:00:13. > :00:18.Welcome to HARDtalk from New York City. I am Stephen Sackur. In the 14
:00:19. > :00:23.years since Al Qaeda attacked this place on 9/11 the US government has
:00:24. > :00:30.taken extraordinary measures to ensure that it never happens again.
:00:31. > :00:37.But at what cost? Fundamental values of liberty and. My guest today is
:00:38. > :00:42.Michael Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency and
:00:43. > :00:54.easier is that the did America lose its moral compass? -- CIA. . -- Did
:00:55. > :01:10.America. Michael Hayden, welcome to HARDtalk.
:01:11. > :01:17.Almost 15 years on from 9/11 you have been intimately involved with
:01:18. > :01:22.so-called war on terror. Today, would you acknowledge that war on
:01:23. > :01:28.terror failed? I would not say failed. I would not admit we are
:01:29. > :01:32.less safe now than we were five years ago, but we are collectively
:01:33. > :01:39.more safe in the world since that date. Really? Even though we now see
:01:40. > :01:47.Islamic State, you aren't just intent on hitting the West act, but
:01:48. > :01:53.have money and material and men that Al Qaeda could not have dreamt of?
:01:54. > :01:57.-- West. That is all true. I answer the question as an American in terms
:01:58. > :02:06.of threats to northern America. It is somewhat true. But in the Middle
:02:07. > :02:11.East, they are in chaos. It is a terrorist state the size of an
:02:12. > :02:16.American state in the middle of the Middle East, not in the middle of
:02:17. > :02:21.nowhere, but straddling these trade routs in a very important region of
:02:22. > :02:28.the world. And expanding. There are places in Syria and Iraq were there
:02:29. > :02:32.are thousands of extreme jihadists penetrating Libya and using it as a
:02:33. > :02:55.new base. Absolutely. I get it. There is danger greater than what we
:02:56. > :03:00.saw in 2010. I also talk about a real problem the US has in terms of
:03:01. > :03:08.perception. I will quote you words from a senior lawyer who has worked
:03:09. > :03:20.with victims of US security policy. He is called Clive Stafford Smith.
:03:21. > :03:25.He says the day after 9/11 there was widespread response from the US. But
:03:26. > :03:38.we responded by throwing away our values. Hypocrisy breeds hatred.
:03:39. > :03:43.Deal except that? -- Do you accept that? I don't. We talk about the
:03:44. > :03:47.close fight and the deep fight in the military. What do we do when
:03:48. > :03:53.they have already committed to killing you enjoy family? The deep
:03:54. > :04:00.fight has to do with the production of those who want to kill our
:04:01. > :04:08.families in ten years. We have been successful in the close battle. The
:04:09. > :04:13.immediate threat. We have been far less successful with the deep
:04:14. > :04:19.fight. I freely admit that the way you fight the close fight actually
:04:20. > :04:28.can affect the deep fight. We always have that in mind. Let me elaborate.
:04:29. > :04:33.Targeted killings. I support that. I think it is necessary for the close
:04:34. > :04:45.battle. Targeted killings, some people call them extrajudicial
:04:46. > :04:50.assassination. We have had targeted killings. The immediate effect of
:04:51. > :04:58.those has been positive. They wanted to kill us. We always knew there
:04:59. > :05:04.were second and third effects, like it feeds the jihadists recruitment.
:05:05. > :05:10.It does alienate our good friends whose legal theory does not match
:05:11. > :05:18.ours. The thing with the book, all right, is that this is a perpetual
:05:19. > :05:27.grey area. I admit we may have gotten it wrong. That is why I point
:05:28. > :05:40.out... Let us talk specifics and see if you did get it wrong to -- wrong.
:05:41. > :05:47.Your memoir, ten years in the industry with the CIA. I would point
:05:48. > :05:57.to your decision to undertake a new level of mass electronic
:05:58. > :06:04.surveillance in the NSA. And then in the CIA, dealing with the fallout of
:06:05. > :06:13.rendition, torture, these are big deals. Your memoir is called Playing
:06:14. > :06:19.to the Edge, going to the legal limits to fight terrorism. I would
:06:20. > :06:28.say that you did not play to the edge of the line, you CrossFit. I
:06:29. > :06:35.disagree. -- crossed it. There are lions. -- lines. There are things
:06:36. > :06:40.you don't do. You don't do them because of ethical and legal
:06:41. > :06:47.concerns, but also because it hurts you over the long-term. We had to
:06:48. > :06:57.make these. Tough decisions. Broadly speaking I am comfortable with the
:06:58. > :07:04.decisions we made ourselves and our allies safe us. Let me tell you a
:07:05. > :07:08.conversation that never happened. -- safer. I never called an intelligent
:07:09. > :07:17.chief somewhere in the world and said I have information for you. --
:07:18. > :07:22.intelligence. They have never said, I need to know how you got it. They
:07:23. > :07:26.have never told me that. You did not say to these friends, by the way,
:07:27. > :07:34.friend, I am also spying on you, which you were doing to Angela
:07:35. > :07:40.Merkel, President Rousseff in Brazil... I will not comment on any
:07:41. > :07:44.specific operation or activity, but any intelligence service in the
:07:45. > :07:48.world will go out... If it is fulfilling its responsibilities...
