>> charlie: welcome to the program. tonight, mike morell, former deputy director of the cia, on what happened in benghazi and how the cia responded. >> so i was traveling overseas. i was in amman, jordan. my staff actually woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me about what was happening in benghazi. >> charlie: what did they say? they woke me up the first time to tell me about the attack on the state department complex and, by the time they woke me up, they told me about the attack. they told me our officers from our base in benghazi had gone to the state department facility to help rescue the state department folks and that they brought them back to our compound where there was a second attack that our officers repulsed and then they told me everything was quiet.

at that point, i went back to bed, only to be woken up a few hours later by my staff to be told that our facility was under attack for a second time, this time with much heavier weapons to include mortars. >> charlie: mike morell for the hour, next. >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: michael morell is here, he was the deputy director of the cia from 2010 to 2013. twice during that period, he served as acting director, george w. bush es briefer during the 9/11 attacks and nearly ten years later a key player in the successful mission to kill osama bin laden. yesterday he testified before the house intelligence committee about his role in creating the cia talking points following the benghazi attacks. >> i believe the facts in my written statement make clear that neither i nor anyone else

at the cia worked to alter the analysis or the talking points in a way that compromised our responsibility to the american people. we did not deliberately downplay the role of terrorists in the benghazi attack in our analysis or in the talking points, and neither i nor anyone else at the agency deliberately misled anyone in congress about any aspect of the tragedy in benghazi. mr. chairman, none of what i just said should be interpreted to mean that we at the cia did everything right. no organization ever does. >> charlie: i am pleased to have michael morell at the table for the first time. also in the interest of full disclosure, i take note to have the fact he is a contributing analyst for cbs news where i also work and we've had many conversations at the anchor desk over there about national security issues but i'm pleased

to have him at this table for the first time. welcome. >> great to be here, charlie, thank you. >> charlie: we want to talk about what you testified and obviously what you hope to accomplish by that testimony. but let me just begin from the beginning. what was your job when you first heard about benghazi? >> i was the number two at the central intelligence agency. i was the deputy director, i was dave petraeus' deputy at the time. >> charlie: how did you hear about it? >> so i was traveling overseas. i was in amman, jordan. my staff actually woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me about what was happening in benghazi. >> charlie: what did they say? they woke me up the first time to tell me about the attack on the state department complex, and by the time they woke me up, they told me about the attack. they told me that our officers from our base in benghazi had gone to the state department facility to help rescue the state department folks and that they brought them back to our

compound where there was a second attack that our officers repulsed, and then they told me that everything was quiet. at that point, i went back to bed, only to be woken up a few hours later by my staff to be told that our facility was under attack for a second time, this time with much heavier weapons to include mortars. >> charlie: and, so, what did you do? >> so what i did is we have an instant messaging capability on our computer system, and i chatted with our chie chief of station in tripoli for about two hours. i wanted to make sure that he had everything he needed, that there wasn't anything that i could do to help him that wasn't being done, and i wanted to know -- him to know that i was thinking about him and his officers. so i chatted with him via instant messaging for almost two hours. >> charlie: at that time, did

you believe this was simply a protest that morphed into something else, a planned attack or you simply didn't know? >> at that point, we just didn't know. we had no idea who the attackers were or what happened. one of the interesting things that happened that night, charlie, is that there were three attacks, as i mentioned, and each one got progressively more sophisticated. so the first one was really a group of guys who broke into the state department facility, some of them armed, some of them not, clearly no command in control, clearly no military tactics. many of them running by buildings, not even going into buildings. many of them going into buildings finally and running out with things they're stealing, an xbox in one case, a man's suit in another, trying to break down some doors in almost a comical way and they're

unable to. so the first attack really seems to be a group of guys, extremists, no doubt about it, some associated with al quaida, but just putting together kind of an ad hoc attack. now, they light some fires that end up killing the ambassador and a state department communicator. the first attack at the cia facility which occurs as soon as our officers and the state department officers come back to that facility from the state department facility, that first attack is with small arms and rpgs, and it goes on for about half an hour. it's definitely military style. they're definitely trying to kill americans, but we drive them away. and then about three and a half, four hours later, there's the third attack, and this time they come back and, again, very military style, very organized, and this time they bring mortars. and the mortars, they fire five mortars. there are a couple of direct

