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American Morning

Rep. Pelosi Discusses Pre-9/11 Intelligence Mix-ups

Aired June 04, 2002 - 09:01   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, a joint congressional hearing today starts looking into why the intelligence agencies failed to prevent the attacks of September 11.

California Rep. Nancy Pelosi is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and she joins us from Washington.

Good morning -- glad to have you with us this morning.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CALIFORNIA: Good morning, Paula. Thank you.

ZAHN: Rep. Pelosi, for starters, your reaction to the report that President Mubarak, in an interview with "The New York Times," said that he had actually warned the administration about the potential of an al Qaeda attack on American interests.

PELOSI: Well, he also -- President Mubarak also said that he didn't have any specificity as to time and place, and the rest. It was no secret that Osama bin Laden was planning an assault on the United States. The CIA had issued a report to that effect.

But this and other questions of this kind will be the subject of our joint inquiry, which begins today in the Capitol between the House and the Senate. And we will try to find answers so to prevent such an attack on our country from happening again. We will try to find answers, to be some comfort to the families. And as we proceed, we're walking on hallowed ground.

We have the concerns, the sorrow of the families who are affected by this. So we have to proceed with great dignity and let the facts unfold.

ZAHN: And Congresswoman, I know as you proceed, you've had the benefit of examining a lot of data. Is there any reason you can come up with at this point for why we saw this Phoenix memo buried, and for how it is possible that the CIA was aware of the existence of the two al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia? They had intelligence reports showing that they perhaps would carry out an attack against the United States, and then the FBI wasn't even notified of their existence until weeks before the attacks.

PELOSI: Well, I think the inquiries are going to have to find out what the accountability is within each of the agencies, within the CIA. And in fact, we have to assess the performance of any agency that had anything responsibility for preventing terrorism against the United States. We want, again, answers to prevent this from happening, answers to console the families, and answers that will demonstrate what the accountability is.

I don't think we can prevent it from happening again unless we have some professionalism -- a clear line of authority, responsibility, and not having this to be free agentry. And if people have information and it is analyzed, it has to be shared and disseminated so that we can protect the American people. We cannot be surprised again.

ZAHN: I know you're showing great patience having to compete with the sound of that construction going on behind you, as they build the visitors center. I know we'll try to help you ignore that.

There has been some criticism coming from folks, including Sen. Gary Hart yesterday on our air, that Congress bears some blame for this and should share in the accountability, Sen. Shelby, in our last hour, saying while some of that might be true, there had been a concerted effort under way over the last couple of years to beef up the CIA and the FBI. Where does the accountability for Congress lie?

PELOSI: Then I think we subject everything to scrutiny. That's why I was the author of a -- as important as this joint inquiry is -- and I think it will produce an excellent piece of work -- I was the author in the fall of legislation calling for an independent commission that passed the intelligence committee, but it failed on the floor of the House.

And I think that, again, everything should be subjected to scrutiny. Congress has called for more analysts, more linguists, more diversity in our recruitment in our intelligence agencies so that we understand better the language, the cultures, the possibilities that this and other countries that might be directed against us -- but I think an independent commission, which thinks innovatively with imagination in a different way, can shed some different light on this. And I don't think that Congress should be excluded from the scrutiny.

ZAHN: Rep. Pelosi, wanted to close with a little bit of what the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, had to say over the weekend about his goals for a new and improved agency -- let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: We have to do a better job of collaborating with others. And as critically important, we have to do a better job of managing, analyzing, and sharing information. In essence, we need a different approach that puts prevention above all else. And simply put, we need to change and we, indeed, are changing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Congresswoman, as you know, there are people out there who say you just cannot change the culture of the FBI. Where do you lie on that one? PELOSI: Well, I think that I have the highest regard for Dir. Mueller. His suggestions seem to be self-evident. There should have been increased cooperation and collaboration, more professionalism in terms of accountability within the FBI and the rest -- should have been the order of the day long before September 11, even without September 11.

But my concern with what the suggestions are of the director are that when the FBI, the CIA, or any other agency misses a glaring clue as to the danger that the American people are in, and then they say, Well, now we have to spy more on the American people, that is part of our solution, I think that we have to be smarter, more clever, and protect the people in a way that also protects their civil liberties and our Constitution.

ZAHN: Thank you so much for joining us. Good luck later today with the hearings, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.

PELOSI: Thank you, Paula.

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