Hour, next. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following rose additional funding has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of news and multimedia information world wide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose mike morell is here. Hes a cbs News National security contributor. He served as the deputy acting director under president obama. He was involved in preparing the agencys response last year to the Senate IntelligenceCommittee Report on the cias enhanced Interrogation Program. The senate study was made public last week. It claim the c. I. A. Misled the whitehouse and congress about the effectiveness and brutality of its interrogation methods. Director john brennan responded to the allegations last week in a rare press conference. I have already stated that our reviews indicate that the detention and Interrogation Program produced useful intelligence thats helped the United States thwart, attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives. But let me be clear. We have not concluded that it was the use of eits within that program that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees subjected to them. The cause and affect relationships between the use of eits and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is in my view unknowable. Rose though directly involved in creating and running the program, have also come forward in defense of the agency, im pleased to have mike morell back at this table. Because we want to have here within the time that we have a conversation about it. He comes down on this with a point of view and hell explain that to us. But we also want to ask ourselves as a country, what do we learn from all of this, how do we go forward and what is the conversation we ought to have. But at the same time because this has been driven by a report from democrats on the Intelligence Committee with the republicans disagreeing and with the c. I. A. And its former directors pushing back it seemed to me a time for a conversation that says what have we learned so far. I was given this report, sat in my office, read it. Rose how many pages . You know, it was 6,000 pages at that point. The summary and findings and conclusions were several hundred pages. I read the Summary Findings and conclusions very closely and i÷b skimmed the 6,000 pages. I did not read every word. One of the things that struck me when i read the report was how much of a story that was missing. And the pieces of the story that were missing were c. I. A. s interactions with the rest of the executive branch. At the time this program was put together and at the time it was carried out. And c. I. A. Interactions with the congress that were intertaken and done while the program was carried out. That was missing. And so i asked our historians at c. I. A. To put that story together. And they produced a report in my final weeks as Deputy Director. And thats the report you and i discussed. Rose what did it say in that report . What it said in that report, what it says in that report, which is on the c. I. A. Saved lives website, some of the former directors and Deputy Directors have put together. What it shows is that the cia had extensive conversations with the rest of the executive branch about the program, about its legality and its absolutely clear that the rest of the executive branch approved of this program. This was not a rogue operation that you get the sense that it was when you read the Senate Report. So conversations across the executive branch with the whitehouse, president bush approved this program. You wont see that anywhere in the Senate Democrat report. No discussions with our discussions with the whitehouse and approval with the whitehouse thats not there. Rose and justice. And justice and state department and department of defense, okay. The other things it shows there were detailed briefings, multiple briefings of the Senate Community leadership. Detailed briefings on the program, detailed briefings on the enhanced interrogation techniques, technique by technique. Detailed briefings on the legal basis for conducting those techniques. Very clear in this report im talking about that those conversations took place. Also very clear that no one who was briefed in congress opposed the program. Said words of support, and on a couple of cases when we had to stop the program because the law had changed, the legal landscape had changed. We stopped the program rose when. That was in 2004, 2005 when we stopped the program to make sure that its legal basis was sound. There were those in congress including democrats who urged us to continue the program. One of the senators actually said you were being risk averse. I dont want you being risk averse. Rose one of the democrats who supported the release of this. Yes. Rose wanted you to do more. Didnt want us to stop the program. Wanted us to continue the program. Rose so it was all legal in your judgment at that time . Yes. Rose would you define what you would do and what the cia was doing at the time as torture. Let me talk about this a little built because this is important. Torture in the context were discussion is a legal term. So it doesnt make any difference what you think is torture or what i think is torture, its what the lawyers at the office of Legal Counsel of the department of justice thinks is torture or not and what the courts ultimately think is torture or not. This is a Legal Standard. And the department of justice on multiple occasions not just once but multiple occasions said that these techniques are not torture. They do not rise to the Legal Standard of torture as defined in the torture act in the United States or as defined in our treaty obligations that the United States has signed up to. So the department of justice at the time said this is not torture. This is as you know