Original subtitles

That memory of going to

arlington to bury one of my

officers from the c.i.a.,

elizabeth hanson, is one that

will be with me for a long time.

they put their lives on the line

to serve this country, and

that's what elizabeth hanson

did.

i knew that the c.i.a. officers

were there because i ordered

them to be there.

i had to bear some of the

responsibility for having taken

this risk.

initial reports indicate the

bomber was being recruited by

the c.i.a. as a source.

this was the worst, single

loss of life for the c.i.a.

since 1983, when a truck bomber

blew up the american embassy.

this person obviously turned

out to be a double agent and had

blown himself up, as well as our

officers.

it's hard to find the words when

suddenly you're told that seven

of your officers have been

killed and others seriously

wounded.

what went through my mind was

the families out there who,

within a few hours, were going

to be informed that someone

who... who they loved had been

killed.

we spent a lot of time trying to

figure out who were the ones who

pushed that button.

we have a lot of sources that we

rely on, spies.

and so we immediately asked the

question, "who the hell was

involved in this tragic suicide

bombing?"

we were able to get pretty good

intelligence.

and so, we knew who the

individual was.

this was a bad guy, and he was

clearly a leader.

had been involved not only in

going after our officers, but in

killing members of our own

forces in afghanistan.

and it was on the day of

elizabeth hanson's funeral that

i got a call from our operations

center.

they thought they had pretty

good information about where

this individual was.

unfortunately, this individual

had family and wife and children

around him, and so one of the

tough questions was, you know,

"what should we do?"

standby.

do not engage.

do not engage the mosque.

roger.

if there were women and

children in the shot, we

normally would not

take the shot.

i remember calling the white

house, and they were aware how

tough a decision this is and

basically said, "look, you know,

you're going to have to make a

judgment here."

so i knew at that point that it

was a decision that i was going

to have to make.

i mean, i'm the one who's going

to have to say hail marys here.

i was raised a catholic, i

believe in my faith, and i rely

a great deal on my faith

throughout my life.

i've always carried a rosary and

always said a hell of a lot of

hail marys in tough situations.

and suddenly, you know, i found

that i was making decisions on

life and death as director, and

those decisions are never easy,

and frankly they shouldn't be

easy.

i felt it was really important

in that job to do what i could

to protect this country, so i

passed on the word.

i said, if you can isolate the

individual and take the shot

without impacting on women or

children, then do it.

but if you have no alternative

and it looks like he might get

away, then take the shot.

let's go.

roll it in.

wildfire, we're cleared on the

building.

we're cleared on the big

square building.

go ahead and level it.

roger that.

yeah, direct hits right there.

and it did involve collateral

damage, but we got him.

it's done.

these are tough decisions,

and you're damn right, they are

tough decisions.

but, you know, this is a war.

this is a war.

9/11, these people didn't

hesitate a moment to kill 3,000

people and take down the trade

centers and hit the pentagon.

these are individuals that would

not hesitate to attack us again.

in the end, what you do i think

has to be based on what your

guts tell you is right.

that's really what it's all

about.

you have to be true to yourself

as to what you think is right

and hope that ultimately god

agrees with you.

narrator: inside the c.i.a...

i'm forced to make decisions

every day.

narrator: director john

brennan carries the burden of

command.

a lot of decisions that we

recognize have risks associated

with them, significant risks

that sometimes can result in

deaths.

the c.i.a.'s actions a decade

ago are a stain on our value and

on our history.

you can't claim that tying

someone to the floor and having

them freeze to death is not

torture.

torture was what the al qaeda

terrorists did to 3,000

americans on 9/11.

i wish the world were

simpler.

i wish we didn't have these

complex challenges that we face

where there is not a right and

wrong answer, where it's not

black and white.

on those days when i'm thinking

about the things that worry me

most, there is the biological

agent, there is the devastating

strategic type of terrorist

attack, because we know that

these individuals are so

determined to cause as much

havoc and destruction and death

as possible.

how do you deal with this

phenomenon that we're facing as

far as terrorism, like isis and

their wanton, murderous

activities?

isis rules with brutality and

fear, publicly executing those

who offend its strict version of

islamic law.

well, we can let these

terrorist organitions thrive

and not take action against

them, or we can try to take

action that's going to disrupt

their plans.

narrator: in a conflict

against a ruthless enemy, what

are the rules for america's

spymasters?

go for the vehicle.

you are now free to engage the

moving vehicle.

narrator: does the c.i.a. go

too far...

(unintelligible commands)

narrator: ...or not far

enough?

killing people, no matter how

bad they are, is not something

that should ever rest easily in

anybody's soul or in anybody's

brain.

sometimes i think we get

ourselves into a frenzy, into

believing that killing is the

only answer to a problem.

and the truth is, it's not.

narrator: only 12 men alive

today have made the

life-and-death decisions that

come with running the world's

most powerful intelligence

agency.

let me bare my soul just a

little bit more.

narrator: the keepers of

america's secrets,

the spymasters and their top

operatives share their

convictions and, for the first

time, their passionate

disagreements, about the

agency's past, its current

mission and its future.

it is a battle for the soul of

the c.i.a.

when you're confronting an

enemy that's prepared to blow up

and kill innocent men, women and

children, you have to go at them

using the capabilities that we

have.

for me, that's the basic rule:

do we protect our people or do

we not protect them?

narrator: did the white house

ignore the c.i.a.'s warnings

about 911?

3,000 americans had been

killed.

there was an emotional piece of

this because we had woken up

every day of our lives trying to

stop what just had happened.

narrator: what's fair game

against terrorists hell-bent on

attacking us again?

black sites, indefinite

detention?

you're director of central

intelligence and somebody comes

forward and says to you, "we got

these bad guys, we know they're

bad guys.

what would you like us to do

with them?"

well, the old traditional way

would have been to put them in

the back of the truck and shoot

them.

well, that's not a very good

idea, is it?

narrator: are brutal

interrogation techniques ever

acceptable?

the senate report has

publicly revealed graphic new

details.

...and the report says

detainees were kept in total

darkness, shackled to the wall

in 45-degree temperatures.

we were asked to do some very

hard things.

are we happy we did them?

of course not.

would we do them again?

i would hope so if we found

ourselves in those

circumstances.

i just don't think a country

like ours should be culpable of

conducting torture.

i just think it's beneath our

dignity.

i think it's poor for our

reputation and the world.

i'm not going to ever accept

the use of the word "torture" in

front of what happened here.

i'm not going to fall to that.

narrator: has the c.i.a.

become a secret army, a killing

machine?

you're sitting there in the

middle of nowhere in nevada, and

you're looking at a screen that

is televising what looks for all

the world like a big video game.

and push a button and a pickup

truck explodes half a world

away.

i mean, if they're bad guys

and they're doing us harm,

i have no problem with that.

now the dark side.

you know, you can't be perfect.

there is collateral damage.

(crying)

we feed the jihadi

recruitment video that these

americans are heartless killers.

we may have to use these

kinds of weapons, but, in the

end, let me tell you

something--if we fail to do this

and god forbid this country

faced another 9/11, you know

what the first question would

be: why the hell did you let

this happen?

why the hell did you let this

happen?

if you are a terrorism

analyst for long enough, you

will have many moments where you

will feel responsible.

responsible for not having

stayed long enough, not having

stayed late enough, not having

thought hard enough.

not having plowed through enough

data to connect those proverbial

dots.

and you'll see on the other end

of that individuals who are hurt

or killed.

i gave birth to my first son in

what was a very emergency

c-section.

he was quite early.

i was lying down in my hospital

bed, still trying to get over

some of the pain.

my phone rang, and i heard my

boss screaming on the other end,

"your people did this, your

people did this."

and i had no idea what she was

talking about, but i knew she

meant something bad had

happened.

and i turned on the television,

and i saw, and i knew what she

meant.

narrator: february 26, 1993.

we heard a tremendous

explosion.

the entire building.

narrator: in an underground

garage in new york city, a van

packed with explosives

detonates, killing six people

and injuring more than a

thousand.

it would be the first attack on

the world trade center.

the fact is, at this hour,

police simply don't know who did

this or why.

the big message that comes

out of the 1993 trade center

bombing is that a threshold has

been crossed.

they've hit us here.

but you know, thinking back on

it, i'm not sure that message

was as powerfully absorbed as we

can see it in retrospect.

narrator: the trail would

lead to a shadowy network of

jihadists in afghanistan that

the world would come to know as

al qaeda, and a charismatic

saudi multi-millionaire.

i had likened osama bin laden

at the time to-- i know this is

horrible to say, but to donald

trump.

you know, he was like the donald

trump of the terrorism

underworld.

he had the wherewithal and a

vision that was clearly

controversial and different from

everybody else, but, you know,

the tenacity to follow it.

i definitely drew a lot of

snickers from my... from my

colleagues who thought i was

making a mountain out of a

molehill and blowing him out of

proportion.

narrator: august 7, 1998.

suicide truck bombers strike

american embassies in tanzania

and kenya, east africa.

