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CNN Live Today

Tenet to Take Hot Seat at Joint Hearing

Aired June 18, 2002 - 12:07   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: CIA Director George Tenet is one of the big names today to take the hot seat at joint congressional hearings on intelligence failures before September 11. FBI head Robert Mueller is also scheduled to appear.

CNN Congressional Correspondent Kate Snow joins us live from Capitol Hill with an update -- hi, Kate.

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.

Well this is the joint effort that's been going on for a couple of weeks now between a House and Senate intelligence committee, looking at the intelligence failures both around 9/11 and also even predating 9/11. This morning they heard from the FBI director Robert Mueller. He arrived here this morning. We are told that he had given a brief opening statement.

And then also giving an opening statement this morning is George Tenet, the Director of the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency. The plan was to have two senators and two House members take the lead in questioning both of these men. One of them, Senator Carl Levin, told us that he planned to ask Director Tenet, who you see arriving there, about the CIA's knowledge of an al Qaeda meeting that took place back in January of 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, which we now know two of the hijackers supposedly attended. So he'll be questioned about that a little later on this afternoon.

Remember George Tenet was appointed not by this president, but actually by President Clinton back in 1997. He has before that served on the National Security Council. Mr. Tenet has been criticized quite a bit on Capitol Hill, particularly by the leading Republican senator on this panel, Senator Richard Shelby, who has, in a sense, said that if it were up to him, he would not have George Tenet in that job anymore.

Now this afternoon we'll hear from the committee -- we'll hear from one other person behind closed doors again, and that's the director of the National Security Agency, the NSA, somebody you probably haven't heard of very much. His name is Michael Hayden. That's an agency, by the way, that eavesdrops on non-American citizens. Mr. Hayden will be talking this afternoon. We understand they haven't gotten to him yet this morning.

Kyra, one note, you know, for -- they're doing a lot here for one day. And a lot of people on this panel, which is 37 members large, 37 House and Senate members on this panel, have been telling us that there are some internal rumblings about whether they're trying to take on too much by having so many witnesses all at once. That takes their investigators away from the job of pouring through hundreds of thousands of documents.

There's also been some question about whether they're moving too slowly, on the other hand. One democratic senator on the way in this morning, Kyra, told one of our producers that he thinks the pace has been really slow, to the point of being boring. And they're not moving fast enough trying to uncover some of this.

So a little bit of rumbling internally about how the process is working in terms of the hearing. They were supposed to have open hearings for the public starting next week -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Kate, real quickly, another note. Tom Ridge also speaking up on the Hill today. What are the developments of homeland security?

SNOW: Yeah, and looking to the future, of course, the president has proposed this grand restructuring. It came up here today with Tom Ridge as a proposed piece of legislation. The actual written language was presented to the members of Congress, the leaders of both the Senate and the House.

Now the leaders all being very positive about this, saying that they want to move quickly on this one. Democrats pointing out that this isn't exactly a new idea. They've been talking for months, they say, about restructuring homeland security.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D), SOUTH DAKOTA: Some of us have been calling for this legislation for a long time. And we are delighted and appreciate of the president's proposal and the opportunity now to enact it into law.

SEN. TRENT LOTT (R), MISSISSIPPI: The time deadline that has been suggested, while I think it's a worthy one, to try to see if we can get it done by September 11, the important thing is to do it right. And I believe that we have the mechanisms in place to achieve that goal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: And that is a real challenge, Kyra. You know they normally take August off up here. That leaves us with about four or five working weeks before August recess to try to get this done. So they're going to be trying, but as one aide said to us, you don't want to rush just to have a 9/11 photo-op -- back to you.

PHILLIPS: Yeah, no doubt. Kate Snow, live on Capitol Hill, thank you.

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