Editing Michael Morell (section)

== On Iraq War ==
SAM HUSSEINI: You’re not acknowledging that the Bush administration falsified information on Iraqi WMDs and other aspects in the build up to the Iraq war.

MICHAEL MORELL: I’m not acknowledging it because it’s not true. It is a great myth. It is a great myth that the Bush White House or hard-liners in the Bush administration pushed the Central Intelligence Agency, pushed the U.S. intelligence community and every other intelligence service in the world that looked at this issue to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. All they have to do is tell you this, that the CIA believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction programs long before George Bush ever came to office. We were telling Bill Clinton that.

SAM HUSSEINI: One would not be following Iraq to say the Clinton administration never falsified information on Iraq as well. So for example when Bush —

MICHAEL MORELL: I’m just not with you on the falsification, but go ahead.

SAM HUSSEINI: Yeah, well I’m putting evidence if I could.

MICHAEL MORELL: Okay.

SAM HUSSEINI: So in September 2002, when he was at a news conference with Tony Blair, and this is just one example. That there was an IAEA report saying that Iraq was “six months away from developing a weapon. I don’t know how much more evidence we need.” And then IAEA says there is no such report — that was just an honest mistake?

MICHAEL MORELL: So, you know you have to ask him. You have to ask him. The only thing I can tell you —[[https://consortiumnews.com/2015/05/19/on-iraqtorture-still-in-denial/]]

Morell has also spoken about the use of torture during the Iraq War. This is what he said in response to a question about torture. 
“When the Central Intelligence Agency used enhanced interrogation techniques to get information from Al Qaeda detainees, the Justice Department of United States of America on multiple occasions said it was legal, said it wasn’t torture. Okay, so for you to call it torture is you calling my officers torturers. And the Justice Department of United States of America said they were not.”[[https://consortiumnews.com/2015/05/19/on-iraqtorture-still-in-denial/]]