Former FBI Agent: Torture Not The Most Effective Solution

Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory agent who worked under the Bush administration, describes the two methods of interrogation used by both the CIA and the FBI: the "informed interrogation approach" and the "enhanced interrogation method". The second corresponds to torture and is regarded "compliance rather than to elicit cooperation, according to Soufan. (0:55)
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Nominee for the Director of CIA talks possible threats

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

Leon Panetta, nominee for the Director of the CIA listed a number of potential threats facing America today at his hearing before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. February 5, 2009.
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Director for CIA nominee calls for cross-party unity

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

Leon Panetta, nominee for Director of the CIA called for Republicans and Democrats to work together in tackling security at his hearing before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee today. February 5, 2009.
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Bin Laden a main priority for Director of the CIA nominee

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) asks the nominee for the Director of the CIA about his views on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda at his hearing before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. At his hearing he said that finding Bin Laden would be a "main priority". February 5, 2009.
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that she takes her integrity very seriously in response to Representative Robert Wexler (D-FL) saying that she made false statements

At the House Foreign Affairs Committee International Relations Budget Full committee hearing on the "International Relations Budget for FY2009," Representative Robert Wexler asks Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice if it was true that she had intelligence that cast doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Rice says that it is not true, the views of the United Nations showed that Iraq must have been hiding something, and the only disagreement was on whether or not they had reconstituted their nuclear weapons program, although many elements, including the CIA, believed they were in the process of doing so. She says she takes her integrity very seriously and that she did not at any time make a statement that she knew to be false, or that she thought to be false, in order to pump up anything. Nobody, she says, wants to go to war. (1:16)


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Vice President Cheney calls enhanced interrogations "a tougher program for tougher customers"

Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, says that the interrogation program run by the CIA against high-value targets are "a tougher program for tougher customers." He says that the information gained through these programs has been useful. (0:49)
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General Hayden says that information gathering by the CIA is appropriate

During the Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency General Hayden says that information gathering techniques used by the CIA are lawful, appropriate, and adequate to the needs of the CIA program. He then says that their manual is different than the Army Field Manual. He then uses as an example the information gathered from Saddam Hussein using the CIA's techniques. Vice Chairman Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) interrupts by saying that the information was obtained right before he [Hussein] was about to be hanged. "Talk about an enhanced interrogation technique," Bond says. (:55)
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General Hayden defines torture as something depending on the adjectives in front of the word "pain"

During the Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) asks both Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency General Michael Hayden what defines torture, and says that pain is pain "it doesn't depend on the circumstances." McConnell says he was talking about "excruciating pain." General Hayden said that the requirement for something to be defined as torture depends on the adjectives that are in front of the word "pain," and that it also depends on level, duration, and lasting effects of the pain. (1:03)
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General Hayden says that CIA is not outsourcing to get information

During the Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency General Michael Hayden says that both government and independent contractors are used to get information, and that they are a governmental activity under governmental control. "We are not outsourcing this." (:25)
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Attorney General Michael Mukasey declines to speak on the legality of waterboarding at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing

Attorney General Michael Mukasey testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee explains what it would take for waterboarding to be authorized for use by the CIA
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