time in the shadows
in-in the intelligence world.
Uh, a lot of what needs to be done here
will have to be done quietly, without any discussion...
TENET: Fucking warned them.
August 6th presidential briefing:
"Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S."
-Flashing red lights. -BLACK: And before that,
in July, what did we say?
"There will be significant terrorist attacks
against the United States in the weeks and months to come."
It’s not your fault.
It is a mean, nasty, dangerous, uh, dirty business out there,
and we have to operate in that arena.
But we need to make certain that we have not
tied the hands, if you will, of our intelligence community.
Counterterrorism Director Black and I saw President Bush
at Camp David this weekend.
And the president gave me his word that there will be
no changes in CIA leadership as a result of Tuesday’s attacks.
We will look forward now,
not waste time second-guessing or looking for blame.
Going forward, we will be the tip of the spear
in the battle against Al Qaeda.
BLACK: As I said to the president, two weeks,
we’ll have flies walking across Al Qaeda eyeballs.
I’ve asked Chief Counsel Rizzo here to walk us through
where we are from a legal standpoint.
The president has issued a memorandum of notification
giving CIA the power to capture and detain suspected terrorists
on the battlefield.
Detain them where?
Are we bringing them to the U.S.?
We’re really not in the prison business
-over in Counterterrorism. -TENET: Look,
the budget for Counterterrorism last week was what?
$600 million?
The budget this week is whatever you need it to be.
And we are in whatever business it takes to get the job done.
DANIEL: Initially, CIA legal
stated that any facility used to hold detainees
had to meet the requirements of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons,
but then Deputy Director Pavitt
thought that was gonna be too limiting.
So, who came up with the black sites?
Not totally clear.
My guess is either
a senior officer at Counterterr-- CTC,
or Alec Station bin Laden unit
decided black sites were the best option.
Well, did the CIA tell the State Department
they were making deals to hold people on foreign soil?
Where was Secretary of State Powell in all this?
Well, I found a memo.
-The CIA’s general counsel... -(paper rustling)
said the decision was made
not to tell Powell about the program,
because...
"He would blow his stack
if he were to be briefed on what was going on."
Well, who decided that?
Someone inside the White House.
Mm-hmm.
What about interrogations?
President Bush’s memoranda
just authorized capturing and detaining.
It didn’t say anything about interrogations.
And who gave them permission to play that role?
Nobody. It looks like it started with legal at CTC.
Do you want me to brief Senator McCain on this? I know he’s interested.
The Republicans just pulled out of the study, Dan.
(door opens)
Good morning.
Where is everybody?
Attorney General Holder opened a criminal investigation
into the CIA.
As a result, the Agency won’t allow any of their people
to be interviewed for our report.
The Republicans don’t see how we can move forward,
so they’re out.
(Julian sighs)
So, does this mean we stop?
I mean, the committee voted to investigate.
The senator says we keep going.
But we can’t actually talk to anyone who was involved
-in the program. -Right. According to CIA legal,
CIA personnel is only speaking to DOJ.
And is DOJ gonna share their findings?
I mean, can we work with them?
I’ve reached out to the special prosecutor.
I’m waiting to hear back.
Okay, but if nobody who actually worked on the program
is going to talk to us, how do we investigate?
So, we have the files,
their e-mails and cables, their memos.
We have to use their own communications
to tell the story.
Do you have any idea how hard that’s gonna be?
The tapes investigation took two years, Dan,
and this is about a lot more than what was on the tapes.
Uh, we don’t even know what this is.
Right, but we do know who it starts with.
We go one detainee at a time.
(typing)
(jet engine idling)
(speaks Arabic)
(whimpering)
You speak English?
My name is Ali Soufan. I’m with the FBI.
You’re under arrest.
-You understand? -No. Where are you taking me?
(door closes)
(labored breathing)
Your wound is infected.
But we’re going to take good care of you.
I want to show you something.
(unzips bag)
(chatter in Arabic over video)
He’s talking to someone off-screen.
He’s calling him Mukhtar.
You know who that is?
(chatter over video continues)
Mukhtar.
-(button clicks, video stops) -A man who lost his mind?
ZUBAYDAH: No, not him.
(speaks Arabic)
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
(Zubaydah groans)
Abu Zubaydah confirmed that KSM is the leader
of all Al Qaeda operations outside of Afghanistan.
He trained the hijackers.
We’re calling him the mastermind.
TENET: Outstanding.
Hats off to the bin Laden group.
Whichever one of your people did this,
I want to call them and congratulate them in person.
Who was it?
Wasn’t our guy.
What? Who got it?
BERNADETTE: FBI is working Zubaydah.
An FBI guy got this?
Yes, Ali Soufan.
Uh, they used him in the Cole investigation.
He’s part of their counterterrorism group. He speaks Arabic.
I don’t care who speaks Arabic.
This is not just a criminal investigation.
We are gathering intelligence here.
That is what we do.
The FBI is looking at the past.
We need to stop attacks in the future.
I want CIA in the room with this guy, okay?
I want CIA in the room with Zubaydah.
GRETCHEN: So, who do we have who can work on him?
CIA runs sources, people who cooperate.
That’s not these guys.
Every second we are not draining the detainee’s brain,
we are rolling the dice.
We need our people in the room.
We need to be the ones asking the questions now.
I heard from someone over in Technical Services,
a woman named Miriam,
about a couple of Air Force psychologists
who came in and pitched a whole new approach to interrogations.
Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.
Miriam says Mitchell has the special sauce.
(phone rings in distance)
Zubaydah didn’t tell us everything,
because we stopped short of where we needed to go.
SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape.
It’s a program to help prepare U.S. Special Forces
for whatever they might encounter if captured.
Now, I have over 14,000 hours
observing SERE interrogation techniques.
Bruce here has more than that...
Uh, observing, as opposed to...?
I took a course in conducting interrogations as well.
I worked with volunteers in actual simulations.
We feel we can reverse engineer
these SERE techniques to induce learned helplessness.
EASTMAN: Can you explain what that means,
"reverse engineer"?
Instead of using these techniques
to protect our people,
we use them to achieve compliance in the detainees.
Our plan involves, uh, using individual assessments
of detainees to create a program designed to induce
debility, dependency and dread.
-We call these the three "D"s. -Three "D"s.
And there’s science to back this up?
MITCHELL: Oh, yes. Yes, sir.
BERNADETTE: Excuse me, Dr. Mitchell.
Can you elaborate on, uh, the techniques you’ll be employing?
Absolutely.
The, uh, the attention grasp.
Walling.
Facial hold.
The facial slap or insult slap.
Cramped confinement.
Wall standing.
Stress positions.
Sleep deprivation.
Waterboarding.
Use of insects.
And mock burials.
Well, from my perspective, this seems like it could be
a potential game changer, but, of course...
it’s up to Director Rodriguez.
I think if we’re serious about stopping the next threat,
we need to put on our big boy pants
and provide the authorities these guys need.
These approaches might... raise some eyebrows at Defense.
Well, we’re not at Defense. We’re at the CIA.
Besides, you just said,
we use this SERE stuff on our guys all the time.
I don’t see a problem.
DANIEL: Shortly after the CIA’s decision
to engage Dr. Mitchell, Abu Zubaydah was moved
to a cell that was lit 24 hours a day.
Loud noise was fed into his cell to disrupt his sleep.
What about the guy who got him talking?
Ali Soufan?
Wait, he’s FBI, not CIA.
So, we can ask him questions, right?
No rule against that.
We can try.
(birds chirping)
SOUFAN: There’s only one interrogation technique
that works: rapport building.
You get close to these guys, and they open up.
But the CIA didn’t believe that.
Just look at Abu Zubaydah.
Well, you got him to talk. How’d you do that?
I walked in one day and played him a tape of himself.
Most of it was of a phone conversation.
Uh, we had tapped his phones.
But he forgot to hang up at the end of the call,
so we had all this background noise of his house.
Then my partner walked in
with a big box full of cassette tapes.
We told him we had bugged his safe house;
we had been listening for months;
we knew everything, so lying was pointless.
He looked at the box full of tapes and...
And all-all the tapes were blank.
Of course they were. But he didn’t know that.
So, he talked.
Uh, what happened when the contractors showed up?
Who the fuck is this?
BERNADETTE: Dr. Mitchell is an Air Force psychologist,
and he’s developed a new method of interrogation.
SOUFAN: Why-why do we need a new method?
He’s not telling you everything.
BERNADETTE: We think he knows more.
We put him at number three
or number four in Al Qaeda leadership.
He probably knows the next move.
Do you speak Arabic, Jim? Does Gary here?
Don’t need to.
C-Can I ask you something?
Have you ever interrogated any sort of extremist before?
-Know much about Al Qaeda? -No.
Have you ever interrogated any sort of terrorist before?
-No. -Any sort of criminal?
No.
Have you ever interrogated anyone before?
It’s not important.
He’s a human; I’m a psychologist.
He knows a secret,
and I’m gonna get him to tell that secret to Gary.
SOUFAN: What-what are you going to do to him that isn’t...