224 people lie dead, two of them

c.i.a. officers.

after the east africa

bombings, i sat at home and

furiously drafted a memo called

"we're at war."

enough swatting at flies; we

need to put a worldwide plan in

place where we can start

demonstrating that we can

penetrate this adversary, get

into the sanctuary, penetrate

his major operational hubs and

set us up for really providing

policymakers with hard

intelligence with which they

could make decisions.

narrator: cofer black, a

legendary operative, had escaped

an assassination attempt by al

qaeda while serving in khartoum.

the first week that i was in

the counterterrorism center, new

chief comes in, and they stick

you in a conference room, and

people start coming in and

briefing you on all their areas

of activity.

i don't shock easy, but i was

shocked.

this was a wave of threats

coming at the united states.

there was no doubt in my mind

that the united states was going

to be struck and struck hard.

lots of americans were going to

die.

sandy berger, the national

security advisor at the end of

the clinton administration,

asked us for a very important

piece of paper.

we called it the "blue sky

paper."

he said, "i want you to imagine

that you had all the authorities

you needed and all the resources

you needed to take down al

qaeda.

what would you do?"

getting into the afghan

sanctuary, launching a

paramilitary operation-- we knew

exactly what to do.

we were ready to do it.

the important part is, no

action was taken.

it was not advanced.

narrator: as al qaeda grows

more lethal, c.i.a. director

george tenet faces a test that

will define his place in

history: can the c.i.a. stop bin

laden before he strikes the

united states again?

on september 28, 2000, we

were testing drones over

afghanistan when we saw a very

tall man in white robes who we

assumed at the time was bin

laden.

i mean, i love this.

this is such a washington thing.

our instructions were to capture

him, and that's what we

attempted to do.

and the difference between

capturing, i would think, and

the alternative is significant.

and the gap is large.

killing bin laden in the time

period we operated was never an

option because the attorney

general of the united states

could only be killed in theat he

context of a capture operation.

did you tell the white house,

did you tell janet reno, "look,

you don't get it.

we have to kill this guy.

we have to take him down"?

no.

i'll tell you why.

i have an institutional

responsibility; i play in a

process where the president of

the united states and the

attorney general have to accept

responsibility for the actions

we're going to take.

narrator: but the east africa

bombings in 1998 had changed the

calculus for president bill

clinton.

he launched cruise missile

strikes in an effort to kill bin

laden, but they missed.

the clinton administration

spent eight years learning to

appreciate this threat, and only

at the very end did they get it.

i, george walker bush, do

solemnly swear that i will

faithfully execute the office of

president of the united states.

there's no doubt that

policymakers across two

administrations understood from

me, and understood from cofer

and all of our analysts and

people who briefed them,

understood the magnitude of the

threat in front of them.

in the spring of 2001, we

submitted authorities to the

incoming bush administration and

essentially advocating a

paramilitary operation.

and the word back was, "we're

not quite ready to consider this

we don't want the clock to start

ticking."

what did that mean to you?

that the administration was

not quite ready to consider what

its options were with regard to

terrorism.

i think they were mentally

stuck back eight years ago.

when they were in power, they

were used to terrorists being

euro lefties-- drink champagne

by night, blow things up during

the day-- and it was a very

difficult sell to communicate

the urgency to this.

for us, the system was

blinking red in the sense that

we thought what we were

uncovering was a top-down plot,

something being ordered from

afghanistan out.

but it was very difficult for us

to figure out what it was.

narrator: the crisis comes to

a head on july 10, 2001.

richard blee, the head of the

bin laden unit, barges into

cofer black's office.

he comes and he goes, "okay,

roof's fallen in."

i said, "great, what'cha got?"

the information that we had now

compiled was absolutely

compelling.

it was multiple-sourced, and it

was... it was sort of the last

straw.

picked up the phone, called the

secretary, "have to see the

director, i'm coming up with

rich."

she says, "well, i'm sorry, he's

in with the head of some foreign

intelligence service."

i said, "we're coming up.

kick the guy out.

we're coming now.

tell him to get ready."

george tenet is a very smart

guy.

chewing on his cigar, going back

and forth, jumping up and down.

his eyes are flashing.

wish i had a film of it.

he got it, all right.

it's not just red lights.

red lights and chatter is a

convenient way this is

portrayed.

there were real plots being

manifested.

the american embassy in sana'a

is going to be bombed, british

and american schools in jeddah

are going to be bombed.

the world was on the edge of

eruption.

[parent explosion]

now, what happens then in this

period of time in june and july,

the threat continues to rise.

public pronouncements by people

in al qaeda was, there would be

eight major celebrations coming.

the world was going to be

stunned by what would soon

happen.

terrorists were disappearing.

camps were closing.

threat reporting on the rise.

and this started building to a

crescendo.

we decided the next thing to

do was pick up the white phone,

call the white house, "we're

coming down right now."

i said, "condi, i have to

come see you."

it was one of the rare times in

my seven years as director where

i said, "i have to come see you.

we're coming right now."

narrator: present at the july

10 white house meeting are

national security advisor

condoleezza rice and other top

officials.

so rich started by saying,

"there will be significant

terrorist attacks against the

united states in the coming

weeks or months.

the attacks will be spectacular.

they may be multiple.

al qaeda's intention is the

destruction of the united

states."

and i said, "this country's

got to go a war footing now."

i slammed my hand on the table.

after it was over, rich blee and

i sort of congratulated each

other in the sense that, "i

think we finally got through to

these people.

we have executed our

responsibilities."

what happened?

yeah.

what did happen?

yeah.

what happened?

essentially, nothing

happened?

yeah, that's right.

narrator: condoleezza rice

would later write that her

memory of the meeting was "not

very crisp because we were

discussing the threat every

day."

having raised the alert levels

for u.s. personnel abroad, she

added, "i thought we were doing

what needed to be done."

if on the 10th of september

we'd been able to walk into the

president of the united states

and say, "we think u.s.

airliners are going to be

hijacked tomorrow," just think

about it.

if we had been able to give him

that very specific piece, as the

president, he may very well have

held all the airliners from

flying, until when?

we might have stopped 9/11 from

happening on 9/11, but i think

it would've happened on the 10th

of october or the 12th of

november.

if you don't put a system of

defense in place, if you don't

button up your airports, button

up your buildings, change your

visa policies, have some

knowledge about what's going on

in the united states, create a

mechanism where there's a...

where there's a quick swivel

between foreign and domestic,

you're going to get hurt.

you know what really does

piss me off?

when people call this an

intelligence failure.

we knew this was coming,

american interests are going to

be attacked, and it could very

well be in the united states.

it's serious, it's coming.

sometimes when i drive my car i

think about it, and to me it

remains incomprehensible still.

i mean, how is it that you could

warn senior people so many times

and nothing actually happened?

it's kind of like the "twilight

zone."

you almost sometimes feel like

you want to pinch yourself.

at the end of july, we were

sitting in my conference room

just thinking about all of this

and trying to figure out how

this attack might occur, and

i'll never forget this till the

day i die.

rich blee looked at everybody

and said, "they're coming here."

and the silence that followed

was deafening.

you could hear a pin drop.

"they're coming here."

the head of my security

detail came over to me to say a

plane had hit one of the towers

of the world trade center.

my instinctual reaction was,

"this is al qaeda.

i've got to go."

there are fire crews just

streaming into this area from

every conceivable direction.

and we all looked around and

we thought, "oh, my goodness.

tragic accident."

and people were talking about

a private aircraft had flown

into... into the tower.

i thought, "geez, this must

be the world's worst pilot."

i jumped in the car.

it was the world's longest

car ride.

it took 12 minutes, but the

phones weren't working.

looking up at the tv, in real

time we saw the second plane hit

the other tower.

we knew, we all knew, "we're

under attack."

holy shit, the first one we

thought was an accident.

when we heard there was a second

one, we definitely thought it

was terrorism.

and i heard a roar, and i

looked up and saw the second

plane hit.

people were crying, holding

on to each other.

stay calm.

stay calm, stay calm.

please, god.

you're doing a good job.

and somebody said, "my god,

they hit the pentagon, they hit

the pentagon."

ladies and gentlemen, let's

keep move... away from the

building.

let's get away from the

building, ladies and gentlemen.

so director tenet said, "okay

we have to evacuate

headquarters."

everybody out, everybody out.

if they stay, they could die.

i said, "we're needed.

that's where our computers are.

we need to respond.

if that's the case, then we'll

just have to die."

narrator: that day, michael

morell, the president's briefer,

is with george w. bush in

florida.

