thanks for watching. i'm candy crowley. fareed zakaria gps starts now. this is "gps: the global pup lick square." welcome to you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. we'll start today with the revelations from the senate's

torture report. did congress know all that the c icia was doing? were the tech neegs outlined in the report justifiable and how badly did the report damage u.s. standing around the world, especially the arab world? then, moazzam begg wants an apology. he was held in u.s. prisons and says he was abused and witnessed torture. what is his response to the report? i will ask him. and the man who might be israel's next prime minister, a man to the right of benjamin netanyahu, naftali bennett. finally, that's a wrap. a wrap dress, that is. the invention that made her one of the world's most powerful

women. but first, here's my take. even some of those who have supported the release of the senate intelligence committee's torture report agree that it could damage american interests abroad. of course, opponents of the report are quite sure that in senator ted cruz's words, it will endanger lives, drive away our allies and undermine national security. but will it really? remember that cruz's argument is similar to many we heard during the cold war. america was at a disadvantage compared to the soviet union, it was said, because it had to operate with its hands tied behind its back with congressional interference, media exposure and all of the trappings of a democracy. moscow, on the other hand, could act speedily and lethally and in secret. in fact, the soviet union pursued an utterly disastrous foreign policy.

it subpoena pressed its allies that by the 1980s in eastern europe, a group had become deeply hostile to it. it pursued an arms race with the united states that consumed 20% of its gdp. it invaded afghanistan and bled itself dry in a war it could not admit it had lost. all these flaws were the product of a closed system with no checks and balances. the kremlin and the kgb had complete freedom of maneuver, no oversight, no requirement ever to reveal any operations and no media that reported on them. the result was that errors persisted and ultimately broke the back of the entire enterprise. now, america made its share of mistakes during the cold war but because of a democratic system of contestation, transparencies and checks and balances, many

were revealed quickly. it's the biggest contentious democracies, britain and the united states, that have prevailed in the world, not nazi germany, imperial japan and the soviet union. the cia claims that its program after 9/11 worked very well and suggested the best judge of this should be itself. the senate report provides an alternative view with substantial evidence and augmentation. after all, what organization has ever benefited from being able to be the sole judge of its own performance. the revelations that are said to have damaged american foreign policy is the church committee. it became an article of faith for many that the committee set up in 1975 in the wake of the watergate scandal, destroyed the cia and weakened america. but what were its revelations? that the cia had attempted to

assassinate a series of leaders across the third world that provoked a nationalist backlash for decades, that covered up its mistakes insiduously and spied on americans that included ban on assassinations and oversight of agencies and the president create accountability and more. it's a measure of how sensible these reforms are that today they are utterly uncontested. as for the broader consequences for american foreign policy, a few years after the church committee, the revolt in afghanistan, descent in eastern europe and dysfunction inside the soviet union all assisted by america's intelligence agencies caused the total unraveling of the soviet empire. keep that in mind when you hear the same kinds of warnings today. for more, go to cnn.com/fareed

and read my washington post column this week. and let's get started. let's dig in some more on the senate's torture report and the larger picture. i have three important guests, all with special expertise. jane harman sat on the house of representatives permanent select committee on intelligence in the post- 9/11 years rising to become its ranking member. she now runs the woodrow wilson center in washington. john yoo was in the bush administration and one of the authors of the government's so-called torture memos. he's now a professor at berkeley law school. and mar was not muasher was deputy prime minister of jordan in the post 9/11 years. his nation was an important ally on the war on terror. john, let me start with you. you did author or have authored

some of the moem memos that authorized the ooze of enhanced interrogation. when you read about this report and the techniques that were used, forced rectal feeding, agency officials threatening to rape the mothers of prisoners, people with broken limbs being forced to stand for hours and hours, deprived of sleep for up to one week, doesn't that strike you as torture? >> well, those are very troubling examples. they would not have been approved by the justice department. they were not approved by the justice department at the time. but i have to question whether they are true because i can't take the face value that committee's report because there were no republicans involved. you know, the investigations intelligence committee are traditionally bipartisan and the worst thing, from a lawyer's perspective, from my perspective, is the committee