MITCHELL: What am I gonna do?
What is Jim gonna do?
Jim’s gonna do what works.
(heavy metal music blaring)
GUARD 1: Let’s go, shitbird!
(Zubaydah panting)
GUARD 2: Move it, asshole!
(Zubaydah shouts)
ZUBAYDAH: Help! Please!
(Zubaydah shouting)
(heavy metal music continues blaring)
(clippers buzzing)
SOUFAN: You can’t just shave a Muslim man.
Do you know what that means?
He’s going to shut down.
Got to humiliate him, right off the bat.
Same reason we took away his clothes.
Why the loud music?
Sleep deprivation.
We stop the music when he starts talking.
Then he can sleep.
Tired people tell the truth?
Learned helplessness.
You’re familiar with Dr. Martin Seligman?
Seligman did an experiment with dogs.
He put them in a cage
with a barrier running down the middle.
And one side of the cage was electrified
and the other wasn’t.
At first, when he shocked the dogs,
they’d jump over the barrier to get away.
And then he electrified both sides.
There was no escape.
No belief they could change anything.
He’d open the door to the cage, they wouldn’t even leave.
It’s learned helplessness.
That’s what we’re gonna instill in this man.
You’ll see.
(steady hammering)
SOUFAN: A coffin? You’re gonna kill him?
Let’s call it a confinement box.
I got this one, and I got a smaller one.
And you’re gonna put him in there?
With these, which, based on my evaluation, he hates.
Are you out of your mind?
-We don’t do this. -(hammering)
You know this is against the law.
The most senior people have signed off on it.
We’re putting him on trial.
How are we gonna build a case against him?
Who says he’s getting a trial?
SOUFAN: I wanted to arrest him right there on the spot.
-I told the Bureau that. -What’d they say?
They briefed Director Mueller,
and told me to get the hell out of there, so I did.
-When was that? -Late May, mid-May or...
’Cause I’m finding records that say that Mitchell left
a little while later, early June,
for R & R and some meetings at headquarters.
But we had one high-value detainee in custody,
Abu Zubaydah.
And after Mitchell left, the CIA put him in isolation,
and didn’t ask him a single question for 47 days.
Are you fucking kidding me?
The whole country was on red alert that summer.
If they were so concerned about the next attack,
why’d they stop asking questions?
Right, it doesn’t make any sense.
Once the psychologist showed up,
almost nothing did anymore.
DANIEL: The CIA said Zubaydah was involved
in every major terrorist operation
carried out by Al Qaeda.
They told the president
he was number three or four in the organization.
Yes, that was my understanding as well.
And the claim that Zubaydah was a major player
was the main justification they gave to the Justice Department
for needing to go harder.
They were certain he knew about the next attack.
But last night I found this.
Turns out Zubaydah wasn’t three or four in the organization.
He wasn’t part of Al Qaeda leadership at all.
They only had one source calling him that,
and that source later admitted he was lying.
So, they exaggerated who he was
to the president and the Department of Justice
in order to get legal approvals for these new techniques?
Is that what you’re saying?
I think that’s a possibility.
The program really starts with him.
(board bangs loudly)
Have you guys used this thing before?
The waterboard?
No, it’s a Navy thing.
But we watched a video.
We tested it on each other,
just to get a feel for the experience.
Is it safe?
Yes.
(heavy metal music blaring)
♪ Monarch to the kingdom of the dead... ♪
(Zubaydah grunting)
MITCHELL (over TV): Who are the operatives inside the U.S.?
ZUBAYDAH (sobs): I don’t know!
-(heavy metal music blaring) -♪ Infamous... ♪
(Zubaydah grunting)
MITCHELL: When is the next attack?
ZUBAYDAH: I don’t know.
(Zubaydah sobbing, pleading)
(Zubaydah panting)
(choking, gasping)
JESSEN: One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11,
-12, 13, 14, -(Zubaydah continues gasping)
15, 16, 17, 18,
19, 20, 21, 22,
23, 24, 25, 26.
(gasping violently, coughing)
MITCHELL: When is the next attack?
Who are the operatives inside the U.S.?
(Zubaydah gasping, coughing)
Anything in that bag contain the real names
of CIA officers, assets or partners,
or any information that would violate the agreement between
the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Senate?
-All good. -All right, good night.
-Have a good night, Jay. -Get home safe.
Good night.
(crickets chirping)
(car alarm chirps)
Dan Jones?
Do I know you?
No, but I think I can help you.
-Help-help me with what? -The EIT program.
That’s what you’re looking into, isn’t it?
I need to know I won’t be named, anywhere.
I’m still with the Agency.
My even being here with you, talking, is...
What was your involvement?
Office of Medical Services, black sites.
-So, you’re a doctor? -Physician’s assistant.
The American Medical Association
won’t allow doctors to be involved.
They take an oath: do no harm.
We’re the next best thing.
I was there when the contractors arrived.
They made tapes of the Abu Zubaydah interrogations,
but there’s a 21-hour period
where the transcripts are missing-- nothing.
They were using the waterboard.
Zubaydah lost consciousness.
He was choking to death, drowning.
Not just thinking he was drowning,
he was actually fucking drowning.
I was told that the waterboard
was only gonna be used as a last resort.
The contractors did an assessment of the prisoner,
-and they made a call... -What kind of assessment?
Th-They bounced him off the walls a few times
and then strapped him down and poured water down his throat.
We understand this is a different approach,
-but it’s based on science. -Science?
Oh, come on. What science?
-Have you seen their science? -They believe the waterboard
is working here to create compliance.
Well, of course they do.
They’re the ones who get to decide when it’s used.
And they’re also the ones who get to decide if it’s working.
How is that even ethical?
The people we’re dealing with weaponized daily life.
Would you like to talk about the ethics of that?
We’re here to make sure
that nothing like that ever happens again.
They’re training their people
to resist traditional interrogations
in the back of a cave somewhere.
So we need to change our approach
before another bomb goes off or another building falls down.
Okay, okay.
What is gonna happen when one of our soldiers gets captured
and takes out a card with the Geneva Convention on it
and wants to be treated like a human being?
You think his captors aren’t gonna remember
the way these people were treated here?
-And for what? -Do you have a kid at home?
We’re not gonna get beat again.
Besides the chief of station,
did you report your concerns up the chain of command?
We got a cable from Director Rodriguez
telling us to stop putting our objections in writing.
No paper trail.
I told them if they were gonna keep using the new techniques,
I wanted out.
I wasn’t the only one. Guys were choking up.
(car alarm chirps in distance)
-It’s all in the e-mails. -(car door closes in distance)
DANIEL: As early as November 2001,
the CIA’s legal team circulated a memorandum
describing a novel legal defense
for their officers who might engage in torture.
Come on. They actually called it torture?
The CIA?
They just forgot we have laws against that?
Yes, sir. Mitchell and Jessen renamed it
"enhanced interrogation" to help sell it,
but the Agency was talking about doing it
before they even had a single detainee.
My question, Senator, is: How did the CIA know
they needed to torture prisoners
before they even had one?
That didn’t come from Cheney and Addington?
Seems like it happened the other way around.
The CIA took it to the Bush White House
and John Yoo at the Office of Legal Counsel.
YOO: So, here’s where we’re at.
The crime of torture, as described in Section 2340,
requires that the defendant-- in this case, an interrogator--
intends to cause severe pain or suffering.
But in this case, that’s not the interrogator’s intent.
Right. The intent is to gain intel, save American lives.
RIZZO: But, John, what if the techniques
the interrogator employs do nonetheless
cause pain and suffering?
How do we deal with that?
Well, the key phrase is "severe pain or suffering."
But 2340 never actually defines the term "severe."
We found this definition in a Medicare statute.
Severe pain or suffering:
"acute symptoms that place the individual in serious jeopardy
-and are hard to endure." -Meaning?
To constitute torture,
the damage done must rise to the level of organ failure,
impairment of bodily function, or death.
So, basically, if someone dies, we’re doing it wrong?
If the president deemed it necessary
to... crush the testicles of a child
to stop a plane from crashing into a building,
to save American lives,
there is no law or treaty that could stop him.
I can make the same argument for
gouging out a prisoner’s eyes or dousing him with acid.
In our opinion,
if it provides unique intelligence that saves lives,
and doesn’t cause any lasting harm,
then it’s legal for the president to order it.
What do we mean when we say "unique"?
Intelligence that couldn’t have been obtained any other way.
And you’ve discussed all of this
with the White House, I assume?
WHITEHOUSE: And?
Did they tell Bush what they were gonna do to Zubaydah?
-DANIEL: No. -And National Security Advisor Rice--
-where was she in all this? -National Security Advisor Rice
was told about the program, but she was also told
the president would not be briefed.
Who tells the president’s national security advisor
not to brief the president?
Cheney and Addington.
According to CIA records, Bush wasn’t told about the program
until April of 2006, four years later.
And the records we found state
that when the president was finally told about the program,
he expressed discomfort with the image of a detainee
chained to the ceiling, wearing a diaper,
and forced to go to the bathroom on himself.