it was our job to prevent an

attack, and we didn't do it.

on our watch, this happened.

we went back to "air force one."

there was a ring of secret

service agents around "air force

one" with automatic weapons.

we took off.

we went up at a very steep

ascent.

and i remember saying to the

president's military aide,

"where are we going?"

he said, "we're just going to be

flying around for a bit until we

figure out what's going on."

we were watching television

images from new york, and it was

in there that we saw the two

towers collapse.

wait a second.

is this a live picture?

this is a live picture.

we're seeing the second world

trade tower center.

the second world trade center

has just collapsed --

today, our fellow citizens,

way of life, our very freedom

came under attack in a series of

deliberate and deadly terrorist

acts.

the victims were in airplanes--

the city i grew up in had been

blown up.

secretaries, businessmen and

women, military and federal,--

neighbors.

nobody comes to our town and

messes with our people.

in his office on "air force

one," the president said to me,

"michael, who did this?"

and i said, "mr. president, both

iran and iraq have absolutely

nothing to gain and have

everything to lose from doing

this.

i would bet my children's future

that this is al qaeda.

this is bin laden."

and certainly, looking at the

flight manifests, that

corroborated the fact that it

had been al qaeda.

narrator: it takes only

moments to discover what has

been years in the making.

there, in black and white, on

the passenger manifest of the

plane that hit the pentagon are

known al qaeda terrorists--

nawaf al hazmi and khalid al

midhar.

two of the hijackers on board

the airliner which attacked the

pentagon had been identified

more than a year and a half

before as suspected terrorists,

yet nothing was done to stop

al-hazmi and al-midhar from

entering the u.s, and no

attempt was made to find them

until just three weeks before

september 11.

why didn't the c.i.a., why

didn't somebody pick up the

phone to the f.b.i. and say,

"hey, these two guys are here?"

at root here is, we didn't

have the seamless interaction.

we didn't have the ability to

fuse things quickly.

our policies were out of date.

the information that the

c.i.a. had about the two

hijackers in the united states

should have been routinely

shared with the f.b.i., and it

wasn't.

narrator: two government

agencies charged with protecting

the united states were barely

communicating.

intelligence officials

acknowledge both the c.i.a. and

f.b.i. failed to follow up on

leads that could have pointed

them in the direction of the

9/11 hijackers.

in essence, al qaeda being a

smart intelligence organization,

looked at our banking policies,

our border policies, our airline

protection policies, our

infrastructure policies and came

to a conclusion that the country

was absolutely unprotected.

i think there's huge failures

at the c.i.a. and the f.b.i.

the c.i.a. missed the chance

to nab two suspects after they

entered the united states.

our government failed to

protect the american people.

an elected official came up

to me and said, "so, cofer, how

does it feel to be responsible

for the largest intelligence

failure since pearl harbor?"

this was a failure of policy,

management, capability, and,

above all, a failure of

imagination.

none of the measures adopted by

the united states government

before 9/11 disturbed or even

delayed the progress of the al

qaeda plot.

above all else, 9/11 was a

failure of our imagination.

we all knew something was going

to happen; we just found it

very, very hard to conceive that

what happened on that day was

going to happen.

i've never liked this

"failure of imagination" thing.

i think 9/11 is a national

failure.

it actually took 9/11 for the

american people to get to the

point where they would agree

with all the defensive measures

that needed to be put in place.

there was never a moment in

all of this time when you blamed

yourself?

well, look, there... i'm... i

still look at the ceiling at

night about a lot of things--

and i'll keep them to myself

forever-- but we're all human

beings.

i do remember the whole

emotional impact of 9/11 struck

me very hard as i sat on my

front lawn after thanksgiving

one day.

the horror of what happened hit

me.

there was no time between 9/11

and that moment.

i just didn't have any time.

narrator: no time, because

the c.i.a. would now be called

upon to put its war plan against

al qaeda into action, that

audacious "blue sky" memo that

had been ignored before 9/11.

on september the 15th, we

essentially outline our plan--

seal the borders of afghanistan,

go after their leadership, shut

off their money, destroy al

qaeda.

we're saying, "take our plan.

let us go first."

and i said, "mr. president, when

we're done, these guys are going

to have flies walking across

their eyeballs."

and i could see the president

was thinking, "wait, flies on

eyeballs..."

then he got it.

and he says, "we'll use the

c.i.a. plan.

c.i.a. will be first boots on

the ground."

narrator: 110 c.i.a. officers

and 300 special forces sweep

into the tribal areas...

niner four five over.

copy that.

narrator: ...where they will

join with warriors of the

northern alliance and uproot the

taliban and al qaeda from their

safe hold in afghanistan.

(unintelligible

communication)

narrator: the c.i.a.'s

message: if you are with us,

you'll be rewarded...

our officers often slept on

millions of dollars of cash at

night.

narrator: ...but if you are

against us...

you were more than likely to

get a 2,000-pound bomb down your

throat.

there was never a general on the

ground.

there was never a command

structure on the ground.

this was a real

counterinsurgency.

[gunshots]

we've got the airplane on

that target first.

over.

we're not seeing any taliban

at this time.

over.

in about nine weeks, all

cities controlled by the taliban

had been overthrown.

all al qaeda in afghanistan had

either been killed, captured,

were running for the border, or

crossed the border.

narrator: bin laden's

sanctuary, tora bora, is blown

to pieces, but the c.i.a.'s

lightning victory is fleeting

because the terrorist leader

crosses the border into pakistan

and disappears.

i'm not sure i ever saw the

president get mad except this

one occasion, and he was

furious.

narrator: and now the

agency's finest hour is about to

be followed by one of its

darkest chapters, because the

white house is eyeing another

target: iraq.

there is no doubt that saddam

hussein now has weapons of mass

destruction, and he had

established relationship with al

qaeda.

there was a relationship between

al qaeda and iraq that stretched

back ten years.

that's not something i thought

of, that's what the director of

central intelligence was telling

us.

this connection did not

exist.

we intervened on numerous

occasions to say so.

everybody knew what our point of

view was.

and i remember once going to the

president and saying, "look,

we... this has got to stop.

we can't support this language."

neither c.i.a. nor any other

government agency ever found any

evidence that iraq played any

role at all in 9/11.

we stuck with that view

that saddam was not involved in

9.11.

narrator: but on the central

question, does saddam hussein

have weapons of mass

destruction?, the c.i.a.'s

answer is yes.

in the oval office, director

tenet reassures george w. bush

with a metaphor that becomes

infamous.

i said, "we can make this

better.

it's a slam dunk."

it was tenet who assured

president bush the question of

iraq having weapons of mass

destruction was a slam dunk.

a "slam dunk."

now, the way it was portrayed

was, this was the seminal moment

in the president's life in terms

of deciding whether to go to war

or not, and that's not what

happened at all.

the decision to go to war and

orders to send troops had

already been signed.

i mean, we... we were way down

the road here.

what i wanted to convey is there

was probably a better way for us

to make this a better public

case.

narrator: that public case to

go to war will be made by

secretary of state colin powell

in a pivotal speech vetted by

the c.i.a. and george tenet.

we worked as hard as we knew

how to make sure that the

secretary was going to speak to

the world on the basis on the

truth as we understood it.

now, we were also living in a

time period where there was no

outside intelligence service or

experts or anybody who believed

he did not have weapons of mass

destruction.

we know that saddam hussein

is determined to keep his

weapons of mass destruction;

he's determined to make more.

leaving saddam hussein in

possession of weapons of mass

destruction for a few more

months or years is not an

option.

narrator: and colin powell

makes a startling claim about

biological weapons that comes

from a dubious source, a source

some in the c.i.a. knew was

unreliable.

we have firsthand

descriptions of biological

weapons factories on wheels and

on rails.

he has the ability to dispense

these lethal poisons and

diseases in ways that can cause

massive death and destruction.

it should've never been in

the speech.

this was an internal failure of

some proportions inside c.i.a.

our senior officer in germany

was writing cables in that there

were problems with the source,

"don't use this source."

never surfaced to us, ever

surfaced to us.

you know, we let him down.

and he knows how i feel about

all this.

my fellow citizens, at this

hour, american and coalition

forces are in the early stages

of military operations to disarm

iraq, to free it's people.

from grave danger.

it's been 21 months since

president bush launched the

invasion of iraq based in large

part on the faulty intelligence

that saddam had weapons of mass

destruction.

the senate intelligence

committee has issued a scathing

report on c.i.a. intelligence

failures on the threat level of

prewar iraq.

we went to war in iraq based

on false claims.

we were all very surprised,

frankly, that there were not

weapons of mass destruction

found.

we got w.m.d. very wrong.

our blame in this was not

just that we were wrong.

we were and that's bad, but we

did not communicate our

ambiguity.

