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Congress Will Look Into Intelligence Failures Before 9-11

Aired May 24, 2002 - 14:07   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now more on the congressional probe into an intelligence breakdown before the 9/11 attacks.

The investigation comes after a scathing letter from an FBI whistle-blower.

Our Jonathan Karl is live on the Hill with more on that.

Hi there, Jonathan.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Fredricka.

Well, this Intelligence Committee investigation with both the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees will look into the failure of intelligence on September 11, and it will be primarily a closed, but also a public hearing. It's kind of a mix of the two.

The Republican chairman of the House committee says the focus here isn't so much putting blame for September 11, but it's learning the lessons to prevent another terrorist attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PORTER GOSS (R-FL), INTELLIGENCE CHMN.: It is intelligence that will prevent things from happening. The gates, guns and guards are great to have, but it's getting the good intelligence information, getting those plans and intentions. And we're talking about plain old classic espionage, and we've just got to get better at it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: The first hearing of this committee, which began its work back in February, but the first hearing, which will be a closed hearing, will be on June 4. Closed hearings will continue throughout June, and towards the end of June we will have the first public hearings which the chairmen say will feature the FBI director, Robert Mueller, and the CIA director, George Tenet. Both will be asked to testify to kick off the public hearings.

Now, this is a fairly broad inquiry into intelligence failures. It's going to go all the way back to 1986. That was the year that the CIA first established its counter-terrorism center. So it's going to go back and see what was done under the watch of four different presidents, going all the way back to Ronald Reagan. And one major focus is going to be 1993, and that very first World Trade Center bombing. The Intelligence Committee is going to look into what happened in 1993, what were the intelligence lessons that needed to be learned from 1993, and could the FBI and the CIA and the other intelligence agencies have learned lessons from back in 1993 that would have helped them prevent the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

The committee, of course, will also be looking into the charges raised by that FBI whistle-blower, Coleen Rowley. Coleen Rowley, who has written the letter saying that the Minneapolis field office wanted to more aggressively investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, but was facing roadblocks from the FBI headquarters.

The committee has already interviewed Rowley and intends to bring her back for further interviews, and possibly also to ask her to testify.

So a very full plate. These hearings, Fredricka, are going to start in June, but they are expected to go throughout the summer and, indeed, into the fall.

WHITFIELD: And, Jonathan, do you have any knowledge of who the key players are who have been pushing for this Intelligence Committee hearing?

KARL: Well, this has been really a bipartisan effort, despite all the kind of partisan back-and-forth and this blame game, that you have both the Democrat and Republican leaders of the Intelligence Committees in the House and the Senate, have been working on this.

But I do need to tell you, there is another controversy up here, which is, is this enough? Because this committee will be looking at the intelligence failure. There are others, including the Democratic leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle, and the Democratic leader in the house, Dick Gephardt, who want a broader investigation, a so-called blue ribbon commission, that would be public, that would be beyond the focus of just Congress, and would look beyond simply the intelligence failure, but also into what could have been done and what should have been done prior to September 11.

So there is a controversy about just how far and how much to investigate. But on this question, the question of the intelligence investigation, so far it seems to be really quite a bipartisan effort.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you very much -- Jonathan Karl from Capitol Hill in Washington. Thank you.

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