but now abc news is confirming it's khalid shaikh mohammed. but, listen, this is just the tip of the iceberg. there are cases of some of the detainees now being competent to stand trial because they have such serious mental illness. >> noted particularly in the so-called radiation bomber, jose padilla. is the truth as simple as it means about that statement from dick cheney that he is now slid into this word play because the memo that's were released supposedly in his defense, supposedly in tortures' defense, do not in fact come anywhere close to showing toe chur worked? >> there are a few problems with that statement. one is the that the plots that he's talking about are pretty far fetched. i mean, they talk about the breakup of a plot in 2002 that they broke up using interrogation from 2003. so unless the cia also has a time machine that allows them to travel back in time, i don't see how that's possible. and then you have the logic of it. just because you get information, doesn't mean the torture led to the information. what they really nee

khalid shaikh mohammed, preeminent source in al qaeda. while they say that the overall program got absolutely crucial information, they do not conclude whether the enhanced interrogation programs worked. they just are kind of agnostic on the program and then there's what president obama calls the core issue. >> could we have gotten to the same end without resorting to these techniques? and it doesn't answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques? >> well, these two reports are versions of the ones i asked for previously. there's actually one, the detainee report pivotal for the war against al qaeda, there's one that's more detailed that has not been released. the interesting thing about these is it shows that khalid sheik muhammad and abu zubaydah were pivotal in the war against al qae, that both were uncooperative at first, that the application of enhanced interrogation techniques, specifically waterboarding, especially in the case of khalid shaikh mohammed, convinced him he needed to cooperat

they did not authorization for khalid shaikh mohammed or al nashiri. they used the observation for zubaydah and tortured everyone else and after the fact obtained the rest for the tortures. they're in hot water now. you have to read those memos now carefully to see that. in that, yes, you see essentially the cia was plying line, they were fishing using torture and they didn't really have adequate reasons to torture. >> well, that certainly does throw what mr. durham can and cannot investigate into a cocked hat, doesn't it? if there wasn't clear policy from minus x rather from point x, he's got a lot more latitude than people think he does. >> that's correct. once you knock out the legal authorization, you can really broaden the investigation quite a lot. the fact of the matter is, if you wanted a real investigation, you wouldn't go after interrogators. that's something that dick cheney and human rights activists agree on. you want to go after the architects. the architects are the lawyers in the cia who set this program up and the llc lawyers in the wh

they categorically show the success of these interrogation, from khalid shaikh mohammed, to abu zubaydi, that's how we got this intelligence -- >> but cheney today, didn't -- in his statement, doesn't even make that claim anymore. he's now just saying, i quote, the documents released monday clearly demonstrate the individuals subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al qaeda. he's no longer saying enhanced interrogation held to this information. >> well, we've been having an ongoing conversation here. he gave a quick statement. he happens to be on his way back from alaska. i'm sure you'll be hearing more from him and all the other experts on this. the politization of this is obama going backwards -- and it's dumb politics too because the last time he went up against dick cheney, dick cheney moved the needle against barack obama on the security issue some 20 points. i don't know why barack obama is picking this fight. it's going backwards. the way people throw around the term torture, it has a very strict legal test. the way the pol

enhanced interrogation, but if you look at the time line in this, it is not a coincidence that khalid shaikh mohammedhis report has said nothing ofç importance until he was suggested to the waterboarding and afterward, he became a rolodex of operatives, including the guy in indonesia that plotted to blow up airplanes, attack our embassy, our consulate in karachi. the same is true of the interrogation of another detainee who was very uncooperative in the beginning. >> it really does not say that. >> it says exactly that over and over again. >> it is not clear from the report how much came from the fbi or the cia. >> the complication of the geneva convention on torture that was endorsed and embraced by president ronald reagan, but the u.s. ultimately did not ratify, it totally outlaw torture. that is the complication. the division that emerges politically is between those who served in the middlemilitary and those who did not. when you get people like tony vinny and john saakashvili and john mccain saying it is not about who they are and what they do, but who we are. we talk about prisoners of war and

for example, khalid shaikh mohammed was rhett sent.was waterboarded 183 times and became loquacious. did it have something to do with that and was he useful because whether or not these techniques are immoral or how immoral they are surely depends on whether or not they work. >> and how useful the information was, whether it could have been gotten in other ways. >> right, because the cia's own office of legal counsel raised questions about how effective they are and the worst thing is do something wrong and have it been ineffective. >> and it saves lives and that may be. >> if it saved lives. >> hold on. >> if you read the documents that were released. >> -- let me just answer -- >> let you answer, sam, liz. go. >> i'm with admiral blair our top intelligence guy supposedly everybody cops under him. he said he thought we did receive some useful information from these techniques. he then said, part that's left out by people who take the first part but in our relationship with the rest of the world and the way the united states is viewed