hits on the roof of where our officers are in fighting positions and that's where the two additional deaths occur. >> charlie: what do you believe now in terms of the attack? >> so what i believe is that there was little to no pre-planning. i don't believe that this was planned weeks or months in advance. what i think happened is that extremists -- definitely extremists, definitely with an al quaida ideology -- saw what happened in cairo. >> charlie: there had been a protest about the film. >> about the film, several hours earlier that day where they had actually gotten into the embassy compound and done some damage. so i think these guys in benghazi, extremist ideology, saw that and said, hey, we can do the same thing here. so what they did was they got on the phone and tried to rally

people -- >> charlie: to create a protest they can take advantage of? >> i think, no, to attack -- >> charlie: to attack. to attack the state department facility, that was their plan. let's get inside and cause trouble like our brothers in cairo. >> charlie: and they were al quaida affiliates? >> i would be careful here. i would say they are definitely extremists, they are definitely al quaida ideology and we know from intelligence some of them were al quaida affiliates but not the whole group. so that's the first attack. i think that's how the first attack happens. the second attack happens, i think, with these extremists following back to our base the people who leave the state department facility, and along the way they pick up some additional heavy weapons and some of the more hard core guys that do the following, and that's why that's more of a military style assault. then you have that gap in time

where i think they were driven away by our officers at our facility the first time, and i think they said to themselves, let's go get some heavier weapons, let's go get something that will really make a difference and they came back with the mortars and the mortars made the difference. i think it played out that way. >> charlie: there is what the chief of station in tri tripoli said. what did he say? >> let's walk through the timeline. it's very important. on the 12th of september, which is the day after the night of the attack, we collect some information, and that information includes press reports and some intelligence that says there was a protest ongoing outside the state department facility at the time of the attack. there was not a single piece of information that our analysts

had in their hands at that time -- >> charlie: analysts at langley? >> -- analysts at langley had in their hands at that time that said there was not a protest. so when they wrote their piece on the 12th that was published the morning of the 13th for senior policymakers, they concluded it was a protest that evolved into an attack. >> charlie: but important to say, based on newspaper accounts they read primarily -- >> based on both press reports coming out of libya and on intelligence. >> charlie: so it's a combination, too. >> a combination. >> charlie: so they analyzed both and said we believe this is a protest in the beginning? what did the analysts say? >> the analysts said -- and there's a very interesting piece to this -- the analysts wrote, we think that this was a protest that spontaneously evolved into an attack. what they really thought, which

makes it sound, charlie, as if the analysts thought that the protesters became the attackers, right? >> charlie: right. that's not what they believed. they weren't as precise as they should have been. what they actually believed is that the extremists that i talked about took advantage of the protests, took advantage to have the protests and used it as cover to conduct the attack. so the proper words would have been the extremists opportunistically used the protest to conduct the assault. that's when they really thought when they wrote that piece on the morning of the 13th. >> charlie: and when they wrote that, did they think our analysis could change as we learn more? >> absolutely, and that's something they always say in these situations because these things happen and the information flow changes constantly. so they wrote that on the 12t 12th. it was published on the 13th. on the 13th, more information comes in reinforcing the

judgment that there was a protest -- >> charlie: from? again from press reports and intelligence, including -- including a piece of intelligence from our own station. >> charlie: okay. so our own station sent in a piece of intelligence -- >> charlie: in benghazi. in tripoli. sent in a piece of intelligence that said there was a protest. okay? so the first time the analysts at langley hear that there wasn't a protest is a piece our station sent in on the 14th, and what that piece said was, you know, our officers in benghazi, when they went to assist their state department colleagues at the state department facility, they did not see a protest. that's the first time our analysts heard that. that was on the 14th. >> charlie: which means either there was not a protest or, b, the protesters had gone somewhere else. >> right. and the analysts concluded, look, our guys did not get there

until about an hour after the attack started, so the analysts concluded that, you know, there could have been a protest, but it could have easily dissipated by that time. so they did not see that piece of intelligence on the 14th -- that piece of intelligence saying there was no protest as at all compelling. >> charlie: the role of chief of station is to report to analysts so they can make a judgment in langley, or is it role of chief of station in the cia to provide the best analysis he can because he's on the ground and perhaps his sources and his observational point is better? >> so that's a very important question. so two sides of the central intelligence agency. the operational side that -- whose primary job is to collect intelligence for policymakers and analysts to use. the other side of the agency is the analytic side of the agentsy. it's the side of the agency i

grew up on. the job of the analytic side is to make the information calls. a chief of station's information and views flow into that but it's the analysts that make the call. even the director and deputy director don't get to make the call. the analysts make the call. >> charlie: make the call means what? >> make the judgment about what happened. there were plenty of times in my career when the analysts said, here's what we think about a particular issue, and i disagreed, but my job as deputy director or acting director was to represent the analysts' view to the president and senior policymakers and, occasionally, i would say, here's what the analysts think, but here's what i think as well. i put the chief of station into the same boat as the director and deputy director. so sometimes i would say, here's what the analysts think, mr. president, but what you also need to know is that the chief of station has a different view.