How long till you can get this thing done, Dan?
We’ve got to get this out.
What about this guy, Gul Rahman?
Captured in Peshawar, November 2002.
He’s not at Gitmo. He’s-he’s not anywhere.
DANIEL: Gul Rahman.
Gul...
No. They didn’t tell the committee about him.
He’s detainee number 24.
OFFICER 1: HQ says he knows
operational detail about Al Qaeda.
The guy’s an asshole.
Threw his food at us, he threatened to kill the guards.
I’ve asked headquarters to approve the application
of the enhanced measures for this detainee,
and the request has been approved.
-Oh, great. We haven’t had any luck loosening him up. -Mm.
-Come on! -(men grunting)
OFFICER 2: Ran him up and down the hall,
beat the crap out of him-- nothing.
Even been trying this thing they call short shackling.
Chain a dude’s hands to a bolt on the floor.
(heavy metal music blaring)
Then you chain his feet to the same bolt.
Farmers call it hog-tying, I think.
He finally admitted to something.
What was that?
That he was who we said he was: Gul Rahman.
What you want to do first is take away his sense of control.
If you like, I could spend some time showing you
how to achieve this with the enhanced techniques.
Great.
We got another 30 guys here to deal with.
(heavy metal music blaring)
I heard you told the doctor you were cold.
(Rahman screaming)
♪ The beautiful people ♪
-♪ The beautiful people ♪ -♪ Ah ♪
♪ The beautiful people ♪
-♪ The beautiful people ♪ -♪ Ah... ♪
(footsteps approaching)
(phone ringing)
Senator, do you have a few minutes this morning?
FEINSTEIN: Absolutely. Come on in, Dan.
SECRETARY: The senator is needed on the floor for a vote.
MORRIS: Uh, give her five minutes.
FEINSTEIN: Did you sleep last night, Dan?
Uh, Senator, a prisoner died.
-(heavy metal music blaring) -♪ There’s no time ♪
♪ To discriminate, hate every motherfucker ♪
♪ That’s in your... ♪
Gul Rahman.
They thought he was maybe working for an Afghan warlord
or that he knew something about an attack.
-Did he? -No, he died before they found out
anything besides his name.
Dumped cold water on him one night
and found him dead in his cell in the morning.
The autopsy said hypothermia.
-Where did you get this from? -Inspector general’s report.
CIA did their own investigation into the death of Gul Rahman.
The officer in charge was recommended
for a performance bonus.
They promoted him.
He’s still out there in the field.
Well, are you accusing the CIA of murder, Dan?
Because that sounds like where this is going.
We have proof the deputy director
coached the officer in charge how to cover up what happened,
told him to be careful what he put in writing.
So, why would they need to cover it up
if they were following standard operating procedure?
Why didn’t they tell the committee?
Why didn’t they tell you?
I’m gonna need to review all this personally.
It’s very disconcerting.
(door closes)
"Disconcerting"? "Very disconcerting"?
Dan, you need to be careful here.
You’re getting emotionally involved.
They fucking killed a guy, and nobody was held accountable?
W-We don’t know he was a terrorist.
-We barely even know his name. -I understand.
And what you need to understand is that
her name is going on this report, not yours.
Senate staff doesn’t have to run for reelection,
but she does.
Their legal argument said EITs wouldn’t cause lasting harm.
So how long is Gul Rahman gonna be dead for?
Are you guys seeing this Panetta review?
It just showed up.
JULIAN: I don’t understand.
Looks like the CIA did their own investigation.
It confirms everything we’ve been finding.
APRIL: So, what are you gonna do with it?
DANIEL: Hopefully, nothing.
Special Prosecutor Durham, please?
I’ve already left several messages.
It’s Dan Jones again from the Intelligence Committee.
How are you?
Good. I just wanted to check in again to see
if the special prosecutor is available
to meet on the CIA probe.
It can be off the record. I just want to compare notes.
Yeah, same number. Thank you.
MARC THIESSEN (over TV): You know, we got to think back
to the period after 9/11.
We didn’t even know who hit us.
We didn’t know that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was
the mastermind of 9/11
or the operational commander of Al Qaeda.
And then we started rounding up these terrorists.
We caught Abu Zubaydah.
We caught, uh, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and KSM.
And these guys provided us information under questioning
by the CIA that stopped a number of terrorist attacks.
They were pl-planning to blow up
the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.
-JULIAN: Shit. -They were planning to blow up
our Marine camp in Djibouti...
-Good morning. -Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was
indicted in New York for trying to blow up airplanes in 1995.
The CIA already knew about him.
They knew he was close to bin Laden.
They knew about him before Zubaydah ever identified him.
How long have you been here?
Also, according to this cable-- a few hours--
a CIA officer in Islamabad
began working someone they call Asset X.
X claimed to have direct access to KSM,
but was eventually turned away when he asked for money.
-How much money? -Few thousand bucks.
Two years later, after they’ve been putting him off,
putting him off, putting him off, they finally pay him,
and almost immediately he sends a text
to his CIA handler saying: "I’m with KSM."
It had nothing to do with the waterboard.
-Good morning. -Good morning.
-("Yankee Doodle" blaring) -JESSEN: One, two, three,
-four, five, six... -(Mohammed choking)
MITCHELL: Who are you working with in the U.S.?
JESSEN: ...seven, eight, nine, 10, 11...
We have your kids!
-...12, 13, 14, 15, -♪ Yankee Doodle, keep it up ♪
-16, 17... -♪ Yankee Doodle dandy... ♪
It will stop if you talk!
♪ And with the girls be handy, Yankee Doodle... ♪
Where is the next attack?
(muffled): Canary Wharf! Canary Wharf!
♪ Stuck a feather in ♪
(faintly): ♪ His hat and called it... ♪
BERNADETTE: Okay, here’s the problem.
We already know about
the Heathrow and Canary Wharf plots.
He knows that. It’s in his goddamn notebook.
We asked about plots in the U.S., not London.
-He’s fucking with you again. -JESSEN: To be honest,
I’ve never met a resistor like this guy.
He’s a super resistor.
He lied to you to make you stop.
GRETCHEN: He just tells us shit he knows we already have.
That’s all he does.
MITCHELL: Then that’s what we’re learning.
That’s what the waterboard is giving us.
We now know he’s lying.
I thought it was meant to give us the truth.
And... the truth is he’s lying.
Headquarters says we go again.
DANIEL: The chief of interrogations
ordered the rectal rehydration of KSM,
not for health reasons,
but as a way of showing total control over the detainee.
Even though rectal rehydration was never
-an approved technique. -(Mohammed grunting in pain)
Total control isn’t chaining the guy to the wall,
keeping him awake for days, and threatening his family?
You need to shove a tube up his ass?
-(monitor beeping) -MITCHELL: This right here
is the rest of your life
-unless you start telling the truth. -(gagging)
Then they went back to waterboarding him.
"When a medical officer pressed on KSM’s..."
-Wait. Where are you? -Next page.
"When a medical officer pressed on KSM’s abdomen,
he expressed water from his mouth and nose."
So, he was swallowing all the water.
DANIEL: "On March 17th,
the waterboard technique began to evolve."
(muffled shout)
Interrogators used their hands to maintain
a pool of water over KSM’s nose and mouth.
(board knocking)
(Mohammed grunting, choking in distance)
(Mohammed gasping violently)
MITCHELL: Who are the operatives inside the U.S.?
(panting): Issa... Issa...
Issa al-Britani.
JESSEN: Where is the next attack?
M-Montana.
(Mohammed panting)
We got something.
KSM told interrogators he sent Abu Issa al-Britani to the U.S.
to recruit African American Muslims in Montana
to blow up gas stations and start forest fires.
Montana?
Muslims in Montana?
The FBI had serious doubts as well.
Later, KSM admitted he just told them
what they wanted to hear to make it stop.
So, did they get anything actionable from him at all?
Anything that saved lives?
They waterboarded him 183 times, and then concluded
KSM may never be forthcoming or honest.
Everything they got from him
was either a lie or something they already had.
Well, okay, so my first question is:
If it works, why do you need to do it 183 times?
Maybe when the report comes out,
people will finally see that.
Well, let’s worry about getting it right, getting it done.
We can worry about changing the world later.
(birds chirping)
(sighs) Sorry I’m late.
-It’s okay. -(sighs)
-Barely slept. -Want some coffee?
(sighs)
Hey, can I ask you something?
You ever, uh, have dreams,
you know, about the stuff that’s in the report?
Yeah. I have one where I’m drowning.
I can’t move my arms or legs. I can’t breathe.
-That wakes me up. -Last night I dreamt
I was trapped in one of those confinement boxes.
They just left me there.
Daniel Jones, right?
-Do I know you? -I just wanted to tell you to your face
that I think you and that report are garbage.
-Excuse me... -You weren’t there,
so you don’t know what worked and what didn’t
or what we were up against.
You may not realize, but we were trying
to protect this country from people who want to destroy
everything we believe in.
You may not realize it,
but we’re trying to do the exact same thing.
Your bullshit report will never see the light of day.
