and the phones are free. comcast business. built for business. hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. 6:00 p.m. in london. 7:00 p.m. in warsaw. 10:30 p.m. in kabul. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. we start with the fallout from the senate intelligence committee release of its report on cia interrogations. already several foreign governments around the world are condemning details in the report. here is some of what we've heard today right here in washington, d.c., starting with the white house press secretary, josh earnest. >> the conclusion that the president has reached, again, it's two principal things here. the conclusion the president reached is a principle that people on both sides of this

debate can agree to. the moral authority of the united states of america is one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal to protect u.s. interests around the globe. it's the view of the president the use of these techniques, regardless of whether or not they elise it national intelligence information undermine our ability to use this very powerful tool. >> back on the floor of the united states senate where the report was released just a day earlier, the colorado senator, mark udall, also a member of the senate intelligence committee, a democrat, said the white house obstructed the report's release for six years. >> so while the study clearly shows that the cia's detention interrogation program itself was deeply flawed, the deeper more endemic problem lies in the cia assisted by a white house that continues to try to cover up the truth.

>> very strong words from senator udall who lost his bid for reelection last month. he called actually for the resignation of the cia director john brennan. it's not the first time he's made that statement, by the way. senator dianne feinstein, the chair of the senate intelligence committee, released the report on the floor of the senate yesterday. i spoke with her about the report and the possibility of retribution against americans around the world. listen to this. was it worth it to release this report today if in fact american lives or the diplomats, military personnel, civilians are going to be in danger? >> look, there is no perfect time to release this report. this began 12 years ago. we have worked for 5 1/2 years to document records as to what happened. >> if americans are killed as a result of this report and they tell you that, i assume you would feel guilty about that.

>> i would feel very badly, of course. i mean, what do you think, wolf blitzer? but we lose control. at the end of this year, the republicans take control. and there's some evidence that this report would never see the light of day. we believe it should see the light of day. and let me say this -- this is a 400-plus-page summary. it is not the 4,600-page documentary of all the detail of what happened. that can be declassified and released one day at an appropriate time. but in the meantime, to get out what the executive summary said, that these e.i. te.i.t.s did not work, that the program was not well-administered, that it was not well-managed, i think, is extraordinarily important. that, yes, there were black sites where people were not

qualified to do the interrogation did interrogation. these are things that come out in the report. now, cnn is doing this these days. you are really hyping it to a point. obviously they're going to take 96 hours before the report came out to secure all our facilities. but this is a democratic nation. >> senator, you and i are friends. we've known each other for a long time. when the department of defense issues a warning saying thousands of marines are now being put on a higher state of alert around the world in advance of the release of this report, when the department of homeland security and the fbi issue a joint statement going out to all law enforcement authorities across the united states, be on a higher state of alert, cnn is not releasing those statements. we're just reporting what the pentagon and the department of homeland security and the fbi are telling law enforcement and military personnel around the

world. that's their words, not ours. that was a testy interview with the chair of the senate intelligence committee, senator dianne feinstein. we're going to have more of the interview coming up. i want our viewers to see it. she says the cia interrogation program over these years was flawed and that it completely failed. let's get a different perspective. joiningis now is bill harlow, former cia director of public affairs and also the man behind this new website, ciasavedlives.com. thanks very much for joining us. i should point out, you're a retired u.s. navy captain, served at the pentagon when i was the cnn correspondent there. we've known each other for a long time as well, just as i've known senator feinstein for a long time. when you retired from the navy during the clinton administration, you went to work for public affairs at cia. you state through those early years of the bush administration. you were there when these enhanced interrogation tactics,