so the chief of station whose primary job is to collect intelligence is also allowed to have a view, and one of the important things we do at the agency is we allow chiefs of station to write their own analysis and to disseminate it to policymakers as their own view. they are allowed to do that. >> charlie: but you sided with the analysts rather than the chief of station? >> i think one of the confusing things at the hearing yesterday was somehow that i was the decision maker, that the analysts were saying one thing and the chief of station was saying another and i was the guy to make the call. now, the analysts get to make the call. i happen to agree with them in this case. >> charlie: when they made the call, they were looking at what the chief of station had said and had seen his analysis and that was incorporated into their final decision. >> so, again, just to be precise -- because being precise is important -- when they wrote their analysis that was published on the 13th, they

didn't have anything from the chief of station saying there was no protest. >> charlie: he only delivered it on the 14th. >> his officers onb=f the 15t 15th sent that one piece in and then he sent in another piece on the 15th to me and to another set of officers at the cia that said -- that basically said, i don't know why you guys are calling this a protest because i don't think it was. okay? i paid attention to that. one of the narratives on fox is that i ignored this note. >> charlie: right. that's why i'm going through this moment by moment. >> i did not ignore it. i read it. i read what he said. i recognized immediately the discrepancy between what he was saying and what the analysts were saying. he provided, at that moment, he provided two data points. the first data point is there are some press reports saying there is no protests. and i thought to myself, well, there are other press reports

saying there are no protests, so that didn't make a lot of sense to me. the second thing is he said the day before, they didn't see a protest when they got to benghazi and that wasn't compelling for the reasons i said earlier. so i went back to him -- >> charlie: communicated with him. >> -- as my executive assistant, communicated with him and said, can you provide more evidence, more reasoning, more logic as to why you think there was not a protest, because this is important. >> charlie: what day is this? saturday the day i at the time talking points. so he takes 24 hours, which is a very short period of time, to send in a much longer piece explaining why he did not think there was a protest. >> charlie: it goes to you, it goes to the analysts -- >> to me, to the analysts. >> charlie: to david petraeus? and i sent it to david petraeus because i wanted dave to know what was happening here, this is his agency after all.

so i immediately, on sunday morning, when i got his longer analysis of why he did not think there was a protest, i immediately turned to the analyst and said, here, does this change your view in any way? so, now what do you think? and i was basically saying to them, you know, do you -- >> charlie: the guy on the ground -- >> the guy on the ground has a view. what do you think, right? i was pushing them a little bit. but realizing it was ultimately their call. they took the rest of that sunday so write a response to the director and to me saying, we hear what the chief of station is saying, but we still believe there's a protest. we still believe that the weight -- >> charlie: there was a protest and that, out of that protest, came an attack? or there was a protest and then there was an attack just happened to have occurred simultaneously or one after. >> they were standing by their

original language which implied the protesters became the attackers, right? which is not what they really believed. but they did -- >> charlie: it was just a bad choice of language? >> a bad choice of words which i said yesterday and in my written statement, and they totally agree. so they come back that sunday night and say, hey, we looked at all this and are sticking with the protest judgment. so then on the 18th -- >> charlie: this is sunday night. >> -- so this is sunday night. susan's already been on the shows on sunday. >> charlie: right. that's sunday night. and then -- so that's the 16t 16th. the 17th is monday. the 18th is tuesday. on the 18th, the libyans come to us and say, hey, we got the video from the state department security cameras at the state department facility, and we looked at it, and we didn't see any protest. and the station reported that immediately to washington, and when the analysts saw that, they

said to themselves, we've got to re-think this. >> charlie: and did they re-think it and say yes? >> so cia analysts immediately said, i think we're wrong. let's fix it. but one of the things that's important to know here is that that original judgment that the protest evolved spontaneously into the attack was not only the cia judgment, that was coordinated across the intelligence community. >> charlie: the entire national security community in washington? >> the intelligence community. so the defense intelligence agency, the national counterterrorism center. so it was an intelligence community judgment not just a cia judgment. so when our analysts, on the 18th, charlie, said, you know what? we don't think there's a protest anymore because the libyans told us what they saw on the video, they had a hard time convincing