DANIEL: Special Prosecutor Durham, please.
It’s Dan Jones, calling again
about the Justice Department investigation of the CIA.
We really need to meet.
You have?
Okay, what are their findings?
Fuck!
WHITEHOUSE: Nothing?
No indictments at all?
No charges against Jose Rodriguez or Gina Haspel
for destroying the tapes.
Nothing against the CIA for torturing people.
Nothing against Jim Pavitt and the others
for providing misinformation, nothing at all.
DOJ says they don’t have enough admissible evidence
to convict anyone.
You go after the contractors, and they’re indemnified.
You go after the head of Counterterrorism,
and he’d just say he was following orders
from the CIA director.
You go after the director, and he--
well, he would just cite the president.
Then the White House would claim national security.
DOJ at least share what they found?
No.
They won’t turn anything over.
We’re the only ones still looking at this.
(crickets chirping)
APRIL: Dan?
You know a CIA officer
testified before Congress in 1978 regarding the use of
coercive physical interrogation techniques in Latin America?
And the officer said the techniques result
in false answers and have proven to be ineffective.
And before Latin America, they did it in Vietnam.
They knew it didn’t work...
Dan, I need to tell you something.
...and they did it again.
Don’t even listen to their own fucking people.
I’m leaving the study.
I... I got a job offer, and I can’t turn it down.
I’m sorry, but don’t you see what this is doing to you?
To all of us?
I mean, my kids are at home growing up,
and I’m down here reading about how they put a power drill
against one guy’s head and-and how they pulled
another guy’s arms out of his sockets.
And I just-- this is how I’m spending my Sundays.
And my Saturdays.
This is how I spend every day.
I just-- I-I-I-I can’t.
Um... I’m gonna leave after Thanksgiving.
Okay. I understand.
Okay.
Thanksgiving.
That gives us... that gives us a couple months.
JULIAN: Dan, it’s November.
Thanksgiving is next week.
APRIL: How many pages have we written so far? Thousands?
We don’t even know if this is ever gonna come out.
The tapes investigation never did.
It’s still classified.
You just said it yourself:
The CIA knew this shit didn’t work in 1978,
and it didn’t stop them from doing it again.
Look, we’ve been down here for two years, Dan,
in this basement.
Nobody’s waiting for us to come out.
(typing)
...shocking photos that apparently show U.S. troops
abusing detainees in a prison outside Baghdad.
We have a problem.
Both myself and the president have gone on record
saying we do not torture people.
He just made a statement for the U.N.’s goddamn
Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
Wh-What-what did he say?
"The United States does not torture.
It’s against our laws and it’s against our values.
I have not authorized it, and I will not authorize it."
I’m not sure where that leaves either of us.
RODRIGUEZ: So, here’s the deal.
Some new lawyer over at OLC, Jack Goldsmith,
is saying there are issues with the John Yoo memo.
Legal issues?
Yeah, and there’s the inspector general’s report:
allegations of war crimes and torture.
RODRIGUEZ: Throws the whole program under the goddamn bus.
What’s it say?
"The inspector general finds that EITs are inconsistent
with the public policy positions
the United States has taken regarding human rights,"
blah, blah, blah.
"The program, as implemented,
diverges sharply from how the CIA has described," blah, blah.
"There is also little evidence that the waterboard
is effective in gaining information."
Look, guys, Director Tenet wants to pause the program.
You know, I retired from the Air Force
just a couple of months before 9/11.
22 years.
And then I wake up that morning,
and I turn on the news and... see what’s happening.
A lot of people just went back to their coffee and cornflakes.
But Jim wanted to do something
to keep people safe.
We are going right back to the National Security Council today
and asking to have the program recertified,
as many techniques as possible.
RODRIGUEZ: We have a plan.
Thank you. Thank you.
-(phone ringing) -(typing)
(phone continues ringing)
Jones.
Yes, Senator.
(TV clicks on)
NEWS ANCHOR: On the Sunday talk shows,
former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
and former Vice President Dick Cheney
argued enhanced interrogation techniques played a major role
in leading up to the raid on bin Laden’s compound.
No, that’s not right. That’s not what happened.
-CHENEY: It was not torture. -I’ll look into it.
And, uh, I would strongly recommend that we continue it.
NEWS ANCHOR: At the heart of the controversy
is a process called waterboarding.
(keypad beeping)
DANIEL: Okay, here’s what the CIA is claiming:
They got bin Laden after using EITs against detainees.
They say it all started in 2002 with Abu Zubaydah
and a detainee they called "Riyadh the Facilitator,"
who tipped them off to Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti,
who had ties to bin Laden.
That’s not what happened?
The truth is the CIA was on al-Kuwaiti’s phones,
e-mails, identity, long before they captured any detainees.
Before they even had an EIT program.
Zubaydah told us al-Kuwaiti had nothing to do with bin Laden.
Same with KSM and-and the others.
But now we have former CIA Director Michael Hayden
on the radio saying this all came from EITs.
And former Attorney General Mukasey is out there saying
KSM broke like a dam after waterboarding.
FEINSTEIN: Where is he saying that?
DANIEL: Wall Street Journal. I found a memo.
It’s from a few months back, in March.
It’s called "The Public Roll-out."
The memo states the Agency wanted their PR people
to connect the bin Laden raid to intel obtained via EITs
before it even happened.
So... if the CIA got bin Laden,
then who cares what else it did?
If it saved lives, there’s no need for accountability.
Exactly. They lied to Bush about the program.
Now they’re lying to President Obama.
This document about bin Laden and, uh, the role of EITs,
it just isn’t true.
You want me to get you the White House?
Let’s do that.
FEINSTEIN: It’s very clear to us
the EITs did not lead to bin Laden.
The CIA is misrepresenting the operation.
I’m sure you see that, don’t you?
McDONOUGH (over phone): I’m not sure I understand, Senator.
The mission was a success; that’s the headline here.
This is a crucial moment in our nation’s history.
I want to make certain that the Agency isn’t manipulating it
to sanitize their own past actions.
I will let the national security advisor
know your concerns, Senator.
-Thank you. -Thank you, Senator Feinstein.
(line clicks)
-(phone clicks) -DANIEL: That’s it?
They don’t care the story is wrong?
Well, I don’t think we can look to the White House for support.
(door opens, closes)
What the hell just happened?
The CIA just got the president reelected.
That’s what happened.
MARTHA RADDATZ: It was the greatest manhunt of all time.
(over TV): You think you know the story,
but hold on to your seats.
Zero Dark Thirty, the riveting new film,
brings you the hunt for Osama bin Laden
as it has never been seen before.
This is it. The last guy we have.
Number 119: Muhammad Rahim, captured June 2007.
MITCHELL: We kept Rahim awake
for 138 hours straight.
Used the attention grasp,
facial hold, dietary manipulation.
Abdominal slaps, stress positions.
We even offered him a towel to wear if he cooperated.
MITCHELL: Gave us nothing.
JESSEN: He said that, if we hurt him,
he’d just make things up to get us to stop.
MITCHELL: And then he said he was at our mercy
and we could kill him if we wanted.
RODRIGUEZ: What’s the point of moving forward
without the waterboard?
It’s like trying to play baseball without the bat.
We’ve been going at him for 60 days now,
not getting anywhere.
The problem is that CTC hasn’t given us
any good intel to question him about.
We don’t have any leverage.
Hold on. You’re the psychologists.
You told me you were gonna get us intel.
Now you’re saying we need to give it to you?
I’m thinking we improve his treatment for a week or two,
give him some hope, and then we go back at him hard
and create a sense of helplessness.
JESSEN: Or we could try recruiting him.
Tell him he can be a CIA agent if he talks.
The FBI does that.
We’re not the FBI. We don’t do that.
MITCHELL: The way the science works is
we only get the intel after...
BERNADETTE: After what?
Why are so many of these guys still lying to us
after you work on them?
Where’s the special sauce?
You have to make this work. It’s only legal if it works.
The CIA’s questioning of Muhammad Rahim
resulted in zero intelligence reports.
On April 21, 2008, the Agency convened
an after-action review of his interrogation.
Senator, I just want to point out that this is the first time
the Agency stopped and evaluated
the effectiveness of the program.
And they concluded that, in the future,
CIA interrogators should use rapport building.
They even suggested asking other agencies,
law enforcement, and even other countries
about effective interrogation methods.
So...
For the past six years, there’s been a steady stream
of CIA personnel-- directors, deputies, analysts--
coming over here and telling me
what an amazing success EITs have been.
Somehow not even one of them managed to mention that part.
How many detainees have been through the program in total?
At least 119.
The Agency admits a quarter of them
should never have been detained.
The EIT program never worked, not on anyone.
(gavel banging)
Today, we are gathered to approve
the committee’s study of
the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program.
I would like to thank Daniel Jones
and his small staff who prepared this study.
Clerk, would you call the roll?
-CLERK: Mr. Udall? -UDALL: Yay.
-CLERK: Mr. Rubio? -RUBIO: Nay.
-CLERK: Mr. Rockefeller? -ROCKEFELLER: Yay.
