welcome to watching the hawks let us recall in twenty fourteen the senate intelligence committee issued a report on the enhanced interrogation techniques of the george w. bush era war on terror the report recounted the two thousand and two interrogation of abu zubaydah captured in pakistan and held in black sites from poland to diego garcia but it was in thailand that his torture became so intense that some officers present choked up with tears and request a transfer from the facility according to one cia cable was waterboard to the point that he became completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth. and the two videos of his interrogation were destroyed by cia officer.

now that who oversaw the torture of thailand has received the support of the senate intelligence committee five setting up a floor vote on her nomination as director of central intelligence. claims she would not follow president orders to revive such enhanced interrogation techniques call it what it is torture if you were to reintroduce them even hawks like sen john mccain are not convinced that is best suited for the job but how much should other cia officers be held accountable for a fundamentally flawed cult of intelligence that was empowered by the president and his department of justice to conduct such torture when they just doing their jobs in an effort to prevent further terrorism or perhaps the cia as an institution needs to be scrutinized as much as the officials who sanctify their abuses and a dangerous cycle abusing power in the name of national security that abuse was on full display as former cia officer. ray mcgovern was arrested and dragged from the

senate intelligence committee hearing for daring to protest hospital's nomination here was a seventy eight year old veteran of intelligence forcibly detained by capitol police for speaking his truth how far we've come from the principles of our founding fathers his attorney. there he didn't hillyard noted there are only two people who have been jailed for the torture program not the cia agents that conducted them but cia whistle blower john kiriakou and now former cia officer robert gover can our country really expect the rest of the world to follow our example with such blatant hypocrisy we're not watching the hawks here looking in the mirror at our patriotic selves. but that's. what.

we. welcome everybody to watch in the hall. and i am actually banks and we have been with us former cia officer rethink you so much for joining us today now do you think the appointment of gina housefull as cia director is a worse than our former d.c.i. john brennan who was deputy executive director of the cia overseeing many black sites while she was only overseeing one now wasn't she just following orders when administering enhanced interrogation techniques. well the choice my german friends would would say it's a choice between pest. played caller ok now john brennan.

he was on the routing for all the torture memos ok he publicly defended kid and while we say rendering kidnapping people off the streets of europe and sending them to the egypt since he was fully cognisant of thing now with respect to gina house bill we know she was actually supervising the torture at that base in thailand and when. senator ron wyden asked her at the hearing just a week ago were you there supervising the top he said the waterboarding of of all machinery she said. senator that's that's classified. and he was out of town out of town so you know and he should have what he would have asked those who will classified that she would have to say senator i did i check classified my own incriminating incriminating evidence and so we'll have to

go and close section this afternoon so i mean now this is a public airing that means the idea is to tell the american people who this person is and they were prior to finding out who she was because she classified the incriminating evidence against her isn't this is a great country a way. goes to show that she's been an insider in the cia at one point she was briefly the head of the well director of national clandestine services which was previously helped you know position a position that was renamed but people like allen dulles frank was in there other extraordinary members the cia had previously had this type of office inside cia so she's a long time insider thirty three years in the cia as far as i know why do you think trump chose her because she will do what she's told that's how she got in the position where she is you know trump sr torture works it's great we're going to waterboarding and worse so why would he pick somebody who would not carry out those orders i mean whole all it doesn't parse so for her to say well i might not i might

not obey the orders the president will follow that's why she was picked and you know this business about you know having a woman to head the cia i think that's great i think that should happen. but not this kind of woman who pretty much followed orders from the men in charge and that was served up as the person that will continue to take orders not only from them but from the president so it's a bad omen so what is it with john mccain who is a notable war hawk and he actually seems to not support hospitals nomination having said that her role in overseeing the use of torture is disturbing and her refusal to acknowledge torture is a morality is disqualify. lying for her but here is someone obviously who didn't oppose brennan and he talked about his role in torture so what do you think is going on with mccain's position i think mccain is aware of this very specific evidence to cheese soup of the water boarding about machinery she can't get away from that water boarding cannot be made legal and then he circumstances torture is