:07:49. > :07:55.Will go out and try to learn information to try to make their
:07:56. > :07:59.citizens safer. If we stick right now to this question of electronic
:08:00. > :08:07.surveillance, which you... You talk big decisions. It was your decision
:08:08. > :08:11.to have the NSA programme which took the storage and analysis of ordinary
:08:12. > :08:17.people's telephone communications to a new level. The line you crossed
:08:18. > :08:21.their was that you were doing this because you needed to know if anyone
:08:22. > :08:27.in the US was talking to bad guys outside the US. -- there. By the
:08:28. > :08:36.never inform the American public that this is what you were doing. --
:08:37. > :08:40.But you never. That is fundamentally contrary to the American
:08:41. > :08:43.Constitution. It isn't. I understand the changing political culture
:08:44. > :08:49.within the US and within all western democracies and how we have to
:08:50. > :08:54.accommodate to the change of culture. -- Western. Let us talk
:08:55. > :09:02.about what you have described. We got them from telephone providers.
:09:03. > :09:07.We stored them. We did not analyse them from American telephone
:09:08. > :09:14.activity. All we did was that when we had what we believed to be a
:09:15. > :09:22."dirty" number, almost always a foreign number, we just queried that
:09:23. > :09:30.with a massive database. Has anyone in that database been in contact
:09:31. > :09:37.with a terrorist number? Is a number in the Bronx raises its hand and
:09:38. > :09:42.says we talk every Thursday we ask them, who did you talk to? -- if.
:09:43. > :09:48.That is it. That is the extent of the metadata programme. They had no
:09:49. > :09:54.idea you were storing their records. You opened the floodgates to
:09:55. > :10:00.everything we know thanks to Edward Snowden, prisons, all these
:10:01. > :10:05.programmes, which allow you and the intelligence services, the spying
:10:06. > :10:08.community to gather information about ordinary people and their
:10:09. > :10:16.e-mail, electronic medication, and they had no idea. -- communication.
:10:17. > :10:24.We did not tell them. You should have. We have had our scandals...
:10:25. > :10:30.You crossed the line... Let us talk about how this works within our
:10:31. > :10:34.democracy. Espionage, the province only of the executive, that we
:10:35. > :10:39.Americans would try an experiment, we would actually expand our
:10:40. > :10:50.oversight of espionage to the other political branch, the court system,
:10:51. > :10:56.in certain circumstances. In secret? Yeah. Hear me out. We are still the
:10:57. > :11:04.only Western democracy that does even that. The compromise was that
:11:05. > :11:10.espionage, what's needed secrecy for success, would oversee all branches
:11:11. > :11:16.of the US government. -- which. That is the contract we arrived at... The
:11:17. > :11:21.point is that it may have been a contract behind closed doors. It
:11:22. > :11:26.wasn't with the American people. Edward Snowden did the US people a
:11:27. > :11:32.favour when he exposed this to everyone. You call him a traitor. I
:11:33. > :11:38.have never said that. I said he was a defector, because of the single
:11:39. > :11:43.greatest haemorrhaging of legitimate American secrets in the history of
:11:44. > :11:47.the world. One final surveillance point and then we will move on.
:11:48. > :11:52.Right now there is a debate in the US about encryption. The kind of
:11:53. > :12:00.complete, full on, and to end encryption that Apple, for example
:12:01. > :12:09.is using. -- end-to-end. They have not unencrypted the telephone of
:12:10. > :12:18.someone who had a mass shooting in America. Donald Trump says Apple
:12:19. > :12:25.should be boycotted until they unencrypt. Is this a massive problem
:12:26. > :12:29.for intelligence? These days it has become so complicated that you
:12:30. > :12:34.cannot crack it? Encryption is a difficult problem. We are talking
:12:35. > :12:40.about a core philosophical issue. The issue that permeates what I try
:12:41. > :12:46.to write in this book. This is a perpetual grey area, Stephen. It is
:12:47. > :12:51.not about light and dark. It is about balancing to make things, both
:12:52. > :12:57.of which are virtuous, freedom, security, liberty, safety. -- two.