-CLERK: Mr. Warner? -WARNER: Yay.
-CLERK: Mr. Blunt? -BLUNT: Nay.
-CLERK: Mr. Conrad? -CONRAD: Yay.
-CLERK: Mr. Coats? -COATS: Nay.
-CLERK: Mr. Nelson? -NELSON: Yay.
-CLERK: Mr. Risch? -RISCH: Nay.
-CLERK: Ms. Mikulski? -MIKULSKI: Yay.
-CLERK: Mr. Burr? -BURR: Nay.
-CLERK: Mr. Wyden? -WYDEN: Yay.
-CLERK: Ms. Snowe? -SNOWE: Yay.
-CLERK: Mr. Chambliss? -CHAMBLISS: Nay.
CLERK: Ms. Feinstein?
Yay.
The motion passes.
The report will now be sent to the CIA for final comments.
BRENNAN: I, John Owen Brennan,
do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the full truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
FEINSTEIN: Thank you, Mr. Brennan.
I look forward to hearing your testimony.
(cameras clicking quietly)
I am honored to appear before you today
as the president’s nominee for director of the CIA.
I’d like to say from the beginning that honesty--
truthfulness-- was a value inculcated in me
growing up in New Jersey by my parents, Owen and Dorothy.
Now, none of us are perfect beings.
I am far from perfect.
But I will be honest with this committee
and do everything possible
to meet your legitimate needs and requirements.
UDALL: Mr. Brennan, (clears throat)
I’ve long believed that our government has an obligation
to the American people to face its mistakes transparently,
to help the public understand the nature of those mistakes,
and to correct them.
The enhanced interrogation techniques were brutal,
and, perhaps most importantly, they did not work.
Now, the CIA has a responsibility
to correct any inaccurate information it provided
to the previous White House, the Department of Justice,
Congress and the public.
So, here’s my question:
Do you agree that the CIA has this responsibility?
And I’d appreciate a yes or no answer.
Yes, Senator.
Absolutely.
(phone rings)
SECRETARY: Office of the chief of staff.
Mr. McDonough is in a meeting right now.
According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll,
the president’s approval rating is at 44%.
-That’s up three points since March... -(door opens)
SECRETARY: Excuse me. Mr. McDonough.
-Director Brennan is here. -Oh.
There he is.
-Congratulations, Mr. Director. -Thank you.
Welcome. Come on in. Thank you.
Thank you and thank President Obama.
-(door closes) -I’ll let him know.
Speaking of, uh,
he wanted me to ask you if there’s any new information
on the drone strikes of April 29th?
We can confirm that the Al Qaeda planner
Abu Sulayman al-Jazairi has been killed.
Unfortunately, we also believe
that there were between five and ten civilian casualties.
Shit.
Well, I’ll let the president know.
What about the Intelligence Committee report?
We need to talk about that.
John, w-we gave the CIA until February
to come up with its response; it’s now May.
I’ve got Senator Feinstein all over my phone sheet.
I don’t want to be the one who has to push on this,
but the president would really like to get this behind us.
And?
We acknowledge that
the Detention and Interrogation Program had shortcomings
and that the Agency made mistakes.
The most serious of those occurred early on
and stemmed from the fact that we were unprepared.
Now, as you know, we part ways on some key points.
According to our review, indications are that
interrogations of detainees upon whom
the enhanced interrogation techniques were used
did produce unique intelligence
that helped thwart attack plans,
capture terrorists, and saved lives.
Excuse me, intelligence gathered from EITs...
And that intelligence continues to inform
our counterterrorism efforts.
It led us to bin Laden.
Now, it’s one thing to disapprove of the program.
I-I welcome that conversation,
but it’s something else altogether
to say that it was mismanaged and ineffective.
Excuse me, Director Brennan.
The report is based on CIA records.
CIA officers themselves called it ineffective.
CIA officers?
Well, you didn’t speak to any CIA officers in the program,
did you, Dan?
Your lawyers would not make them available to us
because of the Department of Justice’s criminal inquiry.
We also disagree with the study’s characterization of
how the CIA briefed Congress, the White House and the press.
Now, we have documentation that certainly proves that.
Excuse me, sir, what documents?
If the director is referencing
cables or e-mails we were never shown,
then that’s a violation of our agreement.
Everything was supposed to have been provided to us.
Do we just give the committee access
to the entire CIA computer system?
Is that where this goes?
Dan gets to read every e-mail, gets to see every document?
Every relevant document or e-mail, yes.
I have always supported the intelligence community.
I broke with my own party to support the drone program,
but what this report makes very clear
is a real need for oversight and accountability.
You asked for our response, and we gave it to you.
We looked in the mirror.
Now, uh, we made mistakes.
There were abuses, and those abuses have been addressed.
But I-I vehemently disagree with the narrative
that you’re trying to string together here.
It lacks context.
It does not paint an accurate picture
of the work that was done.
Let’s go.
DANIEL: Senator, John Brennan’s name is in that report.
He was Director Tenet’s chief of staff
and then deputy executive director
when the program started.
-He grew up at the Agency. -MORRIS: He claims to have
-spoken out against the EIT program... -Where?
I just spent five years looking at their e-mails.
I never found anything to suggest that’s true.
Well, we knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
They have their own narrative, and they’re gonna stick to it.
Maybe we could come up with some middle ground,
-find some common language. -I thought our job
was to provide oversight and accountability,
not middle ground.
I have a question for you.
Do you work for me or for the report?
And I’d encourage you to think about that before answering.
McDONOUGH: Dan!
(laughs): Dan Jones.
There he is.
Look at you, chief investigator
of the largest study the Senate’s ever conducted.
My God. How you doing?
It’s good to see you in the fresh air.
-(chuckles): Yeah. -It’s so funny.
I was just thinking the other night,
do you remember that time you came and saw me,
right after you got out of school?
You said go get intel experience,
wait till the Dems got the Senate back.
And look at you now:
working for the Senate Intelligence Committee
for Dianne Feinstein.
You told me once you wanted to make a difference.
I hope you still get that chance.
-What does that mean? -What does that mean?
It means, Dan, get out of the senator’s head about the CIA.
You’re not doing yourself any favors.
Have you read the report?
It’s 7,000 pages, Dan.
The Bible tells the history of mankind in less than that.
Look, buddy,
we’re gonna get the CIA to sit down with you,
tell you their side of the story.
It would help if you would listen.
The study seems to most seriously diverge
from the facts by asking the reader to believe
the CIA withheld information
from the executive branch and Congress.
We’d like to see that removed from the report.
DANIEL: After the photos of Abu Ghraib came out in 2004,
Deputy Director McLaughlin appeared before Congress,
in front of you, and said the CIA is not authorized
to do anything like what you’ve seen in those photos.
But what they were doing was even worse.
Then in 2005, Senator Rockefeller
called for a review of the program,
and the deputy chief of Counterterrorism
got nervous where that might lead.
So he sent a message to senior leadership
discussing the need to manage the situation.
He said, "We either get out and sell, or we get hammered.
Congress reads it, cuts our authorities,
messes up our budget.
We need to make sure
the impression of what we do is positive."
This is the deputy chief of Counterterrorism.
That all stays in.
We fundamentally disagree with the assertion
that the program was poorly managed and executed
and that unqualified officers imposed brutal conditions,
used unapproved techniques, and were rarely held accountable.
FEINSTEIN: What about Mitchell and Jessen?
DANIEL: Mitchell’s PhD thesis was on diet and exercise
for controlling hypertension.
Jessen’s dissertation was on family therapy,
something called family sculpting,
where you make clay figures of your family members.
-No. How much were they paid? -They had no experience
in real-world interrogations.
No science to back up their claims.
They were allowed to assess
the effectiveness of their own program
without providing any scientific evidence.
How much in total
did the U.S. taxpayers give them for their work?
Over $80 million.
The Agency also disagrees that
the Detention and Interrogation Program did not produce
unique intelligence that disrupted plots
and saved lives.
For instance, the identity of José Padilla,
the "dirty bomber."
If we hadn’t stopped Padilla,
this entire area would be radioactive today.
DANIEL: José Padilla!
Padilla found the instructions for his dirty bomb online,
in-in an article entitled "Making and owning an H-bomb
is the kind of challenge real Americans seek."
It says, "Fill two buckets with uranium
and swing them above your head as fast as possible."
It was a joke.
As far as we can tell,
everything they attribute to EITs they already had,
from other sources, from foreign governments,
from other methods.
They claim they saved lives, but what they really did
was make it impossible to prosecute
a mass murderer like KSM, because if what we did to him
ever came out in a court of law, the case is over.
The guy planned 9/11, and instead of going to jail
for the rest of his life, the CIA turned him into
a recruiting tool for a war we’re still fighting.
Stop meeting with them.
This is a remarkable document you’ve created.
Truly.
It will provide an enduring history,
whether it comes out or not.
(door opens, closes)
What does that mean, "w-whether it comes out or not"?
What does she mean?
What does that mean?
We’ve been working on this thing for nearly five years.
Yes, and it is still our word against theirs.