from our other discussions on this, this is one of the thing that drive me crazy and people say this is torture. Because, and the reason it drives me crazy is because the Justice Department said it wasnt. But more importantly when somebody calls it torture, even the president of the United States calls it torture, it says that my officers who carried out these operations at the direction of the president and being told by the department of justice were legal are torturers, that upsets me to have people call them torturers. They are not torturers, it was legal at the time. Rose they say two things a it wasnt effective and b its not what we want to do. We stand for something different. Right. I think there are actually three big issues who are. One is the legal issue we just talked about. One is the effectiveness issue. The other is the morality issue. You have to separate the effectiveness from the morality issue so lets do that here. So the effectiveness issue. Its interesting. What the committee, what the democrats on the Committee Said in their report is not that the techniques were not effective, they didnt make a judgment on that. What they said was you didnt need the information you got from detainees after they were subjected to eit. Rose because it was available elsewhere. Because you already had it, because you already happened it. And what they did in their report was to try to show in 20 case that we said look at how effective this program was. Look at the difference it made. They looked at the 20 cases where we had said that and they purport to show that in each of the 20 cases, we already have the information that we got from people after they were subjected to eits. So the cia responds, right. What i oversaw when i was acting director and then Deputy Director, the cia responds, doesnt say that as john says the cia responds doesnt say that eits were effective or not. What the cia responses is that look youre wrong that that information was already available. That information was not already available, right. The information that came from detainees after being subjected to eits were new, critical information that was necessary to capture other Senior Leaders and to save lives ask stop plots. Let me give you an example. People talk about this in the abstract. Rose let me ask you a question before we do that. Do you believe that you would have found the leader of this who you captured in pakistan without using enhanced interrogation from earlier detainees who had been captured . So let me first say this, charlie. So what i just told you are the views of the Senate Democrat report and the views of the cia rebuttal. Now left me tell you my own view. I was not part of this Program Early on. I was many even aware of this program until july of 2006 when i became number three at the agency. 4upb rose why were you on there. I was overseas for three years. And i was the number three on the analytic side of the agency. I was operational. I didnt have a need to know. When i took on the responsibility of reviewing our response, i dug into this, i dug into this issue in a very significant way. And when i looked at all the evidence, one of the things i looked at is what information did a detainee give us prior to being subjected to eits. And then what information did we get after. I actually had a chart prepared that actually showed that,s bn information provided before. The eits they were subjected to and the information that we got after. And i can tell you that my view, my personal view is that there is a significant difference between the information provided before and the information provided after. That difference is the information provided before, not full answers to questions. They, not specific, not actionable. Information provided after. Specific. Full answers to questions. Actionable. You can see a big difference between the information provided before and after. Now, to your specific question on bin laden. Detainees who were not subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques told us about this guy, right. Rose detainees. Were not subjected to eits or detainees who were subjected to eits before before they were subjected to them, told us about a game named abu akhmed gave us very specific information about awe by akhmed. Rose what you knew beforehand and what you found out after. Yes. The one individual told us he is one of, he is one of bin ladens careers. That was the most specific information that we had on this guy named abu akmed. Rose this was after an enhanced interrogation. After enhanced interrogation. Rose all you knew before was abu akmed is this important guy both before 9 11 and after 9 11. And hes hanging out with the master mind of 9 11 and hes somehow associated with bin laden. The information was he was bin ladens career. Now heres the question. The question is in we never got that information after eits the specific information, would we have still followed the abu akmed trail . Probably probably. I say yes. My guys when i talk to them about this, the very specific information we got from the two detainees who had been subjected to eits that specific information led us to take this particular lead. Remember theres hundreds of leads out there. To take this particular lead to the top of the list. Rose is it also said because youre listening to these detainees when they went back to their cells that once you began to ask specific questions about the courier that they got very nervous and especially mohammed. He began to say dont talk about the courier. Great point. So there are two detainees who by the time were asking questions about abu akmed have already been subjected to eits and already are fully compliant. They are answering our questions with great specificity and answering the vast majority of the questions we put to them. So then we