the cia the cia is in fact an arm of the executive branch of the government. and if that executive branch says we're going to kill americans we're going to we're going to if the executive branch if the politicians say you we're going to give them kill americans we're going to kill children we're going to put on sanctions that destroy the economies. there are plenty of people under need that the executive branch that will carry out those those orders the oversight has also eroded the principle that the cia and any other government operation should in fact be restricted to the laws of its own nation is a is a principle that has to be enforced if it's not enforced if it's overlooked or it's ignored then bad things will happen so it's really a. matter of pressure ok paul you want to jump in there go ahead i mean that it was out well let's hope it's going to london. let's try to bring some clarity into this and some responsibility it sounds as though the critique is about american foreign and security policy not about the cia if you don't like what the u.s. governm

i believe executive director of the cia, the no. 3 ranking position in the cia. he would have had to have been intimately involved not necessarily in carrying out the torture techniques, but in the policy, the torture policy. either that or he had to be brain dead because you cannot be in positions like that, director of the match for counterterrorist center and executive director of the cia without knowing what the cia's torture policies are. i am frankly surprised also at the fact there is doubt outrage in the human rights community now that mr. brennan's . there was a great human cry in 2009 when he was initially floated for the position of cia director. i'm not sure why there is a difference between four years ago and now. john brennan certainly has not changed. >> john kiriakou, i want to read a comment made by the judge to your sentencing hearing. judge bring, sentenced to to 30 months in prison last friday saying -- john kiriakou, can you comment on that statement? >> sure. when judge brink of not accepted the plea deal in october, she called 30 months fai

he was the number two in the cia. i assume he will stay on as number two. >> i think, you know, brennan, at the end of the day, enjoys sort of two-fold advantage, i think. one, he is a real cia insider, spent most of his career there. on the other hand he is also an outsider who spent four years at the white house. director of the cia is a highly political position. you're dealing with congress, the white house. i think, you know, brennan has all that. mike morel is also very capable, acting director of the cia. he has been a lifetime, you know, within the agency and doesn't have this very close, personal bond with obama. one other thing, wolf, which i think is important, brennan was somebody like chuck hagel who got involved in the obama presidential campaign long before people thought obama was really, you know, going to be able to challenge hillary clinton. and i think that kind of thing goes a very long way with the people making the decisions in obama's inner circle about who gets which job. >> peter, stand by. w

he had been at the cia and some said he wanted to be the first cia director. he was opposed by a lot of -- on the left when those that were against policies that he had after 9/11 and under the bush white house, including enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. >> why is he the right fit for cia? >> i think is he the right fit that he knows the building missed and out. it is not an easy organization to manage. the second most important thing is the president and he have a really strong relationship. the president trusts him. in the director of the cia, someone who will be walking into the oval office, recommending covert action, giving very fine grain analysis about important national security issues, i think john is really an outstanding choice, and the president has seen him up close and personal for four years and that relationship makes john really a great person for the job, i think. >> in the reorganization director of national intelligence, the cia director seems to report to him technically given the very close relationship that we

chuck hagel for defense secretary but perhaps the more controversial appointment the nominee first cia director has been overlooked had a look at john brennan's questionable history from drone attacks to the kill list and bush era torture tactics. and a new study finds that homicides have actually increased in states that haven't acted these stand your ground law so this would give americans a license to kill will debate this woking don just ahead. it's tuesday january eighth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r.t.e. accuse wiki leaks or whistleblower accuse wiki leaks whistleblower excuse me bradley manning is back in court this week the former army private is accused of the biggest classified document breach in u.s. history among the slew of charges manning faces is aiding the enemy today the big question debated can giving classified information to wiki leaks or the media in general be considered aiding terrorists prosecutors in this case say yes but the defense says that's not the case. because the sensitive information isn't being handed over to al qa

brennan has publicly supported the cia's policies of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques and extraordinary rendition, and was a key proponent of drone strikes in obama's first term. as his nomination was announced, the activist group codepink gathered outside the white house in protest. in a nod to the potential opposition he faces with hagel's nomination, president obama urged lawmakers to give his choices a speedy confirmation. >> i hope that the senate will act on his confirmation as promptly. and when it comes to national security, we don't like to leave a lot of gaps. between the time one set of leaders transitions out and another transitions in. we need to get moving quickly on this. >> the financial giant big of america has agreed to pay more than $11 billion to the government-backed mortgage finance company fannie mae for flooding it with toxic mortgages during the financial crisis. the justice to parvaz says bank of america executed a scheme that would blindly hand out mortgages without proper checks and then turn them around and sell the toxic loans to fannie mae an

