ksm figured out the limits. he actually mocked his interrogators by holding off his arm and count off the seconds with his hand. he knew how far you can go. and when they know it is very, very hard to break them. >> i would like to suggest that the way to move forward is actually not to focus on interrogation right now. because interrogation presents probably the hardest and most devicive issue that has arisen in the post 9/11 era. and because for one reason or another and probably a multiplicity of a number of reasons we're not capturing large numbers of the sort of people wholed be going into this program if we had it. and so while i agree that there is a long-term or medium-term question that we are going to have to confront on the interrogation front, i think the much more pressing short-term problem is the underlying detention question. which is when you capture somebody, are the -- you know, what do you do with them in the immediate sense? do you think of them as somebody who comes to the united states for

. >> ksm have a family? >> absolutely, he has a wife who has been hiding in iran i think her name is halima and he has at least two sons we know about and possibly two daughters t. >> how is he kept in guantanamo? >> he is kept along with four or five other high-value detainee's connected with 9/11 as part of a slightly larger group of about 15 or 16. >> is he in a cell by his self? >> i believe he is. >> have they stopped talking to him at this point? >> he is the question. -- he is still questions. the period of intense questioning tuesday over. that is partly for political reasons. he clearly knows things that have not come out. when someone breaks and water board, that automatically disgorge everything the next moment. many people said water board is so terrible. when they are water according you, they don't ask them any questions. the questions they are asking you are ones they already know the answer to. they want to test your veracity. they're not asking things you don't know. there is no possibility

ksm was the master. >> where is ramzi yousef today? >> he's in jail in colorado. >> go back to the north carolina experience for k.s.m. what happened to him in his time down there and how many years it was total? >> i believe it's a total of 3 1/2, almost four years. >> you talk about their hatred for israel but how much of this is hatred for the united states or hatred for israel or hatred because the united states supports israel? >> a lot of it, more than i expected, is because the united states supports israel. in the 1980's in north carolina it would not be hard for k.s.m. to meet ordinary americans who admired israel as the only middle eastern democracy, as a place that many churches take people for historical and religious visits. and so, you know, israel is generally admired and i think this came as a great shock to him. in that court case that i mentioned, christian v. mohammad, he tracked down their lawyer, steven j. teague, and visited him in his offices and lectured him about israel and palestine, about the iran-iraq war an

certainly nothing like what ksm and osama bin laden and their fellow enemies have been willing to do t innocent civilians in our home labland o carry out their war on our way of life. i know that there is -- there is a certain amount of -- it feels like a clamor to claim kred at this time for what has happened -- credit for what has happened and i think especially for right now americans ought to give credit where credit is due and it is due to these courageous people that did the unimaginable to achieve this victor i have. >> would you urge the president to consider the issue of enhanced intertar interrogatio. >> absolutely. just as i encouraged the attorney general to carry on the military tribunals to bring ksm, who i call the chief operating officer of 9/11, to bring him to justice. it is way, way overdue. sean, i really wish that i could have seen the look on osama bin laden's face when realized uh-oh, either the fay navy seals and they are right here. i don't know what uh-oh translates in his language but that would have been something to see. and so he got american justice del

. >> did ksm have a family? >> yes. he has a wife is fighting in iran. and he has a number of children, at least two sons and possibly two daughters. >> how is he kept in guantanamo? >> he is kept with four or five other high-value detainee is connected to 9/11 and is part of a slightly larger group of 15 to 16 very high-value detainees. >> have they stopped talking to him at this point or are they still questioning him? >> he is still questioned. he is still shown drawings and other documents and asked about a name and that kind of thing. but the time of intense questioning is over. partly, it is for political scenreasons. a lot of people say that waterboarding is sort terrible. they will say anything to make it stop. when the water board you, they're not asking that many questions. and the questions they ask your once they know the answer to. they want to test your your veracity, your willingness to tell the truth. there is no possibility to fake information. if you give that information, there are punishments. you are denied food and books to read. >>

ksm . sheik muhammad collectively. they are responsible for the deaths of thousand people. do i feel angst over that issue? not at all . what i would say, when you are talking about going forward in our ability to take detainees and gather information from them. having a bag that includes the unknowing from the detainees point of view. they don't know what is coming down the pike. that is important . it is a moot point. we'll not use water boarding again. not everyone knows that it is part of the process. the key is not letting them know. i want to conclude. we have run out of time mike. it would outrage me if there was a criminal prosecution to good decent men and women of the cia who are doing their best to determine the information on which we carry out acts like we did and eric holder will say there will be no prosecution of patriots who did their duty and lawful at the time in which they did it. anything less than that would be an outrage. cia guys are heroes and thanks for your service and putting daylight in it for us. his decision made water boarding legal and many

