December 11 - Holding Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld Culpable for Torture; "Lords of Secrecy: The National Security Elite and America's Stealth Warfare; The Other Torture Report

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. He joins us to discuss the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of torture and rendition, in particular revelations in the report that the Bush White House went out of their way to keep Colonel Wilkerson’s boss Colin Powell in the dark, when the Bush/Cheney Administration abandoned the moral high ground as they embraced the “dark side” in response to the 9/11 attacks. We also look into the extent to which Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice should be held responsible for the torture regime that they championed, directed and managed, along with elements within the CIA who followed their orders.

Part 2

Then we assess the press conference today by the CIA Director John Brennan who defended the agency’s post-9/11 interrogation methods that he admitted were harsh and abhorrent but when pressed to provide evidence that torture had obtained useful information, offered the following; “the cause–and-effect relationship between the use of EIT’s (Enhanced Interrogation Techniques) and useful information subsequently provided by detainees is, in my view, unknowable.” Scott Horton, a professor at Columbia Law School and a contributing editor at Harpers in legal affairs and national security, joins us to discuss Brennan’s less-than-robust defense of the CIA and Scott Horton’s new book “Lords of Secrecy: The National Security State and America’s Stealth Warfare”.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the other torture report, the National Truth Commission report presented by Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff at a ceremony in Brasilia at which she broke down in tears having been a victim herself of torture by the military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 until 1985. Paulo Sotero, the Director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center joins us to discuss the report and the burgeoning corruption scandal engulfing the national oil company Petrobas that threatens Rousseff’s government.