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Will Anyone Be Charged After CIA Torture Report?; U.S. Military on High Alert; Chuck Hagel Talks CIA Torture Report, Safety of U.S. Troops; Carolina Panther Cam Newton In Accident

Aired December 9, 2014 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, Karen and I were talking on the commercial break about the book you have written, and about Colin Powell. And we heard Chairwoman Feinstein saying maybe one of the reasons why the White House was kept out of the loop, as she was saying, the then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell would've blown his stack. And you were saying, back in 2002, he was sniffing something out.

KAREN GREENBERG, DIRECTOR, THE CENTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: Sure. And he flagged this issue of interrogation. Nothing more than that early in 2002, in a memo, raising questions about what we were doing in terms of classifying individuals as enemy combatants. And one of the issues he did focus on was just what Professor Turley mentioned, reciprocity. If you're going to go after treat others in this way, what will happen to you in terms of your relationships with them?

On the issue of prosecution and what's going to happen, it's not just about the United States. The United States will decide what it's going to do going forward. But the international community has been upset about this for a decade. And it has threatened to prosecute one individual or another from the Bush administration. Now they have more ammunition and they can make it very difficult for these individuals to travel and to do other things for fear of being indicted, arrested, whatever, abroad. So it's a larger question than just our domestic scene.

BALDWIN: Global ramifications, ramifications here at home, on so many levels, I should also add.

Karen Greenberg and Jonathan Turley, thank you both very much.

I want to continue on. U.S. military members overseas, this also potential repercussion. They're on high alert right now because of the release of this CIA torture report. Should one expect retaliation against our military? We'll talk to Christiane Amanpour live in London about that next.

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BALDWIN: Backing to breaking news. Torture techniques by the CIA. An organization shows today's report yielded little traction so far. But our correspondent at the Pentagon, Barbara Starr says the threat of retaliatory attacks could come in days rather than hours. We're watching that.

Let me go straight to Christiane Amanpour, our chief international correspondent for CNN and host of CNN's "Amanpour."

Christiane, to you first, I'm mindful of the timing of the dropping of this report. Do you think ISIS or any of America's other adversaries are following this news as closely as we are out of D.C. today? How much do you think they think this is significant?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, AMANPOUR: Well, I'm certain that the news is being followed. Top U.S. officials, including the defense secretary, say they have picked up no sort of buzzes of potential retaliation. Although, we have, and everybody knows that embassies and military bases are on heightened alert. But as one of the legal experts who I interviewed said, look, the Navy SEALs, who are competing to boast about shooting Osama bin Laden in the face, have been doing that publicly around the world and there hasn't been any retaliation against that. I would say potentially more likely would be some poor civilian who is picked up, or anybody, and tortured or have their throat slit again, you know, in that kind of individual thing that we've already seen from ISIS.

BALDWIN: I'm wondering, too, as I was thinking about, you know, we've seen the videos involving ISIS and, you know, prisoners held hostage in the orange jump suits, right? That's a nod to the Guantanamo detainees. We know they are waterboarding. How else might ISIS use what they are seeing in this report as sheer propaganda?

AMANPOUR: Well, you know, you've seen their videos. Their idea of propaganda is unlimited. They can twist anything and use anything they want. Most people who you talk to say there's never a good time to publicize something like this. What would be the perfect time?

But, on the other hand, and certainly from governments around the world, I would say it's remarkable that this has actually happened. It really does show a country that is willing to put out even the worst of its dirty laundry in public, around the world on global, social media, Internet, on television, and try to make that a lesson learned. Very, very few, if any, governments around the world would ever do that. And obviously, that is one of the -- one of the strengths.

Certainly, one of the big things that I've found in my interviews just recently, the former chief prosecutor of the Guantanamo Bay commissions told me that, look, this is -- we knew about waterboarding, but what we didn't know was about the scale of this, you know, the deceit, the obstruction of Congress, the White House, and also the outsourcing of all of this, the millions and millions and millions of dollars that were paid to outside contractors to do this kind of torturing.