didn't interview any witnesses. and so you have these reports but they never gave a chance -- gave a chance to the very participants of the people being accused to explain themselves. and so i will want to know more about what happened in any of these cases and to see what really happened. but i agree with you, if there were people who had to undergo what you have just described, none of those were approved by the justice department. i don't believe they were approved by the headquarters at cia. i think you had a lot of chaos and miscommunication going on in the very first months after 9/11 when both people in the white house, executive branch and congress were demanding that the cia become aggressive and get started ongoing after al qaeda. >> but john, if you had made the fair point that the republican minority did not join in, and it would have given it more credence but the practices that they are describing, as i understand it, are taken from the cia's own accounts, are you saying that you think the

committee has doctored those reports? >> what i'm worried about -- and don't take my word for it -- this is what cia ex-directors have been saying over the last few days and appear in the cia's own answer and in the minority report to the committee, that these were al cherry picked out of millions of documents and that we don't have the context to understand these are classified documents, of course, many of them, so we can't see the underlying documents and that's why we really need to rely on there being bipartisanship and a chance for people to appear and testify before the committee. but i agree, look, fareed, i agree with you, if these things happened as they are described in the report, as you describe them, those were not authorized by the justice department. they were not supposed to be done and those people who did those are at risk legally because they were acting outside their orders. >> jane harman, how does this strike you? >> i strongly disagree. i get the argument that context

matters. i was there. i was walking toward the dome of the capitol which is where the intelligence committee rooms were located on 9/11. it was the intended target of the fourth airplane that went down. i was on the u.s. commission on terrorism that predicted a major attack on u.s. soil. i spent years trying to make sure our country was safe and i want to thank the cia and the fbi and our intelligence community for helping keep it safe. nonetheless, i think several things that happened were completely out of line. and i just want to read from the so-called torture memos which defin defined political abuse which does not end in organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death not constituting inhuman and cruel treatment. a narrow definition like that could easily have led to the techniques that were used and i think looking back on this chapter is very painful.

again, many of the people involved thought they were doing the right thing but we failed them by not having a clear legal framework around their activity. >> jane, let me ask you about congress' involvement. there is the argument that this report whitewashes one element of the system, which was congressional oversight, that the cia briefed congress 30 times, that there wasn't a lot of push back from congress, that david ig nash shous has a column in the washington post that if there is a failure here, it is also congress' failure to exercise its oversight of the cia. >> well, i would push back. congress was briefed, first just this so-called gang of eight was briefed. i did push back. i also asked for the office of legal counsel memos and i asked

for the location of any black sites. i was not given either. it would take years for congress to get the olc memos and only after they leaked to the press were they turned over. but i don't think congress is faultless. i would agree with that. i think the partisanship in congress hurts the effectiveness of congress but the intelligence committees at the time were functioning on a bipartisan basis and john mccain in particular, who i think was enormously forceful this week in defending the findings of the feinstein report, john mccain pushed back. congress passed several acts, including the detainee treatment act in 2005 that began to cut off the use of these enhanced interrogation techniques. >> maruan, human watch claims

that jordan was the place that the united states would engage in these interrogations and that one of those sites existed when you were foreign minister of jordan. >> well, i am not privy to any such information, even when i was foreign minister. this information is classified, has been classified and is still the case. so i cannot comment on this because i have no knowledge of it. certainly, the jordanian government and the american government worked very closely on counterterrorism activities against al qaeda throughout the years but whether we have detention centers or not is not information that i have. >> but are you saying that as jordan's foreign minister, that would not have been information that would have been shared with you? >> no, this information was not shared, certainly, if at all, you know, if it -- if that was the case at all. but i was not privy to any such information. >> does this debate and the

revelation in these reports, does it weaken america as, you know, many people, particularly republicans, have been arguing? or does it strengthen america in showing it is a country that is willing to air its dirty laundry and have a full accounting? >> fareed, america does not have a great standing in our part of the world. iraq -- the iraq war is one principle reason other than the arab israeli. so this is not going to help america's case, in any matter. but having said so, as i said, i think that most people will just shrug this off in the arab world and just look at it as something that they expected anyway and that they will not really result in any of the heated discussions that you are having here or there in the united states. this is not, so far, generating any buzz here. >> fascinating conversation. thank you all very much. next up, we've heard from former officials.

now we will hear from a former detainee. moazzam begg was a u.s. prisoner in bagram and gitmo who said he witnessed true torture. what was his reaction to the report? you will hear that in just a moment. myears now. thinking about what you want to do with your money? daughter: looking at options. what do you guys pay in fees? dad: i don't know exactly. daughter: if you're not happy do they have to pay you back? dad: it doesn't really work that way. daughter: you sure? vo: are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed? wealth management at charles schwab.