he said recently he is against the shifting of military power to the cia, treating cia effectively as an air force. he says a lot of the drone strikes should be carried out by the military, under traditional military authority so we're not doing this exotic extra legal stuff. those policies that he says he favors haven't been enacted by him. and he doesn't seem to argue for them publicly in a way that makes them happen. how should we interpret that as he is being considered for this big job now? >> i'm not exactly sure how that is going to evolve, because the cia clearly has been running the drone war. has taken on more and more of the apparatus and the policies and decision-making that formally had been with the pentagon. and it has been a cia mission, as you know, in large parts of pakistan and yemen and other places. so seeing how john brennan now in his new perch, if he is confirmed, and he was a career, 25-year career person at the cia and today they are welcoming him home if he gets confirmed, it's going to be very interesting to see how he decides to rebalance that, and whether

he was a central player at the cia. deputy executive director for a while and chief of staff to porter goss, bush' ci acha. he knew everything about the torture and the secret prisons that porter goss knew. >> and i'll hold that. we'll talk about the last four years at kourntd terrorism advice or after we take this break. ♪ if loving you is wrong ♪ i don't wanna be right [ record scratch ] what?! it's not bad for you. it just tastes that way. [ female announcer ] honey nut cheerios cereal -- heart-healthy, whole grain oats. you can't go wrong loving it. but with advair, i'm breathing better. so now i can be in the scene. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance

to head the cia. also, there are the headlines in the newspapers of syria, iran, peace in the middle east, etc so we want to get your take -- what to you think of foreign policy issues in 2013? here is some comments on our facebook page -- what is your take on this? we will get to your comments in a minute. the front page of "the washington post "- here is the front page of the huffington post this morning -- these are all the headlines in the huffington post this morning. about the nomination of chuck hagel for that position. the financial times this morning -- >> we go to missouri, a democratic caller -- caller: i am loving it. i am glad that obama picked chuck hagel. it is about time we got a real american hero that does not have to be vetted by cowards like lindsay gramm and the apac crowd. why doesn't he moved to israel and joined the knesset because many of us don't feel like he feels about israel and their politicians should not have to be vetted by a coward like lieberman or lindsey graham. ho

because he knows then he'll have a cia director in press who will acquiesce to the cia losing that particular job of running all our flying killing robots and never having to answer for it. the critique from the left on president obama on national security and there's a lot of them, you go into any level of detail on any one of them, but the big ones are one he hasn't closed guantanamo although we know he is trying to do that and it is congress who blocked him. two that we are still in afghanistan in big numbers. we shall see how quickly we get out there have when he comes one his recommendations for the speed of the drawdown. but there is also this third thing. that the wholesale embrace of the secretive pseudolegal deniable, orwellian means of raining death from the sky all over the world even in places where we're not technically at war and never admitting to it. does president obama appointing john brennan to run the cia mean that he does care about that critique from the left? or is it the opposite? by promoting the architect of the drone program we've got now is this a punch the hippie

chuck hagel for secretary of defense, john brennan is director of the cia. chuck hagel is a leader our troops deserve. he is an american patriot. he served with honor alongside his own brother. when he was hit by shrapnel his brother saved him. when his brother was injured by a mine, he risked his life to to pull him to safety. he bears the scars from battles but in our name. this would be historic. he would be the first person up enlisted rank to serve the secretary of defense. one of the few secretaries to have been wounded in war. the first vietnam veteran to leave the department. chuck hagel will our troops the character and strength. they see one of their own. he is a champion and our troops and military family. he thought to give our veterans the benefit they deserve. as head of the u.s.o. he devoted himself to caring for our troops. having studied under the gi bill he helped lead the fight. having co chaired my and a.i.g. board he knows that our armed forces collect and lives depend on good intelligence. he recognizes that american leadership is indis

how the cia plans on tackling that. guest: the cia does not make foreign policy. to focus on a failed state where we have reason to believe that a loss of terror organizations are training. these are important things to do. the cia's role is to provide intelligence on these parts of the world and not to make policy. i'm betting that too much of our intelligence is tackle. it is focused on who is coming over the next hill in the battlefield. most of our intel assets into afghanistan and iraq. it is a good idea to restore some of our focus in other parts of the world, including asia. as a former policy maker, i would hope this rebalance toward asia will not focus on how we make relationships with china and others more difficult. i would hope it would help to join in the region to create a larger trading relationship and to better understand ways in which we can become close friends with china. i think that will be in everybody's interest and gives us information about leadership changes. better information about other trends will be better and more congruent. host:

a former cia analyst and senior investigator for the senate foreign relations committee john kiriakou and while he isn't the only whistleblower charged out of this administration his story is particularly unique if he actually left his position at the cia in two thousand and four three years later when waterboarding was becoming a point of contention he was put to the media circuit as a commentator eventually to disclose the name of the covert cia officer to a freelance reporter simply wanted to help the journalist find a good source a little did he know that's the formation would cost him his career just last week he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison as part of a plea deal and he now stands as the first cia officer to be convicted under the espionage act an extremely archaic piece of world war one legislation now because of the legal proceedings has been silent and unable to speak to the media not even more in fact he's here right now to talk to me about his personal case torture and the crusade against whistleblowers in this country john thank you so much for coming so

john brennan had been a career cia figure. he had served as chief of staff to george tenet when george tenet under george bush developed their torture and secret prison program. john brennan's association with the torture and secret prison program of the george bush era of the cia is what sunk his chances for being picked as director of the cia at the start of the obama presidency. it's kind of weird. it's almost a foreign concept in american modern politics that the left might block something from happening, but it's true. liberals thought obama stopping the torture program wasn't enough. that people tarred by association with that program should not be promoted, that there should be political accountability for people who were close to the torture policy. liberals raised enough noise

chuck hagel for secretary of defense but perhaps the more controversial appointment the nominee for cia director has been overlooked i had a look at john brennan's questionable history from drone attacks to the kill list and bush era torture tactics. and a new study finds that homicides have actually increased in states that have an act of the stand your ground law this law give americans a license to kill will debate this smoking gun just ahead. it's tuesday january eighth eight pm here in washington d.c. you i'm liz of all in you're watching our team. well begin with the developing story accused whistleblower bradley manning is back in court this week the former army private accused of the biggest classified document breach in u.s. history among the slew of charges manning is facing is aiding the enemy and just moments ago the military judge presided over the case the judge agreed to take a hundred twelve days off manning's eventual sentence this is on grounds of manning was subjected to unlawful pretrial punishment today the big question debated can giving classified information to w

they have ministration has six different prosecutions going against people in the cia. that and say the army and the state department you're hitting all of the national security and intelligence agencies and they're definitely trying to send a very chilling message in fact in the case against tom drake who had been say whistleblower whom i also represented that case ended up falling apart yet they still dropped all ten felony counts but wanted to find him fifty thousand dollars to send a message namely to shut up i mean heaven forbid you should expose you should embarrass the administration with your disclosures but if you expose their illegality you're really going to pay you're in trouble and it's just i just can't help but think how bizarre it is that we're seeing all of this happen now i mean under the obama administration as you said he's prosecuted more whistleblowers than every other president so you combine dredging up this archaic piece of legislation to really do this why and now why is this happening right now albeit under the most transparent administration

they did have cooperation with the cia? guest: the cia and pentagon. judicial watch put in a freedom of information request to the pentagon and cia for records of contact between the filmmakers and those agencies. they came up with a stack of papers about that day. -- about that big. they show the filmmakers did extensive access. they got a 14-page transcript of an interview with the head of intelligence at the pentagon. i do not know that he turned over classified information, but he was a bit starstruck by these people. you can almost see cogs going around in his brain thinking about how he might be portrayed in the film. i do not know that he is portrayed in the film. the filmmakers spent a day or two at the cia headquarters in virginia. they met with the current acting director of the cia who was then deputy director of the cia. he was involved in the osama bin laden hunt. they did have extensive access. the cia documents on this are fairly reactive -- redactive and censored. that suggests there is classified information. it may just be the identit

i've served under nine cia directors and brennan would have to be the worst. he is an open ad because of what is called extraordinary rendition kidnapping torture black prisons illegal eavesdropping and kill list from these drones that they're so proud of flying over places like pocky suddenly i'm almost compelled to conclude that either he's really dumb or he sees real profit as the corporations do in the profiteering on these and less wars and in contrast to this the nomination for defense secretary that it's very different in character in a chop seen by many as a pacifist what do you make of the future of u.s. foreign policy if indeed haykel gordon is top man in the defense. the difference between hale and his predecessors is this hagel has been there done that ok hagel served in war he was an infantry noncommissioned officer wounded twice to two purple hearts he knows what war is like that means a difference and when haig will says he would be very very careful about employing our forces in fool's errands such as afghanistan god help us iran somalia game a

