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CNN Live Today

Interview With Michael Weisskopf

Aired May 29, 2002 - 12:01   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now we want to go with Michael Weisskopf. He's with "Time" magazine, and covering a big story today that we're following shortly live. Michael, we're talking, of course, about the reorganization or the retooling of the FBI. Thanks for joining us today.

MICHAEL WEISSKOPF, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Pleasure.

LIN: So, Michael, what are you expecting to hear from Robert Mueller and John Ashcroft today?

WEISSKOPF: Most importantly, a kind of collaboration between the CIA and the FBI in terms of analysis of intelligence, which is very important, because this is where the bureau really fell down in the lead up to 9/11.

LIN: Well, how fast a transition are you expecting that the bureau is going to be making? And, specifically, what do you think are the most critical changes?

WEISSKOPF: If they're committed to this process, it won't take long to bring CIA agents over there. And this should make a big difference. There has been up until now what we call stovepipe intelligence, which is sort of a linear approach, almost separate governments looking at what goes on overseas and in this country in terms of terrorism. By collaboration, the object is to kind of commingle, to cross-fertilize, so as to get the best of all worlds.

LIN: Now much of this came out of a memo that an FBI agent out of the Minneapolis office -- now we all know her, Coleen Rowley -- who testified to this effect that she had wanted a warrant issued so that the computer belonging to what they believe might have been the 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, could have been conducted. How much influence does that memo have? And in that particular situation, if these changes had been instituted, what would have happened or should have happened in that case?

WEISSKOPF: Well, the real problem is that it had no influence. It had no influence, most importantly, at the time she sent it in terms of her information, that is. Whether the memo had any influence on the decision to reorganize is doubtful since it's been pretty much ignored at central FBI headquarters at this point. And I'm sure that these were reforms that needed to be done. And, clearly, there was an urgency for them even without her memo. But what she found, her own experience in trying to bring to the attention of FBI headquarters a serious problem, and all the kind of bureaucratic roadblocks she points out, really dramatizes the need for the kind of reforms that will be announced today.

LIN: All right. Thank you very much, Michael Weisskopf.

We're going to stay in touch with you as we watch the developments unfolding, expecting to hear from the FBI; as well as the Department of Justice; from John Ashcroft, the attorney general; as well as the Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, in about an hour.

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