. >> ksm, khalid shaikh mohammed, was he the mastermind of 9/11?what's the role and connection between the mastermind -- ksm was the ops planner. he figured it out, get some planes, run them into the world trade center -- >> he also had been in the united states so he understood how it worked. >> who came up with the idea of using airplanes? >> they've been looking at that since the mid '90s, the blind sheikh they were going to crash one into the pentagon in '95. >> what do you worry about now? >> i wo worry about they small groups attacking airplanes. it's just as bad, just as dangerous. >> what goes on at the tsa? i travel maybe a couple times a week, that stuff is important, they would like to get on a plane and blow it up? >> even if they don't stop the terrorists, a lot of what they do discourages, but they have to be careful, can't get too far over into the crazy things. >> senator, i respect so much to your service to the country as a s.e.a.l. you must have been thinking, having been through one of these kinds of operations, me your perspect

now, at some point, at some point ksm gave up the nickname of one of bin laden's couriers. we followed that courier and that's how we nailed bin laden, therefore validating torture. but the "i want to be able to look my children in the eye" crowd refused to admit torture is the real hero here. >> torture is not moral. it's not legal. it's not effective. >> it was not torture or cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment of detainees that got us the major leads that ultimately enabled our intelligence community to find osama bin laden. >> all of our experience shows you generate better, more accurate information when you treat prisoners humanely, when you befriend them, when you connect with them. >> probably the most tortured detainee, kalil sheikh mohammed, watered boarded 180 time, did not divluge the name of his courier. >> stephen: he didn't give the name during waterboarding, but he was gave it eventually. we were just loosening the jar by holding it under water. the pointed is we need a definitive statement that waterboarding led us to bin laden. howing about the guy who ord

and when it was thrown out at ksm it wasn't that the courier was that important. 2003, that's when we're working around this alias name. and it wasn't until 2007 that we were able to get the real name of the individual and then it took two more years, 2009, until we had a general region where we felt that this existed. the keys this were putting together this is an eight year process, it wasn't eight days. the it wasn't a week or so ago, somebody in the cia said, hey, i think i found bin laden's compound. >> it took all of that time. in 2009 a general regional location. it wasn't until august of 2010 when we finally identified the compound and so, the amount of work, the investigative, intelligence processes, the sources around the world and you're trying to zero in just to get a hold of had an individual and then that individual willed us to the compound and we all know what the end result was. >> mike: one of the key elements of all of this information gathering has been how much was obtained by enhanced interrogation, and specifically, water-boarding. this last week, leon panetta in a

that is very much in dispute and actually, the best reporting suggests that it was only when ksm and other high-value detainees refused to say they had even heard of this courier that they got suspicious. so there was was nothing that was connected to these detainees. >> okay. got to go. >> finally on the large point, chris, this is really important. if they want to take credit away from obama for this, then they have to also give credit to bush for the economy. in other words, it's what happens on your watch. >> i know. >> so if obama is going to take blame for the economy -- >> people switch the scorecards. thank you. i want to say that our top investigative reporter here at msnbc and nbc, actually msnbc is mike isikoff said waterboarding had no role in the finding and killing of bin laden. anyway, thank you, jonathan alter and thank you, josh marshall isikoff is the best in the business. >>> up next, the commander in chief, the republican argument that president obama isn't tough or decisive is out window. so what does that mean for the 2012 election? you are watching "hardball,"

