Harsh interrogation techniques on terror detainees after the 9 11 attacks. That amounted to torture. I think in the midst of a national trauma, and uncertainty as to whether the attacks were going to repeat themselves, whats clear is that 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 IntelligenceCommittee Chair, Dianne Feinsteins damning report on c. I. A. Interrogations. That said detainees were waterboarded, kept in dungeon conditions while others were naked, hooded and dragged, slapped and punched. The report said the agency misled the Bush Administration about the program and no c. I. A. Officer up to and including c. I. A. Directors briefed the president on the tactics before april 2006. In response to the report, c. I. A. Director john brennan saided brutal tactics did produce intelligence, that helped thwart attack plans. Feinstein told cnn thats wrong. An examination of the records going back to the beginning of the program indicates that this is simply not true. But three former c. I. A. Directors say their program helped lead to the killing of osama bin laden. In an oped in the wall street journal, three officials said they suspected that bin laden was planning to blow up new york city with a nuclear weapon. Many Top Republicans accuse feinstein of unleashing a political attack. Its very clear this appears to be simply an attempt to rewrite history by the democrats, to bash the Bush Administration. But one gop senator, john mccain, a former prisoner of war defended the report saying torture does not work. I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. And the president was careful not to call any of these Harsh Interrogation Tactics crimes. And so far the Justice Department has given no indication that it will prosecute former c. I. A. Officials for what happened during their Interrogation Program. And asked whether or not the president still stands by his claim that these interrogation tactics amounted to torture, a white house official said yes. Alisyn and chris in. Thanks for all of that. The release of the report on the c. I. A. s use of torture on terror suspects after 9 11 has Law Enforcement across the country on high alert. The fbi and department of Homeland Security issuing a warning about possible terrorist retaliation, cnns pamela brown is tracking developments from washington for us. Weve learned the fbi, dhs join bulletin warning Law Enforcement agencies across the country that terrorists may want to exploit the torture memo findings as propaganda and use it as a recruiting tool. The bulletin says it could spark online reaction and eventually influence homegrown violent extremists. The concern is even though the memo is unlikely to lead to violence in the nearterm, it could eventually inflame extremists as it circulates on social media and picks up steam. There was a round table session with reporters yesterday with the fbi director james comey and he echoed the sentiment. Other than that, he stayed tightlipped on the memo. Alisyn and chris . Thanks so much. Lets go over to chris. Theres going to be a lot of debate here. But lets focus on whats right and what isnt and bring in mark fallon, former official of the dpatment of defense, director of club fed llc. You have personal and upclose knowledge of what was done and why. So let me ask you, does this report have it right . Absolutely. The report is consistent with the facts as i know them. And this is a committee that has worked for years compiling the data, reviewing the documentary evidence, its 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 dont 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 theres a direct linkage to what the c. I. A. Did to their detainees to the abuses that occurred at abu ghraib. Any legal analysis that i have heard, including my own review shows me these tactics are illegal. Lets check each of the boxes. You say it was torture. He said it wasnt and the lawyers say that. He says only three people were waterboarded. Do you believe that . Well, i dont know how many people were waterboarded. But the abuse was more than waterboarding, there was assaults, i mean it is just, if you look at the details in that report, it is just a terrible reflection of our country. But it just goes to whether or not people are being honest or not. Thats why he mentioned the three. So i asked you about the three. He said it was not deceptive, that it was open and the people who needed to know knew. Do you believe that . I dont believe that is the case at all. You believe that a former head of c. I. A. Counterterrorism came on National Television lied about what they were doing and how they were doing it . I didnt hear the interview, i dont know what he said, but i certainly do not believe that officials were told of the extent of this program. As i know it. The extent, is that giving cover to officials . Or do you think what they werent told was material and relevant . Well you know, you have to go back to even how the derivative product they got out of this. I mean there was no Research Done into what the effective way to interrogate a detainee was, because we had done this for years, the fbi, joint task forces, had been for years interrogating terrorists and eliciting accurate and reliable information. When the c. I. A. Got this report, i have no idea where they got the idea that these techniques would be efficient to elicit accurate