the the, [000:00:00;00] the, the welcome to was a part. and all the russians saying has a that there are no former intelligence officers. the work of spies requires levels of dexterity, loyalty and discretion of the usually go far beyond the field assignments. but what if serving one country reveal something that goes against its most fundamental cherished values? what band, concert she has? treason keeping mom about the abuse or sharing the secret with the public and

potential enemies. well to discuss that i'm now joined by john kerry. i called a former c i officer and a former senior investigator with the senate foreign relations committee. mr. king ratcliffe. it's amazing to talk to thank you very much for your time. thank you. thanks very much for having me now. uh, you had a pretty successful and illustrious career with the c. i a and i think it's one point you became the chief of counterterrorism operations in practice then which didn't take that much time. and as i was reading about your professional story, i kept thinking i was wondering what were the qualities this kills perhaps personal traits that allowed you to and designs across the rank so fast? oh, that's a great question. actually. i think that i was an unusual officer in the i was always the good cop in the good cop bad cop scenario. i found success in,

in getting her gets whether they knew they were targets or not to like me. and i invariably they ended up doing things for me because they liked me. i never understood why or how many of my colleagues uh preferred to use force or threat such as never seemed to me to be the smart way of going about things i found. and this is something frankly, that the f b i is practice for many, many years. i found that you, if you establish a report with the person, you establish a, something of a, a friendly relationship with that person. they're far more likely to tell you what you want to know and to do something that you want them to do. that if you use threats or threats of force, you know, i, i don't know many uh, former ca, officers except for here. or at least i'm not aware of them, but i think what strikes me now is that your approach is very much like the,

the approach of the russians or of the soviets. because a soviet intelligence relies far more on personal or relationship rather than technology or whereas the americans in the west centers, in general, there were about the bugging, you know, is dropping but much less about establishing or actually using human psych here to, to get what they want from the people, was that something that came natural to you? um do you have to sort of fake it or is it something that you enjoy you? well, you know, the 1st 7 and a half years of my career to see i were in analysis. i just sat at a desk like thousands of other people and, and wrote analytic pieces for washington policy makers. and in those early years of my career, my boss is mentioned a couple of times. you would be a good operations officer. and i would kind of chuckle and say, oh well, that's nice of you to say i, i don't really have any interest in being uh, an operations officer. and then i got more, i got bored with the analytic work and decided to try my handed operations. and it

was only that, that i, i realized what they meant. i was, i was very fortunate in that. people just likes to be around me. i have varied interests. i can talk about everything from sports to the theatre or to politics, to international affairs. and um, and people liked doing that. and so i went into the analytic training, which was quite extensive. it takes a very long time. and um, just fine, i found that i was a natural fit for that kind of work. i enjoyed it very much. now, most uh, former intelligence officers that i'm for interacting with tend to have a very particular sense of patriotism because i think one needs to, i have the sounds in order to do what they are doing, to understand why they're doing that. and i wonder what it was like for you in the

beginning of your career and your personal relationship with your country and or what it stood for. oh yes, you have to be very patriotic to take on work like this. but i'll tell you, you've hit on something that's very important here on my very 1st day at the see i put my right hand in the air, and i swore an oath to uphold and to defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic, that's the oaks that we take. i hate to think that that day in that room of 300 new employees that i was the only one who actually meant it. you know, i believed for many years that we were the good guys, period. and so you could be either with us or you could be against us. and it was only after the $911.00 attacks when we started doing things that i knew were patently enable. mr. kerry, i can, can i uh press here

a little bit here because you're not being hired to run. i don't know. like some teachers program. you knew that you weren't going to be doing some clandestine, a secret, this things you were reciting out for the, for an intelligence service. after all, i mean, honestly, um, what was your own sort of degree off? um, you know, holding up your nose at that point because i'm sure you should have that for seeing that there wouldn't be something that would go against what you are used to. so, but there's a big difference between going against what you're used to and going against the constitution. everything that i was ever asked to do before 911. so well within the confines of the law. listen, i'm very happy to break the alarm. i'm very happy to break your law if it means that i can recruit you to provide secrets to me, remember, my job is to get you to, to commit espionage. in some cases, my job is to get you to commit trees

a. i'm very happy to do that. i don't care if i violate your law. it's the american constitution that i can't violate. and so until 911, the job was great because i never ever even approached a situation where i had to violate us law as well. but i think your, your biggest problem with the, the c i a after 911, was a participation in the so called enhanced interrogation program. and correct me if i'm wrong, i thing who will remain the soul c i agent at this point to go to jail in connection with a pro program even though you explicitly refuse to participate in it. now, before we go into discussing the, the details in your own moral universe, one was violated there. i mean, how do you explain this paradox to the fact that you simply, um, you know, spilled the beans about the wrong doings?