>> ksm, he was the ops planner. >> he figured it out.lanes, run them into the world trade center. >> he'd been in the united states. >> who came up with the idea of using airplanes? >> they've been looking at that since the mid '90s. they were going to crash a plane into cia headquarters in 1995. >> what do you worry about now with al qaeda not having that guy anymore? >> small groups attacking airplanes and individuals. it's just as bad, just as dangerous. >> the tsa, i travel a couple times a week. that stuff is really important. they're aiming at airplane -- would like to get on a plane and blow it up. >> if they don't stop the terrorist, a lot of what they do discourages them. they can't get too far over into the crazy things. >> senator, great having you on. i respect so much your service to the country as a s.e.a.l. i just think about the training these guys go through. and you must have been thinking, having been through one of these kinds of incredible operations, what -- give me your perspective, generally as a senator, as a pol

there is no court on earth that could do justice to what this man does, what he did, along with what ksmis man's evil energy has been taken off of our planet. and god will throw his soul to the depths of hell. president bush described it as good and evil. the evil that man led, there will be major shift in that whole thing. you'll see a difference over the next few months. that is -- that energy is off of this planet. >> you say this is not something you have been waiting for. but clearly something you have been hoping for. how important is it to havmethis moment?>> >> there's a degree of satisfaction. and not necessarily of satisfaction that he's dead. because as i said, the judge of all people, the judge of all things will take care of that. what it is is that we beat them at their own game. we didn't give up. you take president obama, and he called for the end of the war, but when he got into office, he saw the reality of the situation and kept on the strategy that president bush had started. and he kept on. and i know our men in uniform want the same thing. i live in greenwich villag

when it came to ksm, 25% is unacceptable. the detainees in cia custody, those who underwent enhanced interrogation, they cooperated because of the fear of enhanced interrogation. everyone was coerced in some way by that. those people according to the interrogators that i interviewed for my book, they estimate that they got 70% to 80% to what they knew. that is closer to the except of all -- ksm, the mastermind of 9/11, telling you that when your plans for a the new attacks, he says, soon you will not. the mets -- he admits to attack plans under way. he knows that they do not have the will to find out what to do to protect the country. i think he found that the we did have the will and we stop the attacks and in the process, we also got bin laden. >> marc brought up the idea of truth serum. why don't we just inject them with sodium and the fall and you stressor increase marked it is illegal. you're not allowed to use mind altering drugs. there is no exception for that. even if the alterations are temporary. >> ben wanted to ge

meanti meantime their own intelligence work shows that he was a protege of ksm, so ksm knew exactly whowas and how important he was and in lying to the cia, it gave them a clue that, gee, this courier might be important. but they still didn't have his name, brooke. they only had a nickname to go on, so then they had to kind of track him down. >> well, it is fascinating what the interrogation folks do, and l listen for the key phrases and names, and what they don't hear which is key in this case. and there was mounting evidence that they didn't have a visual on osama bin laden at this particular compound and in your article you cite from the source that they had 60 to 80% that bin laden was actually in there. >> exactly. they really didn't know. and in fact, when they took this to the president, it was clear that this was what they call a circumstantial case. 60 to 80% probability that osama bin laden was on that third floor. they knew members of his family, they believed were on that third floor. they know that the couriers live there, because this courier actually inadvertently led the

. >> the conservatives are saying ksm served up the name and "the new york times" is reporting that's not the case, it came from the courier. so, there's a lot of misinformation, a lot of cross information going on out there. who do we believe? >> ed, if water boarding that happened seven to eight years ago just now led us to bin laden and that's the mesh of success, we are in a lot of trouble. it's not an e vektive technique. compare it to, you know, my team in iraq, i went out on raids. our time requirement was ten to 15 minutes to get info. back at a prison, our standard was two to three days to get info to act on. maybe a couple weeks or a few weeks in other cases. eight or nine years to get information and consider that valuable, it's not. >> how do you counter this soundbyte. this is peter king. he says water board sg a moral imperative. here it is. >> i believe water boarding is a moral imperative. september 10th, 2001, we knew he was going to kill thousands of americans. we didn't know when or where. are we saying now we wouldn't hold his head under water to save 3,000 lives?

