and expectations. is the secret report that the cia doesn't want you to see details about the enhanced interrogation tactics used on terrorist suspects sixteen thousand pages of u.s. military secrets that could elude the public eye indefinitely i had a report from capitol hill. and speaking of secrets wal-mart has a few of its own the company shells out millions to lobby for the government to roll back regulations it's also good at keeping scandals quiet coming up a look at wal-mart's big business blitz. and putting a face to the afghan war a select one committee has estimated that hundreds of afghan teens were held in a million military prison many of them under the age of sixteen and seized from

their homes are two questions why these you were held without being charged with any crimes. it's tuesday december eleventh four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. . well begin today with a report that could shed some light on the dark practice of torture this week the senate intelligence committee is set to vote on a report that details the use of enhanced interrogation techniques under the bush administration and this includes everything from stress positions to waterboarding much of it said to have happened at the guantanamo bay prison the roughly six thousand page report has been in the works for three years now the senate is finally voting finally voting to approve it but according to senator dianne dianne feinstein who heads the committee the public may never see it from our two

political correspondent christine for joins us now from capitol hill hi christine so could you tell us more about what's in this report. it looks like we lost her i was just asking christine there she is live on capitol hill looks like we have her back christine nice to see you again i want to begin with asking you if you could tell us more about what's in this report. shahrir sorry about that bad connection there liz really as i was saying the goal of this report was these so-called enhanced interrogation methods were effective in terms of leading officials intelligence agents to information they needed and those on the inside of the report who have not really come forward and said who they are they have said very little that it wasn't very effective now

as you mentioned in your introduction was this report may not be released for a very long time if at all there is some things that we do know in terms of what's contained in these six thousand pages the report by the way taxpayer funded within these six thousand pages there are some clues and dots we can connect. the senator dianne feinstein of california was asked by reporters about the findings in the report where we were so far and also how enhanced enhanced interrogation related to exactly how osama bin ladin with sound i want to play for you her response. they have gone through more than three million e-mails cables pieces of paper just looking for this today. the answer to your question is no nothing has been found to indicate that this came out

of guantanamo. now as far as what else is in this report well there are a lot of things there and. people also call. fortunately we as you can see we are having technical difficulties that was our political correspondent christine for. going to move on now to a mysterious plane's space plane the air force launched just a couple hours ago here it is the man plane looks like a mini space shuttle the x. thirty seven b. launch from cape canaveral air force station in florida top at an atlas rocket and the blast off was delayed for about two months as they worked out some technical glitches and today's launch is the third in three years so so far it's been nearly seven hundred days in orbit in total the space vehicle is solar powered so it can

stay in space for hundreds of days at a time so what exactly is the spacecraft doing well we don't know for sure and that's because its mission remains a secret here's some video of the space plane when it landed in california several months ago some say it's meant to spy on us adversaries others say it's equipped with gear to hack enemy satellites another theory is it's performing scientific experiments in space. whatever it's up to the secrecy surrounding the mission is stirring some suspicion. well now to a story that seems to be repeating itself another alleged shoplifter at a wal-mart store was killed by store security last friday this time it was a wal-mart in houston shelley frey a twenty seven year old mother of two was shot by a security guard who suspected her and the two other women in the car of shoplifting she died shortly afterwards well this is the second time in as many

weeks that wal-mart security has killed in a queue shoplifter and this isn't the only controversy surrounding the nation's largest retailer in two thousand and twelve alone we've seen a bribe or a bribery scheme to gain a stronger foothold in mexico a slew of worker strikes and walk outs and the deadly fire factory fire in bangladesh where it was discovered that wal-mart produces its clothing line despite all that how has that affected wal-mart's profits well it looks like it's easy to overcome scandal if you've got the ear of the most powerful people in the country take a look at some of the members of wal-mart's board of directors these are just three of the seventeen people on wal-mart's board all of whom are movers and shakers in the world of business these three have also been tied to numerous other top companies and government agencies over the years and don't forget a former member hillary clinton while her husband was governor of arkansas this is from a new york times article back in two thousand and seven explaining how her seven