:12:58. > :13:03.In this case it might surprise you that I am with Apple. Encryption is
:13:04. > :13:09.good. Are just move on to your responsibilities when you were a
:13:10. > :13:14.director of the CIA. -- Let us. You inherited a profound miss, it was
:13:15. > :13:22.connected to the fallout from the invasion of Iraq. -- mess. We saw
:13:23. > :13:29.extraordinary renditions, sending suspected Al Qaeda supervisors to
:13:30. > :13:38.prisons where they were tortured and the CIA... That is your word. Let us
:13:39. > :13:41.talk about that. Waterboarding. It is now clear that those in the
:13:42. > :13:47.United States Congress, those in the intelligence committee in the
:13:48. > :13:52.Senate, regarded that as brutal and torture and you as having been,
:13:53. > :13:58.shall we say, economical with the truth in your presentation of it.
:13:59. > :14:02.Ha! Why don't you come clean and call it torture? It was in the
:14:03. > :14:11.committee it was the Democrats on that committee. -- wasn't. There was
:14:12. > :14:12.a report that provided their conclusion. It is not definitive. It
:14:13. > :14:24.is still a jump. You said water boarding caused
:14:25. > :14:31.minimum discomfort? I would never say that. It is a very harsh
:14:32. > :14:36.techniques. Why won't you say the word torture? It is a legal term. If
:14:37. > :14:42.we use it casually, you may use it casually in your profession, I can't
:14:43. > :14:58.use it casually in mind. Let's frame this. The CAA held 115 folks -- mine
:14:59. > :15:03.-- CIA. Of those 115, three were water brought in. The last one was
:15:04. > :15:11.in 2003 and I became director in 2006. I spent that is, arguing with
:15:12. > :15:14.the administration. Though this programme had value, we needed to
:15:15. > :15:21.modify it. One of the modifications was to tell all members of the house
:15:22. > :15:29.and Senate committees, not just the congressional leadership. I won that
:15:30. > :15:32.argument within the government. In 2011, is said this to the BBC in an
:15:33. > :15:38.interview, I believe for the Panorama interview. Referring to the
:15:39. > :15:43.black sites where some suspect prisoners and up, you said," we did
:15:44. > :15:55.not send these people that to be mistreated or stop". We didn't! Of
:15:56. > :16:03.course you did. In the book, I had this conversation with the Vice
:16:04. > :16:08.President of the United States. We were briefing with the new soon to
:16:09. > :16:16.be president on all covert actions of the CIA. At this time, that was a
:16:17. > :16:19.covert action. I briefed the future president on the red missions. The
:16:20. > :16:25.Vice President interrupted and said, come on, you send those people glad
:16:26. > :16:31.to be roughed up. I said to the Vice President, that is not correct. We
:16:32. > :16:35.are under a moral and legal responsibility in terms of how those
:16:36. > :16:41.people were treated after the rendition had been completed. If I
:16:42. > :16:45.may say so, your book is all about how you played to the edge but did
:16:46. > :16:50.not cross it. Your answers suggest you didn't cross the edge because
:16:51. > :16:57.you simply moved the line to encompass Porter. I don't create the
:16:58. > :17:04.line. It is created on democracy. What we did was approved by the
:17:05. > :17:08.department of justice, approved by the President and briefed to the
:17:09. > :17:13.Congress. Some people may not have liked to wear the wine was drawn,
:17:14. > :17:17.but honest men have to admit that a democracy have to make a decision
:17:18. > :17:22.and that was the decision our democracy made. You kind of
:17:23. > :17:27.attacking the decision-making process of the United States. I am
:17:28. > :17:31.telling you that a lot of these things continued to cross two
:17:32. > :17:37.administrations, very different in their orientation is. That point is
:17:38. > :17:41.absolutely relevant to drone strikes. You called them the most
:17:42. > :17:47.precise application of firepower in the history of armed conflict. That
:17:48. > :17:56.is quite a claim. Unfortunately it is not realistic. It is not borne
:17:57. > :18:00.out by some claims. You don't believe in the research done by
:18:01. > :18:05.Stanford and New York University is looking on the ground in the tribal
:18:06. > :18:10.areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan at what actually happens when drone
:18:11. > :18:17.strikes are ordered? The truth is that won a very detailed study
:18:18. > :18:24.showed more than 200 people were killed, and only 35 were the
:18:25. > :18:32.intended targets. That statement doesn't correlate with any reality
:18:33. > :18:38.with which I am familiar. Did any of those institutions have fully run
:18:39. > :18:43.streaming video of the target, hours before, during and after the attack?