we did not communicate that we

had anything except full

confidence in our estimates to

the policy-makers, and that's

really the issue.

our analysts were good and

honest people.

there's no political motivation

here.

we basically came to those

conclusions.

nobody cooked the books?

no.

look... look, if we wanted to

cook the books, if you wanted to

cook the books, all you needed

to do was say "iraq was directly

involved in 9/11."

game, set, match point, over.

we never did that.

so we were wrong, and we have to

take responsibility for that.

but at the end of the day,

policymakers need to be a little

bit more forthcoming about what

their own motivations were-- in

this instance, perhaps, how to

remake the middle east.

narrator: the war rages on

for eight years, sowing chaos

and destruction...

no electricity, no water,

everybody is suffering.

my country, not british or

american.

narrator: ...and leaving

nearly 5,000 americans dead,

30,000 wounded and hundreds of

thousands of iraqis killed.

an intelligence failure such

as that that took place in 2003

changes history.

narrator: rising from the

ashes of iraq, a terror group

known as isis.

ruthless and barbaric, they will

be a formidable enemy in the

years ahead.

but in the aftermath of 9/11,

the c.i.a. faces a more

immediate threat: al qaeda is

poised to strike america again.

we could not afford to be hit

again.

everything that we hold dear was

at risk.

the greatest worry was if

they were that committed to the

attack that took place on 9/11,

and they had that much hate in

them, would they resort to a

nuclear weapon someplace?

after 9/11, we received a

report from a foreign service

that said that in august of

2001, bin laden and zawahiri sat

at a campfire with pakistani

nuclear scientists representing

a non governmental organization.

these nuclear scientists had

talked to al qaeda about the

practicalities of developing a

nuclear weapons capability.

the pakistanis said, "well, you

know, the hard part about this

is acquiring the fissile

material."

and then, bin laden looked at

him and said, "well, what makes

you think we don't already have

it?"

narrator: the c.i.a. believes

bin laden has the design,

materials and target for a

nuclear weapon.

we began to receive reporting

that al qaeda had placed a

nuclear weapon in new york city.

narrator: intelligence points

to subways, buildings, bridges--

all targeted for destruction and

chilling evidence that the east

coast of america was not the

only target al qaeda had chosen.

the 9/11 plot had also a plot

to attack the west coast of the

u.s. simultaneously using

airplanes hijacked from asia.

bin laden turned down this part

of the operation because he

considered it too complicated.

narrator: but now, that plot

to attack america's west coast

is given new life.

the c.i.a. goes into overdrive,

knowing that the cost of another

9/11 would be beyond

measurement.

this period of time, with

what we knew about their

interest in weapons of mass

destruction and what we knew

about the conventional threats

that we were seeing every day

made it feel as if we were

living a ticking time bomb every

single day for a period of three

years.

they never stopped plotting

against us.

we captured people all along for

the next ten years, and there

was always a plot involved.

rashid rauf was the pakistani

end of a plot going on in great

britain called the wide-body

plot-- incredibly significant

attack, multiple explosions on

multiple wide-bodies almost

simultaneously flying out of

great britain to a variety of

cities in north america.

can you imagine ten airplanes

full of innocent people

disappearing en route to cities

like new york, washington,

miami, chicago, los angeles,

montreal?

it would have rivaled 9/11.

narrator: british

intelligence, mi5, tracks rashid

rauf's al qaeda cell, his plans

and his improvised weapons of

destruction.

they had gathered up an awful

lot of hydrogen peroxide in a

homemade recipe, turn it into an

explosive and then put it into

sports bottles.

so we had great concern on our

side of the atlantic about

"let's break this up."

the british wanted to build up

as much physical evidence as

possible, so we're saying, "they

bought the hydrogen peroxide."

and they're saying, "we need to

build up more evidence."

the plotters had already

selected the ten flights they

were going to blow up, and i

said to myself, "this is

imminent."

narrator: with the london

plot heating up, rauf is in

pakistan and so is the c.i.a.

so, now i'm on a trip in

pakistan in august 2006 with my

head of the national clandestine

service, jose rodriguez.

i was called in by the chief

of pakistani intelligence and

told, "we may have a chance to

capture rauf tonight.

he's going to go from point a to

point b, and in between there is

a police checkpoint.

we can stop the bus, and we can

grab him."

our headquarters personnel had

pledged to mi5 that very day

that we would not capture rauf,

and i was told that prime

minister blair had spoken with

president bush that day, and

they had agreed that they needed

more time.

i was sitting in the car with

chief of station.

he gets a call saying, "the bus

is coming.

we need authorization to go in."

and the chief of station turns

to me and says, "what do we do,

boss?"

so jose, in a very short

period of time, has to make a

really big decision.

if i took the time to call

headquarters, it would be the

equivalent of saying no to the

operation.

had airplanes fallen from the

sky, i could see myself being

hauled up to the congress.

"let me get this straight, mr.

rodriguez.

you had a terrorist that wanted

to blow up u.s. airliners within

your grasp and you did not make

a decision?

off with your head!"

the decision he made was, "i

can't pass up the opportunity to

grab rashid rauf."

so he does.

we stopped a major attack

against us.

since then, of course, we can't

take more than-- what is it--

3.6 fluid ounces on airplanes,

but that's a small price to pay.

narrator: the plots keep

coming, with osama bin laden

still at large.

where the hell was this guy

that was our number one enemy?

every lead led nowhere for

almost ten years, and it was

pretty frustrating.

but then we had an indication

from jordan there was a doctor,

that if they were able to get

him in to pakistan he might...

he might be able to lead us to

zawahiri, who was the second in

command.

narrator: the c.i.a. believes

it has struck gold.

humam al-balawi, a jordanian

doctor, now promises to lead

them to the mother lode.

he had been a jihadist.

the jordanian intelligence

operation thought they had been

successful in flipping him.

so there was a lot of excitement

and, obviously, you know,

officers who spent their whole

life in intelligence and working

on these kinds of issues felt

that, "boy, this might be a big

break."

narrator: c.i.a. officers

like 30-year-old elizabeth

hanson and station chief

jennifer matthews, a 20-year

agency veteran.

jennifer matthews was in

charge of the officers who were

there.

i wouldn't have hesitated a

moment to put her into that

position because of her

capability and her proven

record.

jennifer i met in the late

1990s when i first came to the

counterterrorism center.

we were both working on

understanding the support

network to al qaeda in

afghanistan, and we were also

pregnant at the same time,

multiple times.

she had three children.

her three tracked with my... my

third, fourth and fifth.

she was chasing bin laden

before chasing bin laden was

cool, and she had actually based

her professional career on

tracking al qaeda and

identifying its adherents.

narrator: but to get to

osama bin laden, matthews and

her c.i.a. team want a

face-to-face meeting with

al-balawi.

it's a gamble that must be

approved by director panetta.

we at the c.i.a. felt we had

to establish our own credibility

with this guy, and, to do that,

you really have to sit down with

him and do a meeting to really

gain some insight as to who

we're dealing with.

the vehicle comes in to the

base.

they brought him through some of

the checkpoints.

they make the decision that they

are all going to go out to greet

him.

one of the mistakes that was

made was there was no body

search.

there was no check.

they thought that it would show

that, you know, that they were

friendly and that they were all

anxious to be able to work with

him.

narrator: but al-balawi is

not about to turn into a c.i.a.

spy.

we will beat you, c.i.a.

team.

inshallah, we will beat you

down.

don't think that you just

pressing a button, killing

mujahideen, you are safe.

inshallah, death will come to

you.

narrator: this is the video

he made laying out his plans,

his martyr suicide video.

look, this is for you.

it's not watch.

it's detonator to kill as much

as i can, inshallah.

this is my job, to kill you.

narrator: al-balawi is an al

qaeda agent ready to kill, ready

to die.

and you will be sent to the

hell.

his hands were hidden.

they demanded that he take his

hands out.

they kept yelling at him.

and before they knew it, he had

detonated his suicide vest.

it blew up everyone who was in

the area, and the ball bearings

from the vest actually went

under the vehicle and tore the

legs of several other officers

who were there so that almost

everybody who was in that

semicircle was wounded or

killed.

it was a very, very grim

reminder about just how much our

officers put themselves at risk.

that was a terrible, terrible

loss for the agency and really,

really shook it.

narrator: seven c.i.a.

officers are dead, including

elizabeth hanson and her friend,

jennifer matthews.

i have one memory of jennifer

that is the one i choose to

recall.

one time, jennifer and i were

traveling overseas, and we were

in a tiny little beat-up car.

she has the radio up, all

crackly and horrible.

but you hear the unmistakable

piano intro to gloria gaynor's

"i will survive," which any

woman can tell you is one of our

anthems.

and jennifer cranks that radio

all the way up, belting out, "as

long as i know how to love, i

know i will survive," just

dancing.