techniques, whatever they were called, torture, some suggest, were in effect. did you personally know what was going on? >> i had some level of knowledge of it. i wasn't intimately involved in it. but i was aware of it, given my position at the time, yes. >> you go through this lengthy report. it's hundreds and hundreds of pages. knowing what you know now, are you personally comfortable what cia officials, cia contractors did to these detainees? >> i am absolutely comfortable with what cia authorizes people to do and i wouldn't just go through that lengthy report that everyone seems to be pointing to. i'd go through the report that was put out by the republican minority, a shorter report, which is much -- as i understand it and i haven't gone all the way through that one -- but it's much easier to read. it starts from the things that are in this report and points out how much is wrong in there. i'd also look at the cia rebuttal put out yesterday. which has gotten far too little notice. and i would go to our website, ciasavedlives.com where we put up lots of documents never

before seen by the public. some of them only recently declassified, formerly top secret documents, which show that the program was authorized, it was legal and it was effective. >> but if you go through this report and you read some of the disgusting details of what were done to these human beings -- they may have been al qaeda detainees, suspects, whatever, it is pretty brutal. it certainly sounds like torture. >> it may well sound -- and there were some mistakes made. nobody at the cia is saying the program was run perfectly. there were a number of cases where people overstepped their bounds and did bad things. but when that happened, cia officers on the scene reported that up the chain of command, reported it to the inspector general. when appropriate, it was reported to the department of justice. what it doesn't stress in there is this entire program was examined carefully by one of the most dogged prosecutors in the u.s. government, john durham,

who looked at all the information and he found nothing prosecutable. he took the time to sit down and talk to people, to interview people who were involved. 5 1/2 years, senator feinstein's committee never bothered to do that. >> she said the justice department told her and the committee, you can't interview officials from the cia, the contractors, because potentially they could be indicted, criminally investigated and just rely on the documents being made available to you, you can't actually -- yesterday i spoke to john rizzo, the chief counsel for the cia. he said, i wanted to talk to these people. they never called me. >> what the senator said to you, in all due respect, is nonsense. what happened was, leon panetta, then the director of the cia, said i can't make current employees talk to them if they don't want to. but there were a small number of people who were under investigation. every investigation was completed by 2012, almost 2 1/2 years ago. and a lot of the people you would want to talk to were never

under investigation. the directors of the cia, the deputy directors, john rizzo was never under investigation. they could have talked to those people. they didn't bother to. why? they couldn't handle the truth. they wanted to go through 6 million pages of documents -- >> you're saying senator feinstein couldn't handle the truth? she's been the chair of this committee for a long time. think about this as i play another clip of what she said to me yesterday because she had strong words against the cia right now. listen to this. >> the cia spent $40 million to prevent us from issuing this report. that is fact. we did not spend the money. we used our staff to do this report. they went into our computers illegally to take out information, not once, not twice, but three times, which i believe is a separation of powers violation. this to me shows that the cia has pulled out the stops to

prevent this from coming out. additionally, there have been statements made by individuals, articles written that simply don't meet the test of truth. >> so those are strong words from her. let's get to some of the specifics. did the cia spend $40 million to prevent the american public from learning the truth? >> no, that's nonsense. what happened while this was under review was not when i was at the agency. but it started in 2009 when the committee -- >> you left in 2006, is that right? >> 2004 i left. but the committee said in 2009 when they first announced tlerp going to do this, they were going to have a thorough investigation, they were going to sit down and have interviews with people, talk to them and look at documents. they scrapped the interview part after d.o.j. opened its first investigation, which they shouldn't have done. the $40 million, as i understand it, was involved in creating a special facility to hold these

documents scurry so they wouldn't fall into the wrong hands, endangering lives of americans and others. on the whole issue of people spying on each other, that's not my issue, i wasn't there, i don't know. i do know -- i remember hearing in the press that there was supposedly a senate sergeant at arms investigation into whether people from the committee actually inappropriately took highly classified documents out of that facility. i'd like to know how that investigation is coming along. i never hear about that one. >> she says the cia was illegally trying to eavesdrop on what the senate intelligence committee was doing. >> i have no information about that one way or the other. but i'd like to know what happened to the investigation about the cia -- i'm sorry, the staff from the committee illegally taking documents. i don't know the answer to that. i don't think anybody else does either. >> i have a lot more questions. very quickly, when senator udall of colorado says -- and he's a democrat, not a republican -- that john brennan, the cia director, should be fired, you

