by the release of this torture report saying mistakes were made. former top c.i.a. officials are only beginning to speak out, defending their actions. it was stinging criticism for the c.i.a. from a sitting president. in an interview with telemundo, president obama says the agency was wrong to use harsh interrogation techniques on terror detainees after the 9/11 attacks. that amounted to torture. i think in the midst of a national trauma, anden certainty as to whether these attacks were going to repeat themselves. what s clear is the c.i.a. set up something very fast. without a lot of forethought to what the ramifications might be. the president was responding to senate intelligence committee chair dianne feinstein s damning report on c.i.a. interrogations that said detainees were waterboarded, kept in dungeon conditions, others naked, hooded
the report is consistent with the facts as i know them. and this is a committee that has worked for years compiling the data, reviewing the documentary evidence, it s quite clear, it is finally establishing and illuminating the darkness to the public on things that those of us on the inside have known for years. the former head of counterterrorism, bob grenier, said here yesterday, we did it, it was not torture, the lawyers told us that. and the government, the politicians who needed to know, knew what we were doing. is he lying? well, i don t know what he was told and who told him. i can tell you the assessment we made within the department of defense at the time was that it was torture. we opposed, the criminal investigation task force and those of us in the department of defense opposed what was going to occur. these tactics were gravitating to guantanamo bay and later went to abu ghraib. so there s a direct linkage to
solid example of a terror plot that was foiled as a result of these techniques? well first of all, i will say that i can t say that these, during the seven years as program there was the so-called ticking time bomb scenario described and uncovered. that s just not the way this program worked or what the threats were. there were specific terrorist plans, intentions, that were uncovered. through a maze of intelligence, but including intelligence derived by this program. now senator feinstein and the democrats on the committee are certainly free to make whatever conclusion they choose to make. i will say that those conclusions are vigorously contested in the c.i.a. rebuttal. in the republican intelligence committee minority report. and to me, most significantly, in, by leon panetta, president obama s first c.i.a. director.
violence. jamie: i think what america learned, seeing this all unfold, two shootouts live on tv, fortunately with a delay in one day, and the fact that all the agencies came together and got this done and took him ave is very comforting, bute question that it could be your neighbor is also frightening. is it too soon for the commissioner to say what changey to prevent it from happening and protect ourselves going forward? well, he said look and we talked on the show to a number of people, not just the commissioner but aso the senate intelligence committee chair, dianneeinstein, the head of the homeland counter terrorism subcommittee, pete king, the police chief of philadelphia, charles ramsey. they all say when you re talking about a small domestic terror cell like this, and at this point they all seem to think that s what it was. i asked the police commissioner in boston that specifically. he sai you know, there may have been other people on the
too soon to tell and the vice-chair of the senate intelligence committee said last night he thinks after all those hours in the hearing room there are still some senators who are not sold as john brennan as cia director. there are probably as many democrats that are not happy with him right now as there are republicans. so, i don t know. i know the president needs a cia director. i know that john brennan is a very knowledgeable person and we ve got to just sift through what his answers were today. reporter: on tuesday brennan will sit with the senate armed services committee behind closed doors for the second part of his confirmation hearing, the classified part. at this point there is no definitive timetable for a floor vote to confirm him. rick? rick: peter doocy, live in washington. peter, thank you. alisyn: as you can see it is a very busy morning inside america s newsroom. we re just getting started. we expect a police update on the desperate search for an ex-cop accused of