the rest of their intelligence community colleagues because the rest of their colleagues actually wanted to see the video before they changed their judgment. so that's why it took four days -- >> charlie: so there was a pre tárong opinion that there was a demonstration? >> yes. >> charlie: all right. what were you hearing, not from the cia, but from sources in libya? what were they saying? because -- was it only after they saw the video were they reporting to you what they thought or were they, early on, saying to you and to the cia, this was an attack, this was not a demonstration? >> yeah. so i think there are a couple of things that are important. so, in those first couple days, all of the information is about a protest, okay. >> charlie: that's 12th, 13th, 14th. >> right, 12th and 13t 13th primarily the information came in that says it's a protest. the 14th there's that one piece from the guys on the ground in benghazi, on the

15th c.o.s. -- >> charlie: chief of station. hief of station, 16t 16th again chief of station. but what was missing -- and this is important and i think some folks yesterday got a little confused by this -- what was missing were the observations of the guys who were actually on the ground, the state department guys. the guys who were at the state department facility when the attack first started. their observations were missing. by this point, they were out of the country and they were in germany and they were going to be interviewed by the fbi. why were they going to be interviewed by the)vci? because the fbi opened an investigation into the deaths of four americans. and one of the critiques of cia is why didn't you pick up the phone and call these state department guys and ask them was there a protest, did you see a

protest, right? and the answer to that question is twofold. number one is, we don't allow our analysts to be investigators. i don't want my analysts to be picking up the phone and calling people around the world and asking them questions. that's number one. >> charlie: all right. number two and even more important is the fbi would not have been happy if the cia were interviewing witnesses to a crime before the fbi could interview them. >> charlie: but this is national security at stake here. oare you viewing this as a crime or issue of -- >> the u.s. government is viewing this as a crime. >> charlie: wouldn't somebody, doesn't have to be an analyst, wouldn't you or somebody want to say, look, go into david petraeus' office and say we don't know what these guys are saying, we have to find out. you pick up the phone and call bob mueller and say, we're not

trying to get on their turf but this is very important, credibility is at stake here. >> great question. you're absolutely right and great question. when i was acting director the second time -- so after dave left, before john came -- i asked that we do two lessons learned on this, one lesson learned on the talking points and one on the analysis. one to have the conclusions of the lessons learned on analysis, which i agree 100% with, is those analysts should have pushed. those analysts should have pushed for more information. >> charlie: we need more information. you're asking them to make a judgment and we don't have all the information we need. >> and the fbi -- >> charlie: because people were on the ground and saw it with their own eyes. >> and the fbi is waiting to interview them or the fbi has interviewed them and hasn't put out the reports yet, we should push them. >> charlie: let's tus turn to te talking points. >> yes. >> charlie: how did the talking points originate?

did it originate from the cia director dave petraeus deciding he wanted to provide a summary? >> no, so on friday the 14th, dave went to the house intelligence committee to give them a briefing on benghazi and, aat the end of the briefing -- >> charlie: sunday is the 14th? >> no, friday. >> charlie: friday the 14t 14th he gives a briefing to the house. >> to the house intelligence committee. >> charlie: all right. at the end of the briefing the committee asks for unclassified talking points that they could use in case they're asked questions about benghazi over the weekend. >> charlie: right, as they go home. >> as they go home. and they said, yes. >> charlie: i'll provide you with that? >> i'll provide you with that. and that's how the talking points started. >> charlie: what was on the talking points? >> the talking points went through a tortured life. so the first thing that happens is the very, very talented head of our office of terrorism

analysis was with the director at that briefing, so heard the request, heard the director say yes. she came back to the building and, around noon, she personally wrote the talking points. actually, that first draft of the talking points are pretty py good. >> charlie: talking points from the members of the house intelligence committee to speak from when they go back to their constituents? >> correct, or local media. >> charlie: right. we did not know, at that point, that susan was going to use them. we didn't even know at that point susan was going to be on the sunday shows. >> charlie: so you did not know susan rice was going to appear on the sunday shows until after she's appeared? >> correct, correct. >> charlie: she's obviously going to be questioned. somebody should have alerted somebody. isn't that a failure of communication? she's going to be there talking and answering questions on a television sunday program and somebody should have said, let's

check in with the cia, let's make sure. and you guys, therefor, say, why are we getting this because susan rice is going to be appearing on television. >> but we would not normally -- we would not routinely write talking points -- >> charlie: so you've never written talking points from somebody from the national security staff tore the u.n. to speak on sunday television? >> no, they write their own talking points. and if it's about intelligence matters, they coordinate with us, and this is one of my bottom lines is that the cia should not be in the business of writing talking points. >> charlie: what does coordinate mean? >> so if -- see, what i think the proper response to the committee's requests should have been was, you guys write the talking points, we'll look at them, we'll check on them for -- we'll look at them for two things, one is to make sure you're not saying something that's classified and to make sure what you're saying is accurate. >> charlie: okay.

