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Ebola Fighters are "TIME's" Person of the Year; Kobe Bryant Wears "I Can't Breathe" Shirt; Jihadists Vow Revenge for Torture Report; Storms Batter East and West Coasts

Aired December 10, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

U.S. troops on alert, jihadists rallying online this morning, Muslim extremists are issuing a worldwide call to retaliate for the so-called torture report.

Its graphic revelations of how the CIA brutally interrogated some 9/11 terror suspects is fueling bitter debate in Washington and could put Americans in the crosshairs both at home and abroad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK HAGEL, DEFENSE SECRETARY: 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)

COSTELLO: Let's begin our coverage with senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

Good morning.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The White House has scheduled an early briefing of reporters at 10:45 this morning. So less than two hours from now the administration will be handling some new questions that are coming out of the release of this torture report and as you saw in the last 24 hours President Obama is supporting the release of this report from Senator Dianne Feinstein, from the Intelligence Committee.

But we should also point out that former top CIA officials are now starting to speak out and they are defending their actions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): It was stinging criticism for the CIA from a sitting president. In an interview with Telemundo, President Obama said the agency was wrong to use harsh interrogation techniques on terror detainees after the 9/11 attacks that amounted to torture.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think in the midst of a national trauma, and uncertainty as to whether these attacks were going to repeat themselves, what's clear is that the CIA set up something very fast without a lot of forethought to what the ramifications might be.

ACOSTA: The president was responding to Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein's damning report on CIA interrogations that said detainees were waterboarded, kept in dungeon conditions, while others were naked, hooded and dragged, while being slapped and punched. The report said the agency misled the Bush administration about the program and that no CIA officer up to and including CIA directors briefed the president on the tactics before April 2006.

In response to the report, CIA director John Brennan said the brutal tactics did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives. Feinstein told CNN that's wrong.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRWOMAN: An examination of the records going back to the beginning of the program indicates that this is simply not true.

ACOSTA: But three former CIA directors saying their program helped lead to the killing of Osama bin Laden. In an op-ed in the "Wall Street Journal," George Tenet, Michael Hayden and Porter Goss insisted they suspected bin Laden was plotting to blow up New York City with a nuclear weapon, adding it felt like the classic ticking time bomb scenario every single day. Many top Republicans accuse Feinstein of unleashing a political attack.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R), SOUTH DAKOTA: It is very clear this appears to be simply an attempt to rewrite history by the Democrats to bash the Bush administration.

ACOSTA: But one GOP senator, John McCain, a former prisoner of war, defended the report saying torture does not work.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: The president was careful not to call these harsh interrogation tactics crimes and so far the Justice Department has given no indication that it plans to prosecute any former top CIA officials for what happened, and asked whether or not the president still stands by his claim that those tactics amounted to torture. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters yes -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jim Acosta reporting live from the White House this morning.

I do think it's important for you to know exactly what some CIA interrogators did to prisoners. Some of this is very hard to hear, but it's important to know, to figure out what's right and what's wrong.

According to the Senate report, CIA interrogators chained a detainee to a concrete floor nearly naked. He later died of hypothermia. At least five detainees were subjected to forced rectal feedings. Others were subjected to sleep deprivation, some kept awake for 180 hours, while chained with their hands above their heads.

One detainee, the mastermind behind 9/11, was waterboarded at least 183 times. Interrogators also conducted at least two mock executions.

Senator John McCain also thinks it's important that you know exactly what happened. The Republican senator was a POW during the Vietnam war and he was tortured himself. He says the CIA's brutal tactics have stained this nation's honor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: I believe the American people have a right, indeed responsibility to know what was done in their name. Because we gave up much in the expectation that torture would make us safer, too much.

Obviously we need intelligence to defeat our enemies but we need reliable intelligence. Torture produces more misleading information than actionable intelligence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So let's talk more about this with CNN national security analyst and former CIA operative Bob Baer.

Welcome, Bob.

ROBERT BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Is Senator McCain right?