go in and one of them is mohammed. We go in and ask about abu akmed because people are telling us about him. The man who conceptualized it. He told us bin laden left a long time ago. Rose let me interrupt this one second. Keep the thought. At that moment, what was the level of cooperation he was giving you and what was the level of information that you trusted, and what was the level of information at that time about other things that was actionable. Full. Full and complete. Rose he was totally cooperating. Yes. Rose and you think that was because of what, he was being water boarded hundreds of times. My officers who conducted these interrogations, and this is said in the Agency Response although its hidden. My officers who conducted these interrogations believe that they were necessary, skip to the necessary question. Believe that they were necessary to get detainees to provide actionable information. Rose water boarding. Yes. Specifically mohammed and the two hardest cases. My officer believed that was necessary. Now, back to the bin laden story. Rose they helped you get thats what we say. The Committee Says no, right. So ksm says look this guy used to work for alqaeda he doesnt work for allege kied anymore, long gone. The other guy says i never even heard of him, right. And the other guy very senior too says i never even heard of him. Ksm then, so two guys who were being fully cooperative with us, lied to us about abu actmed. That tells us that hes really important, right. And then ksm goes back to his cell and were monitoring the conversations and ksm tells everybody he can reach dont talk about the courier. Rose denies his existence. Again, tells the importance of abu akmed and the importance of the Detention Program here. Now i just said something really really important about the necessity argument. I just made an argument that eits make a difference and my officers who actually conducted the interrogation actually believe eits make a difference. Now we get to the necessity. Was it necessary, right . And c. I. A. Has for some time director panetta said it, i said it as acting director, the c. I. A. Continues to say it, that well never know whether these techniques were necessary to get the information. In my view, charlie, after having thought about this for a long time, is that that is a bit of a cop out. That you can say that about almost anything unpleasant in the history of the United States. For example, you can ask the question was it necessary for Abraham Lincoln to suspend habeas corpus in order to win the civil war. Well never know the answer to the question. Was it necessary for the United States to drop atomic bombs on japan in order to force japans surrender. Well never know the answer to that question. So of course, its unknowable. But the people on the ground believe it was necessary. Rose john brennan thinks its unknowable because of the reasons you just said. I think its politically convenient to say its unknowable. Rose we talk much now especially people from the c. I. A. You have to understand the context. The word they used is context the word youve used is context. Give us a sense of the context. Because my cadence is going around saying if in fact we hadnt done these things and there had been a successful attack later, six months later, it will be hell to pay. Right. Rose and people said why didnt you know this. Right. So this gets rose whats the context. The context is very important. Rose who is pushing and who is demanding. Let me tell you exactly how this played out, okay. The context is very important and i was there for part of this context. So in 2001, i was president bushs daily intelligence briefer. George tenant and i would go to the oval office every morning. So post 9 11 i was personally aware of the context and the feeling in the room, okay. Rose you knew what brennan. I knew because i told him. The context is number one, 3,000 people had just been killed. Number two, there was credible intelligence of a second, that there would be a second wave of attacks against the United States of america. Credible intelligence. Rose what was it, what did you know would be the question. The attack on new york was discussed. It was less specific. It was more like going into 9 11 than some of the more specific threats. So it was reporting from multiple sources saying that alqaeda had in place the resources to conduct a satisfy wave of attack. This is not fourth hand, these are our people picking this up. Third credible intelligence that turned out to be true that bin laden was meeting with Pakistani Nuclear scientists in order toon get his hands on Nuclear Weapons. Intelligence that we didnt know whether it was credible or not at the time. Turned out not to be true. But there was intelligence that alqaeda was trying to get a Nuclear Weapon into new york city. So thats the context, right. Thats the context in which the president of the United States rose the cia was worried to death the idea there was possibility of a Nuclear Weapon. They seriously believed there was an effort to do that. And i have never seen pile of intelligence about threats to this country that i saw post 911. And to make it very personal, george tenant and i would meet in his office in the Old Executive Office building across the street from the west wing before we would go across the street to the oval office. And after 911, with this pile of intelligence growing and growing and growing, and with the context that i talked about. We would say to each other as we walked from the Old Executive Office building to the oval office, is the day were going to get hit again. And we were serious with each other. Is today the day that were going to get hit again. So in that context heres what happened. In that context, we capture abu zepeda. Rose how do you capture him. In pakistan with the help o