and yeah, if you work with to jail, because of that, i've always maintained that we are either going to be a nation of laws or we're not. we're either going to be a nation that respects human rights, or we're not. we can't pretend to be this shining beacon of hope for the rest of the world, and then send teams around that same world to kill people or to torture people in secret prisons or to kidnap them and, and send them to 3rd country torture chambers to be mutilated and beaten and starved, and in some cases murdered. you can't be both things at the same time. either we're going to be the good guys that we professed to be or we're not. and listen, i've said all along that that people can agree to disagree on whether or not you want to torture or to have a torture program. but in mind you would torture was patently illegal. and so if

you want to torture people, change the law. but uh, mr. kerry, i could just to clarify, i'm sure you knew about the targeted destinations uh off for him. uh, agents are our leaders, for example, prior to your joining the c. i a, for example, all this numerous attempts on fidelity asked for his life to name just one individual. i mean, you had the, did you have any problem with that on the moral on the moral basis or you saw that was okay because it was a within the years law, you're talking about 3 different phases here. the, the church committee and the play committee hearings in 1975. i really changed the way to see i could do business and executive order 12333, that was signed into into effect by president ford lot assassinations by the c. i a furthermore, in 1993 with the inoculation of bill clinton, the see i went through something called a co c u l l,

where the white house ordered the cia to go through literally every, the file of every recruited agent that it had to fire those agents to cut ties with those agents who had some sort of a human rights problem in their background, at least in the clinton administration. the c, i a had to take human rights seriously. pre 1975. the c i a was was that are getting organization going around the world, murdering world leaders and over throwing governments. now the highest point of your career came in 2002, when the rate capture of a boat was a big data. who was considered all kind of stairs ranking official at the time, and somebody who's been and what on board, what a board that and torture is extensively. he spent more than 2 decades in guantanamo with no prospect of either trial and release. and the question that i have given

all the, the extremes that he's site to his body uh, were subject to to why interesting the americans are still keeping him alive because i don't understand trying to pretend that his live right to life is worth anything when all the other rides are being so explicitly and so deliberately denied. well, 1st of all, you're absolutely right. this is an example of american hypocrisy. at its worst, we were told in 2002 that was a banner was the number 3, and i'll tell you that that was just simply not true. not only was he not the number 3, and i'll explain to he was never even a member of our quite a few was certainly a bad guy. he was certainly somebody who had helped all kind of by establishing the house of murders safehouse and push our packet scan by establishing ok. just to training camps in kandahar and home in provinces in southern afghanistan he was,

he was something of a legit station for all kind of but he was never a member and he was certainly not the number 3. now that's mistake number one, mistake number 2. this is something that we didn't know until 2005 was a beta, had a cousin, a 1st cousin who was also named other zabeda. and so this guy is gathering intelligence on the 2 opposite betas, not knowing that there are 2. and we're saying, my god, he's, he's doing this operation in jordan. oh my god is he's in afghanistan, he's in practice that he's in london. he looks like a terrorist, superman not realizing again that it was 2 separate people. and so in our files and in our minds, we built this man up to be is one of the most dangerous terrorist in the world. he was not. and then we captured him. we tortured him,

we beat him. we even removed his eye and then made a decision that even though we knew he was the wrong person, he knew so much about the torture program because of what he had endured personally . that we could never release him from guantanamo under any circumstances. mister korea could we have to take a very short break right now, but we will be back in just a few seconds. stay tuned. the the,

the there's no end in sight over how you're going to continue to destroy the earth. is the case for the madness of the people. i tried to go to the gym, but i'm certainly not ready to fight russia. this is also a pursuit. this is the 3rd world lunacy re washington. as for so the funder line likes to say, we have the tools while we just start with stability and business deals to living on mac. we have very close propaganda. you know, a price here in new york. i think we don't know the aftermath any time that you're not allowed to ask questions, you should ask all of the questions. some more questions ask

a better. the answer is will be the welcome back towards the parts manager, john kerry. i quote, a former c i a officer and a former senior investigator with the senate foreign relations committee. mister could react to uh, as i was preparing for this interview and reading about the life story. i kept thinking about alexander soldier and it's in whom the americans liked the quotes and much especially he's saying that the line between good and evil runs not through states or countries but drive through every human heart. then what was ironic to me is that right to bama, who was in office when you were sentenced. uh and who knew about the um, you know, the live story of i was amazing as well who likes quoting soldier needs and if this