years on the wal-mart board of directors continue to play a part in her life quote mrs clinton maintains close ties to wal-mart executives to the democratic party and the tightly knit arkansas business community her husband former president bill clinton speaks frequently to wal-mart's current chief executive at least scott jr it's not just their board of directors wal-mart is also a founding member of an organization called business forward which is dedicated. quote helping bring more business leaders into the policymaking process but do we really need more business leaders in the policymaking process to discuss this i'm joined now by rachel kurz yes she is a producer here at r.t. nice to theory time to so tell us more about what this is business forward sure so luckily enough business forwards pretty president c.e.o. named jim doyle actually went on c.-span washington journal this morning to explain

a little bit more about how business ford works and i was hoping we could take a look at his explanation of what we do is we bring business leaders from around the country to brief the president is that konami teams on everything from health care reform to immigration reform fiscal the fiscal cliff into. intellectual property protection and the business leaders are speaking for themselves generally speaking business leaders are centrists they're data driven the results oriented and they are looking for compromise in washington. so liz as you can see essential business forward is trying to do is make sure that members of business especially large businesses like the founding members companies like wal-mart lockheed martin google american airlines and cetera all have the opportunity to speak with senior white house administration officials other government officials as frequently as possible so that's essentially what business ford does all right well you know it doesn't sound like

a bad idea at least for the for the businesses who obviously have a huge impact on the economy to talk to the government about these issues could there be a conflict of interest there or what do you think you know well that's a great question so obviously it's in the business his best interest to be able to speak to people like valerie jarrett alan krueger once or twice a week they would love to speak to them and get their ear as as much as they possibly can so and i don't think that it's a bad thing for government to talk to large businesses who do drive our economy and you know wal-mart for instance provides a million jobs in the united states alone obviously the government needs to be in tune with those people but the thing is not only do companies like wal-mart the companies that found business forward they also have all kinds of differ in there always giving money to political campaigns they have a lot of spans of influence that say normal people don't write like a single mother living on food stamps doesn't have the opportunity to go into valerie jarrett's ear and say listen when we're talking about the fiscal cliff

which by the way that person might not even know what it is but when we're talking about matters of the economy this is how it affects me as an individual this is how it affects me as an employee instead we're getting these large businesses coming forward saying look we believe in bowles simpson we have a large consensus here that's really just a false consensus it's a consensus based on people in the beltway in the business owners who are fueling a lot of these political campaigns syria saying these big these big players that have special access to the white house they're able to kind of advocate and push forward their own agendas or whatever it is that. it's that might not always benefit the average joe yet that's exactly what i'm saying i think that what's in the best interests of the business owners might not be in the best interests of some of their employees and we've seen that wal-mart workers in particular have a lot of them felt that way too and that's why some of them have been striking and walking out so that's not to say that every time business owners don't have their employees interests at heart but certainly sometimes they don't agree and one of

them is a lot closer to the people who are making decisions than the other group and i can you talk about what this group of business forward what exactly are they advocating sure so jim doyle actually again on c.-span this morning does i think an interesting job of explaining exactly what business forward is interested in advocating for given how closely we came to go one of the cliff last time they're taking much more active role i think the way i'd like to describe his business leaders have come to washington to. require a minimum order to set a minimum height standard. for the ride of the fiscal cliff they want to make sure that members of either party who are speaking out are as close as possible to simpson bowles talk about real cuts talk about real revenue there's just much more of an ownership of the process this time. and i love the way he says at the end an ownership of the process i think that it's some kind of slip of the tongue or something like that i mean the fact that the that he's really saying the business

owners really want to own the governing process this time around we want to make sure that there's an ownership here that business owners are taking regarding the fiscal cliff is very telling to me i think that business forward claims that they in themselves are not advocating for anything all they're advocating for is the opportunity for business leaders to be able to speak with public officials particularly senior white house officials so essentially what they're advocating for is for business leaders have as much of a say in our government as possible while a bit and we're seeing that they do have this special access and we do see this strong relationship with these big businesses some of these top players and the obama administration it does seem a little bit surprising in light of many big business is supporting mitt romney for president twenty twelve he kind of seemed to be you know the business guy. business guy and barack obama was the socialist right there or that certainly was that's the way some people right i mean that was the way we have spun in