>> well, brennan will be a very strong leader of the cia and he has 25 years of experience at the cia. but, let's roll back the videotape. after 9/11. remember, we have the intelligence in iraq war and lots of us, i was certainly one of the ring leaders wanted to reorganize our intelligence capability so we can get it right. one thing that happened along the way, president bush 43 issued an executive order calling something the terrorist threat center. that wasn't in the law. this was an executive order. brennan became its first director and then when we passed the intelligence reform law in 2004, there were four of us who were very keen to do this. pete huxtra was my partner in the house and joe lieberman did this in the senate. when we passed this law national terrorism center. brennan was its director. he has been in at the beginning. a number of roles in this play that is still ongoing. >> but basically eliminated. when i say eliminated that the dni, it is sort of a figure head? >> no, i don't think so. the biggest change -- the dni is the joint commander across 16 intelligence ag

he was told we are the cia. he said i will tell you anything you want to know. >> the cartoonish version of it is let me tell you who we are. i heard about you. he was actually cooperative. >> just the existence. >> yes. back to the ambiguity. one thing that does come across in the movie, but you have to watch it very carefully, the most powerful tool we had in every interrogation we conducted was our knowledge. not one or another technique. >> once you got through the enhanced interrogation process then the real interrogation began, the debriefing. that is with the skill and knowledge with the people who were conducting the sessions. the knowledge base was so good that these people knew that we were not going to be fooled. we had other prisoners in our sights. we would be able to check information against others. they knew that. we mentioned the takedown. they did not know how much khalid sheikh mohammed had told us about $50,000. we would go and give him what we have heard from khalid sheikh mohammed and he th

the cia came in and took him away from the fbi. he ended up in an egyptian cell, and it wasn't just that he didn't give information that was useful. he gave false information. he cooked up a whole story that saddam hussein was working with al qaeda and training them to use chemical weapons, and george w. bush, president of the united states, used that information, which ended up being false, to sell the war in iraq. so sometimes this stuff not only doesn't work, but it goes in the opposite direction, and this is why i'd love to read that 6,000-page report. >> so would i. david, speaking of going in the opposite direction, let's remind everybody, this is the movie that critics of the president feared would cement his re-election. it was supposed to be a valentine to president obama being released in october of the presidential year, and he's a bit player at best. he's not even in the movie. there's a portion of the "60 minutes" interview, and it's of no consequence. people should go see it and make up their own minds as to what they

and cia and whose activities caused thousands of cuban deaths. now like any country looking to prevent terrorism on its own soil castro sent five men to miami and one thousand nine hundred to infiltrate these groups in order to thwart future terrorist attacks against cuba those men. fernando gonzales at and they gonzales. hernandez and being you know who are infamously known as the cuban five because you see in one thousand nine hundred eight the f.b.i. arrested all five men men who some would call anti terrorists and charge them with committing espionage conspiracy against the u. s. for the next seventeen months the cuban five were held in solitary confinement for their seven month trial commenced in two thousand and one they were sentenced to four life terms and seventy five years in federal prison but the fight for their justice has been an ongoing struggle in fact in two thousand and five there was an appeal and the reversal of that appeal venture with one of the members being released albeit stuck in the u.s. on probation for three years but

a retired cia agent who blew the whistle on the agency's bush-era torture program has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. john kiriakou's admitted to a single count of revealing the identity of a covert officer under a plea deal that saw prosecutors drop charges brought under the espionage act. kiriakou's the first cia official to publicly confirm and detail the bush administration's torture program, describing the waterboarding about cut operative abuses by that in a 2007 interview with abc news. he also is the first cia official to be jailed for any reason related to the torture, even those who carried it out. outside the courthouse, prosecutor neil macbride called kiriakou's sentence a warning to other whistleblowers. >> the judge just said in court, today sentence should be a reminder to every individual who works for the government who comes into possession of closely held sensitive information regarding the national defense or the identity of a covert agent that it is critical that information remains secure and not into the public domain are be shared with others who do not

the cia came in and took him away from the fbi. he ended up in an egyptian cell, and it wasn't just that he didn't give information that was useful. he gave false information. he cooked up a whole story that saddam hussein was working with al qaeda and training them to use chemical weapons, and george w. bush, president of the united states, used that information, which ended up being false, to sell the war in iraq. so sometimes this stuff not only doesn't work, but it goes in the opposite direction, and this is why i'd love to read that 6,000-page report. >> so would i. david, speaking of going in the opposite direction, let's remind everybody, this is the movie that critics of the president feared would cement his re-election. it was supposed to be a valentine to president obama being released in october of the presidential year, and he's a bit player at best. he's not even in the movie. there's a portion of the "60 minutes" interview, and it's of no consequence. people should go see it and make up their own minds as to what they