. >> reporter: the report says cia officers told 9/11 mastermind, khalid shaikh mohammed, we're going to kill your children, if anything else happens to the united states. in an attempt to break one of the men who attacked the "uss cole," the cia put a handgun and a running power drill next to the head of ra shiri. >> it shows an agency that was entirely out of control. and unfortunately, it was out of control by design. >> reporter: in another case, the report says cia interrogators staged a mock execution, firing off a gun, and using a hooded cia officer to pose as a detainee who had been shot to death. >> we now have a document, that the world can read, that shows in excruciating and disgusting detail, that the united states violated its own beliefs. and turned to the dark side when it didn't have to. >> reporter: the report also says the extensive use of the waterboarding technique, demonstrated here, was well-known and fully approved by then-attorney general, john ashcroft. quote, the attorney general was informed the waterboard had been used 119 times on a single individual, unq

. >>> interrogators threatened to kill the children of accused 9/11 mastermind khalid shaikh mohammed. the cia inspector general report said according to this interrogator the blank interrogator said to khalid shaikh mohammed that if anything else happens in the united states, we're going to kill your children. the report also unveil aztec neek thought previously disclosed that an interrogator reportedly used a pressure point technique with both his hands on the detainee's neck manipulated his fingers to restrict the detainee's carotid artery until he passed out. new information about a gun and power drill accused of plotting the deadly bombing on the "u.s.s. cole." he entered the cell where al nashiri sat shackled and racked the handgun once or twice close to al nashiri's head. the briefer entered the detainee's cell and revved the drill while the detainee stood naked and hooded. the release comes after a lawsuit by the american national civil liberties union which called the detainees outrageous. >> an electric drill isn't torture and i'm not sure what is. >> reporter: the report su

the report says 9/11 mastermind khalid shaikh mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. beyond what had been approved by then attorney general john ashcroft. the cia said ashcroft subsequently approved the repetitions. the report says the 9/11 suspect was also told if anything else happens in the united states, we are going to kill your children. >> it's a violation of american law, and whoever did it should be prosecuted. whoever authorized it, should be prosecuted as well. if in fact that's what happened. >> reporter: civil liberties groups have been battling cia censorship in court for years to find out who ordered the program. >> was it the cia itself? who in the cia or was it somebody outside the cia? was it political officials outside the cia who were the energy behind the programs? >> reporter: the strongest defender of the program, former vice president dick cheney, who said last may today's report would vindicate his decisions. >> i believe this information will confirm the value of interrogation of detainees, and i am not alone. >> reporter: on that point, this

one section of the june 2005 report hails abu zubaydah's early in his detention of khalid shaikh mohammed as the mastermind of september 11th. the issue here is the guy who interrogate interrogated zubaydah said that information was given up before zubaydah was enhancingly interrogated. and even after these documents were released yesterday, documents which did not provide proof of mr. cheney's claims of tortured necessity, mr. cheney still took a victory lap, although he's doing so with a very different word choice this time around. quote, the documents released monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al qaeda. did you catch that? the individuals subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided information. that's a lot different from what mr. cheney was arguing before, that enhanced techniques were the reason that we got this information. >> i saw that information as vice president and i reviewed some of it again recently at the national archives. if americans do get the chanc

, they do say that much information used to disrupt al qaeda came from detainees, such as khalid shaikh mohammed and abu zubaydah, both of whom were repeatedly subjected to the controversial techniques. both of those men revealed potential targets but their information held to the arrest of others and disrupted attack plans, including some aimed at high-rise apartment and more passenger jets. but those plots were, in many cases, little more than vague ideas, according to cnn terrorism analyst peter bergen. so -- >> did coercive interrogation reveal plots that were really serious threats? i think the short answer is no. >> reporter: the papers say khalid sheikh mohammed was given outdated, inaccurate information until the tougher techniques were applied. even some former members of the bush administration like fran townsend, now a cnn contributor, admit he might have given up the more important intelligence anyway as his captivity wore on. >> it's very difficult to draw a cause and effect because it's not clear when techniques were applied versus when that information was received. it's implicit.