as long as i know how to love

i know i'll stay alive

that's how i remember her

living, larger than life.

she just was all heart.

as much as al qaeda thinks they

destroyed her that day, they

made her immortal.

she will always survive.

it was very personal,

personal for me, personal for

the other officers at the c.i.a.

narrator: it isn't long

before leon panetta makes that

life-and-death decision, calling

in a deadly drone strike on the

mastermind of that suicide

bombing-- the strike that also

killed his family.

probably the biggest

consequence was that the gut

feeling in every officers' inner

being that that their goal was

to go after the leadership of al

qaeda.

we needed to get real-time

information as fast as we

possibly could to protect the

country and ensure there wasn't

another attack on the homeland.

narrator: the c.i.a. under

george tenet now embarks on a

controversial interrogation

program that will come back to

haunt it, one that begins with a

single prisoner.

abu zubaydah was a major

terrorist facilitator and

planner on the part of al qaeda.

we believed that he had

important and significant

information to provide.

and through an incredibly

difficult targeting effort, we

were able to finally capture him

in march of 2002.

there was a firefight and abu

zubaydah is severely wounded, so

we needed to take him somewhere

where we could interrogate him

ourselves, away from the public

light.

we needed a place to talk to

them.

where's that going to be?

if you're going to do it a

jailhouse in pakistan, you're

going to get a hugely bad

outcome because: a, nothing's

going to be secret and probably

nobody is going to survive the

session, plus there will be a

riot on the main street in about

15 minutes.

should we bring them back to

the united states?

give them the full protection of

the u.s. constitution?

allow them to have lawyers

present to protect their rights

as if they were american

citizens?

i'd like to know, what are you

going to tell the director of

central intelligence to do?

narrator: in order to

interrogate their prisoners, the

c.i.a. creates a network of

so-called black sites, secret

prisons that eventually will

hold at least 119 suspected al

qaeda terrorists.

in charge of the sites is jose

rodriguez.

the black sites were

instrumental in helping us gain

very invaluable information.

some critics might say,

"well, wait a minute, you wanted

to be able to abuse this guy.

you didn't want any rules.

you wanted to..."

well, that's...

"...torture the guy."

that's bullshit.

we get accused by human right

activists that we created this

black site in order to abuse

people.

in fact, by accepting prisoners,

we actually became responsible

for them, for their health, for

them totally.

abu zubaydah had provided some

early useful information, and

then he stopped talking.

george tenet was going to the

white house every day and the

president was asking george,

"what is abu zubaydah saying

about the second wave of attacks

and about all these other

programs?"

well, he was not saying

anything, and we knew we had to

do something different.

and over the summer months of

2002 put together what became

the enhanced interrogation

program.

narrator: to run its program,

the c.i.a. hires two

psychologists who had trained

u.s. airmen to resist enemy

torture.

they have no experience in

interrogation and no knowledge

of al qaeda, but their company

is paid a staggering sum of $81

million.

a lot of people talked about

"just have tea with the guy and

establish some sort of rapport."

i get it.

i get that if you've got time.

we didn't have time.

we needed to accelerate the

process.

what we were trying to do was to

move individuals from a zone of

defiance into a zone of

cooperation, and then the

intelligence gathering began.

narrator: under c.i.a.

supervision, detainees would be

slapped and grabbed; deprived of

sleep; forced onto liquid diets;

even confined in a coffin-like

box with live insects.

there was nudity.

there was water dousing, cramped

confinement, stress positions.

narrator: and then there is a

technique made infamous by

hollywood: waterboarding.

where was the last time you

saw bin laden?

where was the last time you saw

bin laden, huh?

when you lie to me, i hurt you.

the opening scene of "zero

dark thirty," where you see all

these prisoners being abused by

c.i.a. officers, spontaneous

waterboarding with a pail--

total bullshit.

made up stuff.

waterboarding as practiced by

the chinese, the nazis, the

spanish inquisition is torture

and has always been torture.

but the waterboarding that was

applied was different, okay.

how is it different?

it's different because it

doesn't use as much water.

they don't drown anybody.

the body responds as if the

body thinks its drowning.

am i happy we had to do it?

of course not.

we had doctors there to make

sure that no harm came to the

individual.

i'm not trying to minimize how

unpleasant this technique was.

it is not torture.

you know, lawyers looked at

this.

had they said, this is torture,

we would not do it.

the most important thing that

happens here is these techniques

and the proposal to use these

techniques on any human being

are sent to the department of

justice immediately because we

want to know that it is legal

under u.s. law and does not in

any way compromise our adherence

to international torture

statutes.

and the attorney general of the

united states told us that it

did not.

it's also important to know that

the president of the united

states authorized these

techniques.

the president read the memo,

looked at the techniques and

decided he was going to take two

techniques off the table

himself.

i do not know nor do i recall

what techniques were taken off

the table.

only three detainees were

ever waterboarded, by the way.

three killers that had american

blood on their hands were

waterboarded by us.

give me a break.

give me a break.

narrator: but there are some

inside the c.i.a. who have grave

doubts.

there were a number of those

techniques that i personally

felt were inappropriate, not

necessary, beyond the pale.

i was not in the... in the chain

of command, but i was a c.i.a.

officer.

i was a senior c.i.a. officer at

the time, and i had expressed

my... my discomfort and my... my

concerns about these techniques,

believing that they were going

to come back to haunt us, the

c.i.a.

i did that with individuals,

colleagues at the agency.

did he ever come and complain

to you about the

enhanced-interrogation

techniques?

nope.

he never came to you and

said, "hey, you know what,

george?

i think this is wrong"?

nope.

he never did?

nope.

it's not as though i went up

and down the halls of the c.i.a.

and said, "we shouldn't be doing

this, we shouldn't be doing

this."

looking back on it now, should i

have spoken out more loudly

about it?

maybe.

i think about that a lot.

now you say that this program

was carefully managed.

yes.

did anybody die?

at the beginning of 2002 when

we started to take prisoners, we

just did not know what we were

doing.

we are not jailers.

we don't have those skills.

and abuses were made, and we

have 'fessed up to those.

early on in the program,

there were terrible mistakes

made.

there were immediate justice

department referrals made.

and two people did die, and it's

regrettable.

narrator: one detainee,

severely injured during his

capture, is left untreated

during a c.i.a. interrogation at

an iraqi prison and dies.

another is shackled half-naked

on a cold floor at a c.i.a.

black site in afghanistan.

he is found dead of hypothermia.

no charges are ever brought

against the officers involved.

it's awful that those things

happen, but happen... shit

happens, you know.

i mean, you know, we were at

war.

the fog of war.

narrator: some c.i.a.

officers who witness the

interrogations are so disturbed

they break down in tears.

my personal view is, "thank

god," all right?

i would not want anyone in that

room doing this to another human

being if they were not

emotionally disturbed by what it

was they felt they had to do.

look, he's a terrorist, but he's

also a person, and i would never

want agency officers to forget

both realities.

narrator: george tenet says

that abu zubaydah, his

resistance weakened, gives up a

valuable lead to the whereabouts

of an al qaeda terrorist second

in importance only to osama bin

laden himself.

khalid sheikh mohammed, the

architect of 9/11, was captured

as a result of an elaborate

human operation that was

informed by data that

interrogated detainees gave us.

we took him to a black site

where we would have the

opportunity to debrief him on

what he knew about threats

against our homeland.

he was smart, scary smart.

hannibal lecter.

pure evil.

the type of individual that is

able to dream up different ways

of killing us.

we asked him, "what do you know

about plots against the u.s.?"

and his answer was, "soon you

will know," which was a chilling

response because we also knew

that he was planning a second

wave of attacks.

my name is daniel pearl.

i'm a jewish american.

he eventually confessed to

the killing of daniel pearl, the

"wall street journal" reporter.

and it was like a matter of

fact.

he said, "look, i killed him.

i slaughtered him, cut him into

pieces.

i put him in a shallow grave."

he actually didn't have a

problem with waterboarding.

he withstood waterboarding.

khalid sheikh mohammed knew that

in all likelihood we would stop

at ten seconds, and he would

count with his fingers.

he would go and then look at us

like, "you know, hey, it's time

to stop."

had it not been for the

accumulation of techniques...

and i think sleep deprivation

finally led him to become

compliant.

afterwards, he wouldn't stop

talking.

narrator: waterboarded and

sleep-deprived, khalid sheik

muhammed would inadvertently

help point the c.i.a. to its

ultimate target: osama bin

laden.

it was only when a number of

detainees after interrogation

revealed that indeed bin laden

had sent a message to his

operations chief via this

courier that flagged this

courier and caused him to rise

to the top of the many

candidates of people we could

follow.

we then raised abu ahmed al

kuwaiti as a name to khalid

sheik mohammed, who, at that

point, had become largely

cooperative.

