Q: Well, on this book that has come out just two weeks ago, we are so thrilled to have you. It is called The Dark Side, and in so many ways it is dark in that you take us inside and answer a lot of questions about how this administration conducted the War on Terror behind the scenes, torture, water-boarding, all of these issues. But I want to start with a question about the White House. Have you heard from them since the book has come out?

Mayer: No, there has been just plain radio silence. Though, I can say, I've actually heard from some of the sources. This book is not just based on talking to critics of the administration. It's talking to lots of people on the inside: inside the White House, inside the CIA and the FBI and the military. And it's been really gratifying. I've actually gotten some really wonderful phone calls from people who've said, "You know, you got it. Thank goodness someone told the story." So that actually has really made me feel good.

Q: Now, I'm halfway through the book, but the thing that I find so hard to figure out is, what about the regular people? You talk a lot about the Vice President, David Addington and all the policy, high-level folks at the White House and all the agencies who worked together on this, and we'll get into that. But I have to ask you one question at the top, because you make reference to what I would call regular men and women of the various agencies who conducted some of the torture and a variety of different kinds of very controversial and sometimes what seems illegal based on Geneva Conventions, etc., that they conducted some really, really inappropriate kinds of "techniques" which is not really a good way to say it -- but I'll just say it -- on various people held in various places around the world. My question is, do you have any sense of these folks and how they came to just quickly participate in all of this and not raise red flags? You know, people in Washington always say no one quits anymore; because in previous administrations, if you don't want to torture someone, if you think its torture, you would quit. Am I right?

Mayer: Well, you are right that nobody went public with their -- or just about nobody -- with their complaints about this. There were people who did quit. There were a lot of people who left the CIA rather than participate in these programs. And then there were people who were fighting on the inside. And part of The Dark Side, particularly the last part of the book, is about some fabulous people who stepped up to the challenge and basically said, "You know, as Americans we are better than this, we shouldn't be doing these things." And they did push back and they fought hard. And they are named and their stories are told, and I think, you know, that they were very courageous, a lot of them.

But there were people who simply did participate, you're right. They went along. I think this is the lesson of terrorism is that we get terrorized often into doing the wrong things, and I'm told that some of the people, in particular, I spoke to a friend of one of the CIA officers who specifically did the waterboarding. I'm told that it has really sent him into a dark place, too. And that he is suffering nightmares, having trouble sleeping. His friend tells me that you can't go to that dark a place and do such horrible things to someone without it kind of haunting you. So, there's a price to pay for the Americans involved in this program as well as for the detainees involved in it.

Q: But you are not saying that they were coerced by this administration into doing this, right?

Mayer: No, they went ahead and did what they thought was right, which was -- they thought they had to do these things, some of the people. I think that from [Dick] Cheney on down, it wasn't that they were dying to torture people or break laws, I think it was that they were doing -- they were going to the furthest reaches of what they thought they had to do to protect America. And what they did -- they basically thought that the ends -- which was keeping America safe -- justified any means. And Cheney tells us that. In that statement that he gave to Tim Russert on the first Sunday after 9/11 when he says, "We're going to have to go to the dark side and fight in the shadows and use any means at our disposal and that's where these people, that's how these people do it." He's saying, We are going to fight terror with terror. It is a new kind of war and a new day. And that's when they launched it, and it becomes a war in 80 countries where they have authorization, the CIA becomes the lead agency, they give them authorization to hunt, capture, kill, interrogate, detain these suspects without any other kind of due process, indefinitely, basically disappear people if they need to, kidnap them, take them into any, you know, secret prison sites around the world. And they also, they basically create a whole new detention and interrogation system that is outside any of the old legal rules that either the military or the criminal justice system abides by.

Q: Do you remember Richard Clarke's very tearful apology to the victims of 9/11? When he talked about how sorry he was that he failed these people?

Mayer: Yes, and partly what I write about here -- this book was an effort to put all the pieces back in order so that readers can understand it as one great, big saga, which is what it basically is. It starts at 9/11 -- in some ways you can even see some of the remnants start before 9/11 -- but you can see that they -- there was a tremendous sense of guilt inside the Bush White House and various highest places because they dropped the ball on 9/11, as Clarke said.

Q: So it's guilt?

Mayer: Well, some of it I think, you know, I mean that would be speculating but I have to say that I really do think that they felt they had to show that they were in charge like nobody's business afterwards because they missed this, and they had 12 opportunities -- according to someone I interviewed on the 9/11 Commission, there were a dozen times that they were given the information about the pending attack on 9/11 in one form or another, but they failed to piece it together. The CIA especially dropped the ball. I mean, for more than a year before 9/11, they knew that were two al-Qaida suspects inside of America, and they didn't tell the FBI about it. So, the FBI had no idea and didn't go and try to find these people. And two of those suspects became the hijackers on 9/11. And, you know, it wasn't some horrible conspiracy, it was just incompetence.

Q: But don't you see that that's why that the vice president -- I would guess -- that the vice president and all the folks at the White House and then the Defense Department separately, stepped in, because they are looking over at the Agency saying -- and there has been so much criticism and conversation about George Tenet really being a suck-up to the White House--

Mayer: [Laughter]

Q: I guess someone else would say that more diplomatically, but the point is, you can see why they felt like they had to step in because they thought, "Look at these guys over here. The person that is leading them is not focused on what we think is the single most important thing to do." Right?