. >> water boarding got khalid shaikh mohammed muhammad to talk saying he provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the water board. the government released other declassified documents. cheney said they would show the interrogation process saved lives. information from detainee interrogations helped thwart a number of plots and arrests disrupted the attack plans in progress. what's not clear is whether that information was obtained through controversial techniques like water boarding. now, in a sign of the political pressure surrounding this issue, the aclu says it's disappointed with the attorney general's decision not to launch into a full investigation, calling a preliminary review without a commitment to prosecution, quote, simply anemic. john? >> this had been looked at before by the justice department and the bush administration. what's the likelihood that the obama justice department will find anything different? >> that's a very good question. and, in fact, that's a central question that some of the intelligence community are asking. they're saying, look, if the

khalid shaikh mohammed is a suspect in the september 11th attacks. president obama approved the creation of an elite team to interrogate terror suspects. the elite university will be made up of several law enforcement agencies. the group will be based out of the fbi. but the national security council will oversee it. right now, actually, we're going to take you to a presser by the royal mounted canadian police. we're going to listen to this right now. >> locating this female. and our follow-up investigation we will still have to try and protect the integrity of the investigation and not disclose details of the information that we're gathering at this time. once again, we're just taking this opportunity to sbi kaindic are continuing our partnership with u.s. marshals and u.s. law enforcement. we're also continuing a liaison with the local police forces. i'll open it up, then, just to questions, one at a time. [ inaudible question ] >> we're prepared to comment at this time that we do believe that they knew each other. there was a past history. but we

said that a colleague had told khalid shaikh mohammed, you remember one of the men convicted of the septemberacks, apparently this interrogator told him that if any other attacks happened in the u.s. that quote, we're going to kill your children. another interrogator allegedly tried to convince a different terror suspect detainee that his mother would be sexually assaulted in front of him, though the interrogator in question denied making such a threat. this is all detailed in a document that was just released today and we're getting a chance to read some of the highlights of this document that was released by the justice department. apparently this report was written in 2004. it was examining the cia treatment of terror detainees following the terror attacks of september 11th back in 2001. it has been declassified and that's how we were able to get our hands on this as part of the lawsuit that we have been telling you about that's been brought forward by the aclu. we will continue to follow up on the information that's now slowly being released from these declassified documents, now being re

they told khalid shaikh mohammed, we will kill your children in u.s. custody, if anything else happens to the u.s. there is the suspect responsible for the bombing of the "uss cole." they told him to bring his mother in. they wanted to suggest to him there would be sexual abuse to his mother. they used a power drill and a gun, put it next to his head. essentially, a threat of death. as well, there were mock executions and extensive waterboarding of many of the 300 cia captured suspects. >> a lot of detail about what was done. now, the question becomes accountability. how high do you think this goes? >> reporter: absolutely. cording to this report, many at the high levels of government, congress, and the attorney general, john ashcroft, were aware of the repeated use of waterboarding. ashcroft knew 119 times it was used against a single individual. and ashcroft testified last year it only happened three times. lots of questions about the policy put into effect. the cia says these were rogue operators who exceeded the guide lines. others say they operate

there some suggestion that ksn, khalid shaikh mohammed was affected and we got some positive informationut more importantly, more importantly, they brought the program to an end. there are new interrogation techniques put into place and to go back and actually think these interrogators who are empowered to do it who were told it was consistent with the rule of law, was right, to charge them with a criminal activity is plain wrong. >> aren't they talking about the interrogators who went outside the brief, beyond the brief, what the special prosecutor is supposed to look into? >> i think the chilling effect of people years after men were involved in interrogation given the exigencies of 9/11, the need and desire to get as much information as quickly as they can to prevent another attack and suggest four or five years later to suggest it's criminal, i think that's criminal. >> i want to ask you did say at one point when cheney said he felt the obama administration had made america unsafer raising the risk of another attack. i said i disagree with him. do you still disagree. >> i think we ar

a prosecutor could potentially investigate waterboarding. 9/11 mastermind khalid shaikh mohammed reportedlyonth. also, there are reports of prisoners being threatened with bodily harm, being buried alive and threatened with a gun during interrogations. president obama has left the door open for prosecution of those who broke the law. both the president and holder say they believe that waterboarding is torture. the real question is whether the administration will go after top bush officials who may have authorized this stuff or just set out to prosecute those who carried out the orders. want to bet which way that goes? here's the question. should the obama administration launch a criminal investigation of cia treatment of detainees? go to cnn.com/caffertyfile. you can post a comment on my blog. wolf? >> thank you, jack. >>> the debate over health care reform has turned into a shouting match. >> don't come and take advantage of what these individuals have done. you want a meeting with me on health care, i'll give it to you. >> we saw what happened when a congressman and a doctor faced off at