illegal it's immoral but it's not illegal because it's laws against it is illegal because it's just plain wrong ok now mccain is getting close to his maker. sometimes that explains his pretty simple i mean does he want to go in record and meet his maker and say well you know i voted for because it's a thing you do in washington don't want to book the well i don't know i don't know what his motivation is but he's much closer to the hospital thing because haskel herself was directly involved so maybe that's the explanation or i want to switch gears a little bit here i want to talk about your arrests that took place last week out what exactly were you doing that led to this a rise and did you get hurt well i did get hurt. let me tell you how it started when the committee hearing began the chairman richard burr of north carolina he

sort of in a different way said well now as an open hearing in some of you will probably want to make statements so if you have to do it do it quickly do it fast and and be gone . and said now oh. i thought of it before i may have to do that and i did when senator wyden asked her or you supervising the would have boarding development shiri that's she said you know well senator i can't tell you because because because it's classified because they classify it and nobody said anything everybody knew they had the documents showing which she had done the chair should have said now ms haskell we all know what the answer to that is you certainly know it's a yes or no it's simple it's it could you just tell us and she would have had to say. yes sort of to the center i can't because this is classic classified so i thought that you know the american people deserve a little better than that you know here they are millions of i'm looking at the

t.v. and so when the police officer who was between me and house bull went to the bathroom or something just approached and i said quietly i'm sorry to interrupt but i think senator wyden is entitle to a straight answer to his question and here it is. and then i got to be set set on by for four offices and you know in the bronx where i come from you know in this kind of case you'd look at your wounds and people would ask when you say well you should see the other guy right here should see the other guy well you should see those other four guys they were in hospital still you know well not really make a joke but you know it was a little overwhelming with the four of them and we sort of got that there you saw it happen a low i mean did they not hear what the chairman said at the beginning of the session apparently it was all over although sure eight they would they would be ready to pounce on it wherever did what i did and what i did was simply interject

some sensible statement saying look you know she knows the american people are title to know where you were in charge of the waterboarding in the shiria and the answer to that is yes now the american people still don't know the answers to that is yes why well because senator it's classified and i classified it isn't that great. and is the federal government to pursue charges against you i have to go to court on the twenty fifth i'm accused of disrupting congress and resisting arrest while you resist very hard for graft in brooklyn and if you think you are you are not really resisting from my perspective but i want to get to this question at the cia because victor more said he famously called it a cult of intelligence and you know we talk about you know someone like gene hospital following orders and knowing how to obey is it really a cult i mean it is the cia operating under that mentality and under that auspice that they pretend to be operating for our best interest but really this it's all about power in their own internal politics essentially and they serve other masters

than we are where. we're you know it's really hard to explain this sort of thing with their basically to cia's the one the truman intended to be an analysis group which would have access to all information is there for a central right and tell them what's going on in the world now that became corrupted very early on when all the money started pouring into the covert action people who overthrew governments and now torture people so they get all the attention and it's always a bad idea to have an operator like that as head of the whole thing because the analysis gets the emphasize where was the analysis on the latest russian strategic weapons systems who's going to tell president trump look bibi netanyahu is lying through his teeth we've been telling presidents stuff it's for two decades now that evidence that he that that slide show with was concocted by mossad his intelligence

agency who's going to tell them that not the analysis that not the analysts that they seem to be devoted mostly to targeting drones and you know and trying to find evidence of russian collusion with trump i mean the whole place is to hell in a handbasket and and the operatives us you know who they who are they responses to . they do what the president says and the president well we know what the president's a bit after and many of them don't want to lose a war and so they say well maybe we should put maybe if we put moderate rebels in syria maybe we won't lose that war. quite so bad for the just kind of solution they're all in favor of mostly the only people in new york times talk still you know very very popular well of course she's popular because the people they talk to work for and tortured people would you have any recommendation for who the d.c.i. should be yeah who should not be is. come out of congress like tenet.

come out of the operations directorate there was only one good director that came out of operations that was bill colby you know what he said i worked directly for him should be a person who has made it in his or her own right and it's a person who did think that she or he has to play on the president's team right ok so she needs to assert herself or his self and say look this is what the president he said only to tell it straight if it messes up our operations so be it i'm going to do it. thank you so much for joining me. actually. and there we go as we go to break watchers don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics we've covered on facebook and twitter. dot com and coming up author and journalist steps into the hall to talk israel gaza and the politics of embassy. to watch in the hot.

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