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the america red cross brings hope and help to people in need every 8 minutes, every day. so this season give something that means something. . an enemy combatant, that's the label the u.s. government gave to moazzam begg accused of being affiliated with al qaeda and having attended terror camps. the british muslims say he was abducted in pakistan in january 2002 and then began a three-year journey in u.s. government custody from bagram u.s. air force base and then to cuba. he was arrested by british authorities charged with providing training and funding in syria. those charges were dropped.

moazzam begg has spoken out against the way that the war on terror has been con duducted. i wanted to understand what effect this would have on begg's point of view. i spoke to him this week. i was in mumbai and he was in birmingham, new england, where he lives. mr. begg, thank you for joining us. let me ask you, first, you say that when you were in custody -- in u.s. custody, you witnessed acts of torture. does the report accurately describe the kind of acts you saw? >> it does. some of the torture led to death. i saw one prisoner in the bagram facility which is afghanistan with his hands tied above the top -- to the top of the door being repeatedly punched and kickeded and i know that this prisoner actually died as a result of the beatings he received. now, some of the techniques that

have been mentioned mercifully i was not subjected to but there were others that i was subjected to. for example, i was tied with my hands behind my back to my legs. i was punched and kicked. i had the agents showing me pictures of my children with the sound of a woman screaming next door that i was led to believe was my wife and then forced to sign confessions as a result of this. so it's unsurprising completely since my return from guantanamo i've been documenting numerous cases in the u.k. and around the world of people who were beaten and abused and tortured in various ways through this rendition program. >> do you believe that the release of this report will incite a certain degree of anti-americanism around radical youth in the middle east, for example? >> i don't think so, no. in fact, what it will do is suggest that at least america is

attempting to be open, at least it is trying to make confessions in public. i know that there's no sense that there's going to be any prosecutions but at least america has come clean and is setting a record, a standard for other countries to follow. there are at least 54 countries in involved. what did britain do? what did pakistan do? what did syria do? what did egypt do? they also now have a template to follow. let's remember, the people were already being dressed in orange suits and executed in iraq in 2005 and in to 2014 and this wa well before the details came out. the fact is that the occupation of iraq, the torture program was well known all around the world. everybody was talking about it. so i don't think there will be any particular reaction to this specific specifically because of this release. >> let me ask you about the general idea of this kind of critique. because a lot of people watching

might wonder, you yourself have admitted that you did attend -- witness some terrorist training camps or camps. you moved your family to live in the taliban regime in afghanistan. so it seems odd for somebody who seems to have sympathy for regimes that would brutal in terms of their oppression of human rights would never have some kind of nate report like this that looked at their own practices, that routinely behead people, amputate arms, discriminating massively against women, for you to be turning your eye on the united states, you know, wouldn't it be fair to say that there are far more great human rights violations taking place in the name of islamic states and islamic movements? >> well, i think you're conflicting many, many things here. i went to afghanistan first in 1993 and visited a camp that had

nothing to do with al qaeda and this is one of the problems that we've seen, is that there is a refusal to look at the details, a refusal to look at the nuance and not let the facts get in the way of a good story. when i lived in afghanistan where the taliban were present, it's true. i did live there. i took my family there. but there were plenty of nonmuslims ngo who were living there and they never get scrutinized or demonized in the way that we have. of course, one could easily argue, even if i lived in afghanistan at the time of taliban and i thought they made some progress compared to the 25 years of war that have preceded there, then is it right that i am tortured? is it right that held without trial? is it right that pictures of my children are waved in front of me while i'm being tortured and abused by people who claim to be the baft extents of human