Mayer: Cheney in particular had long been suspicious of the CIA and felt that they didn't do a good enough job. I mean, this goes way back to days before the 9/11 event. So, he pretty much becomes the commander in chief of this new war on terror, and I think it also explains though why, rather than really pinpointing how they dropped the ball themselves, they quickly deflected guilt and blame and turned to say, "Well, the problem is not us. The problem is that the American justice system is not up to the job of catching terrorists." And---

Q: And do you agree?

Mayer: And they basically say we need to treat them more harshly than the laws have allowed. No, I don't really think that it was. The problem was not that they were not torturing people before 9/11, the problem was that they were not doing their jobs. They weren't connecting the dots. They just -- they missed a lot of things. And they're only human, but in order to find the right solution, you've got to diagnose the problem. And in a way you can say the medicine that they prescribed made many of the problems worse.

Q: You've covered the Justice Department and courts for many years. You don't think that there were already laws existing on the books to handle these things? I mean, these tribunals and all the extraordinary kinds of prosecutions that they put together were based on the fact that they didn't think that -- that either they didn't have the guts, some would say the you-know-whats -- to do it at the Justice Department or the Defense Department.

Mayer: They actually did it. I would debate that and say that I think that the Justice Department and the FBI did a pretty good job of putting al-Qaida terrorists suspects on trial and convicting them before 9/11. And compare the record even afterwards. Since then, the people who have gone through the criminal court system are two very serious al-Qaida suspects and now convicted members of al-Qaida. One was Richard Reed, the "shoe bomber," and the other was Zacarias Moussaoui. Both of them were convicted and are serving huge sentences. Compare that to whats happened down in Guantanamo. Seven and half years later, we finally got [Osama] bin Laden's driver, serving five and a half years, five of it already for time served, possibly out in six months. It has taken so much effort and given America such a black eye to have this alternative system, and it hasn't even worked as well as the original American justice system. I think our laws and courts are pretty good.

Q: I don't know. I think that if you put a poll today out -- "NBC Poll Today" -- about whether or not Americans thought it was OK to torture people if it saved lives, as these polls came out in the years following 9/11, that most people would probably agree. Actually I would say that, thanks to your book, there would be a few less, but don't you think---

Mayer: Well, that's because they have been told that we've had to these things to save lives. That's been the line consistently out of the Bush White House. Bu the only people who really think that you need to torture and that torture works are the people that are up to their eyeballs in this program. More and more, there are independent voices saying, "You know what, we didn't need to do this." And in particular, take a look at what Jay Rockefeller has said recently, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He's a Democrat, but he's, unlike almost anybody else in the country, had access to the inside details of this program. He's seen pretty much everything, and he came out with a statement recently, saying, "I have not seen a single shred of information that makes me think we needed to torture people." And, in fact he's seen -- he says in his statement, "I've seen a lot of reason to think its been a -- it's lead us in the wrong direction and we've made a big mistake with it."

Q: And why he not come out before and say that? Why did he not stand on the Senate floor and say that in a big, broad way at a time when he could have helped prevent some of this?

Mayer: Well, you are going to have to ask Jay Rockefeller that.

Q: I will.

Mayer: But I think there's been a degree of spinelessness up there in Congress, but I think its following also, the -- as you say -- American public opinion. If the people in Congress felt that the American public was pushing them to stand up, they would have stood up. In fact, I think people were cowed all over the country. It's a chapter in American history we've seen before, and I've got a quote in this book that I absolutely love from somebody named Philip Zeleco, who was part of the administration -- the Bush Administration -- he was the lawyer to Condi Rice, a counselor to her, and also a history professor down at the University of Virginia. And he says he thinks we're going to look back at torture in America the way we sort of look at the Japanese internment during World War II, and he says they happened in the same way, for many of the same reasons. And his quote is, "Fear and anxiety were exploited by zealots and fools."

Q: Yeah, but you're saying that, but he was Condi's guy. And he -- wasn't he the chief of staff for the 9/11 Commission?

Mayer: He was indeed.

Q: Well, I mean, he can say -- I mean, look I know he's a thoughtful guy, don't get me wrong, but there's many people that were so unhappy about that role that he played and the limited amount of testimony that she gave.

Mayer: Well, Condi has turned on these issues, I have to say. And I think to some extent, Zelaco's had some influence on her and maybe just the knowledge of how counterproductive these polices have been have begun to have their effect on Rice. But she went from being very gung-ho for these harsh interrogation tactics -- some people call them torture -- to questioning it and finally, pushing to close down the black sites and get those CIA prisoners moved over to Guantanamo and ending some of this. So this has been a long and gruesome and difficult process, but it's been seven years and I think some people in the government anyway have learned from it.

Q: By the way, will this be made into a movie?

Mayer: I wish. We will see. I don't know.

Q: Are you in the talking about it? Having the conversation?

Mayer: Yeah. I've been talking to some people out on the west coast. Actually, that's where I am right now. You know, we will see.

Q: Well, it is so great to have you with us, Jane. Jane Mayer, her new book is The Dark Side. Thank you for being with us, here on National Journal On-Air.

Mayer: Thanks Tammy, great to be with you.