information. Ive had people from all corners of the military come to me and say stop acting like this was new. These types of tactics happen all the time, by the u. S. And others, officially, on the battlefield, on the fly. This happens, dont treat it lie its new, thats being intellectually dishonest, do you agree . I was the Deputy Commander of a task force of about 220 personnel with investigatives and interrogate everybodies at guantanamo, afghanistan and iraq. I can tell you we did not do this and we did not observe this. Why would they have done such horrible things that are detailed in this report, i wont go into it on Morning Television, if they didnt think it was working and they didnt think they were supposed to . I think it was a policy bred from ignorance. The core competency of the c. I. A. Is not to do interrogations and they did have a core of interrogators within the c. I. A. They did not turn to. The c. I. A. Had some very, very good behavioral scientists. Some operational psychologists, i know, because they were supporting me at the citf. Thats not who they turned to. They went to outside contractors. I was not at langley at that time. Youll have to ask them how they did an analysis to determine this was the way to do an interrogation. As an interrogation professional, i dont know any interrogation professional concur thats the way to do an interrogation. Theres a mystery why they did something that so many people think wouldnt have worked. Let me ask you releaeasing the report, good or bad idea in terms of American Safety . I think its an excellent idea to illuminate the darkness, believe me, other countries know what weve done, so the people were hiding it from was the american public. So i think its time to illuminate the darkness, we need to come clean with what we did and we need to move forward. We have to determine now how do we best interrogate, detain suspects to protect the National Security interests. And the government has done about 40 million of research about how to do that. We have to use science, we blend the art with science and do it more effectively in the future. They spent 40 million trying to figure it out. They spent hundreds of millions doing it the wrong way, mr. Fallon, thank you so much for giving us some Straight Talk on this. Theres so much to dig into here. Were going to look at this from all sides of the report this morning, the c. I. A. s former top lawyer will weigh in next on why he says these techniques were not torture. In the meantime, over to mikhaila for more news. It looks like a Government Shutdown will be avoided, democrats and republicans agreeing on a more than 1 trillion catchall spending bill to Fund Government operations through september of next year. Now the bill also includes extra money to fight ebola and to fight isis. Breaking this morning, a mixed decision from the judge overseeing the Oscar Pistorius case, be a appeal of the not guilty verdict on murder charges can proceed, meaning the olympian may face a higher charge. But the judge dismissed a motion from prosecutors to reconsider the length of the fiveyear sentence she gave to pistorius on the conviction of culpable homicide. Jonathan gruber apologizing for glib statements he made about obamacare. He was influential in shaping the Affordable Care act was grilled yesterday. He came under fire when videos surfaced showing him suggesting that the democrats purposefully misled americans to get the law passed. Carolina panthers quarterback cam newton is expected to be released from the hospital today after being injured in a car crash in charlotte. Newton suffered two fractures in his lower back when his truck flipped over. He was kept overnight for observation. Its unknown whether or not hell be able to play in the panthers game on sunday. He might be able to play with two fractures in his back . Im doubting that highly. But the fact that hes being released is huge. Testament to what kind of athlete he is. And what kind of shape hes in. We wish the best to him and oert driver involved. Theres damaging storms on tap coast to coast. A stubborn noreaster sticking around, while the west coast faces the worst storm in years. Lets get to meteorologist chad myers, whats going on, chad . I know you think i hate you by sending you that big noreaster. It was a brutal storm in the northeast. We agree. A powerful noreaster packing heavy snow and torrential rain slammed the northeast overnight. The storm reportedly to blame for at least two deaths. One in new york, the other in maine. As it bears down on the eastern seaboard. Upstate new york and vermont seeing upwards of 12 inches of snow in the past 24 hours. And may get ten more before this week is over. Further south officials issuing flood warnings from boston to new york. Recordsetting rain in new york city nearing three inches. The most rain ever on tuesdays date december 9th. Were stuck at home until this dies down. A bad day for air travel, over 1,000 Flights Canceled on tuesday and more than 2500 delays. Near boston, massachusetts freezing rain creating treacherous black ice on roads. It was terrifying, actually. I was out of control for ten seconds. Causing multiple rollovers and spinouts. This suv helplessly sliding into parked cars, sending it coasting down a neighborhood street. Even the sidewalk was dangerous. A lot of snow came down as well. Killington, vermont, although you will