BAER: He's absolutely right. Torture doesn't work and I say that, having watched other governments use it over the course of my career, 20 years, and it simply doesn't work. Those services which use torture systematically always had the worst intelligence. Classic police work is what does best and I think it was a mistake. We went down this road. It was ad hock. I understand the context why we did it and I think at the end of the day if the Senate report is right and it was based on documents, we didn't get what we expected to and it was rightfully stopped.

COSTELLO: There's one concrete example of that in the report and I want to read it to you now. The Senate report says, "Abu Zubaydah, an al Qaeda operative, was kept in isolation for a month, kept in a coffin-like box for 11 days, waterboarded two to four times a day. Still he gave up no new information. In fact he gave most of his information to CIA interrogators before he was put through these abusive tactics."

So again, I ask -- but Republicans still say that these things work. What are we to believe?

BAER: Well, the Republicans are defending the Bush administration. And you know, people have forgotten why this program was started and they don't want to be painted with this torture accusation so this is becoming very partisan conflict at this point, and the CIA directors of course are out there defending it, whether they know they made mistakes or not, so this has all become very political.

And what I like about the Senate report it's taken from documents, it's taken from the CIA Inspector General's report which is accurate, and they said, this CIA employee said this didn't work, and you look at the record and even at the working level, CIA officers said this is going to blow up, we're not getting what we expect. And I wouldn't -- I'm encouraged by this report coming out because the United States is saying we are different from other countries, because we can admit our mistakes and we can correct them.

COSTELLO: Well, one or two CIA directors say that the Senate report investigators cherry-picked information from all of those documents. CIA director John Brennan, he strongly disagreed with the Senate report's findings. He said this, quote, "Our interview indicates interrogations of detainees subject to enhanced interrogation did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al Qaeda and it continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day."

Why would he say that if it wasn't true?

BAER: That's typical of an intelligence service anywhere in the world to exaggerate cases like this, but if it's true, and it could be true, what the CIA needs to do is produce the intelligence, which should be declassified, and then show the chain of events which save lives and that's possible since these attacks are long overdue and the people supposedly arrested. You wouldn't be compromising anything and the CIA could say, look, Americans, it did work.

We did save lives. Here is the evidence, and if this happens again you have to decide whether we'll resort to torture or not but we need to see that evidence in its full detail.

COSTELLO: Should they be forced to produce that evidence? Do we need to know from them exactly what they're talking about?

BAER: I think we do and I don't see any reason why we can't because we're violating international law, we are violating our own principles if it we resort to torture. American people have to understand why we did it and why we may need to do it again. And without that evidence, we can't take anybody's word. We can't take mine, can't take theirs. We need to see the documents and since these events are long past, I don't see why we can't.

COSTELLO: Bob Baer, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

BAER: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about something else now, shall we? The powerful nor'easter that caused air travel nightmares and treacherous roads on Tuesday, well, ain't going away any time soon. The East Coast is bracing for more wind and rain today. The West Coast also in for a nasty weather. One of the biggest storms to hit the bay area in years is set to slam the region with heavy rain and high winds.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is tracking it all.

Good morning, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol. That storm for San Francisco could make hurricane force winds as it comes down in the next couple days.

Let's talk about the nor'easter. The coastal storm from yesterday. JFK picked up three inches of rain on a normal month for January, December, whatever, you have about three and a half inches of rain total, whether you meltdown the snow or not. So almost an entire month's worth of precept in one day.

Killington, Vermont, they'll take the snow, rough land at 14 inches. But they're play on that. Ski on it. The snow is still with us. The rain has pretty much gone away, though. The snow is still here, the air is getting colder and that snow will rotate through Syracuse, and head toward Buffalo, Oneonta, on up into the Catskills and the Adirondacks. That's it for this.

Now move our attention back out to the west. This is where it's going to get very tricky. Rain for Seattle and Portland. Some of these coastal areas could pick up a foot of rain, and that could run off and make a bunch of flooding. Now there's a benefit to this if this rain, and we expect it, gets down into California because California has been in this amazing drought. They didn't even have crops in many areas because they couldn't afford to water them.

They watered some of the trees to keep them alive but the San Joaquin Valley was -- didn't look anything like it should have this year. We're finally getting some rainfall all the way down in Southern California, six to 10 inches of rainfall possible, and feet of snow in the sierra. They will take it. The sierra is dry, hasn't been this dry in many years -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Chad Myers, trying to think positively.