that's what we normally do. >> charlie: so david petraeus goes back and this young cia officer writes this points which you say are pretty good. >> pretty good. >> charlie: pretty much a reflection of what the thinking was. >> what her thinking was and what the analysts' were. >> charlie: of the cia. and the intelligence community. and the first sentence, by the way, is the protest evolved spontaneously into an attack, so that same language is in there. >> charlie: that's what susan rice said in. >> the original draft. >> charlie: how did it get to susan rice before you knowing about it? this is a cia document that gets to susan rice without you knowing about it. >> so, again, let me go through a little bit of the history because that's the only way you can answer the question. so the senior analyst writes the talking points. she sends them to our office of congressional affairs thinking she's done, thinking it's over,

thinking that they're going to send them -- >> charlie: our office of congressional affairs -- >> cia's office of congressional affairs. they manage our relations with the hill. she sends it there thinking they'll send it to the hill and we're donenowthey'll get it to the house members. >> right. so what the office of congressional affairs does is get to the office of public affairs and they sit together and edit the talking points and they make some significant changes to the talking points without any substantive experts in the room. >> charlie: why did they do that? >> that was a mistake. >> charlie: what did they change? >> so, they, for example, took out the word "al quaida." >> charlie: why did they do that? >> what they say is a couple of things. they say that they didn't want to pre-judge the -- who actually conducted the attack because the fbi was just beginning its investigation. >> charlie: what else did they take out? >> they also said that, look, the only way we know this is

because from classified sources, so it's technically classified to say "al quaida." they made some other changes but i don't believe there were any significant changes. they then -- they then coordinated it with the rest of the national security community. so they sent it to the state department, to the department of justice, to the department of state and to the white house national security staff. there were a number of changes made at that point. >> charlie: and to you and david petraeus? >> no, they sent them to dave but not me. >> charlie: so you never saw them at that time? >> at that time. so they're being coordinated in the inner agency, some changes are being suggested. the only substantive changes are being suggested by the fbi and state department. the white house suggests two changes, both of them editorial. when the director saw them, when

the director saw them, he asked that they add two things. he asked that they add language reflecting the significant warnings we had provided in the months leading up to the attack in benghazi. we had been writing for months that the security situation in eastern libya in general and in benghazi in particular was deteriorating, and he also asked that we add the fact that we sent a cable to cairo just hours before the mob attack in cairo warning cairo embassy that that attack was coming. he wanted that added to the talking points as well. at this point, i still don't know that they exist or have been asked for. >> charlie: but the director added them to the talking points. >> yes, but i don't know he's done this, right? so about 5:00 on that friday

night, his chief of staff comes to me -- >> charlie: 5:00 on the night of -- >> friday night, the night before i edited the talking points. his chief of staff comes to me and says, i want to make sure that you've seen these. i want to make sure that you know about these. >> charlie: this is the chief of staff to david petraeus? >> to david petraeus. michael, i don't think you're in the loop on this, you need to be. so he handed me the current version to have the talking points. >> charlie: including the additions by david petraeus? >> yes. i looked and read the talking points and said to him immediately, this warning language has to come out. why did i say that? because i saw it as a cia beating its chest. i saw it as -- >> charlie: kind of i tried to tell you? >> i tried to tell you. i saw it as the cia saying we did our job. >> charlie: is that all that you changed.

>> charlie:. no. >> charlie: what else did you change? >> so i took the word "islamic" out in front of -- it said "islamic extremists." there are indications islamic extremists participated in the attack. i took out "islamic" and was criticized for that. why did i take that out? for two reasons. the first and most important reason is we were in the midst of violent demonstrations against the united states across the muslim world. >> charlie: because of this film. >> because of this film. and the last thing i wanted to do was say anything in talking points that might make that situation worse, so that's why i took out the word "islamic." the second reason is kind of a silly reason. i said to myself, what other kind of extremists are there in libya? certainly not catholic extremists. there are only islamic extremists. so i took that out. i made some other edits, but the vast majority of what i took