rights? is this all correct? and if it is, what is the evidence for it? why was i never tried why was i never taken to court, why was i never charged? the world's democracy terrorized by the world's most powerful law enforcement and secret intelligent agencies. it was me against all of this and i came out with no charges. >> you're very eloquent and very intelligent. why don't we hear that eloquent and intelligence directed against the isis' enormous human rights abuses that continue to this day? >> well, what makes you think that i don't talk about these things? you're once again jumping the gun perhaps not knowing what my stand on these organizations and individuals has been. doi it in my own time and atmosphere and my own place so that i can be most effective. but i can't let what someone has done to me by the united

states -- let me just explain this. because for whatever the situation was, the taliban and isis, they didn't torture me. they didn't put me into dungeons. they didn't beat me. they didn't threaten to abuse my family. they didn't do that to me. i can only talk to my experience. >> okay. moazzam begg, you've been kind to talk to us. i appreciate it. i hope we can do it again. >> thank you. next up, is china blowing up? what happens if the bubble bursts? i'll explore when we come back. . it's really cool to the touch. (vo) there's no better gift than your best night's sleep. visit your local retailer and feel the tempur-pedic difference for yourself. which means it's timeson for the volkswagen sign-then-drive event. for practically just your signature, you could drive home for the holidays in a german-engineered volkswagen. like the sporty, advanced new jetta... and the 2015 motor trend car of the year all-new golf.

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questions about whether these big infrastructure plans are being launched, in part, to boost china's sagging growth rate. china's gdp grew at 7.4% in the last quarter according to the government data. that sounds impressive but it's the slowest growth rate in five years. these are official figures, the validity of which many question. new data shows that both imports and exports were weaker than expected in november. then there is the housing bubble. deserted skyscrapers and all. against this backdrop you might be surprised to learn that china's stock market is soaring. china's stock markets are up 40% since june. given the weakening of the overall economy, it's making many fear that there may be a bubble. one of the best watchers of the

chinese economy, the head of morgan stanley. the newest bubble forming in the financial sector. the carpet, ulprit, injecting l money into the economy through real estate boom and the shadow banking system. given the crackdown on these two sectors now, the liquidity is now flowing into the stock markets. no one is talking about a crash. but what would a sustained slow down in china mean for the global economy? while people worry about europe's slump and its implications, europe is not that significant. by contrast, china, which in 2007 replaced the united states as the largest engine of global growth, is far more important, says sharma. jpmorgan chase found a 1 point

reduction in china's growth was associated with a 10 point decline in oil prices and half point increase in global gpd growth. while it's clear that the chinese economy is in a downturn, joe lupton from jpmorgan chase says we shouldn't think of this as a traditional collapse in the making. even the government can and will avoid a crisis no matter what, just as it has done in the past and it has plenty of cash to spend. still, the credit binge will way on china's economy for years to come, he adds, and it's not a pretty picture even if it's not a picture of collapse. but even if china weathers the crisis, what happens to so many countries from brazil to australia, that have gotten used to a turbo charged china buying all of their goods?

in a strange way, china might be able to adjust to its slow down better than the rest of the world. next on "gps," does israel need a law that says it's a jewish nation state? what happens to the one-quarter of its population that is not jewish? it's a controversial subject that my next guest is firmly in support of. i'll ask him when we get back. i'm mike, and i'm very much alive. now my doctor recommends a bayer aspirin regimen to help prevent another heart attack. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen.

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craig's experience is completely different than mine. yeah. yes, mike has used truecar. at truecar, we'll show you how much others paid for the car you want, and how much you should. because i used truecar there was no haggling about the price. they treated me so well, and it was just such a quick, easy experience. get your car, and get back to the life you love. welcome to the future of car-buying. late last month, israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu's cabinet approved a bill which would codify that nation's status as the nation state of the jewish people despite millions of citizens who are arab, christian, et cetera. it's a very controversial bill that almost 40% of jewish israelis think would damage the interest of their nation, according to a recent poll. my next guest is a big supporter of the bill. naft tall bee bennett is the

leader of the powerful jewish home party. he's also further to the right than netanyahu who has set new elections for mid-march. some say bennett could spoil netanyahu's ambitions to be re-elected to the top job. naftali bennett, pleasure to have you on. >> good to be here, fareed. >> so israel is going to the elections march 17th and the polls i have seen, or at least some of them, show that your party is going to be the single biggest gainer, correct? >> that seems correct, according to the current polls. things change. there's been a significant amount of israelis are who joining my party because they think israel has to have a tough stance in this crazy environment called the middle east. so we've got the hezbollah north and isis in northeast and hamas and all around and there's a greater feeling today that we should not go down the route of

