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CNN Live Saturday

Interviews With Congressmen Mike Pence, Harold Ford

Aired May 18, 2002 - 12:14   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: The White House digging in for what may be a long political battle over its handling of terror warnings before September 11. Some Democrats are calling for hearings into the matter, while many Republicans are criticizing what they say amounts to Monday morning quarterbacking.

For more on the debate, we're joined by Democratic Congressman Harold Ford in New York and Republican Congressman Mike Pence in our Washington bureau. Thanks, gentlemen, for joining us.

Well, Congressman Ford, I'd like to begin with you. Why is it necessary and prudent to second-guess the White House at this juncture, particularly when so many family members are still suffering from and are still very pained by the 9/11 attacks?

REP. HAROLD FORD (D), TENNESSEE: No, I wouldn't term it second- guessing. I think these are legitimate, albeit tough questions that this White House is going to have to respond to. I think one of the central questions that many of us have is at a minimum, is at least since September 11, what steps have been taken to streamline our intelligence bureaucracy to ensure that this very complicated and vast network bureaucracy, which in a lot of ways encourages a kind of inefficiency, that would take steps to move beyond that and ensure that answers and not accusations can be made. And indeed when information is about to be shared or information is learned, that it can quickly move up a chain of command.

Right now, we don't have that, and this White House in a lot of ways has created some of its own problems. I think that there's a great, great disturbance amongst many people that we had to learn about these things via leaks. The White House should have shared it. The Congress and White House should be working together to ensure that the kind of mistakes that were made are prevented in the future and that we're able to take steps to prevent a future 9/11, or for that matter attacks in any of our allied nations as well.

WHITFIELD: Well, congressman, you said you wouldn't call this second-guessing, but isn't this indeed what this is? The questions are being asked to the White House to explain in detail what they knew. The White House is saying, we had these very vague indicators. That's not enough. The question's still being asked, what more? Is it really that the information was merely vague?

FORD: This is no suggestion at all that President Bush or for that matter any president would not have acted had they had the specific dates, times and locations in which an attack might have occurred. I guess the question that I have, Ms. Whitfield, is since that time, what steps have been taken to make our bureaucracy better, to ensure that information sharing and information technology and management systems are better integrated?

I would have thought that the White House would have presented a plan that had more to it than just perhaps accusing Democrats, blaming them or accusing Democrats of second-guessing.

One of the things I hope we all learned from this is that mistakes were made, and what steps can be taken to prevent future mistakes. And the tone I hear from the White House is not one of how do we get beyond this, it is more so Democrats are to blame and they're attempting to divide. By no means is that the case.

WHITFIELD: Well, Congressman Pence, let me bring you in here. Sixty-nine percent of Americans feel like this probing of the White House is politically motivated, given the fact this is an election year, that the Democrats are pressing on this issue so as to perhaps taint the Republican position or at least the White House. If that is the case, in your opinion, wouldn't lessons be learned, as Congressman Ford put, by particularly zeroing in on what was known and when it was known? Perhaps this information can be used as a CIA begins to revamp its intelligence arm, as well as the other intelligence agencies?

REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: Absolutely, Fredricka, and that's why the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have been busy for months looking at all of this information, looking at what was obviously some institutional failures that occurred.

And nobody has more respect for Harold Ford than me, but I'm a little mystified to listen to his comments about how these problems have not been addressed. It seems to me we established, Harold, an Office of Homeland Security. Tom Ridge is heading up that office. We have devoted billions of dollars to homeland security. We will take up a defense supplemental bill next week that will spend even more money on homeland defense. We're addressing these issues.

I really believe, Fredricka, that Harold's comment that he would not suggest that any president would not act on specific information is admirable, but the problem is many partisan Democrats are actually implying that the president knew about these attacks beforehand and did nothing. I think that is outrageous and unacceptable, and it puts them, candidly, very close to the lunatic fringe of American politics.

WHITFIELD: And isn't the problem too now that we're talking about a post 9/11 culture versus the pre-9/11 culture? And the information is handled and considered very differently now than it was pre-9/11 days?

PENCE: Absolutely. Absolutely.

FORD: But the problem is, we don't know that. We don't know if there's a better way. And I respect Mike Pence, I hope he doesn't mean to suggest I'm a lunatic for raising some of these issues, but... PENCE: No, not you, Harold, but some of your friends on both sides of the Congress are implying the president had knowledge.

FORD: Well, he had some knowledge. In terms of the specificity of it, congressman, we don't know. One thing is clear is that there have been many presidents who've received intelligence data suggesting that an attack on our nation could occur.

The question I would have is since September 11 -- and perhaps my colleague has information or is privy to this -- what steps have been taken to better coordinate the network in our intelligence bureaucracy to ensure that when a Phoenix or a Minneapolis or a Memphis or an Indianapolis FBI office comes across information that could be useful or helpful in foiling an attack that that information is then able to make it up the chain of command.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: We're running out of time, congressman, we're running out of time. But let me interject with this. Congressman Pence, if you could please respond to the dangers or how helpful it might be to have congressional hearings, whether it would be behind closed doors, or whether it would be open to public hearings to further investigate how the White House should be better handling such warnings or threats?

PENCE: Fredricka, it's absolutely important. It's a point on which Harold and I completely agree. Democratic Senator Bob Graham, Republican Congressman Porter Goss are right now and have been for months engaged in Intelligence Committee inquiries into the institutional failures here. But once again, I must tell you -- to see Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton go to the floor with a scandal newspaper from there in New York, Harold, that reads the headline, "Bush Knew" -- to me is just utterly outrageous. It is scare mongering of the worst kind, and we ought to reject it.

WHITFIELD: Will we see private committee meetings or are we going to see some public hearings on this matter?

FORD: I think they should be open. I think the public and the Congress has a right to be aware of what our entire intelligence community may know. Obviously, there are certain things that may be confidential, and I would trust the intelligence community to make decisions about that. But what I'm not seeing still, Ms. Whitfield, is a new way in which information can move up the chain of command. I think that's what many of us in Congress are most interested in in ensuring that a response that this White House comes up with to make sure that we have information processed, that is perhaps more important than anything at this moment.

WHITFIELD: All right, real quick.

PENCE: Fredricka, the most important thing is we have hearings but they don't compromise our national security.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks very much, Congressmen Mike Pence and Harold Ford, thanks very much for joining us this afternoon.

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