they knew that the courier was important when ksm said look somewhere else, that's how they knew they were on to something. >> feels like an odd straw man when that really is not what this conversation is about any way. >> let's move on. the u.s. has said it will investigate whether pakistani authorities ignored bin laden's presence or helped him hide from intelligence. >> clearly they provided assistance between bin laden and his operatives. whether or not those individuals inside the pakistani government is unknown at this point. >> we're joined from abbottabad pakistan with a first-hand look. >> reporter: chuck, this is a military town. the military is everywhere here. we've been driving around and there is extra security today. we're seeing checkpoint after checkpoint. just a mile down that road is a full military academy, the elite military academy. it's the west point of the usa and then half a mile is osama bin laden's house. i walked around the area. it's a newly developed area and there are several tracks not built on. there are half built homes. his house stood out not just

was actually important because they knew from other sources that the courier had been a protege of ksmand he made it believe he didn't know who it was. so bingo, right? so then they had to go about finding him. >> reporter: investigators established the courier's name and begin to monitor his family's phone calls and e-mails. >> once they have established one cell phone call, then it was a question of making inquiries at the ground level, listening for any further calls. they were beginning to close in on him at this stage. what we believe happened is that abu ahmed al kuwaiti was tracked to a particular vehicle and once they found that vehicle, perhaps, in the environment, there was a question of waiting to see where he went. >> last august, august of 2010, they finally had the courier lead them to the compound. and my source said to me, one of my sources said to me, when we got a picture of that compound, we said, wow. this is different. >> reporter: despite constant surveillance, there's never 100% certainty that osama bin laden is inside. but back in the united states, an elite for

ksm figured out water boarding. he mocked his interrogators by holding out his arms and counting off the seconds. he knew exactly how far we could go and when the terrorist know how far you can go, it is hard to break them. >> i would like to suggest that the way to move forward it's actually not to focus on interrogation right now. interrogations presents probably the hardest and most divisive issue that had arisen in the post 9/11 era and because we are not capturing large numbers of the sort of people who would be going into this program. while wheat -- while i agree there is a long term or medium term question that we will have to confront, i think the much more pressing short-term problem is the underlying detention question. when you capture somebody, what do you do with them in the immediate sense? do you think of them as somebody who comes to the united states for criminal trial? do you think of them as somebody who gets helped and transferred to another country for detention? do you start bringing people ba

jenna: ksm is reporting one source for the information that eventually led to the killing of usama bin laden. john brennan the white house counterterrorism adviser was quick to point out that no one technique, including waterboarding led to the tip. >> it was information that i said was acquired from individuals, including those in detention. sometimes they gave up information willingly, as far as offering some details, some of it was dis information. sometimes they provided information that they didn't realize had embedded clues in it that we were able to exploit. jenna: j.d. gordon former defense department spokesman joins us. you started working for the administration after the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques were used. during the time that some say that's when the information came out that led to what we're seeing today, what do you think happened that gave up that information? why do you think the happened several years after the enhanced interrogation techniques? >> reporter: well first to clarify jenna waterboarding happened to just three detainees. none of those wer

so four years after the waterboarding of ksm they figure out the real identity of this courier and then they are able to follow the trail that leads to bin laden. so that is a somewhat different narrative than that being pushed by those who are suggesting waterboarding or enhanced interrogation techniques was the key to breaking this case. >> michael, thank you so much for the reporting you've done on that topic. my big question today, lots of debate over whether the u.s. government should make public the pictures and the video of the killing or burial of osama bin laden. i'd like to hear your thoughts on this. you can reach me on facebook, on twi twitter. we're having a lively conference about that. and senator bob casey is a member of the senate's foreign relations committee. senator, let me ask you, if we -- if the u.s. government makes those photos or video public, are you concerned at all about the impact it has on foreign relations? >> contessa, no question about that. that has to be the question of whether to release them or not has to be the subject of a lot of consideration. i

terrorism, overseas contingessency operations, a president that was going to give a civilian trial to ksmt that offered miranda warnings to enemy combatants, you gotta wonder, do you think president oobama learns that george bush was, in fact right, that george bush led to this victory, albeit nine years later. that america found him. do you think he learns? >> he could be so gracious. and in being gracious look so much bigger, if he were to acknowledge that the policies put in place by his predecessor and reluctantly carried forward by his administration, some of them, most of them, led to this day, but he can't do that. i am sorry to see it, but he just can't. >> karl rove, thank you very much. >> by the way, this is the one time that george bush didn't get blamed. >> well, that's because a good thing happened and the administration probably didn't want to blame him for a good thing. >> everything else, the dog bites, bee stings, if you are feeling sad, that's george bush's fault. ask president obam aisle as the period said on sunday night, we, in a paragraph full of wes and is, we got