BALDWIN: That's right.

AMANPOUR: And worse, Brooke, worse, that it wasn't effective. That it did not yield the so-called ticking-time bomb scenario that most proponents of this kind of interrogation say is necessary. It just didn't, according to the investigation.

BALDWIN: $80 million, apparently, to two specific contractors, according to my last guest, who has written a book on all of this.

But here's a different way to look at it. I want to pose this to you. Is it possible that one could see this as the United States coming out stronger, that finally this transparency, and this report and this is something that Vladimir Putin would never ever do, is that a possibility?

AMANPOUR: Well, precisely. That's the point. I can't think of another government that has or would do this kind of thing, whether Western democracies over here or dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, just wouldn't be doing this. And I think, obviously, philosophically, morally, ethically, that is a strength of the United States to confront this massive wrong doing, to put it out in public, and to try to move forward in a way that corrects that and makes sure that doesn't happen.

You know, when you think about it, this all goes back to the days after 9/11 when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld cast out the Geneva Conventions and said, I don't give a you-know-what about the Geneva Conventions, these people are terrorists and we're going to get them any which way. And to that point, though, what's happened, as your previous guest, Karen Greenberg, said, while this may or may not be strictly illegal in the United States, and you know all the tortured legality that has tried to justify this, it is most definitely a crime under international law.

And so my guest, former colonel of the Air Force, the former prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, said he would advise any Americans named in this investigation or at all tainted by this to vacation domestically. That is, you know, a real worry they may, you know, be had up under international law for this kind of activity.

BALDWIN: It's interesting.

Christiane Amanpour, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

AMANPOUR: Thanks, Brooke.

Outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is overseas, talking to our chief national security correspondent there, Jim Sciutto. What he has to say about the release of this massive Senate report and the safety of U.S. troops all around the world. Stay here.

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BALDWIN: The Senate report on the CIA's Bush-era interrogation tactics say the CIA misled Congress, misled the public, even misled the president, the commander-in-chief here at the time, George W. Bush, and kept him in the dark about what was happening. In this report, it outlines hundreds and hundreds of pages of detail, what many people are characterizing, in a word, torture. Some detainees were nearly drowned or others were kept awake for 180 straight hours with their hands shackled above their heads. Some of the most sensitive information has been redacted in this report, but still, the United States is fearing retaliation from militants all around the world, especially when it comes to the men and women who are so bravely protecting this nation overseas.

CNN's chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, recently spoke to outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. And he's live with me in Kuwait city.

And as it pertains to this report today, Jim, how is Secretary Hagel responding to this?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'll tell you, his chief concern, Brooke, are exactly those men and women you mentioned. Remember, there's still two major deployments in this region. You have 11,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. We were visiting them with Secretary Hagel this weekend. 1,000 more into 2015, then under the initial drawdown plan. And then across the border from Kuwait here in Iraq, where we were visiting today, you have the president authorizing now up to 3,000 troops, and countless ships across the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf here in Bahrain. All of those servicemembers exposed to potential retaliation.

Here's how Secretary Hagel described that threat to me this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: In light of the danger that it poses to U.S. troops in the field, do you think it's a mistake to release that report?

CHUCK HAGEL, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Well, you know, the president has said that we need to be honest and get this report out. The administration has worked very closely with the Congress. The Congress feels pretty strongly about this. We have had an opportunity to redact some of the most sensitive parts of that to protect our people.

SCIUTTO: Do you believe the military in the field is prepared for the fallout even with the redactions?

HAGEL: Well, I've directed all our combatant commanders to have all their commands on alert because we want to be prepared just in case. We've not detected anything specific anywhere. But we want to be prepared, and we are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Now, Secretary Hagel said that a number of those redactions to the report have helped mitigate the threat somewhat to the U.S. military, but there is still great concern here. While they have no specific threats that they're following, they do believe, in general, there may be retaliation. They're keeping their eyes focused on Friday prayers, Brooke. That is often a time, an inflexion point, a chance to express frustration and have demonstrations as we've seen in past cases like this.

