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American Morning

Senators Shelby, Kyl Discuss 9/11, Security

Aired June 04, 2002 - 08:10   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: There was supposed to be more cooperation than ever, but the CIA and FBI look more like the Hatfields and the McCoys this morning, blaming each other for a lack of communication and missed signals. As we have been telling you, Congress begins hearings into intelligence failures before 9/11, and even the president is weighing in, putting a positive spin on the FBI's new role.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The FBI is changing, and they're doing a better job of communicating with the CIA. They're now sharing intelligence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby expects the hearings to reveal even more intelligence breakdowns.

And Sen. Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, joins us now from Washington.

Welcome back, sir.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Also with us on Capitol Hill this morning, one of your colleagues, committee member Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona.

Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING to you, as well.

SEN. JON KYL (R-AZ), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Good morning.

ZAHN: Sen. Shelby, I wanted to start with you this morning. You have said that the head of the CIA, George Tenet, is in a state of denial; are you implying that he is not fit to run the CIA now?

SHELBY: Well, I've questioned his ability to run the whole community a long time. But ultimately, that will be a decision for the president.

What I'm saying basically is that the director has said all along that he didn't believe there were intelligence failures. He's one of the few people in America, or perhaps in the world, that believes that. I don't know where he's coming from like that, unless he's just defending his turf. In other words, he's in denial, I believe, of what some of the problems are.

And as we get into our joint inquiry, I believe that the information will come out, some public -- some will be classified and never come out -- showing that there were massive intelligence failures.

It's a question now what do we learn from it, what do we do about it -- how can we get our agencies working together for the security of this nation?

ZAHN: Sen. Kyl, what is the lesson we've learned about the latest revaluation that, in fact, the CIA was following the activities of two of the men who ended up being 9/11 hijackers down the road and didn't immediately share some of that information with the FBI? In fact, some of the most critical information wasn't handed over to the FBI until three weeks before 9/11. What is the significance of that?

KYL: Paula, I've heard more about this on the media in the last week than I have from the Intelligence Committee. So I'm not willing to draw any conclusions yet. And I would caution everyone to inject a little balance into this conversation and recognize that until we've completed the investigation, we shouldn't be reaching conclusions.

We also have to be concerned here about a paradox. Unless some of this gets public, there isn't the pressure to change, as Richard Shelby was talking about.

But by the same token, if too much becomes public too soon, then two things happen: Our attention is diverted from the war effort, which we're engaged in right now; and we don't want that to happen.

And the second problem is that we begin to compromise our sources and methods of collection of intelligence. The fact that the September 12 memo from -- excuse me, the Phoenix memo was made public has already dried up some sources in connection with that investigation.

So we have to be careful about airing all of this in public.

ZAHN: Sen. Shelby, as the blame game goes on between the FBI and the CIA, we even have former members of Congress basically saying some of the accountability should rest with you and fellow members of Congress. I want to share with the audience some of what Sen. Gary Hart had to say yesterday on AMERICAN MORNING. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. SEN. GARY HART (D-CO), U.S. COMMISSION ON NATIONAL SECURITY: It is amazing to me how little has changed in the past nine months, given the fact that we lost 3,000 American lives. And by the way, in terms of accountability, I would put members of Congress in there, as well. Oversight committees are supposed to be finding out why things are not happening. So now there are a lot of members of Congress finger-pointing and saying you've got to do this, you've got to do that. Well, where have they been for the last nine months?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: What about that, Sen. Shelby, and the criticism that somehow some members of the Congress are so wedded to the FBI and the CIA and so concerned about covering their own -- I don't know a nice way of saying it -- their own derrieres that they are not acknowledging that they had some of the same information that the FBI and the CIA had from the classified briefings they get?

SHELBY: Well, some of that might be true. But I can tell you this is my eighth year in the Intelligence Committee, and a lot of us on this committee have pushed the FBI, the CIA, the NSA to the edge to revamp their system, to hire more people, to push for more people that would deal with human intelligence, to modernize NSA. We take a back seat to no one in this area.

As a matter of fact, I could go back three or four years, when some of my colleagues on the floor of the Senate would say we don't need a CIA, we don't need an NSA. Why do you push these issues? And I said then and I say now, it's for national security.

I wish we could have done more. But sometimes you have to have a crisis, which is unfortunate, to push the envelope. We're pushing it now. We, a lot of us pushed it earlier, but nobody listened.

ZAHN: Sen. Kyl, let's talk about how you might push the envelope later today. There are those who say some substance will be addressed, others who say these hearings will be strictly procedural. What do you think is going to be accomplished?

KYL: Well, I think it's going to be a combination of both. First of all, we have three meetings in three days. I'm sure we'll begin with some procedural ground rules and determine exactly how we're going to follow through with everything. And then we'll begin to get the briefing from the staff that we have hired on the different elements of the investigation that we've authorized. And then following that, we'll begin the opportunity to actually ask some questions of some people ourselves.

So it's going to be a combination of all of that, and we really have a very ambitious schedule set out, including public hearings a little bit later.

Again, I would caution that the public's interest in this, and certainly your interest in this, is understandable. But we also have to acknowledge that there is a problem if too much information begins to leak out and the people that we've asked to fight the war are too busy trying to put out the fires relating to that information and not doing the job that we're asking them to do right now.

ZAHN: Sen. Shelby, before we let you go today, help us understand what you think is the most critical question that should be addressed today on the heels of the Phoenix memo, on the heels of the front page story in "The New York Times" today that President Mubarak, in an interview, claims he warned administration officials about a potential terrorist attack on American interests -- and of course, the "Newsweek" story, which essentially showed that the CIA knew the identities of two members of al Qaeda who ended up being 9/11 hijackers, and they knew about their identity a year and a half before 9/11.

SHELBY: Paula, I think central to all of this will be -- it'll be shown that there's a lack of sharing of vital information, intelligence, between the agencies in a timely way. I also believe that one of the big issues will be what, when you have information, what do you do with it? In other words, I believe there's a lot of risk aversion all through our agencies, brought upon over the years, perhaps, by too many people in the bureaucracy, too many bosses, and not enough people in the field.

Some of the people in the field, such as the people in Phoenix and Minnesota, were top-flight, top-notch agents, did great work. What happened to their work? It was stifled right here in the bureaucracy.

ZAHN: Sen. Kyl, a final note from you this morning?

KYL: Well, I would just offer this. It's interesting that congressional oversight produced a lot of restrictions on the CIA and FBI. In past years, we were very concerned about Americans' freedom, and so we tied the hands of our agencies. Now everyone is saying why don't you let them go do their job? Why are they restricted by racial profiling, and why couldn't they get a search warrant, and on and on?

And you can't have it both ways. I think at this time that we're facing a real terrorist threat. We do have to give our intelligence agencies both a good hard look and also the tools that they need.

ZAHN: Well, good luck later today in the hearings.

Senators Shelby and Kyl, good of you to join us on AMERICAN MORNING.

SHELBY: Thank you.

KYL: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: It's always good to have your perspective.

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