why that's important is that we now eventually the cia was able to p concluded, he was a protege of ksm u.s. intelligence officials even thought they were related, though that doesn't seem to have been the case, but they were -- had worked together for years. so when khalid sheikh mohammed after waterboarding dismisses abu ahmed and described him as retired, he's misleading the cia, throwing them off the trail, although he talked about a lot of things, and there's been a considerable debate about how valuable that intelligence ultimately was the one most valuable pieces of information he contained, the courier who could have lead him to bid laden, he threw the cia off. i have one former fbi official tells me actually the facts here suggest that this was the more clear example of how waterboarding didn't work because it produced mislead seg information that through the cia, at least initially off the trail. >> right. the whole point of waterboarding is supposed to be we tortured you, okay, okay, i give up, here it is. he did the exact opposite. so it's startling they would go in that dir

the courier they had heard about, it was brought to ksm and another man, and in fact they denied ever knowing him, even after the harsh interrogation. and that raised suspicions of the cia that he was important because these guys were denying knowing him. >> that's interesting. paul, what have you been able to pick up the role that torture played in getting the necessary information? >> i honestly have no idea, chris. mark is on the inside of that. the scuttle in our community, the military community, is really about pride and about almost awe of what the navy s.e.a.l.s can do, especially s.e.a.l. team six. >> i respect your service and your knowledge. tell us what you can give us in the iend kind of attack and the training and planning and execution that you found, that you do find, to be excellent or whatever, education on this case. what did you learn from this thing? >> well, this is what these guys do every day. this isn't a rare instance. this is at a higher level, but they train their entire lives for a moment like this. and i think it's important to recognize. we will never kn

but former counterterror agents insist that ksm never revealed the information until months after the water boarding had stopped. is this a valuable tool? does it validate enhanced interrogation or not? >> well, it he was tortured and gave up the follow-up information. i'm not going to say what the exact situation was and what worked and what didn't, because between what we saw yesterday and today, we have seen the information somewhat change. so i don't know what exactly happened -- >> you don't even know if we know what we're analyzing. >> correct. >> but one of the things we do know, it's absolutely a farce for the former bush administration officials saying it's all about the enhanced interrogation techniques. the one thing bush did was right, 2005 operation cannon ball, and that was putting more cia operatives on the ground. >> in the middle east? >> in the middle east. that was one of the biggest things that led to one of the things -- >> which ironically was the year that they were building bin laden's house for him. >> how nice was that. but secondly, what's most important her

khalid shaikh mohammed, ksm was found in a similar town in rawalpindi a few years ago. how can this happen without the tacit knowledge or involvement? >> let me proffer another explanation. >> answer the question. >> it's a state, a country with lots of people, it's a very difficult country in the sense of its capacity to deal with the problems. as the national security adviser said, a lot more people have been arrested in pakistan including al qaeda people than in any other country. so pakistan did not have a policy of protecting these people. however, the united states spent much more money in iraq than it did in afghanistan, and then it spent much more money in afghanistan than it did in pakistan. so were there cracks through which things fell through? absolutely and we'll investigate that and get to the bottom of it. >> all right. you've said it is time for pakistan to wake up. is there going to be a credible investigation that leads to some heads rolling? national security adviser said that the chief of the military, general kiani was holding an investigation. tell

rodriguez says that information provided by ksm and others about bin laden's courier was the lead information led to the location of bin laden's compound. so we can add this guy to the pile of bushies who were trying to give credit to the former president even though he stopped trying to catch osama bin laden. >>> former vice president dick cheney has said enhanced interrogations was a factor. former defense secretary donald rumsfeld now says that waterboarding was critically important even though that contradicts some of his past statements. let's bring in retired cia officer glenn carle and author of the upcoming book "the interrogator." mr. carle, good to have you with us tonight. are these people wrong when they say that torture did the trick? >> well, i think it's a shameful sequel to a sordid chapter, really in american history. i had no direct involvement in the interrogation of khalid sheikh mohammed so i can't speak directly to that, but my understanding is the information that eventually broke the case and let us find osama bin laden was obstained a year after any enhanced interroga