out, charlie, were the warnings. >> charlie: okay, but it's said you took out about 50% of the stuff in the memo. 50% is a lot. >> it is a lot. >> charlie: and the warnings don't seem to be that much. you simply said, look, we've tried to warn them in cairo and in benghazi -- >> yeah. >> charlie: -- i mean, that doesn't seem like 50%. >> probably a half -- a little over half of what i took out was the warning language. there was other stuff i took out that if we had it in front of us, i could waug walk you throuh each one. but i'll say the talking points were not very good at the end. they were not very rich, robust, they were not great talking points. when dave petraeus saw them, he was the last one to put eyes on them, he saw them and said, these weren't very good. >> charlie: i heard that. did petraeus try to literally pull it back? >> no. >> charlie: but he said these are not very good? >> right. >> charlie: these are with his

warnings taken out? >> yes. >> charlie: did he ask you to justify that? >> no. so what's interesting is that, when the chief of staff told me -- when the chief of staff gave me the document and i reacted to the warning language, he never told me that the warning language was in there because the director put it in there. then we went home -- >> charlie: you didn't know you were changing the director's work. >> i didn't know i was changing the director's work, right. the next morning i come to work, saturday morning, and i hear that the state department is not happy about the warning language either. so that morning i do tell the director that the state department is not happy with the warning language and the talking points and i tell the director that i agree with him, and i explain to him why, and the chief of staff is standing right there. and i don't remember exactly what dave said, but he did not push back on keeping the warning language in.

>> charlie: so what does susan rice see? >> so what susan rice -- >> charlie: from what you've just described to me and what susan rice reads before she goes on a sunday talk show. >> so the final piece to have the story -- >> charlie: and is the white house at all involved in this is >> right. so the final piece to have the story is, when i came in on saturday morning and was told, look, the state department is not happy with the talking points because to have the warning language and -- because of the warning language, and because of that, at the deputies committee meeting and i was a member of the deputies committee meeting at the national security council, because of the warnings, dennis mcdonough said he wanted to talk about the talking points at the deputies meeting. turns out he never raised the talking points and, so, at the end of the meeting, i raised them. i said, i just want to take a minute to talk about the talking points. i know that there are concerns

in the inner agency about the talking points. i have my own concerns. i'm going to edit them and i'm going to send them around to the deputies for one more lock before we send them to the hill. so that's how they got into the hands of senior officials at all of these agencies. >> charlie: at the deputies meeting. >> at the deputies meeting. >> charlie: because this bringsp the idea that somehow these talking points were changed buzz the white house was -- because the white house was in the midst of a campaign and it did not want to look at all like it wasn't very much aware to have the threat of terrorism. >> right. so in the entire process i just talked about -- >> charlie: and didn't respond to questions about its own security. >> right. >> charlie: in its state department. >> in the entire process i just talked about, the white house suggested three changes -- three

changes. all of them were editorial, none substantive. so the white house had no substantive input into the talking points. there have been allegations, charlie, that the white house wrote the talking points. there have been allegations that the white house -- >> charlie: what's that i mean by cooking the books. >> cooking the books. >> charlie: the expression you used. >> there have been allegations that the white house made significant changes to the talking points, allegations that the white house told me to make changes to the talking points, none of that's true. none of it. >> charlie: there's also mccain. >> yes. >> charlie: and graham. yes. >> charlie: suggest you lied. yes. >.so here's what happened and im really sorry they came away with this impression, but, you know, i have many faults, but one of them is not lying. here's what happened. the white house asked me to join susan in a meeting with john

mccain, senator graham and -- >> charlie: at what point? this is in november, so this was sometime later when she is being criticized by them and others for the way she handled herself on the sunday shows, and the white house asked me to go -- and she wanted to go talk to the three of them and hear their concerns and be responsive to them. >> charlie: she was under a lot of criticism at that time. >> a lot of pressure. >> charlie: and there was rumors she would be nominated secretary of state. >> right. so she wanted to go up, have a conversation with him and try to deal with their concerns. the white house asked me to go with her to do one thing, to simply say that what she said about the attacks evolving spontaneously from a protest were consistent with the talking points and that those talking points were consistent with the

classified analysis at the time. so that was my job is to actually show them, and i took them the talking points, and here's what the talking points said, and i took them the classified analysis and said here's what the classified analysis said and it's almost word for word exactly the same, so i wanted to show them that there was no difference between the talking points she used and the classified analysis of what the analysts thought. >> charlie: that's a very important point, then. at that time, several days after her testimony, her being interviewed on the sunday show, several days -- >> yes. >> charlie: monday or tuesday. yes. >> charlie: then the question comes up with respect to her and to the committee is what did -- the cia had not changed its opinion at that time or had not come to a judgment at that time

