secret service is stretched beyond limits, a panel says the agency needs more training, more staff, and concluded the service is too insular, and needs a director from the outside. outside its ranks, the review recommended the white house fence be raised, saying it needs to be four or five feet higher. president obama is expected to field plenty of questions today, given all that s going on in the world as the end of his year conference, his news conference that will happen at 1:30 this afternoon. cnn will have live coverage. among the issues he s likely to address, the executive action on immigration, historic move to restore diplomatic relations with cuba and the senate s c.i.a. torture report. the first family will then head to hawaii for the holidays. tough times at the irs could mean tough times for your wallet. budget cuts at the agency could mean getting your tax refund will probably take longer this year. how much longer? that s unclear. the irs commissioner says half the p
house about what is effective? well, there is. and the white house is not really publicly weighing in. you heard president obama essentially say that s not the main question here. the question is whether or not we should be using those tactics. but there is a big debate over whether the tactics were actually useful. whether they produced what is being referred to as actionable intelligence. cia director john brennan making a very strong case and saying, look, some of the information we obtained was useful. but senator dianne feinstein saying the report proves otherwise. there is a very robust debate. but the white house saying, the bottom line is these tactics are outlawed, and should continue to be. thanks so much. thanks. well, the revelations in the torture report have been divisive in the u.s. what s it going to mean for international relations. joining me now, bill richardson who previously served as ambassador to the united nations, energy secretary and u.s. congressman w
and i think what we did in releasing this report was the right thing to do. you mentioned release. you said in a statement about the report that, quote, america s reputation and moral leadership in the world were at stake. and strikes me as this report comes that tens of thousands of americans are marching the streets, protesting police shoot g ings and brutality. 136 prisoners remain five years after this president vowed to shutter it. 44 drone strikes this year so far. does the rest of the world still recognize the united states moral leadership? oh, i think there s no question that the united states is the looked upon internationally as a beacon of hope, a country that stands for democratic values. we make mistakes. the good news is that when we make mistakes, we know how to deal with it. we re open about it and we try to correct it and make sure it doesn t happen moving forward. it s well past time for guantanamo bay to close.
colonel, thank you for being with us. we re going to get to afghanistan in a minute. you re in fallujah, iraq right now. how are iraqis reacting to the cia torture report that came out this week? yeah, good morning and good afternoon. i ve been talking to iraqis all week long, folks i know very well and just folks on the street about that same issue. and it s very interesting. economists say it s in god s hands. it s an american problem. and, you know, a lot of them said, hey, we ve done the same thing. so from the man on street perspective, there is one perspective. then you have the political perspective that folks try to use this against the americans not being moral and high character as we are. okay. i want to switch it thank you for that. i want to switch to the afghanistan situation. what do you think is the cause of the sudden flare-up that we re talking about this morning? well, unfortunately, it s not a sudden flare-up.
preoccupied with cyber warfare and social media. let s focus on solutions. let s beef up the cia. it s a valuable institution. but, you know, we ve been hurt all around the world, internally, let s get beyond this episode. you ve said, actually, in interviews this past week, it has hurt us as a country, as a whole here. you also said that the senate report from senator feinstein s work. it is incredibly harm to the important cia relationship. wasn t the torture, itself that had the impact not the transparency, necessarily? well, yes. the fact that the possibility. and i don t know, because i m not there, that cia didn t level with the congress, with the intelligence committee on the extent of what they were doing. that s a big issue. i think there s always tension. i served on the intelligence committee with the cia, they