and then, since we've got the

place wired, we hear k.s.m. tell

other detainees, "don't talk

about the courier."

and our folks in the bin laden

cell go after abu ahmed one

grain of sand at a time,

identify him and follow him

eventually to abbottabad.

narrator: the mission that

would kill osama bin laden--

operation neptune spear-- would

be a c.i.a. covert operation,

the chain of command going

straight from the president to

c.i.a. director panetta to the

navy seals.

tonight, i can report to the

american people and to the world

that the united states has

conducted an operation that

killed osama bin laden, the

leader of al qaeda...

u.s.a., u.s.a., u.s.a.!

hearing people outside the

gates of the white house

chanting, "u.s.a., u.s.a.,

c.i.a.," it was something that

will be a memory that i'll have

for the rest of my life.

the c.i.a.'s enhanced

interrogation techniques were

not an effective way to gather

intelligence information.

the c.i.a. provided inaccurate

information to the white house,

the department of justice,

congress.

the c.i.a. program was far more

brutal than people were led to

believe.

the country deserved a

thoughtful assessment of what

happened in the immediate years

after 9/11.

that's not what we got.

they did things which i

really consider immoral.

c.i.a. interrogators used

brutal techniques that went well

beyond the limits of the law.

some of these practices

amounted to torture.

we were very careful to stop

short of torture.

in the immediate aftermath of

9/11, we did some things that

were wrong.

we did a whole lot of things

that were right, but we tortured

some folks.

we did some things that were

contrary to our values.

narrator: after a five-year

investigation of more than six

million pages of c.i.a.

documents, the democratic

majority of the senate select

committee on intelligence issues

a scathing indictment.

it says the agency misled

congress about the brutality of

its interrogation program and

that no evidence was produced

that disrupted plots or saved

lives.

the effectiveness and morality

of the program would trigger an

impassioned debate among the

directors.

people are throwing the word

"torture" around, you know, as

if... as if we're... we're

torturers.

i'm not going to ever accept the

use of the word "torture" in

front of what... what happened

here.

i'm not going to fall to that.

if you think somebody knows

something that would help you

save american lives, how far

should or could you go to get

that information?

of course, the terrible word

"torture" comes to mind.

the term "torture" is a very,

very loaded word.

if you don't believe that

there is a distinction between

enhanced interrogation and

torture, the conversation is

over.

you can slice and dice the

semantics a number of different

ways.

i think it's hard to not

describe some of the techniques

that were used as torture.

if i were captured by an

adversary and somebody slapped

me in the face, would i come

back and say i was tortured?

no.

if somebody waterboarded me,

would i come back and say i was

tortured?

yes.

i think it was torture.

i really do.

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."

i think it is a hopelessly

incorrect conclusion based on

flawed information.

our review was a meticulous

and detailed examination of

records.

none of the principals

involved in this were

interviewed, which is rather

important because the alleged

motive of this study was to find

out how this came to pass, what

happened and make sure it never

happens again.

enhanced interrogation

techniques without any doubt in

my mind produced unique

intelligence that stopped plots,

saved lives, took additional

senior al qaeda officers off the

battlefield.

we took 20 examples that the

c.i.a. itself claimed to show

the success of these

interrogations, and not a single

case holds up.

they are virtually wrong in

all 20 of the cases.

one of the 20 cases is a

senior al qaeda operative

telling us that al qaeda had

moved to a particular city in

pakistan.

that's what he told us before

enhanced interrogation

techniques.

after enhanced interrogation

techniques, he actually sits

down with satellite photography

and points out the actual

building where senior al qaeda

operatives are, which allows us

to go and deal with them.

the value in my estimation as

i sat at my 5:00 meeting every

night and as we were using this

information to break up plots,

capture leaders, stop further

attacks against the united

states, was enormously high.

without this program, heathrow

airport would've been bombed.

other facilities in great

britain would've been bombed.

buildings in new york would've

exploded.

suspension bridges would've been

taken down.

narrator: and tenet insists

that intelligence from the

enhanced interrogations leads to

the capture of a terrorist

planning a spectacular attack.

he had already recruited 17

southeast asians to engage in an

airline plot against the west

coast of the united states.

the value is...

the report says you had that

information from other sources.

the report is dead wrong on

every account, period, end of

paragraph.

the bin laden operation would

not have been possible without

the courier in question being

highlighted as prominently as he

was by detainees.

narrator: director john

brennan, who was troubled by the

brutal techniques, says the jury

is out.

what i'm saying is that

there's no way to know whether

or not khalid sheikh mohammed

would have provided that

information if he had not been

waterboarded.

that is unknowable because that

scenario never happened.

director brennan is a good

friend of mine and i have the

utmost respect for him, but i

would just respectfully disagree

with that.

i mean, that strikes me as a

dodge wrapped in political

correctness.

narrator: answers to some of

these questions might have been

found by watching videotape.

the waterboarding of two

prisoners was actually recorded,

but the videotapes were

destroyed.

while i was still the

director in a morning briefing,

at the end of the briefing,

someone said, "oh, by the way,

the tapes were destroyed."

and i rose out of my chair and

said, "what?"

my primary motivation in

destroying the tapes was to

protect the people who work for

me.

they showed people naked, being

waterboarded and going through

the enhanced interrogation

techniques.

jose knows how i feel about

it.

he left me in a horrible,

horrible spot.

my concern was, it would cause a

firestorm on the hill

politically because everybody

would assume there was something

to hide rather than something to

show.

i knew that the tapes would

play as if, you know, we were

all psychopaths, and that's

something that we didn't want.

so, you had the director of

national intelligence, the

director of the c.i.a., a member

of congress all saying, "we

don't want these tapes

destroyed," and you did it.

now i was not stupid; i

didn't one day decide to get out

of bed and destroy tapes.

i got approval to do this.

i consulted with our lawyers.

the videotapes were destroyed

shortly after c.i.a. attorneys

raised concerns that congress

might find out about the tapes.

narrator: a necessary evil or

a betrayal of american values?

somebody has to stand up and

be willing to say, "this is not

what our country is about."

yes, we're facing a terrible

enemy, one who doesn't care

about who gets killed, but the

united states is better than

that.

our constitution does

prohibit "cruel and unusual"

treatment.

if it's cruel, we shouldn't be

doing it.

we've got to have people who are

prepared to say, "mr. president

you can't do that.

it's illegal."

let's have a c.i.a. director

being interviewed here after the

second wave and... and you get

to ask him the question, "now,

look, the department of justice

said it was legal but yet you

refuse to do it.

how do you feel about your

decision now?"

and so let's not pretend that

this is the forces of light and

forces of darkness.

these are two damn ugly

decisions.

as the commander of the

multinational force in iraq, we

actually had 27,000 detainees at

the high watermark of our

operations.

my view, quite simply, is that

if you want information from a

detainee, you become his best

friend.

you have to have very skilled

interrogators, very skilled

analysts and so forth.

it's a long process.

these are the hardened, worst

terrorists responsible for the

deaths of thousands of americans

in a period where we simply

didn't believe we had time to

become their best friends.

i just don't think a country

like ours should be culpable of

conducting torture.

i just think it's beneath our

dignity.

i think it's poor for our

reputation in the world.

should a country, the united

states of america-- which stands

for human rights in the world,

which stands for human dignity

probably more than any country--

do those techniques to another

human being?

right?

that's... that's a really

reasonable question.

one is, it's wrong.

but if you don't accept that,

don't do it because it typically

will bite you in the backside

later on.

you will pay a price for what

you do, and it will be vastly

greater than whatever it is you

got out of taking this

particular action.

you can judge us.

we made those decisions for good

and valid reasons, and all i

would be able to say is we sat

where we sat.

we decided what we did.

we understood the implications.

i can stand here today as

president of the united states

and say without exception or

equivocation that we do not

torture.

given president obama's

criticism of enhanced

interrogation techniques, i

think one of the interesting

questions is: what would he have

done had he been put in

president bush's shoes when

george tenet came to him and

said, "you need to do this or

americans are going to die"?

and obviously i don't know what

the president would've done, and

possibly he doesn't know what he

would've done.

how do we make sure we are

not so caught up in the fear of

an enemy that we begin to move

away from the principles and the

standards that represent what

this country's all about?

and, you know, that's not an

easy... there's not... there's

not an easy answer to that.

i mean, some people think that

there is, but it's not.

the classic case, of course,

is a nuclear weapon in downtown

manhattan, hidden, and you have

in your hands the individual who

knows where it is.

would you waterboard him?

let me turn it around.

would you?

the reality is, you have to

look at it in context.

i mean, if... if, in fact, you

had credible intelligence that

there was a nuclear weapon

planted someplace in new york

city or washington, d.c., and

there was one person that would

know where that bomb was

located, it'd be very tough not

to resort to every method

possible in order to get that

information.