BALDWIN: What about, since I have you, and you have this opportunity to speak with the secretary of defense, did you ask him about the ISIS and any progress being made there?

SCIUTTO: We did. Further portions of the interview will be airing later today on "The Situation Room," et cetera. He said that he was encouraged by what he heard and saw in Iraq, that the Iraqi security forces are making progress. Even said they're beginning to go on offensive operations. To this point, they've been primarily in defensive positions, just trying to hold back the ISIS advance.

But still, U.S. commanders, very realistic. They say it's a number of months before these Iraqi forces are going to be capable of significant operations to take back territory from ISIS. When you talk about the troops across the border, Brooke, this is a war that everybody describes in terms of years. And that means that the deployment of U.S. forces there, likely to be in years, too.

BALDWIN: Jim Sciutto, we will look forward to more of your interview with Secretary Hagel later on today.

Thank you so much, in Kuwait city.

Back to our coverage of the CIA's use of torture here in just a moment, the report that's out today.

But we're following another developing story for you. This NFL quarterback -- just awful here -- had a huge game this past weekend. You see him on the ground, rushed to the hospital. Rachel Nichols is up next with what she learned.

But first, a reminder to catch "Dinosaur 13," Thursday night. The discovery of T-Rex bones in South Dakota turns into a legal nightmare. 9:00 p.m. eastern, right here on CNN.

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BALDWIN: Carolina Panthers quarterback has been injured in a crash today in Charlotte, North Carolina. The NFL star was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Joining me now, CNN sports anchor, Rachel Nichols.

What do we know? What happened?

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Well, this wreck happened right near the Panthers stadium. It was on an overpass over the highway. It's actually an area where they've had trouble before with the stop sign. We do know that Cam Newton's truck collided with another car. And his truck flipped three or four times. You can see his roof is completely caved in on the passenger side. But fortunately, the driver's side seems to have held up better. And you can also tell he was getting treatment from the paramedics. Witnesses say he was responsive to the paramedics when he was being strapped on to the stretcher there. The injuries did not seem to be life threatening. He was talking to people as he was loaded into the hospital. And he's still at the hospital right now. Obviously, a gruesome scene.

And just by coincidence, if you've been to Charlotte, it's a tightly compact downtown area. That's right near the stadium. It's also right near every major business in Charlotte, including the news organizations and the "Charlotte Observer," so there's a ton of footage right away, from just minutes after the crash. We're seeing this almost in real time.

BALDWIN: So he's at the hospital now. We don't have specifics on injuries yet.

NICHOLS: Well, what we do know is the Panthers have released that he's in fair condition.

BALDWIN: OK.

NICHOLS: He's being given tests at the hospital and will remain there for observation overnight. We had this tweet flash up, if you want to show it again.

BALDWIN: Go ahead and show it, guys.

NICHOLS: This is a photo from the "Charlotte Observer." And it's him, they say, smiling. Maybe he's grimacing. But it's hard to tell.

BALDWIN: Is that at the scene.

NICHOLS: He is obviously conscious. That's from the scene, him being examined. So certainly good to see him propping himself up. Maybe smiling a little bit. Certainly not delirious with injury.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: That's a good sign, at least.

NICHOLS: And a good sign. And there's multiple reports from Panther sources saying he didn't suffer serious injuries. Probably no broken bones, but they're working through that. They're going to give him tests and see. As the Panthers said, he'll be there over night.

Now, tomorrow morning is normally when they'd be starting to prepare for their next game, Sunday. They are leading the NFC South, bad division as it is. This is obviously -- now that we know that he is safely out of the woods as a human being and he seems fine --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Now, we can talk a little football.

NICHOLS -- no life-threatening injuries, we can talk about football and see what this will affect overall.

BALDWIN: OK, Rachel Nichols, thank you so much.

Coming up next, back to our breaking news, back to this explosive report, details of the CIA's use of torture against detainees. We're getting reaction from the United Nations. One representative says those who did this must be held responsible.

This is CNN's special live coverage.

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