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CNN Live Today
Reaction to Tenet's Speech
Aired February 05, 2004 - 10:38 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. I think we worked out our bugs in our audio system. Let's try and bring in Walter Pincus again, national intelligence reporter for "The Washington Post."
Are you with us?
WALTER PINCUS, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I'm with you.
KAGAN: Good morning. Good to have you here with us.
You were listening in to George Tenet's speech right along with us. What are your impressions of what you heard?
PINCUS: Well, I think David's got it right, that he was coming out fighting. He's -- he and the agency, and he feels very strongly about the agency, have been under attack now for quite a period of time, not just from critics of the war in Iraq, but also supporters, and underneath it all, some concern that people within the administration, even the White House, want to make the CIA the scapegoat. So he is defending his people.
KAGAN: And what about his exact role? This is a man who came into power, came into his office, during the Clinton administration. You rarely see somebody last this long. There are those who would like to make him the scapegoat. What's he still doing there?
PINCUS: Well, I think one of the things he feels strongly about, he came in, he was really the fifth director in something like six years, and the agency was in a real mess. People were leaving. There had been two or three changes made. The human intelligence group just picked up and took retirement in big groups. So they were weak all over. And being sort of hit on the Hill. Since he worked on the Hill, he feels strongly about reconstructing the agency and that took time. And it took time for him to be accepted, because essentially he never worked for the CIA. He was looked on as a Capitol Hill bureaucrat, and particularly in the Clinton administration, when President Clinton didn't make intelligence and CIA his No. 1 priority.
He was -- he made a very strong and tight arrangement with President Bush when President Bush came in, and that's been sort of secure. It's almost an umbilical cord, and that's helped strengthen what the agency's done.
And the second part of what he did today, which is, one, defend Iraq and the Iraqi intelligence. But what he also did, which really hasn't been done is tell the success stories, some of which come to fruition just in recent days, and the idea was, if you look at the countries in which there were successes -- Libya, Iran, Pakistan's sort of black markets here -- these are all areas in which he had been specifically criticized for not having information over the last two weeks.
KAGAN: Thank you for bearing with us with our technical difficulties. It always good to hear your insight, Walter Pincus from "The Washington Post." Thank you, Walter.
PINCUS: You're welcome.
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 5, 2004 - 10:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. I think we worked out our bugs in our audio system. Let's try and bring in Walter Pincus again, national intelligence reporter for "The Washington Post."
Are you with us?
WALTER PINCUS, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I'm with you.
KAGAN: Good morning. Good to have you here with us.
You were listening in to George Tenet's speech right along with us. What are your impressions of what you heard?
PINCUS: Well, I think David's got it right, that he was coming out fighting. He's -- he and the agency, and he feels very strongly about the agency, have been under attack now for quite a period of time, not just from critics of the war in Iraq, but also supporters, and underneath it all, some concern that people within the administration, even the White House, want to make the CIA the scapegoat. So he is defending his people.
KAGAN: And what about his exact role? This is a man who came into power, came into his office, during the Clinton administration. You rarely see somebody last this long. There are those who would like to make him the scapegoat. What's he still doing there?
PINCUS: Well, I think one of the things he feels strongly about, he came in, he was really the fifth director in something like six years, and the agency was in a real mess. People were leaving. There had been two or three changes made. The human intelligence group just picked up and took retirement in big groups. So they were weak all over. And being sort of hit on the Hill. Since he worked on the Hill, he feels strongly about reconstructing the agency and that took time. And it took time for him to be accepted, because essentially he never worked for the CIA. He was looked on as a Capitol Hill bureaucrat, and particularly in the Clinton administration, when President Clinton didn't make intelligence and CIA his No. 1 priority.
He was -- he made a very strong and tight arrangement with President Bush when President Bush came in, and that's been sort of secure. It's almost an umbilical cord, and that's helped strengthen what the agency's done.
And the second part of what he did today, which is, one, defend Iraq and the Iraqi intelligence. But what he also did, which really hasn't been done is tell the success stories, some of which come to fruition just in recent days, and the idea was, if you look at the countries in which there were successes -- Libya, Iran, Pakistan's sort of black markets here -- these are all areas in which he had been specifically criticized for not having information over the last two weeks.
KAGAN: Thank you for bearing with us with our technical difficulties. It always good to hear your insight, Walter Pincus from "The Washington Post." Thank you, Walter.
PINCUS: You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