ksm absolutely lied.nd the reason -- the lie was alerting to the cia, because they knew from other detainees would have not been water boarded that, in fact, this courier was a protegee of khalid shaikh mohammed and other high-level al qaeda operatives. so it was the lie that led to them -- but he didn't tell them the truth. so what does that prove to you about the waterboarding? >> i ca guarantee you both sides are going to have a good or reasonable argument to justify their view of the

ksm refuses to talk about the courier. it's a clue how important he may be. wikileaks, it says the courier may have accompanied him to tora bora. >> our ability to monitor the courier turned out to be the critical piece of information. >> reporter: in 2007, the cia learns the man's name. abu ahmed al kuwaiti, from one one official calls classic espionage. they say pakistanis provide some information. by 2009 the cia knows the general area in pakistan where the courier is living. once they even spot him on the street. in august 2010, they learn the courier and his brother are living at this compound. but something isn't right. why do they need 18-foot-tall walls, security gates and a $1 million mansion. by late 2010, the u.s. is covertly watching the compound around the clock. telephone conversations of the courier are intercepted. the courier and his brother are practicing extraordinary operational security, the official tells cnn, they don't use their real name in the town. they burn their trash. again, why? who are they protecting? the u.s. comes to realize

we have been fighting for two years against civilian trial in lower manhattan for ksm and company. they made it very difficult on us which was completely unnecessary. then we had to fight eric holder on military trial versus civilian trial. it appears we have won that one. but it has taken tremendous emotional energy for to us fight that fight. i believe the families have been completely disrecord by this administration. also with the ground zero mosque. a large number of families are completely against that. in fact it's probably one issue the families are most agreeable on, that that should not be guilt there. yet the president of the united states disregarded us and pushedford and endorsed that. so for him to make this campaign stop tomorrow to pat himself on the back for what happened on sunday is completely disingenuous. he will use the families as a backdrop, and i hope that people see the transparency. martha: let's look at it from the other side. they will say this is a big moment for the country. it's one of those unique moments where we have seen people rallying and cheer

i mean, here's an administration that once has insisted on prosecuting ksm and the rest of those people they just don't get it. and i think that the failures of our government, not just the democratic administrations of clinton and obama, but the bush administration as well. what we see here is that people in the federal government can escape responsibility for their malfeasance. i think the fact that secretary clinton is now secretary of state, that this woman has been named secretary of state is a reward for the malfeasance of her husband's administrations is a perfect example of the incompetence and the cover your tail mentality of our government. i want to make sure it's clear to people that this has to do with the bush administration just as completely. we have wide open borders -- >> sir, i understand where you come from, but just in this day, in this moment, did the mission -- >> no, i'm sorry -- i hate to be a contrarian, but what i have seen of almost the circus-like atmosphere down at ground zero and the -- i'm grateful for the fact that americans are pleased that our military

names of the couriers who might actually be aiding osama bin laden, some of the detainees conceivably ksmd out on them, and by holding out, the intelligence agency figures, you know, this guy is probably something, and the problem is that, wolf, they only knew his nickname. they didn't know his real name, but it was considered high-value information so they press and trailed him in classic espionage, and classic work, and they learned his name from a different part of the world and they tracked him around. they could not follow him around and they had a sighting of him, so they set up an elaborate surveillance effort that led them in august of 2010 to that compound and one of my sources said to me, when we saw that compound, we said, wow. this is different. and then leon panetta the cia director said to them, i want a body count of everybody who lives there, and who they are and where they are sleeping. it was a courier and his family and the courier's brother and his family and then the question was, there was a third family up on the top floor, and seemed like it could have been osama b

way we got him -- persistent intelligence, following the tracks, information about the courier from ksmwe have not picked up a high- value target in many years and we don't have an interrogation program going on. what does this mean for the next guy? >> i don't want to take anything away and from the president, but what about next time? >> next time is going to be harder. i give the president a tremendous amount of credit because i do believe he gave the direction to leon panetta that is maintaining a high priority -- i want to maine which it maintained a high priority on capturing and killing bin laden. i believe he gave that direction to leon panetta and he made that very clear that it was still a priority. the bottom of what he has done is, he has given the intelligence community fewer tools to be able to do their job against bin laden or against other high-value targets. it is a combination of not being able to use enhanced in derogation begin interrogation techniques or any interrogation strategy at all. the other thing that is out there that has been written about today and it cro