yousef, khalid shaikh mohammed, the uncle, and a fourth conspirator and they have this smoke incidentn their factory. this woman, whenever i kept telling you how many times women almost interdicted this plot, this juggernaut of al qaeda? this woman is sleeping, she's a topic she is one of the most dedicated policemen and the bahamas only she is a woman. they sleep at night like the firefighters do. and she sees this no. seasons a young couple with a. he said they are just fine with firecrackers. no, we're going back because she knew the pope was coming. she knew there was some issues with islamic tears and the south. she is posing in front of the apartment showing me how marotta started to walk back and to get to the laptop. they grab and take him with a. he starts to come out and he shoots the truck. the young cop bends down and a weaver stance like she is shown, takes a shot. shoot one right past his ear and she says he tripped over a root that was uprooted from a typhoon. if god had not had the typhoon, i love this woman. anyway, they grab him. they slammed him against the wall. he

and news that khalid shaikh mohammed, the mastermind behind 9/11 -- that is when they got all the information we will investigate those people. steve: last week, attorney general for the united statesÑi eric holder appointed a man to reconsider pursuing criminal charges against the interrogators. keep in mind, the inspector general of the department of justice already went over this and said no, it is not appropriate. eric holder said let's take a look even though barack obama says what's go forward. here is dick cheney yesterday on what this investigation could potentially do to morale and everything else at the cia. >> we have a track record of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from al-qaeda. the approach of the obama administration should be to come to those people that were involved in the policy and say how did you do it. instead, they're out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers. brian: not only that, things have changed. whether you like the bush administration policies or not, this is brand new. the cia will launder lead the investigat

most americans are quite comfortable with sleep deprivation, most are quite comfortable with khalid shaikh mohammedt the justice department. to me, more important than the legal issues, this has been looked at, are the national security issues. the question of torture, aggressive interrogation techniques, what you want to call them, are potentially a tool. we face serious threats as a society. sooner or later i'm afraid it's inevitable we're going to be struck again. it may or may not be on a scale worse than 9/11, who knows. then there will be questions, why did this happen? right now this is a moment for us to think as a society what should we be doing. what is useful, what is not, what crosses the line. we've got to be serious about it. this is taking a legal direction instead of a policy direction and i think we're missing the boat. >> the day after we're struck next time, people will look back like on september 11th, ring their hands and say how did the cia allow this to happen, after we gut the cia and after we drive off our best a little, which i don't care whether you're a republican or dem

states attorney, virginia and new york in competition over the opportunity to put 911 suspect khalid shaikh mohammeds, clunkers debate teams up old foes. $2 billion expansion, that vote close. >> usa today, more people asked to carry concealed weapons. gun numbers rising fearing stricter gun control during the obama administration and higher crime during a struggling economy. >>> "wall street journal," bank of america hit by fine other merrill. a civil lawsuit alleging it misled shareholders about billions of dollars in business. >>> coming up next, former commerce secretary carlos gutierrez and "the daily beast" tina brown. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. when i was seventeen summer days were not good to my skin. (announcer) new neutrogena total skin renewal. it's clinically tested to help undo the look of a year's worth of skin aging in just one week. do-overs do exist. (announcer) tal skin renewal neutrogena. has the fastest hands boxing has ever seen. so i've come to this ring to see who's faster... on the internet. i'll be using the 3g at&t laptopconnect card. he won't. so i

according to the washington post, that's what turned khalid shaikh mohammed and got real information at prevented attacks. >> and critics say that water boarding and harsh interrogation tactics regardless of results shouldn't be used by the cia and said that kalid shaikh mohammed, quoting him, words he gave to the red cost, during those harsh interrogation tactics i gave them false information on purpose, however, as you point out, the information he thought they didn't have on the cia, with regards to the flights into heathrow and also into los angeles, they didn't have that information. >> and dick cheney will speak out on all the allegations and the investigation later with chris wallace on fox news sunday. coming up now, was the lockerbie bomber really set free due to a deal over oil? that story coming up. >> shocking comments, a member of congress praising a dictator during her town hall meeting. >> you can think whatever you want to about fidel castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders i have ever met. . >> that's just the beginning. more from congress woman diane watson a