MYERS: I know. Right?

COSTELLO: Because we need the moisture, right?

MYERS: That's right, absolutely.

COSTELLO: Chad, thanks so much.

MYERS: Welcome.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, they risked their lives to save others. Ebola fighters are "TIME's" Persons of the Year. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The short list was impressive. Ferguson protesters, Vladimir Putin, Tim Cook, they were among the finalists for "TIME's" Person of the Year.

But the winner is the Ebola fighters. The issue carries five covers, each featuring an Ebola fighter who worked on the ground in West Africa, including American Dr. Kent Brantly.

"TIME's" health editor, Siobhan O'Connor, joins me now.

Welcome.

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR, HEALTH EDITOR, TIME: Great to be here.

COSTELLO: I must admit, I thought it was going to be the Ferguson protesters.

O'CONNOR: Ferguson protesters also made the list. You know, our goal at "TIME" is to create conversation with the choice we make, and we're hoping that by choosing the Ebola fighters, we're honoring important work being done that wasn't being done.

COSTELLO: Was Taylor Swift really on the list?

O'CONNOR: Taylor Swift made our short list.

COSTELLO: Oh, come on!

O'CONNOR: She had a very big year.

COSTELLO: Taylor Swift, Ebola fighters --

O'CONNOR: I think the conversation would be different had Taylor Swift won, but she had a big year and she will probably continue to.

COSTELLO: I'm sure she will. But let's talk about the Ebola fighters because they are truly amazing people.

O'CONNOR: Yes, the stories that we collected in this piece, which is 10,000 words long, you can read the shorter versions online. I mean, the stories are absolute heroism. This is an epidemic, probably the worst epidemic of modern times. It's far from over.

So, you know, while we've walked away from the story a lot of the media has walked away from the story, it is far from over. There are 100 new cases in Sierra Leone every single day.

So, this is not going anywhere and these are people who, when governments didn't step in, when the world health organization didn't step in, these are individuals and groups like Doctors Without Borders who really you know, they were up to the task and they continued to do heroic work. Of our five covers, three actually survived Ebola.

So, that's another important thing to recognize with the Ebola fighters, by doing the work they do, they are putting themselves seriously in harm's way and, you know, we've lost a lot of people and more than 350 health workers.

COSTELLO: The media has walked away from the story, that's true. O'CONNOR: Yes, absolutely.

COSTELLO: But so have politicians. Why do you think that is?

O'CONNOR: I think, you know, it's very easy to pretend that something that is happening across an ocean in an impoverished country is not happening. I think we've sort of sounded the alarm in the last couple of months. Certainly, it was a wake-up call when it was on our shores here in the United States.

COSTELLO: Yes, but remember, you know, back in the day, only a couple weeks ago, that we were afraid of an Ebola epidemic in the United States and it never happened.

O'CONNOR: Absolutely. No, and we did a fantastic job containing that, when it did hit our shores.

But the reality is, you know, almost 18,000 people have been infected, more than 6,000 people have died. So, we had a handful of cases here, that was serious and that was scary and great work was done in the United States.

Panicked as we were at the time, I think we can say we did a wonderful job, but the reality is the crisis is happening in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and it continues to.

COSTELLO: Well, I'm glad you're honoring doctors and Ebola fighters because we certainly demonized them for a time in the United States.

O'CONNOR: We did, we did.

COSTELLO: Siobhan O'Connor, thank you very much.

O'CONNOR: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: Still to come on the NEWSROOM: from King James to Kobe, basketball greats are taking a stand, wearing "I can't breathe" shirts at high-profile events. But are they sending the right message? We'll talk after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Outrage over the death of Eric Garner is spreading to a new arena, that would be professional sports.

In the warm-ups to last night's game against the Kings, Kobe Bryant and nearly every other Los Angeles Laker donned a t-shirt bearing the phrase "I can't breathe." That's a reference to Garner's last words.

The show of support coming on the heels of LeBron James wearing a shirt with that same message on Monday night and, of course, the players from the St. Louis Rams putting their hands up in support of Michael Brown, the unarmed African-American teenager killed by white police officer, Darren Wilson, just a few weeks ago.

