Enhanced interrogations were "wrong," says ex-CIA No. 2
The former No. 2 man in the CIA says enhanced interrogation methods used on terror detainees after 9/11 were wrong because they went against American values. Former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell, the highest-ranking intelligence officer to come out against the controversial methods some call torture, appeared in an interview with John Miller on 60 Minutes Sunday, Oct. 27. Watch the full report below.
An excerpt of Miller's interview appeared on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. A transcript of the excerpt is below and in the above video player:
John Miller: Let me read you a list of some of the techniques that were used by the CIA to get information: waterboarding, hitting, bouncing suspects off walls, confining them in small spaces, loud music, sleep deprivation, nudity, keeping suspects in physical stress positions. If these were Americans being held overseas by a foreign power, would we have called that torture?
Mike Morell: I actually, John, want to challenge you on the word torture. My officers carried out the guidance that was provided to them in both administrations, and obviously that was differing guidance. What's my view? My view was that those coercive techniques were the wrong thing to do. My view was that those techniques were inconsistent with American values. And, for that reason, I don't think they should have been done.