Israel Says Iran "Lies" About Nuclear Program
COOPER: A dramatic nationally televised speech Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his intelligence service had secured tens of thousands of documents as well as computer disk that prove Iran was in his words appraisingly lying about its nuclear weapons program, even as the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal was being negotiated. To emphasize its point, even further much of the speech was in English aimed at President Trump.</s>BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: This is a terrible deal. It should never have been concluded. And in a few days time, President Trump will decide, will make a decision on what to do with the nuclear deal. I'm sure he will do the right thing. The right thing for the United States, the right thing for Israel and the right thing for the peace of the world.</s>COOPER: Well President Trump has until May 12 to decide whether continue waiving sanctions on Iran that were lifted as part of the overall nuclear bargain. And after Netanyahu speech, President Trump says he is quote, "100% right to criticize the deal". Joining me now retired General Michael Hayden former CI director and former NSA director, who's the author of brand new book, "The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security and in Age of Lies" First of all, in this deal, I mean do you think there are grounds for the President to rip up the deal as he's been threatening to do base on what Netanyahu said.</s>MICHAEL HAYDEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Not based on this. This is all baked in. I mean we knew the Iranians were lying about the existence of this weapons program prior to 2003.</s>COOPER: This isn't new information --</s>HAYDEN: No.</s>COOPER: -- deal --</s>HAYDEN: No.</s>COOPER: -- what they're doing right now?</s>HAYDAEN: The outline, the ark, not new. Now he's got new details appears to have been a tremendous coupe on the part of Israeli intelligence getting additional information. But it doesn't change the plot line. They had a weaponization program until 2003. They denied it, they continued to lie about it. I complained during the negotiations, that we should have made them turn their cards face up with what we called PMDs, the previous military dimensions of the program. We didn't force it and so we just let it ride, gave them a whole pass. But we knew they were lying. That was baked into the original deal.</s>COOPER: So you're saying when it's baked into the original deal, meaning the U.S. knew they were lying and, therefore, made the deal so tough, it was -- it was based on the assumption that they're lying and this is how we verify it.</s>HAYDEN: It was based on the premise that they had a program. It was based on the premise that the program had made certain advances. It was based on the program -- based on the reality that they lied about the program. And, therefore, that shaped what we tried to negotiate.</s>COOPER: So in your opinion what Netanyahu just done doesn't change anything about the validity of the deal?</s>HAYDEN: No. Like I said, it was all baked in. I think we should have made them be more forthcoming but we knew they were lying at the time.</s>COOPER: I wonder what you make of North Korea, the movement with South Korea, the meeting with Kim Jong-un? I mean it's very dramatic to see him crossing over that border.</s>HAYDEN: Yeah.</s>COOPER: Do you buy what they are selling?</s>HAYDEN: Who?</s>COOPER: The North Koreans.</s>HAYDEN: Not yet. This is the fourth time we've gotten to this place.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>HAYDEN: We've done it with three previous administrations, and we've not had much success. So we'll see where it goes forward from here. Credit to the administration for getting here. That's really important, but we've only begun the hard work now.</s>COOPER: I want to ask you about your new book "The Assault on Intelligence." I mean is what Netanyahu is saying, is that an example of the assault on intelligence?</s>HAYDEN: Well, more -- much to the point, the White House after the Netanyahu speech issued a statement that Iran has a robust clandestine nuclear weapons program. Well that flies in the face of a national intelligence estimate that I was involved in, in 2007. And Anderson to the best of my knowledge, that remains the American estimate, is that that one chunk, no, not the centrifuges which was a separate issue, not the ICBMS, a separate issue, but actually constructing a weapon, that that had stopped in 2003 and I'm fond of saying that judgment then was based not on the absence of evidence, but on evidence absence. And I don't know of anything that's changed that, so it's going to be really interesting now what did the intel guys say about the press release that just came out of the White House?</s>COOPER: So, I mean, you're talking about the subtitle of the book is "American National Security in an Age of Lies."</s>HAYDEN: Yes.</s>COOPER: How does intelligence adapt to this age that we're in?</s>HAYDEN: It's really hard. So we've seen a pattern from the White House of saying things that intelligence just can't back up, and I'm being kind here. So you try to convince the President in closed sessions with regard to what you believe objective reality is. You know, it's not so much that you're not winning the argument in the process. It's that the decisions seem to be separated from the process. And you saw H.R. McMaster leave the White House a couple weeks ago. I mean, H.R. spent a year trying to connect the processes of government to the decision-making of the White House, and it just doesn't seem to have worked.</s>COOPER: Well that -- I mean that's a frightening statement that the decision-making is just divorced from the -- from the actual intelligence.</s>HAYDEN: So, for example, and this may be a minor issue, but it's current that press release tonight. In my life experience would have had the White House not ever issuing that without running it by the intel guys to make sure they could live with the statement. I don't see that pattern in this administration.</s>COOPER: But it's interesting. I mean we're at a point now where the folks on Capitol Hill almost ignore what the President is saying. It's sort of like, oh, he's just that guy, who's, you know, mumbling that stuff. It doesn't actually necessarily mean that's what the new policy is.</s>HAYDEN: You know, the American presidency is a powerful office. One of its great powers is the bully pulpit.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>HAYDEN: One of his great powers is what the President says. Now, you just told me that the American Congress just tunes it out. I don't know that the rest of the world does though, and that makes life hard.</s>COOPER: The -- you also write that the modern intelligence enterprise, which you obviously goes essential to the U.S. now seems at odds with important elements of American life.</s>HAYDEN: Yes.</s>COOPER: What do you --</s>HAYDEN: We have collectively. We've talked about the administration, but, you know, the President's reflecting changes in our political culture. Well the Oxford Dictionary word of the year for 2016 was post-truth. Post-truth is defined as decision-making based on feeling and emotion rather than objective data, and I think we see that broadly throughout our society. I mean, you guys comment on it every night. How could people believe that? Political beliefs, political affiliations have now become articles of faith, and it's really hard to unseat a belief with facts if it wasn't based on facts to begin with.</s>COOPER: So what is -- I mean, how do you get back to -- I mean, look, obviously, there's been incredible intelligence failures over the years.</s>HAYDEN: Sure.</s>COOPER: So there's understanding why people be skeptical of American intelligence. Certainly what the President has said has not helped the -- you know, the confidence in American intelligence or a lot of institutions. What needs to change?</s>HAYDEN: So that's a point related to an earlier question. I mentioned in the book, you know, obviously everyone has got to follow their own conscience with regard to what does it say or don't say within or outside the administration. But more important than the individual, Anderson, is what you just suggested, preserving the institutions, and I fear what's going on now, particularly with justice and the FBI, but the intel community I think shares in this is the chiseling away at the institutions that service and on which we rely to preserve our liberty and security. That's the collateral damage to this struggle that's now going on.</s>COOPER: And that's not easily revealed.</s>HAYDEN: Once you begin chiseling away. I mean what will it take, and here's the danger I see. And so, I see folks in my tribe or in justice or FBI pushing back against what is an incredibly norm-busting administration, a norm-busting President, but in the pushing back, we have to be oh so careful that we don't bust our own norms. And so for my folks it might be in leaking. All right. And so we see this deterioration that's coming about because the broader dynamic within society. It scares me, and that's why I wrote the book.</s>COOPER: The book is "The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies." Very timely. Michael Hayen, thanks so much.</s>HAYDEN: Thank you.</s>COOPER: Coming up, breaking news. "The New York Times" is reporting Robert Mueller has at least four dozen questions he wants to ask the President about his ties to Russia and other topics. "The Times" obtained a list of the questions, the latest on that, next.