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Kay Testifies Before Congress
Aired October 02, 2003 - 14:34 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: Congress is taking up the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The man heading the CIA's search for the weapons gave a report to the House Intelligence Committee earlier today. Then it was on to a Senate panel for David Kay and more tough questioning, of course. CNN's David Ensor joins us now live with more -- David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, that second session was the Senate Intelligence Committee and it should be getting under way now.
The message from Kay is not the message the administration and the CIA were hoping for though. The agency weapons search chief is on the Hill today telling lawmakers he has not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since June when he took the job and that he needs hundreds of millions of dollars more to continue the search, $600 million, according to sources on Capitol Hill.
Now the meetings are behind closed doors, but U.S. officials don't want to leave the public arena to congressional critics of the war. So they plan to release an unclassified version of Kay's testimony later today and some photographs, we are told, to back up his findings thus far.
Also, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been talking about this matter and has said that all the speculation that the intelligence on WMD before the war was wrong, is completely premature in his view since there's still a lot more searching left to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Why should someone think that it's suddenly -- today, October 2 is the time we should bring down final judgment on this when we know for a fact we've got 1,200 people out there working in the heat in very difficult conditions, interviewing and interrogating a pile of people, chasing down leads and suspects sites. It seems to me it wouldn't be a responsible position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENSOR: U.S. officials do say Kay's team has found dual use facilities, things like pharmaceutical plants with evidence they were prepared to quickly switch to producing biological weapons and an elaborate concealment effort suggesting the Iraqis may have had plenty to hide. But no weapons, Kyra. Not yet. PHILLIPS: All right, David Ensor, 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 October 2, 2003 - 14:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Congress is taking up the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The man heading the CIA's search for the weapons gave a report to the House Intelligence Committee earlier today. Then it was on to a Senate panel for David Kay and more tough questioning, of course. CNN's David Ensor joins us now live with more -- David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, that second session was the Senate Intelligence Committee and it should be getting under way now.
The message from Kay is not the message the administration and the CIA were hoping for though. The agency weapons search chief is on the Hill today telling lawmakers he has not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since June when he took the job and that he needs hundreds of millions of dollars more to continue the search, $600 million, according to sources on Capitol Hill.
Now the meetings are behind closed doors, but U.S. officials don't want to leave the public arena to congressional critics of the war. So they plan to release an unclassified version of Kay's testimony later today and some photographs, we are told, to back up his findings thus far.
Also, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been talking about this matter and has said that all the speculation that the intelligence on WMD before the war was wrong, is completely premature in his view since there's still a lot more searching left to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Why should someone think that it's suddenly -- today, October 2 is the time we should bring down final judgment on this when we know for a fact we've got 1,200 people out there working in the heat in very difficult conditions, interviewing and interrogating a pile of people, chasing down leads and suspects sites. It seems to me it wouldn't be a responsible position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENSOR: U.S. officials do say Kay's team has found dual use facilities, things like pharmaceutical plants with evidence they were prepared to quickly switch to producing biological weapons and an elaborate concealment effort suggesting the Iraqis may have had plenty to hide. But no weapons, Kyra. Not yet. PHILLIPS: All right, David Ensor, 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