She’s gonna need more than that.
(birds chirping)
(ringtone playing)
This is Jones.
TANNER: Hey, Dan, this is Evan Tanner.
Um, I hear rumors the report might not be coming out now.
A lot of pushback from the Agency.
-They’re calling it "flawed." -Who told you that?
(sighs) Dan, I’m the national security reporter
for The New York Times.
Do you have any thoughts?
DANIEL: (sighs) It’s not my place to talk about rumors.
TANNER: No, I didn’t think you would.
I was wondering if you might want to comment.
Uh, it can be off the record.
I just think we can help each other here.
DANIEL: You know I can’t do that.
And here’s what we know about Caroline Krass:
20 years in the executive branch,
including the Office of Legal Counsel
where she worked with John Yoo.
Guys, (sighs) this confirmation’s a done deal.
We’re not gonna stop it.
But it is a public hearing, and it just seems like
there’s an opportunity to say something.
Wh-What are you looking for, Senator?
I don’t know, something to move the study forward,
to break us out of this stalemate.
Any ideas?
Senator, there is a document.
(keypad beeps)
(lights clinking)
(drawer opens, closes)
(keypad beeps)
You ever sleep, bro?
(chuckles): I used to.
-Got in the way of work. -(scanner beeps)
Anything in that bag contain the real names of CIA officers,
assets or partners, or any information
that would be in violation of the agreement between
the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Senate?
-Have a good night, Jay. -You, too, Dan.
(lock clicks)
(gavel banging)
The committee will come to order.
-(crowd murmuring) -(cameras clicking)
Today, we are gathered for the confirmation hearing
of Caroline Krass to be general counsel of the CIA.
Welcome, Ms. Krass.
I’m honored to be here before the committee,
and I’d like to take this moment to acknowledge my family
and thank them for their support.
Thank you.
Uh, before we begin, I would like to remind members
not to discuss classified topics
or ask questions which require a classified answer.
With that said, I turn to Senator Udall.
Ms. Krass, nice to see you again.
We had a chance to sit down last week
and discuss the Senate’s study
on the Detention and Interrogation Program.
You told me you found the study to be hard reading.
Also, last week, a number of articles appeared
discussing the one-year anniversary
of the vote to approve the committee’s study.
And in one of those articles,
the CIA claimed to have found significant errors.
Now, I got to tell you, I don’t believe that is accurate.
In fact, I’m more confident than ever
in the factual accuracy of the committee’s study.
I want to say that again: I’m more confident than ever.
It appears that the CIA performed their own study
of the EIT program, initiated by former Director Panetta.
-(quiet whispering) -And the findings
in that review are entirely consistent
with our committee’s report, but amazingly conflicts with
the CIA’s official response to that report.
-(quiet murmuring) -(cameras clicking)
So, why is a review the CIA conducted internally,
and never revealed to Congress, so different from
the CIA’s formal response to the committee’s report?
Do you have an answer for that?
Um, not at this time.
If I wanted the public to know about the Panetta review,
I would have told them myself.
We hear that the Republicans
are gonna censure Udall for that performance.
DANIEL: But the review proves our point.
They found the same things we did.
The Agency didn’t know how or where to hold people,
didn’t know how to interrogate people,
and, more importantly, the CIA did give it to us.
I don’t know if it was an accident
or it was a whistle-blower.
Well, if it was a whistle-blower,
you may have just exposed them.
Not to mention yourself.
(electronics beeping)
(keypad beeps)
(camera clicking)
We got something here.
EASTMAN: The director has asked me here today
in my capacity as Agency legal counsel.
What we have to discuss has serious implications.
All right.
BRENNAN: We have proof that the staff
of the Senate Intelligence Committee
illegally gained access to the CIA’s computer network
and obtained classified documents.
What kind of proof?
We found the document in question
on Daniel Jones’s computer.
We did not provide it to him or to the committee.
If he didn’t hack us, how did it get there?
We feel that Jones and his team need to be disciplined.
Immediate dismissal is in order,
at a minimum, I would think.
John, are you saying that you broke into the computer system
of the United States Senate?
We never gave you clearance on that document.
It was classified, yet you chose to make it public.
We’ve made our investigation and our findings
known to the White House.
DANIEL: You’re fucking kidding me.
They’re saying I broke into
the most top secret computer system in the world?
-Brennan and Eastman came over... -Eastman?
Eastman’s name is in the report over a thousand times.
-That’s not a conflict? -Dan.
They filed a criminal referral against you.
They want you gone.
H-How did the Agency come to the conclusion
that I’m a hacker?
H-How do they even know what’s on my computer?
They say they conducted a search.
Of the United States Senate?
The whole reason this committee was established
in the first place was to stop the CIA
from spying on U.S. citizens.
The senator is talking to Harry Reid about
-that very thing... -Did they go into that room?
That room is off-limits. Did they go into that fucking room?
I don’t know.
I do know that the Republicans are gonna run with this.
They’re gonna use it to discredit the report.
They’re gonna use it to discredit you.
Dan, they’re accusing you of breaking the law.
You’re gonna need a lawyer.
DANIEL: There’s a saying at the Agency:
"Admit nothing,
deny everything, make counteraccusations."
-That’s what they’re doing. -(footsteps approaching)
CLIFFORD: The CIA is investigating you for...
DANIEL: They’re the ones who should be investigated, not me.
Mr. Jones? Mr. Clifford will see you now.
DANIEL: Our computer system
isn’t even connected to the CIA mainframe.
So did I just go over to Langley
and break in on a weekend?
Seems unlikely.
So what evidence do they have?
A document.
A document? What kind of a document?
I can’t tell you that.
Because, what, it’s classified?
I was tasked to lead an investigation
into a CIA program they started after 9/11,
what they called enhanced interrogation.
And I assume your work is critical of the Agency?
You know, Dan, a lot of people in this country
felt the CIA was justified in doing
whatever they had to do to keep us safe.
I have friends who lost people that day.
And a lot of people watch 24 on Thursday nights
and hear Jack Bauer say,
"I don’t want to bypass the Constitution,
but these are extraordinary circumstances,"
just before, you know, he s-sticks a knife in them
and makes them give up a plot.
It-it doesn’t work that way.
Well, as Winston Churchill said,
"History is written by the victors."
Churchill didn’t really say that; Hermann Goring did.
And what he said was, "We will go down in history
either as the world’s greatest statesmen
or its worst villains."
So your report is gonna determine that:
statesmen or villains?
How long have you been working on this project, Dan?
Five years.
Five years, and it could all go away,
just vanish in the face of these allegations.
I can certainly imagine
an ambitious young man like yourself spends years
with his head buried in some terrible spectacle,
gets frustrated with the process,
sees an opportunity to get the truth out faster,
maybe crosses a line.
I’m assuming this is the most important thing
-you’ve ever been a part of. -I didn’t do it.
Or I can see an equally ambitious senator
encouraging you to do something.
Now would be a good time to tell me.
That did not happen.
What I did, I did on my own. I acted alone.
-So you did steal the document? -I did not steal it.
-You needed it to... -I relocated it.
I put it in a safe.
If they had a way of destroying tapes,
-then surely they could get... -Everyone has their own words.
The language is built to choose sides.
Now, why did you relocate it?
Documents had a way of disappearing off the server.
For instance, in 2010, over 800 documents
just vanished without any explanation.
So you had computer issues all along.
Who else knew what was on the computers?
Well, the CIA hired an outside firm to vet the documents:
CENTRA.
And CACI was also involved.
-Who are they? -Contractors.
But Jim Pavitt is on their board.
Former deputy director of operations for the CIA,
Jim Pavitt, during the program, Jim Pavitt.
And is he named in the report?
Can’t tell me.
So they can’t destroy the document. (sighs)
Then they can go after the next best thing: you.
Make you a zealot.
Anything you touch is tainted.
I could see the Agency saying that this is a violation
of the Espionage Act, the... Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,
uh, who knows what else.
And if they file a charge against me,
how long could I go away for?
I don’t know. 20 years, maybe more.
(sighs)
I did not hack into the CIA computer system.
I mean, my com-- my computer skills stop at Microsoft Word.
They probably know that.
Let me ask you something:
How much does a Senate staffer make?
At my level? About-about a hundred grand.
Any retirement, savings, family money?
No.
So, we should discuss my retainer.
-How much is that? -$30,000 to start.
And if it goes to trial, add a zero.
Nothing could make them happier
than knowing you’re sitting here talking to me.
That’s what they want, Dan.
Make you bleed money all over my floor.
Do you want my expert opinion, for free?
You don’t really have a legal problem.
You have a sunlight problem.
I’m sure you know people who can help you solve it.
Daniel Jones.
I didn’t think you’d ever return my calls.
Does your boss know you’re talking to
a guy with a byline and a tape recorder?
There’s something going on I think you should look into.
It involves the Agency.
Okay. Is it that report you’ve been working on,
the one that never quite comes out?
Computers. It has to do with the hacking of computers.
All right, whose?
The United States Senate.
Someone hacked into the Senate?
No shit? Okay.