i just have to be frank with

you.

if a president tomorrow asked

me to waterboard a terrorist, i

would say, "mr. president,

sorry, i do not believe that

that is what is in our best

interest as a country, as an

institution of c.i.a.

and we need to find other ways

to get that intelligence."

if some future president is

going to decide to waterboard,

he better bring his own bucket

because he's going to have to do

it himself.

the agency is not going to do

this again.

just as we were talking about

this senate intelligence

committee report on

interrogation techniques and

torture, if you will, the

question people need to ask

themselves is, ten years from

now, will people be asking the

same questions about the use of

these drones?

narrator: they are lethal,

man-made birds of prey.

when you can stare at a

target unblinkingly for hours,

if not days, and then use a

weapon against that target that

has a 14-pound warhead in it and

with an accuracy measured in

inches, this actually makes

warfare more precise, and that

should be a good.

roger.

you are now free to engage the

vehicle.

they give you the ability,

actually, to minimize civilian

casualties or collateral damage.

unintelligible order.

give me ten seconds.

roger.

direct hits.

right there.

now, the dark side.

the dark side is the ease with

which a political decision maker

can make the decision to do

this.

people need to be careful

about being so happy with the

use of the term "kill."

intelligence officers in

particular have to worry about

the use of that term.

there are many times when

people are talking loosely about

it or enthusing to me about it,

and i will say to them, "have

you ever killed someone?"

narrator: it was on george

tenet's watch in 2001 that

drones, once just eyes in the

sky, became killing machines.

i had a question, and it is a

question that still needs to be

asked today, as well: "do you

want the civilian head of an

intelligence organization firing

a weapon outside of the chain of

military command?"

i needed to ask the question.

they needed to answer the

question.

we never got the answer to the

question, and off we went.

narrator: why aren't all

drones operated by the military?

one reason: when a covert c.i.a.

operation goes badly, it can be

denied.

i obviously can't comment on

whether the c.i.a. conducts

operations that would be under

the realm of covert action.

covert action is, of course,

that you don't acknowledge them;

what you do is you just don't

talk about them.

narrator: in fact, the

c.i.a.'s drone warfare program

is so secret the agency does not

even acknowledge that it exists.

yet some directors are

surprisingly candid.

it's a covert action.

it's an activity designed so

that the hand of the united

states is hidden.

it allows you to do it in

circumstances in which it would

be more difficult for the

military to do.

narrator: c.i.a. drone

strikes were once rarely

conducted outside of war zones.

the trouble was that was exactly

where al qaeda was regrouping.

in the first half of 2008,

c.i.a. made the case that we had

to begin to go do some things--

targeted killings, for example--

outside of

internationally-agreed theaters

of conflict.

get this guy off the battlefield

because "he's going to come kill

you and your children" was

absolutely compelling.

by mid-summer of 2008, our

government decided on a new

course of action.

narrator: president george

bush gives the green light, but

have drones given presidents and

directors unchecked power?

the power to decide who lives

and who dies?

(crowd protesting)

drone attacks violate every

human law because no law allows

anyone to become judge, jury and

executioner.

americans are ruthless

people.

they are against islam.

they are the tyrants.

you know, it's curious that

certain kinds of activity are

called "assassination," others

are not.

narrator: in 1976, president

gerald ford signs an order

prohibiting the c.i.a. from

engaging in assassination.

for example, the use of

drones going after particular

targets is not termed an

"assassination" in the sense of

this executive order.

why not?

why shouldn't it be?

i don't know.

it's a question you could answer

as well as i do.

there is a distinction

between a political

assassination and against a

targeted killing of an enemy

combatant after congress has

declared war against al qaeda.

and the authorization for the

use of military force is a

declaration.

it's as close to a declaration

of war as we will ever get in

this country again, and we are

going after enemy combatants

consistent with the laws of

armed conflict.

narrator: president barack

obama takes office after a

campaign critical of george

bush's war on terror, but under

the new commander in chief,

drone strikes rise dramatically.

national security looks

different from the oval than it

does from a hotel room in iowa.

to be able to go in, to

conduct surveillance, to target

those individuals and then to

conduct very precise attacks on

those individuals was the most

effective weapon we had.

(unintelligible commands)

clear to engage all.

this administration prefers

killing terrorists rather than

holding them captive.

and the reason i think is

because it's hard.

it's hard to capture.

it's... it's hard work.

and many would consider it dirty

business.

they're killing a lot of

people with, let's say, drone

strikes that would better be

captured and interrogated, that

we might have a chance of

learning what the terrorist

group is going to do next.

you can't question somebody

you've killed.

so in other words, the c.i.a.

is just, "we're taking no

prisoners?"

i don't know that that's the

c.i.a.'s position; i think

that's the president's position.

i... i think he is killing more

people than he needs to, and

we'd be better off capturing

some of them and interrogating

them.

we will do everything

possible to see if we can

prevent them from being

successful, capturing them.

and when that's not possible,

well, then i think the president

should have the ability to... to

take action.

end the afghan war!

stop the drone attacks!

end the afghan war!

stop the drone attacks!

narrator: yet some watchdog

organizations claim that

american drones have killed more

than a thousand civilians,

numbers the u.s. government says

are greatly exaggerated.

u.s. strikes have resulted in

civilian casualties.

those deaths will haunt us as

long as we live.

narrator: the most

controversial target in the

history of drone warfare is

about to enter the c.i.a.'s

crosshairs.

to the american people, i say

your security will continue to

be threatened as long as your

government continues with its

aggression against the muslim

people.

narrator: he is anwar

al-awlaki, a sworn enemy of the

united states and an american

citizen.

he was born in the u.s. and

was someone who was using social

media in order to convey a

message about jihad and doing it

very effectively, and was

someone who had gone to yemen.

there was no question in my mind

that he was extremely dangerous

and somebody that we had to go

after.

as you send us your bombs, we

will send you ours.

narrator: the charismatic

cleric conspires with the

so-called underwear bomber in a

failed plot to blow up an

airliner over detroit on

christmas day 2009, and he

inspires the jihadist militant

who kills 13 and injures more

than 30 in a shooting spree at

fort hood, texas.

i was asking, "what were we

interested in al-awlaki about?"

well, someone said, "well,

he's... he's a bad guy.

he's on the president's list."

so i said, "what list is that?"

"well, the goodbye list."

narrator: the "goodbye list,"

also known as the "kill list."

it's the grim roster of

terrorists targeted for

execution by the u.s.

government.

i, for one, was born in the

u.s. and lived in the u.s. for

21 years.

we went through the process

to make a case for why al-awlaki

was dangerous, and the justice

department, along with the our

general counsel and counsel out

of the white house, felt that a

good case had been made to put

him on that list.

narrator: the "kill list" is

an open secret-- so open that

al-awlaki's father goes to a

u.s. court in a desperate effort

to have his son's life spared.

i want decent american lawyer

to tell me that it is right for

the united states government to

kill an american citizen on the

basis that he said something

against the united states or

against american soldiers.

i mean, i don't understand.

narrator: the petition is

rejected.

september 30, 2011: david

petraeus is now in charge when

c.i.a. drone pilots in nevada

draw a bead on al-awlaki in

yemen.

they have been watching him for

days.

get back on those guys.

there you go.

i think you always do soul

searching when you're putting

individuals in harm's way.

you turn these over in your mind

and... and there are occasions

where you say, "let me mull this

one.

let me think on it."

but if you ensure that you're

within the rules of engagement,

then you press forward and make

a decision.

narrator: moments later,

anwar al-awlaki is dead.

awlaki was the leader of

external operations for al

qaeda.

narrator: not since the civil

war has the u.s. government

executed one of its citizens

without an indictment, trial or

sentencing.

the precedent of an american

president being able to kill an

american citizen under any

circumstances, on just his

signature, is dangerous.

there were nazis who were

u.s. citizens.

does that make them less of an

enemy?

there are terrorists who are

u.s. citizens.

does that somehow make them less

of an enemy?

i don't think so.

in my book, a terrorist is a

terrorist.

i would prefer, under those

circumstances, that there was

some kind of external body where

the president would present the

evidence to somebody outside of

the executive branch, to say, "i

think this is conclusive.

do you think this is conclusive?

i don't see that the

president ever alone made a

decision on something like this.

there are a lot of people

involved in that discussion,

debate and decision-making.

there's a process and there's

certainly a discussion, but, at

the end of the day, it's all

president's appointees, and then

it's the president's signature.

there is no outside review.

there is no external evaluation

of the evidence.

this was an american citizen,

and he was ultimately taken out,

but it's not something that

should be left to one person, no

matter who that person is.

narrator: anwar al-awlaki was

just one man, but the c.i.a.'s

drones have killed scores,

perhaps hundreds whose names are

unknown.