say? >> i say that everyone has the right to their opinion. and senator udall who's being sent back home by his constituents, has his right to it. i think the president is the one who has the vote on john brennan's continued service. as far as i know, the president remains happy with him. and i think from my point of view, i think john is doing a great job. >> stand by, bill harlow, former spokesman for the cia. we'll continue this conversation. there is a heated debate here in the united states, including over this question, did the cia's enhanced interrogation techniques or torture, whatever you want to call it, did those techniques hell. find the world's most wanted man, osama bin laden? stay with us. how much money do you have in your pocket right now? i have $40, $21. could something that small make an impact on something as big as your retirement? i don't think so. well if you start putting that towards your retirement every week and let it grow over time, for twenty to thirty years, that retirement challenge

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here in the united states, the reaction to the senate intelligence committee's report on torture has been fast and furious. let's bring back our panel, joining us once again here in washington, bill harlow, the cia's former director of public affairs. he served at the cia from 1997 to 2004. also joining us, our senior national security analyst, peter bergen and joining us from telluride, colorado, the national security analyst for cnn, bob baer who also formerly served in the cia. senator dianne feinstein pushed back on the cia's claims that its enhanced interrogation techniques helped find osama bin laden. here's what the senator told me last night.

>> what helped find bin laden was human intelligence, was signals intelligence, was information from certain people before they were interrogated with enhanced interrogation techniques. that is what we found. >> let's get reaction first to bill harlow. what do you say to the senator who said the torture, if you will, had no role in helping the u.s. find bin laden? >> well, i wouldn't say torture, but i would say, read the minority report, read the senate minority report which explains that. also read the cia's rebuttal, which is online but nobody seems to be referring to. there's an op-ed in "the washington post" today by john mclaughlin which also gets into this. there's not one thing that leads to a success like getting bin laden. she's right, there are a lot of threads that go into it, including human intelligence,

signals intelligence. but there was information that came from detainees, post-enhanced interrogation which heightened our awareness, our understanding of the importance of this one courier -- >> which detainee who was the recipient of this enhanced interrogation -- >> there were -- >> -- provideded the tip that this courier could lead the u.s. to bin laden in abbottabad, pakistan? >> it's never that simple. there are people we knew about but we knew of them only as among the many people who had contact with bin laden. other detainees would say, no, this guy brought me in information directly from bin laden so he's more important. other detainees would say something else. you mix it all together, you weave it together to get the picture that led you to bin laden. >> peter, you have an excellent article on cnn.com that you posted today on whether or not these enhanced interrogation techniques helped the u.s. find bin laden. "the senate report provides the fullest accounting so far of the exact sequence of intelligence

breaks that led the cia to determine that the courier, the kuwaiti, was likely to be living with bin laden in pakistan. this reads more like a careful agatha christie detective story than a story about the efficacy of coercive interrogations which some have criticized as torture." so the question is, did it contribute to the finding of bin laden? >> in the cia rebuttal which bill harlow just referred to, they do talk about a detainee called al balluki who was the first lead to bin laden -- >> was he the first recipient of enhanced interrogation? >> he was. >> and he spilled the beans? >> the senate report is a more powerful statement in many ways. first of all, it's much more fulsome. as a historian and journalist, it's a copiously footnoted back

to the original documents which are part of a much larger report which is still classified. the 6,000-page report. but what the senate is saying is there were a variety of methods, signals intelligence, human intelligence, and also information from detainees before they were coercively interrogated, particularly someone named hassan ghul who was held by the kurdish regime in the northern part of iraq. and one other thing, five of the most senior al qaeda detainees who were held who were subjected to these techniques all provided misinformation about the courier. so i think the cia has pushed back and -- >> so there's a legitimate debate under way -- >> this thing about misinformation, that was valuable to us, too. we learned stuff, we knew for sure some of these senior

