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American Morning

White House Opposed to Independent Investigation About Possible Intelligence Errors Before 9/11

Aired May 22, 2002 - 07:12   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: More now on the new terrorist alerts. The information may be nonspecific and uncorroborated, but after taking heat for not revealing what it did know, the Bush administration now is trying to get out from -- out front with more notification.

The White House says it is opposed to an independent investigation about possible intelligence errors before 9/11, but is pledging cooperation with Congress. And yesterday, Attorney General Ashcroft met with key members of both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.

Florida Congressman Porter Goss was in that meeting. He joins us from Capitol Hill this morning -- good morning, sir -- welcome back.

REP. PORTER GOSS (R), FLORIDA: Good morning.

ZAHN: Before we get to the specifics of what you and Mr. Ashcroft discussed, let's talk about these latest terrorist warnings. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talked about the potential of these terrorists getting their hands on nuclear, chemical, biological weapons, and then we heard about this threat of potential -- the potential threat of New York landmarks being hit.

This morning, is there any specific and credible evidence that this might happen?

GOSS: Well, what we have had is an uptick in sort of the indicators that we watch very closely. And then on top of that, of course, we have had this information that has come out of the interrogation of the detainees, which has not been corroborated or confirmed.

So it's a little hard, again, to sift out what's true, but of course, the specificity about the Brooklyn Bridge has caused all kinds of inconvenience, I am sure, for a lot of the people who use the Brooklyn Bridge. New Yorkers are tough and resilient, but you can only close the bridges so many times before things start to happen up there. And I can understand why, but you can't not pass those things along.

I would suggest that there is no specificity that causes alarm for anybody this morning, but there is a reason to listen to the cautions that are being put out to be a little more alert as you go about your business in the areas where those cautions are being directed.

ZAHN: You used the phrase "uptick in indicators." Other than the information that has come from some of these detainees, are you aware of anything else pointing to one of these two scenarios that we have just discussed?

GOSS: We have many methods of collecting information and sort of knowing what's going on in the world. And it comes from everything from people walking into our embassies or picking up a phone and calling the police department, using our technology. And basically, when you go through a cycle, where you see more and more chatter coming out of the enemy camp and more and more chatter about the enemy, you generally increase your awareness, and that's what is going on right now.

ZAHN: And I know you say the whole idea of these warnings is to increase our awareness, but I think Tom Friedman of "The New York Times" is expressing what a lot of Americans are feeling at this hour. And this morning, he wrote: "Let's make a deal: We won't criticize the administration for not anticipating 9/11 if it won't terrorize the country by now predicting every possible nightmare scenario, but no specific ones post-9/11."

GOSS: Well, that's a great deal, but I don't think Tom Friedman is going to be able to get everybody in Washington to sign on to his position. That is part of the problem. I think the administration is going to go forward and do what they think is the best to protect American lives, and that's exactly what they should do.

We are trying to make sure our systems get that kind of information to the administration so they can get the warnings out there with more specificity. It's a very tough problem. You don't want to miss an opportunity to save a life or to prevent something bad from happening.

On the other hand, you don't to constantly keep telling people that we have these vague warnings, be alert, be alert, and then eventually when the time comes when something is going to happen, they don't pay any attention, because they are just numb from all of these warnings. That balance is out there.

And also it's very important to remember that a terrorist weapon is anxiety, fear, uncertainty. We don't want to fall into that propaganda trap, and we've got to be very careful about listening to just any allegation that comes along and say, wow, this is going to happen or this could happen. Or somebody wrote me a letter a long time ago, and it said this, and why didn't they investigate that? All of that is in the mix now, and it's all part of the confusion that terrorists like to put out.

So not only be alert, but be common sensible. I think that's very important to use common sense.

ZAHN: And I think what you have just said is quite true that the challenges in finding this right balance. How much of this I guess many of these threats are being induced by politicians trying to cover their rear ends?

GOSS: Well, I'll leave that to you folks in the media to figure out. Those are the stories you should chase down. The stories that we are trying to chase down are who are perpetrating the terrorist problems for our nation, and we want to put those people out of business. And I think that's where the substance of our energy should be focused, and it is where it's focused.

ZAHN: You met with the attorney general yesterday. What is the most significant thing John Ashcroft had to say to you and your colleagues?

GOSS: The most significant thing I think the attorney general said to us that he is 100 percent with us in our effort to try and make certain that we find out everything we can find out about the facts of 9/11, and to learn therefore how we can improve our systems so that we are better warned that 9/11s will not happen again.

He is completely aboard on that mission. Obviously, he has to prosecute criminals. That means he has to protect his chain of evidence and make sure that things go properly in our wonderful court system. He obviously doesn't want to be caught up on technicalities and have terrorists running around the country let out on a technicality. And we don't want that either.

On the other hand, we need information. So we are working out the process of how he can give us information, and we can have that information, use it for our fact-finding without contaminating it for his prosecutions.

ZAHN: Representative Goss, in your judgment, did he give you a satisfactory explanation as to how he actually got his hands on, I guess, parts of the Phoenix memo several days after September 11, but it wasn't handed on to the president?

GOSS: That was not part of our discussion yesterday, but it is part of the activity that is going on in our joint committee to determine how things moved and didn't move in the information flow around 9/11. And that matter will be discussed among many others, when we put our report out and start having our public hearings probably in the next 30 days or so.

ZAHN: Do you have any preliminary analysis about it that you could share with us this morning why that wouldn't have been handed over to the president? I know that the administration is arguing, of course, that the Phoenix memo only explained what had already happened on September 11. But do you believe it should have been handed over to the president?

GOSS: Paula, I don't know all of the details to answer that question in a proper way yet, but I can tell you that if it had been another tragedy instead of the Trade Towers, say an example of a bridge being taken out somewhere on 9/11, there would be people surfacing memos about bridges. So I think it's a little hard to apply that hindsight and wonder why all of the specificity that was out there was not brought to the president's attention. There is just too much information if you go memo by memo. There are literally tens of thousands of documents and stories and allegations and schemes and scenarios that may or may not have been in somebody's mind seriously or just sort of as a lark. Those things are being reviewed, and I think the responsible thing to do is to wait and see until we have a comprehensive review of all of the facts, and then we'll get the report.

And I'm sorry I said something earlier that we expect to have public hearings in about 30 days or thereabouts. The report will actually not be finished until the end of the year, and I wanted to correct any misimpression I may have made about that.

ZAHN: You are just afraid we were going to start badgering you about 29 days from now, trying to book you on the show. But point well taken, and we would love to have you back to keep us abreast on what's happening with your investigation

GOSS: Thanks a lot.

ZAHN: Representative Porter Goss, chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

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