a lot of different circles but i think the really big business is they know how to play the market right so they're going to they're not going to put all their bet are there not to put all their chickens or eggs in one basket yet chickens and when i go there they're going to put all their eggs in one basket we saw that most big businesses actually canceled out their own donations by donating to both campaigns and i think that a large misconception is that republicans are the only ones that are in or that are in really close communication with big business democrats are as well i mean even the hillary clinton quote you played earlier showed that when her husband bill clinton was the governor of arkansas he spoke to the former president of wal-mart on a weekly basis in that they socialized quite frequently so i think that democrats also speak on a pretty regular basis with business of a. and certainly get a lot of funding from business officials i mean barack obama in two thousand and eight got a lot more wall street funding then john mccain did and i think that there were

there we found a very jarring statistic when we were looking up business forward which is that in the second quarter of two thousand and twelve so that would be april to june of two thousand and twelve business forward organize twenty four separate meetings with white house senior officials and business leaders so if you do the math on that twenty four in the span of three months would it count to would ultimately add up to two different meetings between business forward and the business leaders that they represent and white house officials every single week that's allowed us to get and that's you know april to june two thousand and twelve that's in the height of election season or you know the election season is certainly going on there so regardless of whether they're supporting mitt romney or barack obama they're certainly getting barack obama as officials or you know his coworkers to listen to the things that they have to say very interesting rate i guess what we can take away is that neither party the republican or the democrats is immune from special

interests they absolutely have to leave it off there rachel thank you very interesting that was our t.v. producer rachel kurz e s. . so how do you are putting a face to the afghan war a select u.n. committee has estimated that hundreds of afghan teens were held in military prisons many of them under the age of sixteen and sees from their own homes are questions of why these youth were held without being charged with any crimes and.

i would hope there's a disconnect with so few reporters what actually happened we can't accept this so little. i'm.

just saying. we're going to. the white house for the day radio guy in fort lauderdale. i want you to watch closely are about to go get your never seen anything like this i'm telling.

you. if we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i'm going to tell the truth. i'm a contestant i'm a total get of friends that i love traveling hip hop music and christmas. day was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the world without you she explains. pepper spray let's just burn gerard's right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. it's what stronger than anything you could buy

a lot of. dolls use of terms were stronger than any kind of the ability of their butcher you know. well as the u.s. aims to wind the wars down abroad new details are coming out about those detained the u.s. held more than two hundred afghan teenagers this is according to a report a u.s. report to the united nations authorities say they were captured in the conflict with al qaeda and held at a facility near bhagam air force base for about a year the average age sixteen years old that means many of those detained are likely younger the reason the teens were held according to the report is to prevent a combat and from returning to the battlefield from our to correspondent ana stasia churkin to joins us from new york i understand so what else do we know about the

teens that were captured well there's a really a curious story like you mentioned we have over the last several years what has been going on is over two hundred afghan teenagers that were captured a detained as a result of the fight against how the taliban and al qaeda in afghanistan and held out a u.s. military prison. air base and the shocking numbers here are that the age of these people was on average sixteen years old sixteen year old kids and like you rightfully say the concern here is that a lot of them were a lot younger we're talking about twelve thirteen fourteen year old kids held for an average of a year and curiously in many of these cases. we're talking about brothers here who are sitting at home and just captured and detained and taken into this military prison because there are so expect to of being an enemy combatants and in many cases it's important to underline here that these teenagers were not wearing

military uniforms they were not participating in combat they were just suspected of being enemy combatants and they were taken in and like you just said what the main excuse and the main reason for this was that the u.s. says it's a preventative measure we need to do everything we can to make sure these suspected enemy combatants don't return into the battlefield and that's exactly why they were held for so long we have to say that most of the many of them have been released or transferred to the afghan government at this point but many do remain as well can you tell us of what were they charged with the end were they provided any legal assistance well that's i think the most important question in the story liz is the fact that these teenagers were not charged with anything because an enemy combatant is an enemy combatant to the u.s. that is everything and according to u.s. supreme court ruling two thousand and four these people can be held for our however long a conflict is ongoing and this is exactly what happens with these teenagers in terms