detainees had contact with this courier. and at this point in time, they were providing enormous amounts of correct information to us. they were providing information we could verify. and when they started lying to us about the courier, that said, there is really important. if they're going to be telling you a lot of stuff that's really good and accurate and go out of their way to lie about it, this highlights -- >> well, they would have lied about it if they weren't coercively interrogated presumably as well. >> only a handful of people knew about this kuwaiti courier. bob, what do you make when someone like john mccain who has a lot of credibility when it comes to torture interrogation. he was a p.o.w. during the vietnam war. he goes on the senate floor right after dianne feinstein and applauds what she has just done? he makes the point and ere os make the point that if you torture someone, they're going to say whatever the hell they want you to think. they're just going to want to stop being tortured and they're

going to say, sure, sure, yes, yes, and the information is not reliable. what do you say to that argument? >> i would come down with mccain. i've been in and around torture. i've watched foreign governments do it from south america to the middle east. i was involved in the investigation of the first embassy bombing in 1983 when the lebanese tortured to death a suspect. and the production from these tortured interviews is abysmal. the egyptians are terrible at it. in general, it does not work. there will be exceptions when it does. but right now, we're talking about a lot of inside baseball. and i happen to agree with peter that the senate and mccain didn't come out and say this without good reason. they didn't stake their reputations on this unless they believe the information was obtained outside of torture. >> you want to respond to that, bill? >> well, i think the senate minority and the cia current leadership and former leadership

didn't stake their reputations on saying what they did without good reason as well. and the cartoon image of torture that might have been done in egypt or someplace where they're twisting an arm and asking questions, that's not what this is. these people were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques for a matter of days or weeks at most. and then for three years later, thousands and thousands of absolutely verifiable intelligence came out of khalid sheikh mohammed, abu zubaydah. the information was no doubt accurate and helpful to us. >> i want to point out, bob, the current director of the cia, john brennan, he was a career cry official. but he was appointed, nominated to be the cia director by president obama. the cia yesterday put out a statement on this very specific point that we're seeing. it says, information that cia obtained from detainees through this enhanced interrogation, played a role in combination

with other streams of intelligence in finding osama bin laden. so if john brennan and the cia say this right now, you say what? >> well, listen, i agree with bill harlow. the cia obviously has a position on this. they're not making things up. but what we really need to do is see the interrogation reports and compare them with all the other documentation. it may turn out that the cia is right. but right now, this has become too partisan. we're not getting at the truth. and i think it would behoove the cia to make its case just as it's made its case that it didn't go off on this program of enhanced interrogation on its own. it was ordered from the top, approved by the senate and the house. and it should point out why it believes that enhanced interrogation led to the murder of bin laden. >> peter, button this up for us. you're the historian and the

scholar. you've gone through the senate intelligence committee report, the minority report, the cia report, but you've also spent more than a decade studying all of this. >> well, hopefully, conversation to be continued because there's a 6,000 page version of this -- >> which is classified. >> which is classified. but the cia would have a strong interest in putting out more information that would buttress this. 56 a after all, bin laden's dead. there's a lot of stuff you can continue to put out in the public realm so push back harder. give us a better case for why al balluki was the guy that tripped the wire that led to bin laden. >> it's something you'll all pursue. thank you all very much. good conversation. we'll have much more on this cia report that the senate intelligence committee released yesterday. also, other news, negotiators reach a deal to likely keep the federal government from shutting down.

we'll get a closer look at some of the unusual items in this compromise deal. will that be all, sir?

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can be a roller coaster white knuckle thrill ride. you're promised one speed. but do you consistently get it? you do with comcast business. and often even more. it's reliable. just like kung pao fish. thank you, ping. reliably fast internet starts at $89.95 a month. comcast business. built for business. as the federal government gets closer to a potential shutdown, top lawmakers here in washington have agreed to a deal that will likely keep the government open as usual. the massive spending bill must pass by tomorrow night to keep the government running.

