Reporter defends release of NSA spy program

Mitchell: When you talk about Iran, you describe in 2004, I believe, how a CIA operative, mistakenly, sent an e-mail to the wrong person, and exposed the American spies inside Iran?

Risen: I guess there's some dispute about exactly what the damage was done, but it appears from what I was told, that there was information that could be used to identify a whole number of sources that was sent through communications to one source who was possibly a double agent, and so that that may have exposed several agents, and so the question is, how much damage was done to our ability to watch Iran?

Mitchell: Do you think that the CIA unwittingly exposed its own agents inside Iran?

Risen: I think so. It's quite possible, yes.

Mitchell: Possible, likely?

Risen: I think it seems like it did. There might be some dispute about how much damage was done, but it seems like there was a serious breach.

Mitchell: Were people killed?

Risen: It's unclear, unclear to me.

Mitchell: You also describe what sounds like a bungled CIA attempt to trick the Iranians into thinking that they had obtained a Russian nuclear weapons design, when in fact the CIA planted a false design. Do you think that the CIA deliberately gave a potentially useful design information for a nuclear weapon to Iran?

Risen: I think they were trying to do an operation that would confuse the Iranians, but it was so poorly managed, that there were some questions about whether or not this worked or not. This goes back to the Clinton years, this happened like six years ago, so it's kind of obsolete now, but it was such a bungled operation that it raised in my mind, it kind of raised the same questions about WMD intelligence that some of the other issues did, about whether or not we really have any ability to know what's going on in other countries, or to deal with WMD issues around the world.

Mitchell: As you yourself write, Iran had other sources for nuclear technology, Pakistani. Do you think that the main advances that Iran may have achieved in nuclear weaponry came from this bungled CIA operation?

Risen: No, I don't. I think this really was probably pretty trivial, but it was just, I thought, kind of a good yarn that goes back a long ways that shows kind of how broken the WMD intelligence system was.

Mitchell: And this operation was started under Clinton, didn't it continue under George Bush?

Risen: I'm not sure how long it continued, but what I write about took place in 2000, and the goal is that that was the main thing.

Mitchell: Do you have any concerns about putting this in your book? Didn't The New York Times withhold the information about the Iranian operation? Have they ever printed that to your knowledge?

Risen: No, they haven't printed it, but again, I don't want to get into The New York Times, one way or the other.

Mitchell: But did you have concerns about putting it into your book?

Risen: I thought about it, you know. I thought about everything. one way or the other, but I thought that this story was so old, that it no longer really mattered. As I said, goes back to the Clinton years.

Mitchell: How do you balance your own role finally? You've broken some major stories here, and critics, the administration will say that it compromises American efforts on the war on terror, and gives our enemies clues as to the way we operate.

Risen: I think that vigorous and independent investigative reporting is critical to the functioning of a healthy democracy. And it's what separates us from other countries. And if we decide that we don't want independent, aggressive investigative reporting, then we'll become more like other countries and less like the United States.

Mitchell: Would you go to jail to protect sources?

Risen: Well, I'd rather not have to think about that right now.

Mitchell: Thank you very, very much.

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