kid, she has a recommend if he has books. and he was very, very critical of the cruelty of the song that the regime, for example. and yet he did absolutely nothing either in your case or in the case of this man whose life is essentially being turned into everlasting torture. i wonder if that's as an immoral point in c o 2. these whole situation here in the united states, the justice department likes to use the espionage shaft to prosecute national security whistle blowers between the passage of the espionage act in 1917 and the election of brock obama, who became president in 2009. 3 americans from 1917 to 2009, were prosecuted for speaking with the media. just under brock, obama 8 national security whistle blowers were prosecuted for speaking to the media

. that's almost 3 times as many as all previous presidents combined. one of the things that we learned very quickly about brock obama was that he was not a friend of transparency. he was not a friend of whistle blowers and he was very, very easily influenced by the c i a and by the rest of the intelligence community. perhaps because he came to the presidency with no foreign policy experience or behind perhaps because he just believed in the mission of the c. i a and the us intelligence services. remember, it was brock obama who, who had a kill list drawn up every tuesday morning by the national security council to list the people court to be killed that week with drugs. these are people who have never been charged with the crime. so i was never, never under the belief that obama was a friend of transparency. i'm very interested about these paradox because on the uh, between uh on the one hand enhanced interrogation techniques. and on the other hand,

civil liberties because they are the total polar opposites of one another. and it is so interesting psychologically that it is your society and the next toss personal freedom. so much that are still foundational to your national identity. and that would come up with this program and even try to sort of legitimize it on the new are also renaming it into something else. and i wonder if that was because of the end of the day it was targeting for others rather than americans that you know to for. and there's such treatment perhaps that humanity perhaps, is somehow lower than that of americans. how would you explain this very difficult uh, and very polar split. i'm actually more cynical about it than you are. i think you're being to kind of in that, along with the torture program. the rendition program,

the secret prison program. we also saw the warrantless wiretapping of american citizens, and i say is forbidden by law, for example, for intercepting or the intercept the communication of american citizens. and yet they intercept the communication of literally all american citizens, not just phone calls, but text messages and emails as well. we now know from the twitter files that any say also collects many data from every social media company on american citizens that is patently illegal. now we wouldn't have known this had edward snowden not told us. and congress has not had the guts to stand up and say, this is wrong if we're going to be again, if we're going to be a country that, that respect civil liberties and individual freedoms that we should be that country . as far as i'm concerned, collecting the data on all your citizens is pointless. it's very expensive, but his point that he would never have enough

a list to sift through all that information. it makes no sense and to some extent, it's also like mine is active in the american foreign policy because the americans often try to impose this very tool to control that comes back to her them. i mean, it, i one day embassy i ever looked and we associate the intelligence with intelligence . that is the ability to analyze. so i want him to see how he has ever analyzed, be effective, and as all 5 that own actions a no, no, they haven't it, i'm so glad that you said that because here in the united states, like in many countries, but here in the united states especially, we like to think that we are the smartest, we are the best. we have the best ideas. when we're in a room with people from foreign countries, they all gather around us to hear our wisdom and to follow our leadership. and that

is just simply ridiculous. you can't possibly have enough analysts to pour through this information. so why collected in the 1st place, really gallery or illegality site. why bother to collect it in the 1st place? and another thing is, you know, the c, i a like any big, lumbering bureaucracy is slow to make decisions, slow to change its policies, slow to recognize its own mistakes. and so you find the c, i a doubling down on many of these uh, these decisions only to realize when it's far too late, that the decision was wrong in the 1st place. i think that that's, that's what we've seen in this series of decisions going all the way back to october of 2000. and one with passage of the patriot act is just wrong. it's not is wrong. it's stupid. and now you restricted civil liberties. and how do you get out of that way when these restrictions are being challenged on constitutional grounds, you have to argue that the constitution was wrong, or it was short sighted,

or that you're smarter than the founding fathers work, or that you're smarter than the supreme court is this is going to be a fight that we're going to have to have to continue for generations. one of the tendency that i think your culture political culture has, is this hyperbolic moralizing. your setting up such a high moral standards for others in the very, very lowest, then there's for, for, for yourself or at least for your petitions, perhaps not for, for the ordinary people. but what i'm interested in uh is this uh, sort of a double standard of, uh, requiring from your, from your address sir, is done uh from yourself. i think i saved all around foreign policy right now. i think the and the united states uses this moralizing slash demonizing with respect in relation with russia and china is adversaries. but it's also very lenient when