appeasement but the route of strength, being strong, being tough is the only way to survive and, in fact, thrive in this region. >> but what is the problem with benjamin netanyahu's leadership? >> you know, i think -- i'm in government with benjamin netanyahu. i'm certainly not going to attack him or criticize him publicly. we do have our differences and that's okay. it's on policy, not character. >> what is he doing wrong that you would do different? >> well, first thing i would say is israel will not divide its capital. israel will not divide its land. we are already too small. you know, israel from the ocean, from our western front to our eastern frontier, it's a 15-minute ride. 15 minutes in a car. you cut israel. are we crazy? you can't defend yourselves. >> smaller palestinian state ever. >> i will not give up land to arabs anymore. every time we did it over the past 20 years, it caused a mass

attacks on israel citizens. it's just not smart policy. i'm not going to do that. and i'm very clear about that. i think others are sourt of vague about this. i'm very clear. you know what you get with me. >> you don't want a palestinian state ever? >> that's correct. the notion of injecting a state, dividing jerusalem, dividing up the country and splitting and slicing it is not sustainable. when we did it in gaza, we gave them gaza and it turned into a terrible afghanistan in the middle of israel. we can't do it again. we can't commit suicide. we have to be more rational about things. >> i've got to ask you about this new proposed law in israel, which would specify that israel is a nation for jews that, in a sense, would give being jewish a kind of privileged status. there are a number of people within israel, there are a

number of american jewish supporters of israel who believe this is a terrible mistake. what do you believe? >> it's been distorted. it's really simple. israel is a democratic state and jewish state. now, we don't have a constitution but about 20 years ago the constitution was -- has begun to get formed piecemeal by a law by law. we only have the democratic law legislated. so the idea is to rebalance it so it's both a democratic state and a jewish state. we will continue to provide full, equal rights to all arabs in israel. in fact -- >> what does it mean to an israeli arab who is a citizen of israel to have in the constitution it say that israel is, you know, a state principally for jews, that its character, its identity is one that they can never partake it.

>> they can partake it but they have to understand that if they desire to have their own state within state, that's unacceptable because they have 23 countries. the arabs have 23 countries. we only have one. in fact, the jews have only one state and that's all we need but it's got to be the jewish state. >> do you worry that the passage of this law might provoke further issues with regard to the did the did i vestment movement? >> no, i think boycotting did i vestment against israel is anti-semitism because we're the only country that takes care of its minorities, the only country where everyone can vote, arab and jews. we are not cutting off heads. we allow women to drive, not like in other arab countries. so to pinpoint the jewish state as a target for a boycott in divestment is blatant

anti-semitism and i have no sympathy for that. >> naftali bennett, thanks. up next, diane von furstenberg. that's when we come back. ...the getaway vehicle! for all the confidence you need. td ameritrade. you got this.

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i want to bring you now an amazing success story, a u nukely american story about a woman from the old country who has now been on the top of her field for 40-plus years. that woman is diane von furstenberg, business woman extraordinary. she has a new book out called "the woman i wanted it to be" she came to the studio to tell me the secrets of her success. diane von furstenberg, pleasure to have you on. >> pleased to be here. >> you know, as a young girl in belgium, i did not know what i wanted to do but i knew the kind of woman i wanted to be. i wanted to be independent. i wanted to pay for my bills. i wanted to be in charge of my

life. where was my door going to be? you don't know when you are between 19 and 25. what is the door you are going to push? what is it? and then my door happened to be this man i met in italy who i interned for. he had a printing plant and then i went to america to visit my boyfriend. then i came back and i say, oh, i'm going to use everything in this factory, make a few samples. then i got pregnant, then i got married and before i knew it i was in america selling dresses and before i knew i had lived an american dream. >> but let's stop -- >> that was fast. >> -- at the point in which -- so you're looking at all of this stuff, these options and you move to america. it must have been hard. you're nobody in the fashion world. you just decided to stop selling dresses? >> yes. i was nobody. i was a young princess. i had married a prince. we came to new york.