(unintelligible commands)

my worry is that there are

too many of what we would call

"signature strikes," which are

at a group of suspected

terrorists where the evidence

may not be that clear of

specifically what is going on.

what about the so-called

signature strikes?

i can't talk about signature

strikes.

if they are even taken, i don't

know what they are.

i'm not talking about those

guys.

i don't believe these directors

are talking about this stuff.

i'm not talking about them.

you have every reason to

believe that there are bad guys

there at the moment.

you don't quite know the name of

the bad guy, but you know the

van, you know the weaponry, you

know the size of the group, you

know what kind of meetings have

been held there before, you know

the other vehicle that pulled up

and you make a decision.

narrator: january 2015.

c.i.a. drones strike a terrorist

encampment in pakistan.

to the agency's surprise, killed

along with the terrorists are

two hostages, including a

73-year-old american aid worker.

on the behalf of the united

states government, i offer our

deepest apologies to the

families.

these were signature strikes.

the names of the targets were

not known.

mistakes, sometimes deadly

mistakes, can occur.

in some cases where people

ended up dead, i don't know

whether they were collaborators

or innocent bystanders, and

that's the problem with these

kinds of remote button warfare

games.

i would rather up close and

personal.

this is hard, all right?

and anybody who makes these

kinds of decisions are going to

lose some sleep.

but you'd also lose sleep if you

failed to make these decisions

and bad things happen to

americans.

when people ask you, "what

keeps you awake at night?," what

i worried about a great deal was

the potential for a crippling

cyber attack on this country, a

cyber pearl harbor attack which

could paralyze our nation.

well, there are a number of

different possibilities that

could keep you up.

it could be everything from a

loose nuke somewhere, to the

employment of some kind of novel

w.m.d. element in a densely

populated area of the united

states, to a very sophisticated

lone wolf attack.

the homegrown terrorist bit

is a huge threat, even though

not in terms of fatalities in a

massive event, but in terms of

psychological warfare-- getting

us to do things to restrict our

freedoms.

i mean, if you shut down every

mall in the country, you shut

down the trains, the planes, the

banks or whatever it may be,

you've done... you've done

something.

narrator: ongoing threats,

unrelenting pressure-- the

burden of preventing the next

terrorist attack takes a

personal toll.

i don't think you can go

through that kind of experience

of having to make life and death

decisions, having to every day,

every day read intelligence

about all of the evil that's out

there in the world and those

that want to strike at us.

i don't think you can go through

those kinds of days and not have

it affect you.

i think it does.

it's hard to have a positive

view of human nature.

there's an awful lot of dark

forces afoot in the world.

it is your responsibility to

look up at every plane and watch

every train, and you think,

"what could go wrong?

what could go wrong?

i need to be thinking about what

can go wrong."

i don't have a husband

anymore.

i think, over the years, i had

just become such a robot in my

approach to life because that

was what was needed on the job.

i got all the trains off on time

and all that sort of thing with

the family, but they don't

necessarily see me as having

been emotionally present in

their lives.

that's a hard thing to take.

the reason i'm so strong for

c.i.a. is, i saw their dedicated

men and women that work there

get no credit.

not out in the open at all.

and i just admired their

patriotism and their dedication

to this country.

it was very, very hard.

you know, i always noticed

something-- wives of c.i.a.

directors.

the wives are, to a person, of

the view that the experience was

not good for their husbands.

narrator: the spymasters are

all too human-- their successes

often secret, their mistakes

exposed and magnified.

the scandal comes at a

sensitive time for petraeus and

the c.i.a.

david petraeus is not the

first high-ranking washington

official to have an affair, but

he is the first c.i.a. director

to resign because of one.

the petraeus indiscretions came

to the attention of the f.b.i.

you were confirmed in the job

by a vote of 92-0.

precipitous fall.

how tough was that?

precipitous falls are very

tough.

you know, there's a saying in

the military, "the higher you go

up the flagpole, the more chance

you have to show your backside."

and i was well up the flagpole

and did just that.

narrator: some directors

worry that the agency's mission

has changed, that the c.i.a.,

once an intelligence and

espionage service, has become

too focused on lethal covert

action.

there's no doubt that c.i.a.

today has a much larger

paramilitary mission than it

ever has, going all the way back

to its roots.

there's no doubt that over the

long-term that's not a healthy

thing, because the primary job

of the central intelligence

agency is to collect secrets.

look, i'll be totally candid

with you.

an awful lot of what we now call

analysis in the american

intelligence community is really

targeting.

we're safer because of it, but

it has not been cost-free.

i think there's too much of a

tendency to get so caught up in

the scintillating covert world,

that we forget that it's on the

analytical side and the

espionage side that c.i.a.

actually earns its money.

i mean, just think about the

past decade or more had we not

gone to war in iraq, what the

world would look like.

so... and that's an analytical

failure.

it doesn't mean you don't

kill.

it doesn't mean you don't

protect yourself.

there's just a bigger issue that

you have to get your arms

around, which is the creation of

terrorists in the first place.

look, let's be very candid.

this is about islam.

now, i'm not criticizing one of

the world's great monotheisms.

it's not about the quran, it's

not about the prophet, but it is

about the way it is being

misused.

my view of this, frankly, is

that this is not so much

religion as just evil, and we've

always had to deal with evil.

i mean, people, people who do

evil things, they may excuse

what they do based on jihad,

based on the power of the

church, but deep down these are

people who are evil.

civil uprisings quickly

became a tsunami of citizens

roaring for freedom.

there's been a transformation

of sorts in the middle east

because the arab spring, while

it has regressed in some ways,

they unleashed a series of

forces that basically said, "we

want a better way of life.

we want a functioning civil

society."

so, in part, the

message has to be to islam

itself, is, you have to create

vibrant civil societies that

work, that create educational

opportunities.

but this is something they have

to do for themselves.

dealing with this

radicalization that's taking

place among these young men and

young women is the bigger

problem, and until we get our

arms around that, this war is

not going away.

the harsh truth is, terrorism

is right now worse than it's

ever been.

it's the largest safe haven

they've had in more than a

decade with money, access,

narrative and territory.

i've come to the view in dealing

with bad guys that generally you

should believe what they say.

most of them are going to try

and do what they tell you

they're going to do.

for now, i would say the isis'

objective is to consolidate

their position in this so-called

caliphate, but unless they are

stamped out, they'll come here.

they'll come here. our

sensibilities and souls have

been gerard by the horrific and

wonton violence perpetrated upon

the innocent in the streets,

cafes and concert halls

in the beautiful city of paris.

to say we're not in their gun

sights reminds me a little bit

too much of pre-9/11, where

frankly the c.i.a. encountered,

in much of the world, what i

would call a climate of

disbelief.

i wish we would just capture

some people.

i've got more fingers on this

hand than the number of people

we've captured since i left

government.

we've made it so legally

difficult and politically

dangerous to capture that we

don't.

we do not know what the rules

of engagement are.

are we dealing with enemy

combatants?

are we dealing with criminals?

are we dealing with thugs?

are the rules of engagement is,

we shoot first?

we only shoot if we get shot at?

i do not believe that the...

the remedy to terrorism is using

the pointy end of the spear,

kicking down the doors, taking

action against the terrorist

organizations.

this is not an issue we can

kill our way out of.

you cannot kill your way out

of this.

you cannot kill your way out.

you can't kill your way out

of this.

that's a mistake.

it's a much bigger issue than

just killing people.

it's much more complicated.

now we can live in a world

where we all try to see who

could be the toughest, the

meanest and so forth, but it

isn't going to be the kind of

world that we believe we want

for our children and for their

children.

i may be a bit of a heretic

because i don't really see

terrorists or terrorism as a

threat to u.s. national

security.

to me, our nation's security is

only threatened by us if we

choose to change course and

become something that we're not.

so, if you look back at the

fight against al qaeda and isis,

the big picture is a great

victory for us and a great

victory for them.

our great victory has been the

degradation, decimation, near

defeat of that al qaeda core

that brought that tragedy to our

shores on 9/11.

their great victory has been the

spread of their ideology across

a huge geographic area.

that's been their great victory.

i fear and i realize that

we're not going to see an end to

terrorism in my lifetime or my

children's lifetime.

we're just going to have to

continue to do our jobs every

day to minimize to the greatest

extent possible the ability of

these individuals to

successfully carry out these...

these terrorist acts.

that's what intelligence is

really trying to do.

we're trying to give time and

space to policy makers, to our

diplomats, to our negotiators to

resolve some of these

outstanding issues and tensions

that exist in the world.

the reality is that

intelligence or direct action

only buys you space.

it rarely solves the problem on

its own.

and if political leaders don't

have the wherewithal or the

courage or whatever it takes to

use the space, you get into this

loop where you get to kill

people forever.

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