:18:44. > :18:49.I do think so. It is a video that is miles up in the sky. It doesn't tell
:18:50. > :18:54.you who is actually dying or reveal whether men, women and children who
:18:55. > :18:58.were not terrorist... It does reveal whether or not they were men, women
:18:59. > :19:04.and children. You have a platform that gives you a god's I eat
:19:05. > :19:10.continuous view of the target for hours or days. You have
:19:11. > :19:15.intelligence, you have described it is power, that is used to confirm
:19:16. > :19:22.the presence of who it is you think is actually there. You also have
:19:23. > :19:26.penetrations of the Al-Qaeda network which give you information on the
:19:27. > :19:30.nature of that target. I understand what you are saying. I also
:19:31. > :19:37.understand that you can repeatedly get it wrong, for example, the
:19:38. > :19:42.wedding party in Yemen where 14 civilians were blown away driving
:19:43. > :19:49.away from a wedding. That is something that happened after I left
:19:50. > :19:53.government. The most precise application of firepower in the
:19:54. > :19:59.history of armed conflict? Who will believe that in the Middle East
:20:00. > :20:12.today? It is compared to what? A B-52? This is a relative. I think
:20:13. > :20:19.the statement stands. We are almost out of time. This specific point
:20:20. > :20:24.about the big picture of the intelligence strategy of the United
:20:25. > :20:29.States. An academic who has been critical of the United States and
:20:30. > :20:35.its Middle Eastern and security policies for many years has said,
:20:36. > :20:38.the 15 years of war on terror have been as unsuccessful as the United
:20:39. > :20:46.States' war on drugs. He thinks part of the reason is that some of our
:20:47. > :20:50.basic premises are wrong. He said our alliance and partnership and
:20:51. > :20:58.based in Saudi Arabia as a fundamental ally is wrongheaded. Our
:20:59. > :21:03.view of run Mac has for a long time been unhelpful because we have to
:21:04. > :21:07.find a way to co-operate, rather than regard them as an enemy --
:21:08. > :21:14.Iran. Where do you sit on those two countries? There are elements of
:21:15. > :21:17.Saudi Arabian society and policy that I think are counter to the
:21:18. > :21:26.interests not only of Saudi Arabia but the US. That is not to say that
:21:27. > :21:32.the King of Saudi Arabia is not a friend to the United States. The
:21:33. > :21:40.theology, philosophy, has been allowed to flourish post-1979. It,
:21:41. > :21:44.take the issue. I do not see the coincidence between American
:21:45. > :21:57.interests and Iranian interests in the Middle East. I think Iran want
:21:58. > :22:00.to be a hegemonic power. Henry Kissinger summarises this
:22:01. > :22:12.wonderfully. He says the Iranian have to decide whether they are a
:22:13. > :22:16.country or a a culture. When we created the nuclear deal, they were
:22:17. > :22:21.a country, they have since acted like they were a cause. You have
:22:22. > :22:26.wanted to play something of a role in the current US presidential
:22:27. > :22:36.election, being an election adviser for Jeb Bush. Where is America's
:22:37. > :22:41.foreign policy goal in? The presidential race, a lot of heat and
:22:42. > :22:46.noise is coming from Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Essentially
:22:47. > :22:57.coming from people who appear to want to adopt a much more isolated,
:22:58. > :23:08.protectionist, much less global and open US foreign policy. Oh my
:23:09. > :23:13.goodness. I am worried. You said, my message to the next president is to
:23:14. > :23:19.get involved and stay involved. Jeb Bush has just imploded. That kind of
:23:20. > :23:24.old school Republican... Republican International is. You can call it
:23:25. > :23:33.that if you want. That is not where the American people or America it
:23:34. > :23:38.self are today. I do know that that is true, and it is affected by the
:23:39. > :23:42.amount of personal and political capital that a new president would
:23:43. > :23:48.put in. President Obama has decided that he wants to spend his personal
:23:49. > :23:55.and political capital more internally than externally. If you
:23:56. > :24:03.think about, what do you make of Donald Trump? I have my deep
:24:04. > :24:06.concerns with some of the things he had said in the campaign. If the
:24:07. > :24:11.government is consistent with that, I will be very concerned. We have to
:24:12. > :24:13.end it there. Thank you very much, Michael