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CNN Live Today
Intelligence Community Report Released
Aired September 18, 2002 - 10:00 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: Let's go now to Capitol Hill, where the nation's intelligence community will undergo an extraordinarily public review. At the heart of it, whether a failure of information gathering paved the way for the 9/11 attacks.
National Security Correspondent David Ensor is covering the hearings as they get underway and he joins us with more -- Hi there, David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Fredricka. Well behind me in the hearing room, you can see members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees gathering for an extraordinary open session, at which they are going to hear testimony from their staff director. She is going to read a staff report, which includes a lot of previously classified information about what the U.S. intelligence community knew, and when they knew it prior to 9/11. Were there clues that they should have been able to put together?
Now, obviously, this is with the advantage of hindsight, but I have with me, right here, the 31-page report, and can now, for the first time, read out to you some of what, I must say, I think are some rather disturbing pieces of information that have been -- that are being revealed.
Let's start in August 1998. The intelligence community obtained information in that month that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center. This information was passed on to the FBI and FAA, the report says, the FAA found it not credible, and so did the FBI.
Going to October 1998, the intelligence community obtained information that al Qaeda was trying to establish an operative cell within the United States. In the fall of 1998, the report says, the intelligence community received information concerning a bin Laden plot involving aircraft in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas.
And I am skipping ahead here to another that I think is notable. April 2001. The intelligence community obtained information from a source with terrorist connections who speculated that bin Laden would be interested in commercial pilots as potential terrorists. The source warned that the United States should not focus only on embassy bombings. The terrorists sought spectacular and traumatic attacks, and that the first World Trade Center bombing would be the type of attack that would be appealing to al Qaeda.
So here again, evidence that the intelligence committee staff -- special staff is producing suggesting, in their view, that the intelligence community did have some evidence that the United States could be a target of al Qaeda, could be a target of terrorism on the homeland soil, and secondly, that aircraft could be used as weapons by terrorists.
There is a list of 12 different incidents, between 1994 and 2001, when U.S. intelligence had evidence that there were plots to use, or discussion by terrorists of using, planes as weapons.
As the report quotes CIA Director George Tenet as saying, "This nation," -- this is in 1998 -- he said, "we are at war with al Qaeda" -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. And David, quickly, this certainly flies in the face of so many current administration folks who have said that they didn't have enough information to connect the dots, but it appears as though the previous administration, the Clinton administration, perhaps did have enough information. Is that likely to be the reaction there?
ENSOR: There just were more dots than the public has realized before this, and the point that the staff director is suggesting in her testimony is that perhaps the administration should have told the public more about what the dangers were, both the Clinton and Bush administrations -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. David Ensor, thank you very much from Capitol Hill.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 18, 2002 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Let's go now to Capitol Hill, where the nation's intelligence community will undergo an extraordinarily public review. At the heart of it, whether a failure of information gathering paved the way for the 9/11 attacks.
National Security Correspondent David Ensor is covering the hearings as they get underway and he joins us with more -- Hi there, David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Fredricka. Well behind me in the hearing room, you can see members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees gathering for an extraordinary open session, at which they are going to hear testimony from their staff director. She is going to read a staff report, which includes a lot of previously classified information about what the U.S. intelligence community knew, and when they knew it prior to 9/11. Were there clues that they should have been able to put together?
Now, obviously, this is with the advantage of hindsight, but I have with me, right here, the 31-page report, and can now, for the first time, read out to you some of what, I must say, I think are some rather disturbing pieces of information that have been -- that are being revealed.
Let's start in August 1998. The intelligence community obtained information in that month that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center. This information was passed on to the FBI and FAA, the report says, the FAA found it not credible, and so did the FBI.
Going to October 1998, the intelligence community obtained information that al Qaeda was trying to establish an operative cell within the United States. In the fall of 1998, the report says, the intelligence community received information concerning a bin Laden plot involving aircraft in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas.
And I am skipping ahead here to another that I think is notable. April 2001. The intelligence community obtained information from a source with terrorist connections who speculated that bin Laden would be interested in commercial pilots as potential terrorists. The source warned that the United States should not focus only on embassy bombings. The terrorists sought spectacular and traumatic attacks, and that the first World Trade Center bombing would be the type of attack that would be appealing to al Qaeda.
So here again, evidence that the intelligence committee staff -- special staff is producing suggesting, in their view, that the intelligence community did have some evidence that the United States could be a target of al Qaeda, could be a target of terrorism on the homeland soil, and secondly, that aircraft could be used as weapons by terrorists.
There is a list of 12 different incidents, between 1994 and 2001, when U.S. intelligence had evidence that there were plots to use, or discussion by terrorists of using, planes as weapons.
As the report quotes CIA Director George Tenet as saying, "This nation," -- this is in 1998 -- he said, "we are at war with al Qaeda" -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. And David, quickly, this certainly flies in the face of so many current administration folks who have said that they didn't have enough information to connect the dots, but it appears as though the previous administration, the Clinton administration, perhaps did have enough information. Is that likely to be the reaction there?
ENSOR: There just were more dots than the public has realized before this, and the point that the staff director is suggesting in her testimony is that perhaps the administration should have told the public more about what the dangers were, both the Clinton and Bush administrations -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. David Ensor, thank you very much from Capitol Hill.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