it comes to moral consistency with its allies like israel, for example. um, is it, um, is it instrumental or the american simply don't see it. first of all, your point is exactly right. there is this, uh, this hypocritical double standard, especially in foreign policy, is really a great example. saudi arabia is another great example. you know, we pretends that we have this special relationship with saudi arabia. we don't, we buy their oil and they buy our weapon systems. and really that's the extent of the relationship. but with israel, this is probably the best example when i was serving overseas. in, in one case, i was the embassy human rights officer. so one day, the host government broke up a peaceful pro democracy demonstration. the rest of the 15 year old boy, they took him back to the police station and they beat him to death. and then they called the parents and told them to come by the police station and pick up the

button. so i went in to see the minister of interior, and i said, your highness, you cannot beat to death a child and get away with it. i'm going to have to write this up and i'm going to have to inform congress because we are robust arms a sales program with this country. well, what do you think his reaction would be when? 15 minutes after i leave his office? the i istation chief enters the office and says, don't listen to the human rights guy. we want you to open a secret prison here where we can torture people or better yet, you torture them. and then you give us a transcript of what they said under torture. do you think he's going to listen to me? or do you think he's going to listen to the c i a station cheeks. and that's to me, indicative of this, of this immortal double standard we have with our friends. what you're talking about. the secret prison reminds me of guys are, which is a big, open sky prison. it's not sick or a secretary,

but the people are being subjected there to torture for many, many generations. that basic rights are being denied and yet israel justifies it by. it's right to defend itself just like them. eric after 9911. and even it's right to exist and i think george w bush all also use the some sort of invocation of the right to exist. you know, they hate us because of our lifestyle on because we, we do something back to them. i wonder if you, if you're saying that the israel would be able to treat guys that was in such a way if it weren't for the american backend. absolutely not that these really is know that they essentially control uh, the, the american administration. and congress is because of the, of the generations of, of support that the jewish groups and pro is real groups in the united states have provided to, to members of congress. last night. we had

a presidential debate for the republican nomination for president, and all 4 of the participants in the debate agreed that we should give unrestricted on saturday support to israel. and all 4 of these presidential candidates criticize the, by the ministration. only because the by the administration made a statement that these really should make more of an effort to respect human rights . can you imagine they were angry and upset because the president called for respect for human rights, their position being and this is really the mainstream position in the washington political class, that these really should be allowed to do literally anything they want. and that means to kill anybody they want and nobody seems to have any problem with that. we, you and i both know that's, that's a crime against humanity. so why aren't we doing something about it?

well, i tell you why, because it is a red flag of the united states are going north for sufficient, but for absolute security and to some extent, we also see the manifestation of that in ukraine, whether ukrainians are being asked on to continue that they're fighting even though they're not being adequately supplied by either the weapons or the on demand power is running out very, very quickly. my last question to you is do you think the americans would ever agree to leave and left leave because otherwise i don't see any other outcome then . uh, i can navigate uh clash between your and my country and i hate to say, but you're right. uh. yeah, i know, i'll remind you to that is the united states that history and the way of any kind of peace talks between russia and ukraine. is the united states that has rejected any such meetings. remember, there was a so called peace conference in saudi arabia months ago,

and the russian government wasn't invited, or who a stupid idea was that there's, there's a joke that i'm sure that you've heard, that made the rounds that the united states is willing to fight to the last ukranian, this is not the question of morals, this is a question of policy if the united states would agree and that, you know, the if can enjoy the monica and security is still the one of the most powerful countries into one. but it cannot have an absolute control. do you think it's intelligent enough? it's currency i a personnel or they intelligent enough to understand that there is no way around of a compromising on that? oh no you're, you're exactly right. and i think that the c, i a does understand that, but there's a very deep divide between intelligence and policy on this issue. i think that that there was a, a step forward with lloyd austin's most recent trip to, to ukraine. where by all accounts he said, we need to start wrapping this up. congress has tourney. they don't want to provide

any more money. it's too expensive. we can't afford it. there's no end in sight. sanctions against russia haven't worked. if anything they've helps to strengthen the russian economy and it's time to finish this and move on. so i think that incrementally, we're getting there. we are where we are, but there we also it has used to have, have to finish here. thank you very much for being with us today. thank you so much for the opportunity. and thank you for watching hope to syria. again. it was a part of the the,

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