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Breaking News
Admiral John Poindexter Will Resign
Aired July 31, 2003 - 13:41 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: Two breaking news stories we want to bring to you right now. First, the breaking news story out of Iraq, and into the safety of Jordan. CNN has learned Saddam Hussein's two daughters are now in Jordan, under protection of the Jordanian government. The women arrived there from Iraq with their nine children. We'll continue to follow this story as we get more details. That story -- another story breaking at this moment. We go straight to the Pentagon with our Barbara Starr -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, a senior U.S. defense official has just confirmed to journalists that retired Admiral John Poindexter will be resigning from his position at the Pentagon in the next several weeks.
Now as you may remember earlier this week, Admiral Poindexter's research program to gather information and material about terrorism became incredibly controversial, and now he will be resigning from office.
Admiral Poindexter has been heading up a program called the Terrorism Information Awareness Program, established after 9/11 to be a research program to gather as much information as possible about terrorism activity.
But one of his projects became extraordinarily controversial this week. It was a research project to essentially establish a commodities futures trading-type organization, in trying to predict terrorist activity or terrorism events. This became very controversial on Capitol Hill. And within hours of learning about the program, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld canceled the program, and now arrangements are being made for Admiral Poindexter to resign from office within the next few weeks.
This was the second program Admiral Poindexter has been involved in at the Pentagon that had become controversial in the last several months. Now a senior defense official telling reporters that some of Admiral Poindexter's programs, quoting this official, had been unorthodox, or at least seemed to be unorthodox, in terms of the research being done by his organization, and that it had become difficult to achieve a reasonably objective view of the research being done by Admiral Poindexter's organization.
So now, within days of this controversy erupting, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ending this latest effort by Admiral Poindexter's office, and now his resignation is in place, and he will be leaving in the next few weeks. And of course, everyone will remember Admiral Poindexter as being one of the central figures in the Iran-Contra scandal several years ago -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Barbara Starr from the Pentagon, thank you.
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 July 31, 2003 - 13:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Two breaking news stories we want to bring to you right now. First, the breaking news story out of Iraq, and into the safety of Jordan. CNN has learned Saddam Hussein's two daughters are now in Jordan, under protection of the Jordanian government. The women arrived there from Iraq with their nine children. We'll continue to follow this story as we get more details. That story -- another story breaking at this moment. We go straight to the Pentagon with our Barbara Starr -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, a senior U.S. defense official has just confirmed to journalists that retired Admiral John Poindexter will be resigning from his position at the Pentagon in the next several weeks.
Now as you may remember earlier this week, Admiral Poindexter's research program to gather information and material about terrorism became incredibly controversial, and now he will be resigning from office.
Admiral Poindexter has been heading up a program called the Terrorism Information Awareness Program, established after 9/11 to be a research program to gather as much information as possible about terrorism activity.
But one of his projects became extraordinarily controversial this week. It was a research project to essentially establish a commodities futures trading-type organization, in trying to predict terrorist activity or terrorism events. This became very controversial on Capitol Hill. And within hours of learning about the program, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld canceled the program, and now arrangements are being made for Admiral Poindexter to resign from office within the next few weeks.
This was the second program Admiral Poindexter has been involved in at the Pentagon that had become controversial in the last several months. Now a senior defense official telling reporters that some of Admiral Poindexter's programs, quoting this official, had been unorthodox, or at least seemed to be unorthodox, in terms of the research being done by his organization, and that it had become difficult to achieve a reasonably objective view of the research being done by Admiral Poindexter's organization.
So now, within days of this controversy erupting, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ending this latest effort by Admiral Poindexter's office, and now his resignation is in place, and he will be leaving in the next few weeks. And of course, everyone will remember Admiral Poindexter as being one of the central figures in the Iran-Contra scandal several years ago -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Barbara Starr from the Pentagon, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
