MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

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MATTHEWS: So which is it?

Democratic senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island"s a member of the Armed Services Committee. Thank you, Senator Reed, for joining us.

SEN. JACK REED (D-RI), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Thanks, Chris.

MATTHEWS: So what do you--what"s your take on this? Did torture work? Did we need it or what?

REED: Torture"s not only illegal, but it leads to inaccurate information. If you talk to professionals, the men and women who are trained interrogators, they understand it takes a long process. It takes an understanding of the psychological sort of strengths and weaknesses not gained by torture but gained by discussion, observation. It takes a long time. And then that information has to be corroborated. It has to be checked against other information.

So no, torture is not the magic silver bullet. If it was, then why did it take us 10 years, or many, many years after the waterboarding of these individuals to find bin Laden?

MATTHEWS: What about the accounts we"re getting that the--the interrogations, the rough interrogations with use of some--what most of us would call torture of Khatani, KSM and al-Libi, KSM"s replacement in al Qaeda--that they all led us to this fellow, this courier, who had the nom de guerre, the code name of al Kuwaiti? I mean, was that all part of finding the courier and tracking him to Peshawar and tracking him eventually to the compound?

REED: I you can ask the question also if other techniques, more sophisticated techniques, not involving torture had been used, one, would we have gotten the same nickname, and two, I think probably would have gotten more information? The individual in charge of the interrogation of the lead that led us to Zarqawi in Iraq--and we took him out with a smart bomb--made it very clear that he was able to develop a relationship with this source that not only got a nickname but got the location.

So this issue of what led to what--it was a very complex process. The information came in, but I don"t think anyone has made the credible case that there was such good, clear, unequivocal information from waterboarding that led us directly to bin Laden. In fact, it took years and years and years of intense work to get to bin Laden.

MATTHEWS: Let"s take a look at what the CIA director, Leon Panetta, had to say about this question, the usefulness of torture. Let"s listen.

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PANETTA: We had a multiple-source--a multiple series of sources that provided information with regards to this situation. Clearly, some of it came from detainees and the interrogation of detainees, but we also had information from other sources, as well.

They used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees, but I"m also saying that, you know, the debate about whether--whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.

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MATTHEWS: Well, here"s Jose Rodriguez, who ran the CIA"s counterterrorism center when top al Qaeda leaders underwent torture--he was under Bush--said, "Information provided by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libi"--that was who replaced him--"about bin Laden"s courier was the lead information that eventually led to the location of bin Laden"s compound and the operation that led to his death."

So there you have a guy, Rodriguez. Do you think he"s credible or not as a person reporting on this? He was part of the problem back then we all know about.

REED: Well, I think he has great insights because he was there. But I think, again, with--other professionals who"ve dealt with interrogation would say that that"s a source, but it"s not the best source. And in fact, because of the legal complications, it"s something that not only doesn"t give us valuable--or vital information sometimes, but it also leads us to intense criticism.

Frankly, I think, looking back over these years--and I think there should be a very thorough analysis, as Leon suggests, of what contributed to our ultimate success. But, looking back over it, it was putting together lots of different pieces of information.

And the inference that I have--and I think Senator Feinstein has reflected--is that a lot of this information was obtained the traditional way, the interrogations that are permissible under law, the--

MATTHEWS: Right.

REED: -- electronic surveillance, the overhead surveillance. All these pieces led one toward to another.

MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

REED: Thanks, Chris.

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