The Rachel Maddow Show | February 07, 2013
What changed Brennan's mind on torture?
Rachel Maddow highlights a portion of John Brennan's testimony at his confirmation hearing to head the CIA in which he explains that a Senate Intelligence Committee report changed his mind about the effectiveness of torture, and wonders about the contents of that report
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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.
>>> just one more thing. this was 2007 , an interview with cbs news. watch.
>> the cia has ak knowledged that it detained about 1,000 terrorists since 9/11 and about a third have been subjected to enhanced interrogation tactics and only a small proportion of those have been subjected to the most serious type of enhanced procedures.
>> and you say some of this has born fruit?
>> there have been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hardcore terrorists. it has saved life.
>> torture worked. torture saved lives. that's what john brennan said in 2007 . 2007 interview with cbs. that statement is in part what derailed his first chance of running the cia back at the start of obama's first term. since then, the senate intelligence committee has produced a comprehensive three years in the making a 6,000 page of torture during the bush administration . the report is classified. they finished it. before today's hearing, they gave it to john's hearing, they said, in effect, read this, do you still believe that torture saves lives? watch.
>> when i was quoted # in 2007 valuable intelligence came out of those sessions, that's why i said it saved lives. i must tell you, senator, reading this report from the committee raises serious questions about the information that i was given at the time and the impression i had at that time. now i have to determine what, based on that information as well as what cia says, what the truth is. and at this point, senator, i do not know what the truth is.
>> if he is confirmed as director of the cia , john brennan will have to decide, along with the intelligence committee and the white house , whether or not to declassify that report or sections of that report that changed his mind about whether torture works, whether torture saved lives. if he's head of the cia , john brennan is going to have a major say in whether or not you and i get to see this comprehensive report that changed his mind about the efficacy of torture. i would like to see what changed the mind of the guy who actually worked at the cia and in counterterrorism while this stuff was going on. what did the senate intelligence committee find and put in that report that not even john brennan knew about when he was inside that agency. i would like to know that. wouldn't you?