Let's talk about this. I'm joined by the co-founder of Hands Up United, Tory Russell.

Welcome, Tory.

TORY RUSSELL, CO-FOUNDER, HANDS UP UNITED: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: So, you guys have been protesting in the streets and you have been talking.

RUSSELL: Yes.

COSTELLO: Anything concrete changing?

RUSSELL: I think we're changing the minds and the hearts of the people. People are awake, seeing how the system is pressing out and how racially biased it is. You can tell from just the response we're getting, 118 days later, after the Mike Brown protests originally, we went to the White House.

COSTELLO: What exact response you're talking about?

RUSSELL: Well, we went to the White House. I think that validates what we're talking about. President Obama invited us to the White House.

I don't know any other movement by young black and brown people that took 100 days to get into the White House.

COSTELLO: Gotcha.

Some people might say it's great that LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are showing their support. But they're also doing it at a forum where people go to have fun. Some people might think they're forcing the issue down the throats of people and turning them off. Do you think there's a danger in that?

RUSSELL: When I was driving out West Florissant, I made a right on Canfield, seeing Mike Brown's body put in the back of an unmarked black SUV. That was uncomfortable.

And I have to, we have to understand that it has to be a distraction, right, and we have to un-distract the distractions and that's what the games are.

So, I'm proud of LeBron. I'm proud of Kobe, for standing up. But, you know, you got Nigerian players also putting "I can't breathe" on their t-shirts. They see the international human rights issues from afar.

COSTELLO: Magic Johnson also spoke out about this. I want to you listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAGIC JOHNSON, FORMER LOS ANGELES LAKER: They have to be at a table with the mayor, with the governor, probably with the president, sit down, how can we come up with a strategy to make it better for everybody, because there's a disconnect and a trust issue when it comes to African Americans and the police right now. So, we got to somehow bring everybody together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, I think what Magic Johnson is talking about, he's calling for a summit that involves the president and police, because there's got to be, they have to talk. They have to come up with solutions. Do you think that's the way to go?

RUSSELL: That's one step. I just want to know who's going to be in the room. I haven't seen Magic Johnson out there protesting.

So, I think it would be young black and brown people, people like me, Philip Agnew, Patrice from "Black Lives Matter" and young people who have been out in the streets and part of the solution. I think what's different now is you have young people who can protest and also go into the meetings for solutions.

COSTELLO: What you really need to affect change is money and by that I mean money going to political candidates who can get into office and force change, and the only people who can really accomplish that are people like Magic Johnson. Words are one thing, money is another.

RUSSELL: Yes. I mean, I --

COSTELLO: Is anybody coming forward doing that?

RUSSELL: Not really. I put people over profit and money.

COSTELLO: It's not people and profit. It's political power.

RUSSELL: You can tell how people vote disenfranchised people vote. We're upset with the system. So, this voting is not going to solve this. Just praying is not going to solve this.

It takes a cohesive amount of solutions and just voting, we know in Ferguson, Missouri, we're harassed at the polling stations, something that you can only see in the 1950s. So, some people not allowed to vote. Lot of us are locked up felons, so that's taken away votes as well.

So, I have to push back when you say that voting is the way out of this and money is the way out of it. I think money is what's driving racism. It's very profitable for some people and disenfranchising others.

COSTELLO: What is the answer, besides talking and protesting in the streets? What is the answer?

RUSSELL: Hopefully everybody can refine their humanity. They can see a human being for a human being and allowing black and brown people's self-determination and self-liberation that, means basic human rights.

Today is International Human Rights Day. We should be talking about how black and brown people's land have been taken, we don't have enough land, don't have adequate housing. You can go to Detroit. We don't have access to water the same way you go to Africa and do the same thing.

These issues, this oppression has no boundaries. It has no borders and everyone can see that. I think that's the way out, just giving some basic human rights to the people, and allowing us to, you know, show the world that we can survive on ourselves and thrive.

COSTELLO: Tory, thanks for coming in. I appreciate it.

RUSSELL: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM: the terrorist attacks in Benghazi and the mistakes that cost American lives. Congress looks at the lessons learned as the new threat looms.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)