You have any idea if it was foreign or domestic?
Uh, all right, yes, you--
sorry, you said it was the Agency.
So what-what does the CIA
have to do with U.S. Senate computers?
Evan, you’re the national security reporter
for The New York Times.
You can figure it out. All right?
(sighs)
-Hmm. -(knock on door)
Morning, Senator.
You wanted to see me?
MORRIS: You know anything about this?
"Computer Searches at Center of Dispute on CIA Detentions."
You have any idea how that ended up
-in The New York Times? -Yeah, I saw that.
It looks accurate.
Senator McCain is already calling the CIA a rogue agency.
What are your thoughts on
someone like Edward Snowden, Dan?
W-Well, Senator, I know how you feel about leaks.
I think he’s a traitor, plain and simple.
It’s my job to provide oversight
with the tools of governance,
not lights and cameras and headlines.
(sighs)
Do you want me to resign?
No.
But I think I might need you to write me a speech.
(applause)
AMES: Senator Feinstein claimed today
on the Senate floor that the CIA hacked
the Senate Intelligence Committee’s computers
to thwart an investigation into past practices.
Can you respond to that?
Well, first, we in no way, shape or form
tried to thwart the release of the report.
-(cameras clicking) -Uh, we want that behind us.
As far as this allegation that the CIA
somehow hacked into the Senate computer system,
(sighs) nothing could be further from the truth.
We just wouldn’t do that.
It’s beyond the scope of reason.
Thank you.
I understand your position, Senator,
and I am aware of Director Brennan’s comments.
Did you hear what Lindsey Graham said this morning,
about the Agency breaking into our computers?
"The legislative branch should declare war on the CIA.
Heads should roll, people should go to jail."
Is that what you want? Send people to jail?
We do have jails for a reason.
The Justice Department investigated the CIA,
and they decided not to prosecute.
It’s their call, not ours.
Now, when this administration took office,
we faced the very real possibility
of economic collapse.
We had a decision to make:
Do we spend our political capital on going around
trying to find people to blame, or do we solve the problem?
Maybe the way to solve the problem
is to hold people accountable.
Do you ever wonder why history repeats itself?
Well, I think maybe it’s because
we don’t always listen the first time.
Senator, the people at the Agency-- they have families.
There are children who might lose a parent.
(sets down cup)
Years ago, some radical group put a bomb in the flower box
outside of my daughter’s bedroom window, right out here.
Had it been any warmer out, it would have exploded.
And then there was the time
that I found Harvey Milk shot to death in his office.
I-I think I’m aware of the risks of public service.
President Obama ended the torture program
three days after taking office.
The EITs, what the CIA did-- that is not our mess.
No, it’s not,
but that’s not the question we’re asking, is it?
The question we’re asking is: Who is going to clean it up?
So let’s do that.
Right after Director Brennan apologizes to me and my staff.
ASSISTANT: The inspector general is here.
Go ahead in.
BUCKLEY: In regards to the CIA search of Senate computers,
we’ve looked into the matter
and have recommended that the Department of Justice
begin a criminal investigation.
EASTMAN: Good.
So have we.
Dan Jones, lead Senate investigator.
Not the Senate staff.
The CIA.
Us?
Are-are you accusing me or my staff of breaking the law?
My understanding is that five CIA employees
entered a room that was off-limits.
On whose orders?
Senator Feinstein is right to call this
a violation of the separation of powers.
The CIA cannot spy on the U.S. Congress.
As inspector general, I’m gonna have to launch
a full investigation into the Agency’s actions.
(sighs)
(Feinstein sighs)
Am I going to jail?
FEINSTEIN: No, they’re dropping the charges.
You’re going back to work.
Take the most important findings, finish the summary--
no more than 400 pages.
I’m going to ask the committee to vote to release it.
McDONOUGH: So, you saw they voted.
11 to three.
They want to release an executive summary.
That thing goes out, it puts my people in danger,
who are out there in a dangerous world today,
trying to do their jobs.
Pulls the rug out from under them.
Anything that you feel puts your people in harm’s way
stays classified.
My concern is this: If-if the Senate puts out
a small pile of pages and the press goes nuts,
then everybody’s gonna want to see a bigger pile of pages.
You keep saying the president wants to turn the page.
Well, then turn the page.
Close the damn book.
Senator Feinstein has asked the White House
to head up final comments and redactions.
She wants us right in the middle of it.
And?
And I think that’s exactly where you want us.
You’ll have the pen.
KRASS: Leadership specified
that we should redact anything that could result in
legal exposure for officers in the field,
past or present.
Basically, if there’s any questions, black it out.
You see this?
What the...
fuck is this?
(Morris talking quietly)
DANIEL: Good afternoon. Where’s Marcy?
SECRETARY: Conference room.
MORRIS: Early the next week.
Wednesday.
Yeah, that’ll work.
And you get me the agenda. Thank you.
Imagine you pick up a book,
and "blank" turns water into wine on page 237,
and on page 71 "blank" heals a leper,
and on page 295 "blank" rises from the dead.
How do you know the blanks are all the same person?
I thought that the CIA agreed to using pseudonyms.
They did, but now even the fake names are gone.
And the dates.
The entire story is gone.
I hope you took your strong pills today.
McDONOUGH: Isn’t it enough to know what actually happened?
Do we need to know the names of the people involved?
But the actual names aren’t in the report.
Someone could figure out who our people are
based on their pseudonyms.
You know, I found a photo of my husband
on the Internet linking him to me.
Secrecy is very hard to maintain.
I believe you introduced your husband publicly
at your confirmation hearing.
It was on C-SPAN.
Some of these people--
they are out there in the world, right now.
Yes, they are.
There’s an officer from Alec Station
mentioned 41 times in 500 pages.
In 1998, her team missed the bombing
of the U.S. embassy in Kenya and Tanzania.
1999, they missed the bombing
of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.
In 2000, she was made aware of two Al Qaeda operatives
who arrived in Los Angeles.
FBI officers, working within the bin Laden unit,
requested permission to investigate.
That’s not how we want to play it.
DANIEL: The CIA knew they were on American soil
and didn’t do anything.
Al-Mihdhar then left the States to play a key role
in the bombing of the USS Cole,
before returning to hijack Flight 77 with al-Hazmi
and crash into the Pentagon.
FEINSTEIN: And you want to protect this person’s identity.
KRASS: We’d also like to redact
the pseudonyms of the contractors.
Dr. Mitchell was already quoted by name in The New Yorker.
He was handing out brochures at professional conferences
telling people he worked for the CIA.
If we are protecting the identities of CIA staff,
we need to protect our contractors as well.
Mitchell and Jessen were given a contract by the Agency
for a program that didn’t work.
The CIA also agreed to a five million dollar
indemnification clause for their company that covered,
among other expenses, criminal prosecution.
You know, I kept the rag we used on KSM.
You should eBay that bad boy when this is all over.
Make a mint. (chuckles softly)
DANIEL: An internal CIA memo concluded
that Mitchell and Jessen "have both shown blatant disregard
for the ethics shared by almost all of their colleagues."
The pseudonyms for the contractors need to stay.
(page turns)
McDONOUGH: Guys, we’ve been at this for months.
DANIEL: What about the locations of the black sites?
The country names?
We made commitments to those countries
to maintain their secrecy.
No country names.
Not open to negotiating these points.
We need to consider the morale of the CIA here.
Now, we-we publish this report,
-there’s a very good chance we could lose them. -Lose them?
What does that mean?
What about the morale of all the people at the Agency
who spoke out against the program?
What about them?
People who sent cables back from black sites
saying they wanted to be transferred
because they were disgusted by what was being done.
All right, uh, look.
We have-- Dan more than anyone--
have worked to uncover the truth about this
when no one else would.
We will not allow this to be covered up
by the executive branch.
President Obama called it torture.
Bush and Cheney wouldn’t do that.
He signed an executive order getting rid of it.
Now, just imagine, God forbid,
there’s another terrorist attack on our watch.
There won’t be another Democrat
in the White House for 20 years.
DANIEL: I’d also like to talk about the redactions
-concerning KSM. -(McDonough sighs)
WOLF BLITZER: Cory Gardner, the Republican challenger,
will be the next United States senator
from the state of Colorado,
defeating the Democratic incumbent, Mark Udall.
A major, major win for the Republicans.
Chris Frates is standing by in Colorado.
FRATES: This is huge for, uh, Colorado, Wolf.
This is the first time a Republican has won
the Senate race state-wide in Colorado since 2002.
Big night for Colorado,
and a big night for control of the United States Senate.
She’s expecting you.
FEINSTEIN: So, I just got a call
from Secretary of State Kerry.
He thinks that, with the release of the report,
that the coalition against ISIL could collapse.
Isn’t that a bit convenient?
-He calls you just before... -Dan.
Wh-Where did Kerry get his intel on this? The CIA?
-Is it credible? -Embassies could be attacked.
Hostages could be killed.
It’s just another stall tactic.
He suggested giving the report to the president,
so that it could be released later, when hostilities cease.
You lose control of the committee in a week, Senator.
