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American Morning
Interview With "The New Yorker"'s Jeffrey Goldberg
Aired February 03, 2003 - 09:36 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: Back to another story that is going to get a lot of attention later this week when Secretary Powell goes before the U.N. Is there a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda? It would be the ultimate smoking gun, but is there any proof?
Jeffrey Goldberg is the writer of "The Unknown: the CIA and the Pentagon take another look at al Qaeda and Iraq," an article in the upcoming issue of the "New Yorker." He joins us live from Washington this morning. Good morning, Jeffrey. Good to have you with us.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG, "NEW YORKER": Good morning.
ZAHN: To what extent do you believe that CIA director George Tenet believes there is indeed an al Qaeda-Saddam Hussein connection?
GOLDBERG: Well, there is no question that he does. He stated so publicly. On October 7 of last year he wrote a letter to Senator Graham outlining some of his beliefs concerning that relationship. And most pertinently, one of those items was the following. Tenet said in this letter that he believes that Saddam Hussein had provided poison gas training to al Qaeda operatives. So, it's not a question any longer of whether Tenet believes there is a connection. It's a question of the depth of the connection or the meaning of the connection.
ZAHN: Sure. You just mentioned Senator Bob Graham, who is the former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and you write that he was very concerned about the CIA having been pressured, he felt, by the Pentagon to accept that there is this connection. We are going to put up on the screen a small part of something that he wrote where he said "maybe the CIA has been co-opted in this whole thing. I'm not personalizing it to George, but institutionally, the CIA is being challenged by a very aggressive defense department."
Do you think Senator Graham's worries are justified?
GOLDBERG: The worries -- you could call them justified. However, I would say that it's unlikely that George Tenet -- very unlikely that George Tenet would manufacture evidence because Donald Rumsfeld ordered him to. It doesn't seem likely at all. I would say that what's happened, and this based on my reporting, talking to senior intelligence officials in various parts of the intelligence community, what's happened over the past year is that with the capture of more and more high level al Qaeda operatives, the capture of documents, the CIA has gotten new information and its position has gradually evolved on this question of Saddam-al Qaeda. So, in fact, Senator Graham's -- it's correct for an overseer, for a Congressional overseer, to question this, but I talked to other members of Congress who say -- Democrat and Republican -- who say that George Tenet basically calls it straight when he gets a piece of information and he believes to it be true, he'll report it.
ZAHN: But you suggest sometime this information is a little bit murky in this article, and you say sometimes conclusions are being raised or being made on the basis of information, A, that is either not known or B, information simply that they don't have, and you quote Donald Rumsfeld as saying the followings: "There are knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. I think this construct is just powerful, the unknown unknowns, we do not even know what we don't know then."
GOLDBERG: That's right. I think what the secretary means by that is a kind of a call for humility on part of intelligence analysts. In the wake of 9/11, people have realized the limitations of intelligence, and of the intelligence community. And I think what that means is, just because you don't have positive proof of something, you shouldn't rule out that something may indeed have taken place or may indeed will take place, that's the lesson of Pearl Harbor and lesson of 9/11. That said, I happen to believe, based on conversations with many people in the intelligence community, that there are -- that they've reached a certain level of proof, and I think this is what you're going to hear from Secretary Powell on Wednesday.
ZAHN: Yes -- we will be covering all of that live, Jeffrey Goldberg, thanks for dropping by to share a little bit of your article that will appear in the upcoming issue of "New Yorker." Thanks again for your time this morning.
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 February 3, 2003 - 09:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to another story that is going to get a lot of attention later this week when Secretary Powell goes before the U.N. Is there a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda? It would be the ultimate smoking gun, but is there any proof?
Jeffrey Goldberg is the writer of "The Unknown: the CIA and the Pentagon take another look at al Qaeda and Iraq," an article in the upcoming issue of the "New Yorker." He joins us live from Washington this morning. Good morning, Jeffrey. Good to have you with us.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG, "NEW YORKER": Good morning.
ZAHN: To what extent do you believe that CIA director George Tenet believes there is indeed an al Qaeda-Saddam Hussein connection?
GOLDBERG: Well, there is no question that he does. He stated so publicly. On October 7 of last year he wrote a letter to Senator Graham outlining some of his beliefs concerning that relationship. And most pertinently, one of those items was the following. Tenet said in this letter that he believes that Saddam Hussein had provided poison gas training to al Qaeda operatives. So, it's not a question any longer of whether Tenet believes there is a connection. It's a question of the depth of the connection or the meaning of the connection.
ZAHN: Sure. You just mentioned Senator Bob Graham, who is the former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and you write that he was very concerned about the CIA having been pressured, he felt, by the Pentagon to accept that there is this connection. We are going to put up on the screen a small part of something that he wrote where he said "maybe the CIA has been co-opted in this whole thing. I'm not personalizing it to George, but institutionally, the CIA is being challenged by a very aggressive defense department."
Do you think Senator Graham's worries are justified?
GOLDBERG: The worries -- you could call them justified. However, I would say that it's unlikely that George Tenet -- very unlikely that George Tenet would manufacture evidence because Donald Rumsfeld ordered him to. It doesn't seem likely at all. I would say that what's happened, and this based on my reporting, talking to senior intelligence officials in various parts of the intelligence community, what's happened over the past year is that with the capture of more and more high level al Qaeda operatives, the capture of documents, the CIA has gotten new information and its position has gradually evolved on this question of Saddam-al Qaeda. So, in fact, Senator Graham's -- it's correct for an overseer, for a Congressional overseer, to question this, but I talked to other members of Congress who say -- Democrat and Republican -- who say that George Tenet basically calls it straight when he gets a piece of information and he believes to it be true, he'll report it.
ZAHN: But you suggest sometime this information is a little bit murky in this article, and you say sometimes conclusions are being raised or being made on the basis of information, A, that is either not known or B, information simply that they don't have, and you quote Donald Rumsfeld as saying the followings: "There are knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. I think this construct is just powerful, the unknown unknowns, we do not even know what we don't know then."
GOLDBERG: That's right. I think what the secretary means by that is a kind of a call for humility on part of intelligence analysts. In the wake of 9/11, people have realized the limitations of intelligence, and of the intelligence community. And I think what that means is, just because you don't have positive proof of something, you shouldn't rule out that something may indeed have taken place or may indeed will take place, that's the lesson of Pearl Harbor and lesson of 9/11. That said, I happen to believe, based on conversations with many people in the intelligence community, that there are -- that they've reached a certain level of proof, and I think this is what you're going to hear from Secretary Powell on Wednesday.
ZAHN: Yes -- we will be covering all of that live, Jeffrey Goldberg, thanks for dropping by to share a little bit of your article that will appear in the upcoming issue of "New Yorker." Thanks again for your time this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