of legal assistance we're hearing legal experts saying what kind of legal assistant if any they got was really a joke they're saying that these afghan teenagers were allowed for example to up or to support in open hearings and defend themselves afghan teenagers defending themselves you know and because they're not charged with any crime whatsoever there's no mandatory rule that they need to be provided with legal assistance we do know that most of these detainees were provided a personal assistant of sorts personal legal assistance but critics are saying this is really ridiculous because these are the same people working with adult detainees when teenagers of course children really need completely different legal treatment and psychological treatment when they're worked with now what are u.s. . the saying about this how are they explaining these findings well is the u.s. officials really are playing the same game they're saying a war is a war is a war an enemy combatant if we're suspicious that this is somebody that could be dangerous we can hold these people for however long we want and you know they're

saying that basically in line with law of armed conflict they have the right to detain anybody under you know teenager no teenager for as long as these deemed necessary because of it's a war like we've been saying in this case it's really a preventative measure that they've been applying this is not a punishment they're not trying to punish somebody who committed a crime this is teenagers that they've been suspecting of something that they're holding for so long and it's important to claim to see here that the u.s. administration says that they held repetitive administrative hearings in order to try to figure out whether or not certain teenagers could be released earlier or held longer this was sort of supposed to be a way of treating them nicely and seeing making sure they're getting the psychological assistance that they need but again legal experts who work for these teenage afterwards or during the process say it's really all bogus now we are talking about minors kids essentially average age being sixteen so

this is certainly likely to spark some criticism what are human rights groups say well of human rights group rights group are really criticizing the story you know at the top of their lungs we have for example human rights watch they filed a separate report in march this year saying that the believe the number is much higher than two hundred that it's at least two hundred fifty under eighteen year old teenagers being held over the last four years other legal experts and people who've worked with detainees say they don't buy this number of several hundred teenagers two hundred as the u.s. officially claims because the numbers of people being held there are in the thousands and the reasons you know human rights groups of course are outrageous because the length of how much these teenagers are. detained for a year is a very long time because they're captured these kids without uniform not even in battlefield it's not really clear why at all they're being dragged in and there are a lot of the detainees are not even allowed to contest their age which is curious because their families can say look this is

a kid but this is not allowed to happen for a long time after the capture and basically lawyers are saying look eleven twelve year old human rights groups are saying eleven twelve year olds really were going to use this as a pretense enemy combatants to arrest kids definitely something of an outrage but of course this is been something that's going on for a while so whether human rights groups voices will be heard is a big question mark here all right well now that we know this information and what happens next will this have any impact on on the way the u.s. you know its actions overseas when it comes to detaining teenagers well it's a good question liz in the short run what we're going to see happen is there's going to be a big meeting in geneva where u.n. members will continue to question the u.s. officials and the u.s. delegation on the state of affairs when it comes to treating children both at home and abroad and this is a meeting and hopefully some sort of grilling session that will take place in at the end of generally beginning of february next year but you know in terms of

whether or not this is going to have some sort of long term impact this is of course a big question because we've never heard the united states apologize about these types of things before now we don't have very much time left i want to ask you very quickly looking at the bigger picture what is the state of violence in afghanistan today is it getting any better while liz that is the most important question here in the sense that you know no the answer is very simple the state of affairs is not getting better we're hearing reports from the pentagon the latest one saying that violence has been peaking this summer at over thirty five hundred strikes against u.s. troops that you know as the u.s. is trying to bring to a clause this conflict this war by twenty forty and why. alex is still spiking you know even as a quick example i can give you you know the green on blue attacks when we have insiders people working with allied forces with u.s. forces attacking u.s. troops because experts are saying the situation is critical and nobody's really

seeing on the end the violence is still ongoing certainly a lot to talk about unfortunately we are at a time a lot of saucy i think you that was our correspondent on associate. and that's going to do it for the news for this hour but capital account as of next on our team with lauren lyster let's check in with lauren to see what's on today's agenda laura hi liz so while the deficit debate goes on with the fiscal cliff talks of course one thing that doesn't come up much is a question of the very framework that people are believing about deficits with for one do budget deficits matter well i think the conventional wisdom would be yes of course they do but some people say not so much and we will talk to one in just a couple minutes they call themselves some of these and then t. subscribers not deficit hawks or doves but owls so stay tuned that is all coming up next thanks lauren for that update but that is going to do it for the news but for more on the stories we covered you can always check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash our team america our website our teeth dot com slash usa and you

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