let's check in with our chief congressional correspondent, dana bash. dana, this bill raising some eyebrows. what's going on? is it likely to pass? is the president likely to sign it and avert a government shutdown? >> reporter: yes, yes and yes. the good news is that congress is actually doing one of its basic constitutional functions, which is funding the government. but because of dysfunction here on capitol hill, what were supposed to be 11 different spending bills are jammed into one giant piece of legislation. and it's the last train leaving the station this congress, so a lot of policywriters unrelated are on. a massive $1.1 trillion bill to keep the government running and avoid a shutdown. but tucked inside the 1,603-page bill, lots of add-ons that have nothing to do with funding government agencies but lots of help with the powerful getting

help for their priorities. wealthy donors are allowed to give thousands more to political parties than they do now. a federal program that helps feed women and children can call white potatoes a fresh vegeta e vegetable. it happens that mike simpson who comes from idaho chairs the subcommittee in charge of that program. and no federal dollars will be allowed to implement washington, d.c.'s new recreational marijuana law. no money either to stop manufacturing incandescent lightbulbs, yes, lightbulbs. when republicans took control of the house four years ago, it was supposed to mean the end of these big deals negotiated in back rooms. this is exactly the kind of christmas tree bill throwing everything on that you campaigned on and you, again, promised not to do. >> all the provisions in this bill have been worked out in a

bipartisan, bicameral fashion where they wouldn't be worked in the bill. >> reporter: they were agreed on by both parties, things like reversing regulations on truck drivers that require shorter workweeks and taking one bird off the endangered species list. >> members are trying to find a way to get their legislation across the finish line because of not really issues on the house side, more issues on the senate side, to facilitate their ability to move legislation. some of the stuff ends up in one bill. >> reporter: there is a new money-shaving measure likely to make taxpayers happy. no longer will they pay for official portraits for presidents or members of congress. this bill was posted online late last night. all through the morning, members of congress and their staff have tried to read through it. as that's been happening, there's been growing opposition from a number of democrats.

high-profile democrats like senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts, because there is something in here that rolls back some of the so-called dodd/frank law. she was on the senate floor saying it would hurt consumers and put more money in the banks of wall street. wolf? >> and nancy pelosi, the minority leader in the house, issued a statement expressing concern about various provisions in the legislation as well, right? >> reporter: she did. on this provision and also that campaign finance provision that i had in the piece, allowing people -- wealthy donors to give even more money to parties than before. this is going to be bipartisan in support and bipartisan in opposition, which is exactly what people assumed. but that's what happens when you have a very, very big bill with a lot of different interests are going the last minute before congress leaves town. >> thanks very much, dana. critically important issue right now, the funding of the federal government. up next, we get a sense of world reaction to the report on

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several countries around the world are now taking shots at the united states as a result of the information released in the senate intelligence committee's controversial report on cia interrogations. the new president of afghanistan, for example, says interrogations in his country by the cia in his words violated

all accepted norms of human rights. and the former president of poland who hosted an american interrogation facility said details in the report could hurt intelligence cooperation between the united states and allies joining us, two of our international correspondents, karl penhaul and nick paton walsh joining us from new york. nick, you're monitoring gauging reaction around the world to the senate intelligent committee report. what's been the general thrust around the world to the reaction? >> there hasn't been that kind of burst of outrage at u.s. embassies around the world. they have been in lockdown anticipating. the afghan president's comments, well, he is playing to a constituency there. he's been notably more pro-american, pro-western than his predecessor. we haven't seen a global outcry at this stage, partly because there's shocking new detail in

the report. and it is part of a broad soul-searching. there's nothing in it that's breathtakingly new. some anticipated worse. while the u.s. looks at this as an important part of respecting its own system, assessing where it's been and where it's going, many in the middle east have consigned this the dark ages of the bush era. >> what are you hearing in london, karl? what's been the reaction? >> well, we have heard a comment from prime minister david cameron, official visit to turkey, spelling out what the cia appears to have ignored for years, that torture is wrong and it undermines the moral authority of the government or the agency using it. but what cameron failed to spell out was that britain may also be complicit in the u.s. torture m pra. britain is accused of helping the united states send at least two libyaens back to moammar gadhafi's libya where they awaited torture in libyan jails. also britain is accused of

