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Is Washington Playing Blame Game Over 9-11 Today?

Aired May 16, 2002 - 11:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Is there a whiff of blame in the air today over what happened on 9/11? I want to bring in our senior political analyst Bill Schneider, he's in Washington this morning, to look at this latest revelation outside of the White House. Bill, good morning.

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Daryn.

KAGAN: How bad does this look for the White House? Or really, do we need to put this in perspective of what the world was like pre- 9/11?

SCHNEIDER: Well, I think it is uncomfortable for the White House; I don't think there is an alarm right now in Washington. But it is growing as allegations are coming out. I've heard two specific charges made, namely, one, that the White House and the Intelligence agencies did not connect the dots. They were given warnings by the FBI, warnings about what was happening in the world from the CIA. They should have put them together, connected the dots and said, something important may be happening; we'd better act on it.

At the very least, that's a failure of organization. And second of all, some Democrats have raised the possibility that the White House, having been warned of a hijacking attempt, should have alerted the nation's airlines so that they would have been more wary of some kind of activity in early September. Both of those charges have come, and there are going to be more yet.

KAGAN: We'll get to the political in just a moment, but in terms of this connecting the dots, is that really new? That we knew that there was a problem, and the White House knew that there was a problem and that's why Tom Ridge now has a job in Washington D.C. trying to better coordinate all these agencies.

SCHNEIDER: Well, Daryn, there are more dots. The dots that particularly showed up in the last few days have been the famous -- what is now the famous Phoenix document -- saying that the FBI had information that Osama bin Laden was behind the efforts to train a number of Arab, alleged terrorists in American flight training schools, so that they would know a lot more about American civil aviation. Nobody ever seems to have gotten any wind of any plans to use the planes as weapons of mass destruction or as guided missiles. But they did know that there were terrorists, potentially, being trained in American flight schools, and that Osama bin Laden was behind it. That's a very big dot and it was not connected.

KAGAN: And now on the political front, we saw Dick Gephardt coming out earlier and making -- asking some of those questions. What did the White House know; when did it know; what did it do? This has been some tough times politically for Democrats because they haven't been able to criticize this president, especially on these type of issues. So, is this a new opportunity for Democrats, to go down that path?

SCHNEIDER: It may be, but they've got to be very cautious about this. The people are not eager to blame the president of the United States. They are not eager to say this president wasn't up to the job, or had information, or he's covering anything up. All those things, no one is willing to say. There's no evidence for that yet.

But at the very least, they can say, there should have been better intelligence, better coordination; that somebody was not on top of this job. And before they can pin it on the White House, they've got to find out a lot more information.

But it is beginning now. This is how things begin here in Washington. And believe me, there are a lot of Democrats on the Hill and outside of Congress who are going to be looking very hard and asking the questions Dick Gephardt asked; what did the president know and when did he know it?

KAGAN: Well, I bet they will be asking those questions. Bill Schneider, thanks for answering some of our questions this morning. Always a pleasure to have you along.

SCHNEIDER: OK.

KAGAN: And so, more questions will be answered later today, 8:00 p.m. Eastern, live from Washington, we'll have the latest on what is happening in terms of these questions being asked -- 9/11, who knew and who knew when.

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