Yes, I am aware of what happens
when the Republicans are in the majority, Dan.
Look, I want to get this report out as much as anyone,
but I have known him a long time.
I tend to believe him.
Nobody else is gonna tell this story.
-MORRIS: Dan, the senator has a luncheon. -If we stop now,
aren’t we a part of the cover-up?
Strong pills, Senator?
I think you should go home and get some rest.
You look tired.
(sighs) Marcy, if I could have five minutes.
MORRIS: Of course.
(men talking quietly)
(doors unlock)
Did you ever meet a guy called Greg Craig?
Just in pa-- White House counsel when Obama took office?
-Just in passing. -Right.
So, right after he got elected, the president asked Craig
to come up with a plan to deal with
the aftermath of the torture program.
So, he got Secretary of Defense Gates, Janet Napolitano,
Hillary Clinton-- serious people-- in a room,
and he asked for their recommendation.
-And? -A-And the consensus
was that the president should appoint
an independent bipartisan commission
into interrogations and detainee treatment,
like a deep dive into what worked and what didn’t
and... who was responsible.
You know, like what they did after 9/11,
and like what you’ve been trying to do.
So why didn’t they do that?
Well, evidently, the president listened closely
to the recommendation.
He then thought about it, and then he said no.
He’d spent an entire campaign saying he was post-partisan,
so going after the Bush administration
flew in the face of all that.
And right then, everyone in that room changed their minds.
They sided with the president: no independent commission.
Everyone except Craig,
because he thought it was too important.
You couldn’t just torture people,
lie about it, and then hide it from history.
A few months later, Craig was gone,
and this mess wound up with the Senate.
And you.
Well, the president must have known that, by doing that,
he was making it next to impossible.
Uh, he came from the Senate.
Dan, they sent you off to build a boat,
but they had no intention of sailing it.
They probably didn’t think you’d get as far as you did.
(car doors closing in distance)
Let me ask you a question.
If the CIA knew that torture didn’t work,
why did they continue to do it?
After 9/11, everyone was scared...
(engine starts in distance)
...scared it might happen again,
and the CIA would be blamed if it did.
Or maybe they were ashamed.
You know, how come the most sophisticated
intelligence organization on Earth
couldn’t keep its own people safe?
But fear and shame don’t make for better policy decisions,
and the fact that the people who we captured
didn’t look like us or believe the same things we do
made it that much easier to do the things we did.
So once the CIA program started,
they had to keep telling people it worked,
even if it wasn’t true.
Their own position was that
if it didn’t work, it was illegal.
So they misrepresented the results.
If we had your report, we would print it tomorrow.
All of it.
The senator said she would release
-a summary of the report. -Really?
Over the objections of the CIA and the White House?
You really think that’s gonna happen?
If I gave it to you, what would happen?
(sighs)
Some people will think you’re a hero,
and some will probably think you’re a traitor.
Look at Edward Snowden.
No. If it’s gonna come out,
it’s gonna come out the right way.
What if it doesn’t?
Then I didn’t do my job.
I’m sorry.
Sorry.
(door closes)
(lock clicking)
(phone clicking)
McDONOUGH: So, with the Affordable Care Act
behind us, the president would like to begin
a serious discussion about immigration reform.
Now, obviously we’ve had some setbacks
in both the House and the Senate,
uh, so strategy has become paramount-- unity as well.
So, we would like to, uh, really start talking about...
Excuse me, Mr. McDonough.
I would like to discuss the report on the CIA
and the White House’s position.
That’s not the topic of this particular caucus.
Uh, the president would like to discuss...
HEINRICH: Our country did things the Nazis did,
things that made us condemn other regimes.
And the position of this administration
is to suppress this information,
to keep the people who did these things safe?
I can assure you that is not
the position of this administration, Senator.
ROCKEFELLER: You worked with John Brennan
at the National Security Council.
Now, I understand that Brennan gave this president
his first security briefing when he took office.
And now CIA Director Brennan
is working closely with the president on the drone program.
(chuckles softly) You know, it’s funny.
Every time I go over to the CIA,
they claim I’m doing the Senate’s bidding,
and every time I come here,
you claim I’m doing the CIA’s bidding.
I only have a few days left in my term here,
and if there isn’t a plan to release the report before I go,
I’m prepared to read it on the floor of the Senate.
And either the White House
or the Republicans will have to stop me.
McDONOUGH: What would you have us do?
Now, we go after Bush and Cheney on this,
what’s to prevent the Republicans
from coming back at us and trying to repeal health care?
Uh, we go after the CIA, uh, maybe they say,
"Okay, well, immigration reform is off the table."
Maybe it’s gun control.
Now, democracy is messy... but let’s just think
how many countries there are in the world
where a report like this could even get done.
(quiet murmuring)
I would like us to be more than
the country that did the report.
I’d like us to be the country that made it public.
And that is what I intend to see happen.
MAN: I yield the floor
to the senior senator from California.
(quiet murmuring)
Over the past six years,
a small team of investigators pored over more than
6.3 million pages of CIA records
to complete this report.
It shows that the CIA’s actions a decade ago
are a stain on our values and on our history.
The release of this 500-page summary
cannot remove that stain,
but it can and does say to our people and the world
that America is big enough to admit when it’s wrong
and confident enough to learn from its mistakes.
Releasing this report is an important step toward
restoring our values and showing the world
that we are, in fact, a just and lawful society.
There are those who will seize upon the report and say,
"See what the Americans did?"
And they will try to use it
to justify evil actions or to incite more violence.
We cannot prevent that.
But history will judge us
by our commitment to a just society governed by law
and the willingness to face an ugly truth
and say "never again."
Thank you.
I now yield the floor to the senator from Arizona.
JOHN McCAIN (over TV): What might come as a surprise
is how little these practices did to aid our efforts to bring
9/11 culprits to justice and to find and prevent
terrorist attacks today and tomorrow.
That could be a real surprise,
since it contradicts the many assurances
provided by intelligence officials,
on the record and in private,
that enhanced interrogation techniques were indispensable
in the war against terrorism.
I think it’s an insult to the many intelligence officers
who have acquired good intelligence
without hurting or degrading prisoners
to assert we can’t win this war without such methods.
Yes, we can, and we will.
But in the end,
torture’s failure to serve its intended purpose
isn’t the main reason to oppose its use.
This question isn’t about our enemies; it’s about us.
It’s about who we were, who we are, and who we aspire to be.
It’s about how we represent ourselves to the world.
Our enemies act without conscience.
We must not.
RACHEL MADDOW (over TV): Senator Dianne Feinstein today
-exposed the CIA’s now extinct -(typing)
enhanced interrogation techniques.
The thing that strikes me about
what the Senate was doing today--
Dianne Feinstein, Jay Rockefeller--
is they were doing everything they can
to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Because by going public like this...
Dan.
You did well.
Thank you.
MADDOW: "We’re gonna be on you if you try to do this."
(birds chirping)
("So American" by Portugal. The Man playing)
♪ If pain was a color to paint on you ♪
♪ Your heart would be the color blue ♪
♪ Be a gradient from there until your body met your hair ♪
♪ Which remained a silver ♪
♪ You are the one they call Jesus Christ ♪
♪ Who didn’t know no rock and roll ♪
♪ Just a mission and a gun to paint rainbows in Vietnam ♪
♪ And a heart that always told you ♪
♪ There’s a madness in us all ♪
♪ So who wrote the rules? Who wrote the rules? ♪
♪ Who wrote the rules? ♪
♪ They said every one of you will never try to lend a hand ♪
♪ When the policemen don’t understand ♪
♪ Boys, all you boys, think it’s so American ♪
♪ Girls, all you girls, yeah, you’re so American ♪
♪ He may not be born of this land ♪
♪ But he was born of this world ♪
♪ He was born of all the mothers ♪
♪ And the colors of our brothers ♪
♪ And the love that was started ♪
♪ You are the one they call Jesus Christ ♪
♪ Who may not know no rock and roll ♪
♪ And there may not be a Heaven ♪
♪ Or a place of which to send you ♪
♪ But you know in the end ♪
♪ There’s madness in us all ♪
♪ There’s a madness in us all ♪
♪ So who wrote the rules? Who wrote the rules? ♪
♪ Who wrote the rules? ♪
♪ They said every one of you will never try to lend a hand ♪
♪ When the policemen don’t understand ♪
♪ Boys, all you boys, think it’s so American ♪
♪ Girls, all you girls, yeah, you’re so American ♪
♪ There’s two eyes for every one of us ♪
♪ But somebody got there first and took them all ♪
♪ There’s two eyes for every one of us ♪
♪ But somebody got there first and took them all ♪
♪ Man, oh, man, you think it’s so American ♪
♪ Man, oh, man, yeah, you’re so American ♪
♪ Man, oh, man, you think it’s so American ♪
♪ Man, oh, man, yeah, you’re so American ♪
♪ There’s two eyes for every one of us ♪
♪ But somebody got there first and took them all ♪
♪ There’s two eyes for every one of us ♪
♪ But somebody got there first and took them all. ♪
(music ends)