allowing it territory, an island in the indian ocean, to be used as one of these black sites for u.s. interrogation tactics. and of course you mentioned the former polish president. he came out today saying he at one stage did allow the cia to use what he called a quiet corner for operations but denied he knew what was going on there. he then followed it up by saying, maybe we shouldn't talk too much about this because it will make it very difficult for the americans to get intelligence cooperation in the future for these kind of dirty tactics. >> has there been any reactions as far as you can tell, nick, from isis, whether in syria or iraq? >> notably silent. bear in mind, they have their own tactics. so they're probably not going to pick a moment where the u.s. is anticipating a response to make any response. but i think also, too, what's in that report probably doesn't to them change their narrative particularly.

their final admission by the u.s., they may use it in future propaganda. bear in mind, too, we've heard from former hostages held by isis that some of them were waterboarded. obviously that was an attempt to link their captivity to those held in guantanamo and other black sites. but you have to also bear in mind the potential of some of the more barbaric techniques described in that report may be used on future u.s. or western hostages. that's a chilling thought, wolf. >> and, karl, very quickly, i know you spent most of your time over there in europe. some u.s. officials who worked in these interrogation programs, cia officials, other officials from the justice department who signed off on it, they now say they're reluctant to go to spain or belgium or france or italy out of fear they could be arrested and charged with war crimes. is that really credible? >> well, there are a number of spanish judges who are very keen on trying to pursue these international human rights cases. but in britain, for example, there have been claims in the courts against the british

government for their role in this cia torture program. those are still ongoing in british courts. it is a possibility. but what we can assume based on current behavior, both the u.s. government and the british government may try and block these kinds of international claims. and if you look at past experience as well, i'm referring to the cia's use of torture in central america in the 1980s, those techniques based onned manuals from vietnam in the 1960s, a lot of these techniques used in the war on terror in the 2000s, it has been very difficult to push forward and get the level of prosecution and find exactly those who were responsible for this. >> karl, thanks very much. nick paton walsh visiting the united states. he's in new york right now. major players in the cia's enhanced interrogation program are firing back at the critics out there and the accuracy of the senate intelligence committee report. the former cia lawyer who signed

off on all these controversial techniques talks about what he knew. that's coming up. ♪ when you don't get enough sleep... and your body aches... you're not yourself. tylenolpm relieves pain and helps you fall fast asleep and stay asleep. we give you a better night. you're a better you all day. tylenol®

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waterboarding, days of sleep deprivati deprivation, painful stress positions, all of that and a lot more were carried out by the cia as part of its enhanced interrogation anti-terror program. but the cia's chief lawyer at the time john rizzo says none of that violated the anti-torture statutes. i asked rizzo last night exactly what he knew. watch this. you were the lawyer at the cia during all of this enhanced interrogation technique, this debate right after 9/11, how far the u.s. could go in interrogating al qaeda can wasu, right? >> yes. >> did you sign off what is now

widely seen as torture? >> i was the first lawyer in the government briefed on these proposed techniques. i was the one who referred this matter over to the department of justice which resulted as we now know in a top secret memorandum coming back to me, addressed to me, the first of so-called torture memos. >> this was josh ashcroft, the attorney general? >> it was signed by who was then head of the office of legal counsel. but the attorney general did approve the memo. >> did you know specifically, you personally, what was going on with the waterboarding, the sleep deprivation, all the other really sordid techniques described in the senate intelligence committee report? >> well, those were two proposed techniques. sure, i knew about them at the beginning. and i certainly knew that they were eventually approved by the department of justice. >> so you were okay with it? >> yeah -- well, once the department of justice said that

they did not violate the torture statute, yes, i deferred to the department of justice. >> in the unclassified report -- there's hundreds of pages -- we went through it. there's a reference to you to an e-mail that you wrote in which you said, it is clear to us from some of the run-up meetings we had with white house counsel that the white house is extremely concerned -- secretary of state colin powell would blow his stack if he were to be briefed on what's been going on. that was an e-mail from john rizzo, that's you, on date, july 31st, 2003. explain the background, why you believed and the white house believed that the then-secretary of state colin powell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, four-star general, former national security adviser, would blow his stack if he were briefed on what the cia and its contractors were doing to these al qaeda prisoners. >> sure. just indulge me for a second. i haven't seen that report. i was denied access to it.

