Showtime's 'The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs' paints vivid picture of the struggle within the agency

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, November 22, 2015,

White House Photo by Eric Draper

A screenshot from the new Showtime documentary "The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs" shows former president Bush and former CIA director George Tenet in the oval office.

The secret is out.
The most stunning aspect of “The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs,” Showtime’s new documentary about the agency, is how the 12 living directors of the world’s most covert organization disagree so much. They reflect what’s clearly an existential battle for the soul of America’s intelligence-gathering agency.
The film (Nov. 28, 9 p.m.) features intimate interviews with the CIA directors and several of the top operatives. These experts go on record to debate intelligence ethics, methods — and failures. “We’re in a moment in history where the CIA is really looking inward and trying to determine its future course and its mission,” says legendary CBS News producer Susan Zirinsky.
She oversaw the film with Chris Whipple (“The President’s Gatekeepers”), along with Gédéon Naudet and Jules Naudet, the French filmmakers behind the shocking documentary “9/11.” Zirinsky speculates as to why these formerly close-lipped spies are talking now.
“Perhaps,” she says, “they are seeking to show the agency’s human side.”
Narrated by “Homeland” star Mandy Patinkin, the program aims to answer questions about the CIA’s role in the War on Terror.

A still from "The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs" of former director of the CIA George Tenet.

Also under scrutiny: whether the world’s most elite spying organization has become too focused on paramilitary operations at the expense of gathering intelligence.
“The Spymaster” even explores how killing enemy combatants from the air by remotely piloted aircraft may be costing the U.S. the moral high ground.
At its heart, though, the film is about how the people who have been in charge of the CIA have different opinions about right and wrong. And as far as each one is concerned, the only right answer is his own.
“There were a number of (enhanced interrogation) techniques that I personally felt were inappropriate, not necessary and beyond the pale,” says current CIA Director John Brennan, who served as former director George Tenet’s deputy under George W. Bush’s administration.
“I had expressed my discomfort and concerns about these techniques, believing that they were going to come back to haunt us.”

Ron Hill/Courtesy of SHOWTIME

Gédéon Naudet directed film that discusses tactics used under President George W. Bush.

Tenet, asked directly if Brennan ever shared this opinion with him, crosses his arms, shakes his head and says, “No.”
“Looking back on it now, should I have spoken out more loudly about it?” Brennan wonders. “Maybe. I think about that a lot.” Tenet says that the CIA killed at least two people while using enhanced interrogation methods.
Jose Rodriguez, a former chief of the agency’s Counterterrorism Center, describes that effort in his interview as a “well-managed” program. “Early on in the program (around 2002), there were mistakes made ... and it’s regrettable,” says Tenet.
“Waterboarding as practiced by the Chinese, the Nazis, the Spanish Inquisition, is torture and has always been torture,” Rodriguez says. “But the waterboarding that was applied (here) was different.”
Asked why, he says: “Because (the CIA) did not use as much water.”