A: I do not know. But the actions were absolutely wrong. I’m glad that the attorney general is going to investigate it. This harms the credibility and the moral standing of America in the world, again. There will be skepticism and cynicism all over the world about how we treat prisoners and whether we practice torture or not.
Q: The CIA director says the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of the officers involved in the interrogation. Do you buy that?
A: We certainly want to do everything we can to protect the identities of those in the CIA. But he was advised not to [destroy the tapes] b several people, including high-ranking members of the administration. We’re also setting up a false argument here between torture & moral high ground. That doesn’t have to be. We have to keep the moral high ground. We can do it without torturing people.
A: When we start destroying documents, what are we destroying them for? Are we doing it for security purposes or to cover somebody’s rear end? If we’re covering somebody’s rear end, we need to expose their rear end and kick their rear end for doing something that’s against the best interest of the US and the responsibility and the respectability of this country.
A: Well, I wouldn’t let foreign opinion determine our policies, wouldn’t let it dictate it. But we do have to make sure that we live in such a way as Americans that we have friends, not enemies, across the world. And over the past several years, it seems as we’ve made even our friends our enemies. We’ve got to change that. There is an important role that the United States has as the most powerful nation on earth militarily and economically, to act in such a way that people respect us and that people also realize that we are a great nation, not one that wants to push ourselves on others.
A: When you’re running for president, you have to think about the question and the answer, but you also have to think about the implications of what you’re saying around the world. And Pakistan is a tinderbox. And of course, America keeps its options open to do what we think is in our best interest. But in a place like Pakistan, you make sure that you don’t say things that could be misinterpreted and misused. And that was what his error was. Of course, if we receive actionable intelligence about bin Laden, we will take appropriate action, but we don’t describe exactly what that might mean. We have an ally there, Musharraf. We don’t want in any way to try & weaken him in a very difficult situation, and that was Obama’s mistake.
A: Going on defense on Iraq & going on defense about terrorism is not just about Iraq. It’s about the opposition to extending the Patriot Act, the opposition to electronic surveillance, the opposition to interrogation. Both those things, interrogation & electronic surveillance, have to be done legally, but they have to be done aggressively. I detect in the Democrats a kind of attempt to go back to a pre-Sept. 11 mentality in which we’re not anticipating.
A:My director of emergency management recommended 7 WTC.
Q: I have got a copy right here of Jerry Hauer’s directive to you, in which he said that it’s a bad idea. And the police chief, Howard Safir, said it was a bad idea.
A: Jerry Hauer recommended that as the prime site & the site that would make the most sense, and he recommended it. And the reason that that site made sense was it was also the location of the customs service, the Secret Service & a number of other federal agencies that we had to be in contact with And we also had backup centers at the police department, and in Brooklyn we had a virtual command center. So when that command center was inoperable, within a half hour of September 11 we were able to move immediately to another command center.
A: I would probably announce the closing of Guantanamo Bay. I would move those detainees to Fort Leavenworth. I would announce we will not torture anyone. I would announce that climate change is a big issue, because we’ve got some image problems in the world. Clearly, in the area of “propaganda,” in the area of the war of ideas, we are not winning--well, in some ways we are behind. Al-Jazeera and others maybe, in my view--may sometimes do a better job than we are. At the end of the day, it’s how people make up their minds as to whether they want to embrace our values, our standards, our ideals, or whether they want to go the path of radical Islamic extremism, which is an affront to everything we stand for and believe in.
A: If you torture someone, they’re going to tell you anything they think you want to know. It is an affront to everything we stand for and believe in. Every retired military officer, everybody who’s been in war doesn’t want to torture people and think that it’s the wrong thing to do. And history shows that. We cannot torture people & maintain our moral superiority in the world.
Q: But George Tenet says...
A: I don’t care what George Tenet says. I know what’s right. I know what’s morally right as far as America’s behavior.
Q: But Tenet says we saved live through some of these techniques...
A: I don’t accept that fundamental thesis, because it’s never worked throughout history. That’s just a fundamental fact. We’ve gotten a huge amount of misinformation from these techniques
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| 2016 Presidential contenders on Homeland Security: | |||
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Republicans:
Sen.Ted Cruz(TX) Carly Fiorina(CA) Gov.John Kasich(OH) Sen.Marco Rubio(FL) Donald Trump(NY) |
Democrats:
Secy.Hillary Clinton(NY) Sen.Bernie Sanders(VT) 2016 Third Party Candidates: Roseanne Barr(PF-HI) Robert Steele(L-NY) Dr.Jill Stein(G,MA) | ||
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