this is the first time in the 12 years since i wrote that e-mail that that's been shown to me. so i'm trying to recall here on the fly. that e-mail is accurate and it was true. now, it's important here, as you read -- i wrote the e-mail because i was to go to the particular meeting with the white house lawyers. it was not i who said colin powell would blow his stack. i was reporting back to my bosses the reaction of senior lawyers at the white house that they thought that he would blow his stack if he were to learn about these proposed techniques. >> could you tell us who at the white house wanted to deny this information to the then-secretary of state, general colin powell? >> the white house counsel at the time was alberto gonzales. >> later became the attorney general? >> yes. and he was chairman of the meetings that i describe in that e-mail.

now, if i said he said that, he said that. but i don't know if this was mr. gonzalez himself. i'm just not sure after all these years. >> i invited alberto gonzalez to join me in "the situation room" later today who was then the white house counsel and later became the attorney general. he'll be my guest at 5:00 p.m. eastern later today. we'll talk about this memo that colin powell was not informed of what was going on even though he was secretary of state because he would supposedly blow his stack. michael hayden will join us in "the situation room" later today as well. new disturbing videos are being released right now by the terror group isis. brian todd is standing by. he's got the latest information. i have a cold

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turning to the fresh propaganda released by the terror group isis. brian todd has more. >> this shows isis images from inside the contested syrian city of kobani. isis shows overhead video. in one sequence, a quick camera zoom down to street level and then you see this heart pumping video with isis fighters running and scrambling for cover and trying to secure positions. they are blasting away from inside shelled out buildings. in another video, isis claims what it shows here are iraqi soldiers deserting their positions and running away from isis forces. a narrator says in english, "the iraqis are fleeing like the

cowards they are." these are often very effective. the question now is why are they coming out now with this. the city of kobani still very much contested. >> is the isis media strategy if we like to call it, is it actually working? >> some analysts say it's a sign of desperation that isis is putting out this propaganda because it's one of the most effective weapons that it still has. others say these videos are still very effective for recruitment. they get a lot of recruits online from posting videos like that and others say they have to keep putting these videos out to show the world they're not back on their heels. this is their way of doing that. >> what about what's going on in kobani. it's a relatively small town. not a big town on the syrian turkish border. fighting has been intense. nick paton walsh was recently inside and risked his life to bring us those images. what are you hearing? >> we're hearing that isis has been rolled back there. u.s. officials telling us that kobani is no longer the safe

haven for command and control for isis fighters it once was. the fact remains that the u.s. and allies have not driven isis completely out of that small city as you mentioned. it's a big question why. we're posing that question to pentagon officials why three months after the bombings in kobani started, you still haven't driven them out of that small town. we're trying to get answers from them and we'll have more on this in "the situation room." >> we'll see you then, brian. thanks very much. that's it for me. i'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "the situation room." once again, the former cia director michael hayden will be among our guests and also the former attorney general, alberto gonzalez who was the white house counsel that signed off on torture memos as they're called. for our viewers in north america, "newsroom" with brooke baldwin starts right after a quick break. blogging. your blog is just pictures of you in the mirror. it's called a fashion blog, todd. well, i've been helping people save money with progressive's discounts.

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all right. here we go. you're watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. thank you for being with me. we begin right now at u.s. military bases and diplomatic posts all around the world. more than 6,000 marines and thousands of u.s. personnel are on high alert as jihadist issue this worldwide call for retaliation against america. retaliation response to one report detailing brutal and incredibly graphic accounts of exactly what the cia and its contractors did while interrogating some of the 9/11 terror suspects. this agency as we told you in detail is accused of sexually abusing detainees in pitch black rooms, chaining them up, forcing them to goay