about whether this was spontaneous or an organized attack. so you're going to talk to graham and mccain -- >> but that was later, so that was in november. so that was -- >> charlie: oh, i see. i'm sorry. >> the conversation with mccain and graham was later and after we had changed the judgment. so i took a lot of heat at that meeting for why did the analysts ever think there was a protest in the first place. >> charlie: right. but one of the things that happened at the meeting is one of the senators, and i forget which one, asked who took "al quaida" out of the talking points? and i said the fbi. >> charlie: right. and that's what i thought at the time, so i didn't lie. >> charlie: you were just wrong. >> i was just wrong. why was i wrong? because the fbi had made a significant change to the talking points where they did not want to be too definitive about who did this and, so, i

just got them mixed up. and i was wrong. when i got in the car to go from capitol hill back to langley, my head of the office of congressional affairs to me said, michael, i think you made a mistake. i said, if i made a mistake, let's fix it. >> charlie: right. so as soon as we got back, we huddled in my office, found out we made a mistake. i told them to correct the record. he corrected the record within three hours. not 24. >> charlie: and communicating that to -- >> communicating that to the staff people who worked for these senators. >> charlie: mccain and graham. >> yes. and some people said it took me 24 hours. not true. took about three. some people said i only did it after the fbi called me and was angry about what i said. the fbi never called. the fbi was never angry with me about what i said. i corrected the record as soon as i knew i'd made a mistake. there's not too many people in washington, charlie, who do that. >> charlie: this merits a long

conversation, not this, but where do you think it is today, then? a political football? >> a political football and, charlie, i'm afraid it's not going to go away until secretary clinton makes a decision about what she's going to do. >> charlie: if she decides not to run it will go away? >> it will go away and if she does run it will go away when the country decides what it want to do in terms of who the next president is going to be. >> charlie: one of the things you said you learned is you should have gotten the analysts around a conference table in your office or nearby and hammer it out. >> yes. >> charlie: one of the things you can do is find out the facts. >> and i failed to do it, right. and i think these aren't excuses, and i don't want to come across as making excuses, but there were two things that were happening, one was the committee was waiting for these things. they asked for them friday morning and here it was saturday

pushing noon -- >> charlie: the house committee. >> -- yes, and they weren't done yet. it was family day at the central intelligence community and large people come through your office to shake your hand. so i was balancing all these things, right? >> charlie: and the biggest regret you have about this is -- >> the biggest regret that i have personally? >> charlie: yeah. is that i didn't get everybody around the table because, i think had that happened, the talking points probably would have ended up more like the first draft. >> charlie: and that would have been okay with you? >> that would have been better. it still would have been wrong in terms of the protest but better. al quaida would have been in there. >> charlie: have you talked to secretary clinton about this? >> no, never. >> charlie: the intelligence community seems to be a bit at odds with the senate committee on intelligence. the senate committee on intelligence decided today to release a report. >> mm-hmm.

>> charlie: the report is about conduct of the cia following 9/11. >> mm-hmm. >> charlie: what can you tell us about that conduct? >> it's a great question. i think this is a really important issue. so i've read the senate intelligence committee's 6,300-page report and i've read the agency's 100-or-so-page rebuttal. they're still classified, so i can't talk about them, and i also made a commitment to chairman feinstein that we wouldn't litigate this publicly, and i want to live by that commitment even though some others aren't living by that commitment today. so let me not talk about them, but let me give you my own personal views, charlie. it starts with it is very, very important for americans to understand the context in which the decision was made to subject

detainees to these harsh interrogation tactics, and that context was 9/11 had just happened, 3,000 people had died, the threat reporting about another possible attack was sky high. there was reporting about possible attacks using nuclear weapons in the united states. we were concerned about the use of a nuclear weapon in new york city. on the other part of the context at the time was that we had captured some senior al quaida leaders and they were proving very, very difficult to interrogate because they were so ideologically committed and had counterinterrogation training, so we weren't getting anything out of them and knew they would know about these attacks, so that context is very, very important. >> charlie: did you believe if you tortured them, they would tell you, whatever the definition of torture is? >> yeah, i'll get to that in a

second. the second piece is the cia didn't do that on its own. this was done with significant oversight and policy approval. the president of the united states as he talks about in his book approved this program. >> charlie: president bush. president bush approved this program. there was also briefings to congress, to the leadership of the intelligence committees about this program. one of the interesting things, charlie, is that some of the very people who are criticizing this program today were the ones who were briefed on it previously and did not oppose it. >> charlie: these are members of congress? >> members of congress. three, the third point people should understand is that the department of justice deemed that these techniques were legal, deemed that they were not a violation of domestic u.s. law and they were not a violation of u.s. treaty obligations. they deemed that these techniques were not torture. so it actually drives me crazy