we were young and handsome so we were invited everywhere. so that, you know, allowed me to meet the big editor and chief of "vogue." nobody understood what i was doing. people said, what are those little dresses? she said, this is genius. she pushed me. because the dresses were simple, easy, inexpensive, you know, it was very different than anything that there was. >> so the whole thing took off in a big way? >> in a big way. >> but then you right about the fact that you overextended yourself? >> well, that's what happened, you know, you're on the cover of "newsweek" at the time there was no cnn, to be on the cover of "newsweek," five continents, everybody who has a shop wants to buy your clothes. anyway, i oversaturated and i went down and up and i had to do this and then i started in cosmetics and then i sold the business. i mean, it's all about the ups

and downs. >> how did you deal with the downs? because you -- >> well, how i dealt with the downs, you -- first of all, you just have to accept it and just say, okay, this is the reality. how do i deal with it? and then you deal with it. and then you deal with it something good will come out of it and so you won't even remember that it all started from something negative. and that is, again, when my mother told me, always look for the little bit of light, you know, go for the little bit of light and build around the light. >> and you say in the book, hard work is important. >> hard work is so important. yeah. and discipline. you have to be so disciplined, so disciplined. you have to be serious and then if you're serious at the base, you can be frivolous on top. my big advice to anyone starting or not starting is that -- and where i was lucky is that the most important relationship in life is the one you have with

yourself. and if you have that early on and if you are demanding on yourself and at the same time, if you're demanding and disciplined, you'll like yourself, you'll like your company. that is the key for everything. it's all about confidence. >> and how does one have a good relationship with one self? >> by being delusional. truth is it. truth is. truth is it. >> diane von furssten berg, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. thank you. up next, i'll go through the looking glass or, rather, through this golden box to connect with people 6,000 miles away.

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the u. nurks climate change conference was in full swing in liam ma, peru, earlier this week and brings me to my question. according to the 2015 climate change performance index of a report released by european ngos, which of the following countries is the worst performer when it comes to emissions and climate policies?

australia, china, kazakhstan or the united states? stay tuned for the answer. this week's book is jack goldsmith. it's a story of his rising of concern that in an atmosphere of fear, his government was expanding its powers, operating in secret and violating the constitution. what gives the book its force is that goldmit is clearly throughout a dedicated conservative dismayed by an executive branch gone wild. now for the last look. when i went to tehran in 2011 to interview then mahmoud abbottabad, stress was at a high. iran's leader spouted nasty rhetoric when he sat down with me. what was surprising was the

stance of ordinary people. iranians on the streets in cafes and in hotels who expressed an admiration for america across the board but not everybody gets a chance to travel to iran and meet the locals as i did. we found the next best thing. inside an art gallery in downtown manhattan sits a large golden box. it may look like a shipping container but enter and you will discover that it's actually a portal to iran. the artist, a former gps producer, set up a web-connected camera in new york and partnered with an artist to do the same in tehran, enabling face-to-face conversations between people who would not otherwise meet despite being 6,000 miles and a world apart, participants can easily slide into conversation with each other about their daily lives. some even demonstrate their passions, like this dance.

i went into the portal and spoke with several iranians about their lives and their country and how they see the united states. >> we are not like bad people. it's not like all the stereotypes you're hearing about all the time or what they say in the press and news. it's totally different. the actual life here is totally different. >> perhaps presidents obama and rouhani should meet this way. for more on the project, go to cnn.com/gps. the correct answer to the gps challenge is a, australia, second to last overall in the climate changes performance index. according to the report, australia dropped 21 places in the policy evaluation component this year, thanks to some climate policy reversals by the new conservative government. no country is doing enough to

prevent dangerous climate change. denmark, the best performing nation overall, was awarded fourth place. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. good morning. i'm brian stelter. it's time for "reliable sources." this morning, too little, too late. calling her sources back, one of the sources is refusing to talk to the writer again. she will tell me why. plus, torture in hollywood. the movie "zero dark 30" is a story now refuted by a new senate report. what should we believe? and home for the holidays. an emotional plea to the iranian government by the brother of jailed washington post reporter jason razion. please, let him come home and beit