take it up there in the ski resort, 14 inches. Ably, only an inch and a half. More snow coming down today, especially in the higher elevations, around buffalo, syracuse, going to pick up another foot of snow. Now that foot of snow is not going to get down to new york city or philadelphia. But there will be flurries in the sky in new york for effect i guess, for the next couple days as the storm does come just sits there and spins for a while. Before it finally exits. The next story well be talking about is a major storm in the west. Well get to that in the next couple days. But this will put feet of snow in the sierra, rain on the desert parched areas of northern california, they need this storm. They just dont need the flooding thats going to come with it. Chad, thanks so much for that. Now that were seeing the grisly details of the c. I. A. s torture tactics in the years after 9 11, were going to be speaking with someone with direct knowledge of the situation, the c. I. A. s top lawyer during the bush era . How does he defend this . Plus, it is not going away. The protests, calls for change, outcry over unarmed black men killed by cops is spreading across the nation. Its now highprofile athletes joining in. What do you do with all this energy . What happens next . The bed reacts to your body. This zips off so i can wash ityes, please. Its really cool to the touch. vo theres no better gift than your best nights sleep. 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Dont settle for 4g lte coverage thats smaller or less reliable when only one network is americas largest and most reliable 4g lte network verizon. With xlte, our 4g lte bandwidth has doubled in over 400 cities. And now, save without settling. Get 2 lines with 10gb of data for just 110. Or 4 lines for just 140. And get a 150 bill credit for each smartphone you switch. Only on verizon. The explosive findings in the Senate Report on c. I. A. Torture have drawn a wave of criticism from the spy agency and members of the Bush Administration, who say their point of view was left out. So joining us now is someone directly involved in the decision to use those enhanced interrogation techniques. Hes john rizzo, served as general counsel to the c. I. A. During the bush era and is also the author of company man 30 years of controversy and crisis in the c. I. A. Mr. Rizzo, thanks so much for being here this morning. I want it go over the tactics that have been revealed in this report. At least those that i can say on Morning Television lets talk about what has come out. They say, i also want to find out why you wouldnt qualify these as torture. Number one, they say the detainees were kept in complete darkness. Sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks. In isolation. Also, they were kept in freezing temperatures. They believe that it was so cold that it contributed to the death of one of the detainees. Also, waterboarding as weve heard so much about. Almost to the point of drowning. And also, the sleep deprivation, i hadnt heard the details of what this was like before. But detainees were kept awake sometimes for 180 hours. And the way they were kept awake was having their hands shackled above their heads so they could never be in a position to sleep. If these things dont qualify as torture, what would . Well first of all, alisyn, just to parse through the specifics there. That you just described, the first two, were abuses. I would characterize them as torture. Meaning the isolation, the complete darkness and the freezing temperatures. Correct. Those were not supposed to happen . Those were off the books . Right. Those were not among the improved enhanced interrogation techniques that the Justice Department approved in writing in august of 2002. Okay. So those were clearly abuses. Now the waterboarding and the sleep deprivation yes. Those were approved techniques by the department of justice as not constituting torture. Therefore, we proceeded to include those in some of the ways we interrogated highlevel al qaeda terrorists. Yes. Now this is not i should emphasize, this shouldnt be entirely news, because the Justice Department memos are actually addressed to me in 2002. Described in rather chilling and graphic detail exactly what i just set forth. And they are, i mean theyre very tough. Im not going to say that these techniques, the waterboarding and the steppeded sleep deprivation, im not going to minimize it, these were very tough tactics. You describe them as tough, but dont believe they rise to the level of torture. Let me read the Legal Definition of torture. This comes from the 1994 u. S. Code. Torture means an act committed by a person, acting under the color of law, specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering other than the pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions among another person within his custody or physical control. If keeping someone awake for more than seven days in an uncomfortable position whereby they cant sleep and waterboarding them to within an inch of their life isnt inflicting severe at least mental pain and suffering, again, what is . Well, you know, i mean you describe, thats the legal u. S. Legal definition of torture. And these tactics were, were tough, were brutal. But im a lawyer and i didnt believe then and the Justice Department didnt conclude then, and honestly, i dont believe now that as harsh as they are