By host Tom Ashbrook:

Right after 9.11, the CIA’s counterterrorism chief vowed to “take the gloves off,” and promised President Bush “heads on spikes” in the fight with Al Qaeda. It looked so simple then.

Last week, as Bush flew into Italy on his European tour, two dozen CIA agents went on trial in Milan for exactly that gloves-off push. They were tried in absentia because they didn’t show. Charged with abducting a Muslim cleric off the street in Milan and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.

“Extraordinary rendition” it’s called. Italian prosecutors call it kidnapping.

This hour On Point: The whole story on the CIA on trial.

Guests:

Carlo Bonini, co-author of “Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror,” and investigative reporter at La Repubblica in Rome

Meg Satterthwaite, law professor and director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University

Bob Grenier, former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, and now a managing director at Kroll Inc., a global risk consulting firm

Josh Meyer, terrorism correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.