when people call it torture -- >> charlie: you're saying we had legal justification to do what we did and didn't cross the line at all? >> whenever we crossed the line and did on several occasions, the cia voluntarily reported it to the department of justice, and the department of justice investigated. >> charlie: the cia also burned some of the videos, as you know. >> i want to make the point that calling it torture means that we're saying my officers tortured people. when my officers used these techniques, the department of justice said it was not torture. >> charlie: so in their mind, they were not torturing. >> exactly. the next point is effectiveness. >> charlie: does this include waterboarding? >> it does, and i'll come back to that in a second. the next point involves the effectiveness because the effectiveness of this program has been questioned in terms of generating unique intelligence. >> charlie: right. i believe that the program

was effective. i believe that having these senior al quaida operatives in our detention, just having them in our detention was important. let me give you an example of that. when we questioned sheikh mohamed about the courier who took us to bin laden, when we questioned him he denied knowing machmed. he said nobody say anything about the cor your. secondly the techniques -- >> charlie: you didn't get it from torturing him, you got it from the fact you were monitoring his cell? >> correct. >> charlie: okay. then we get to the techniques themselves. i've really studied this, and i believe the techniques were

effective. i've looked at the information provided by detainees prior to the techniques and the information provided after use of the techniques. >> charlie: there is an argument made by some that the detainees gave this information before they were tortured, the information that you now say was, in fact, important in finding connections and connecting dots that led you to both plots as well as osama bin laden. >> right. and i will tell you that the information they provided prior to techniques was limited, vague, not specific. after the techniques, volumes of information, specific, actionable. there's a big difference. so this is why this is not easy. the people who say it wasn't effective want this to be easy. legal and effective, then you get to the morality question.

you get to the question of is it okay to do these kind of things to other human beings, and reasonable people can differ on that, and there's a reasonable debate to be had. but it's very important, i think, for the american people to understand that, when you have that debate about whether it's okay to do this to other human beings, you also have to have the debate about the flip side to have the coin, charlie, which is if you don't use these techniques, americans are going to die. what's the moralityo that question? i think it's very important to note that the people who made this decision to do this in order to collect intelligence, that they thought we needed to save lives, american lives, which turned out to be true. they had all these conversations, charlie. they had conversations about is this the right thing to do. they had conversations about morality. they had conversations about the impact on employees.

they had conversations about how this is going to come back to haunt us some day. they had all those. therthis was not easy. i'm so glad i was not put in the situation to have to make the decision and if i were put in that position, i don't know what i'd do. on "60 minutes" i said the use of these techniques were inconsistent with american values, i was specifically talking about waterboarding. you really need to have a moral discussion about each technique. i would have drawn the line at waterboarding. >> charlie: you would not have waterboarded? >> i would not. >> charlie: but then i know people in the cia who have said to me, i promise you waterboarding gave us information. >> yes, that's why it's a debatable proposition. but one of the techniques, charlie, was simply to grab somebody by the jacket to get their attention when they weren't paying attention to you. is that torture? i don't think so. >> charlie: who says that's torture? >> the people who call all the

techniques torture. call that torture. if that's torture, then torture happens on every football practice field in america. so you really have to have a conversation about each technique. but it's really important for people to know that ths this was not an easy decision and the people who made it thought about all these things. >> charlie: it is important to also know the facts in terms of there seems to be some difference in opinion and perhaps it's because we don't know that raising questions of whether the information that was garnered from this saved the lives, led to plots and led to being able to connect the dots, you and other cia officials i've talked to said yes, it did. dick cheney said, yes, it did. so others with them believed it did and said because of what we did, the legal techniques, we believe we got information we would have not otherwise gotten from these detainees.

>> that led to the capture of other senior al quaida officials and saved lives, yes. >> charlie: to be continued. great being with you, charlie. >> charlie: thank you, mike. you're welcome. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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. this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. criminal investigation. citi group is reportedly the subject of a federal probe, making this its second setback in a week. and should investors be concerned? class divide. google's long-awasted stock split has arrived and it is not without controversy. what the change in shares means for investors. plot twist. shares of barnes & noble plunge. but there may also be hope for the struggling book seller. we have all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for thursday, april 3rd. >> thanks for joining us. citigroup has struggled more than