he pled guilty to one instance of giving the name to a cia operative. many of us who signed the letter believe that this should be put in perspective. john is a cia officer who served very bravely for his country for more than a decade overseas. in some of the most dangerous places of the world. he most notably led the team that went in and captured abu zubada in 2002. the first senior al qaeda figure captured after 9/11. the capture of el zubada was critical to the line of captures that ultimately led to the death of osama bin laden. secondly, there is precedent here for commutation of this offense. four years ago -- scooter libby had leaked the name of a cia officer valley plame to the press. i would say he did it deliberately and i would say maliciously. that did badly damage a cia operational capability. yet, his sentence was commuted. let's put john's situation in some perspective. does the punishment fit the crime here? i think he has already been punished a lot. he has incurred tens of thousands of dollars in court expenses. he has lost his job.

nine eleven trial at the bases military tribunals and while the defense lawyers demand transparency on cia secret jails the probe into one of them based in poland drags on. it's two pm here in moscow this is coming to live with me and you so now we're good to have you with us our top story this hour the u.s. senate has overwhelmingly approved president obama's nomination of john kerry as the next secretary of state the sixty nine year old democrat will succeed hillary clinton taking over washington's diplomacy him a deepening turmoil in the mideast raging conflicts in africa and complicated relations with russia are going to change a can looks at kerry's past foreign policy decisions and what it might signal about the future. the evolution of john kerry's views has been quite remarkable so remarkable that it's hard to pin where exactly he standing on a number of issues he built his career on the reputation of a name to war advocate a vietnam veteran himself he was very vocal as a spokesman of the vietnam veterans against the war back in the seventies then in the eighty's he challenge to th

president wants to run the military and the cia. this is al jazeera, live from our headquarters in doha. and china decides to reform its controversial labor camps. we speak to one man who had a very lucky escape. exclusive pictures from northern me and mark, wher -- northern myanmar. and nasa has found 461 new plants that could support life as we know it. u.s. president barack obama has made controversial choices for two of the top jobs in his government. is nominated chuck hagel for defense secretary and john brenan as dia director. both of them must now be approved by the u.s. senate. now this report. >> with his second term soon to begin, president obama is putting the finishing touches to his national security team. introducing the men that he wants to lead the pentagon and the cia. >> these two leaders have dedicated their lives to protect our country. i urge the senate to confirm them as soon as possible. >> both nominees face difficult questions before they are confirmed in the u.s. senate. table seems perfect for the pentago

does not do the cia fashion in under normal circumstances it will take direct.

he's the first man to speak out about enhanced interrogation tactics used by the cia he's been called a hero by human rights advocates classified as a villain by the government now cia whistleblower john kiriakou to sit down with our team stay tuned for an interview you won't want to miss. and the u.s. economy takes a sharp turn downward in the fourth quarter of two thousand and twelve but wasn't the previous quarter a wildly successful one r.t. takes a look at the accusations the bureau of labor statistics manipulated economic data to benefit president obama's reelection campaign. the question is were you right or wrong that you're pretty straightforward question world however i would like to answer with you right or wrong and then you are free to elaborate just a small piece of a very heated hearing chuck hagel is going on the defense on capitol hill today as one congress member outs or another take shots at his readiness to lead the defense department a look at his this world war of words coming up. it's thursday january thirty first time this mall here in washington d.c. and you'r

well there are more revelations about poland's connection with cia prisons online at r.t. dot com we've got the story of whether the investigation into america's shady actions in poland is driving a wedge between warsaw and washington. it's twenty minutes past the hour here in moscow let's take a look at some world news in brief u.n. peace and void lakhdar brahimi has told the u.n. syria is being destroyed we have to warn you you may find the following footage showing evidence of one of the country's conflicts i should say biggest massacres extremely disturbing scores of bodies of young men were found on the bank of the river in syria's northern city aleppo activists reported there were at least seventy one or raggles put the number at over one hundred most had their hands tied behind their backs with gunshot wounds to the head at the moment there is no information on who carried out the killing. residents in the malayan town towns and to have to have hunted down and killed some of the remaining rebels who recently lost control of the cities they attacked local businesses