Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

Did the White House Drop the Ball or Lie?

Aired January 26, 2004 - 14:33   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.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now I want to explore this controversy with international security expert Jim Walsh. He is with Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jim, good to see you.
JIM WALSH, BELFER CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS: Good to see you, Carol.

LIN: Help us get to the bottom line here. Did Saddam Hussein and Iraq have weapons of mass destruction shortly before the United States went to war with that country?

WALSH: I think David Kay who was head of the Iraqi survey team gives a pretty clear answer. The answer is no. He says not only are there not weapons to be found in Iraq today, but furthermore, there weren't any weapons there in the run-up to the war, that the suspicion that in the late '90s that Iraq may have had chemical or nuclear or biological weapons turns out to be completely false.

LIN: The vice president made a speech in defending the United States' reasons to go to war. He flatly said that country has weapons of mass destruction. So on what did he base that information on?

WALSH: Well, Carol, that's a great question. And I can only encourage to you ask the vice president because pretty much everyone else thinks that there are no weapons in Iraq.

Why do I say that? I say that because we've been on the ground there for something like ten months. So we've had time to look at the facilities, time to read the documents, and we've had time to interview the scientists.

And these programs were big enough, thousands of people employed, that we would have found something out from interviewing these folks, maybe not from the top guy. But we would have worked our way down and found something if there was something to have been found. And it's not happening.

And that's why you get these rather flat but controversial remarks from David Kay.

LIN: Now how could American intelligence then be so wrong?

WALSH: That's a good question. A lot of folks, myself included, suspected that maybe Iraq had some weapons left over from their war with Iran. Remember during the 1980s there was an Iran/Iraq war. But some people said they had big programs that they were on the verge of threatening the United States that the danger was imminent. And then it turned out not to be true.

Now part of that may be problems with the intelligence. And David Kay lays it at the foot of the CIA. It's always easy to blame the intelligence people. I think that's only part of the problem. There were unchallenged assumptions. And the CIA and others have to work on that.

But the president and the White House, they have a share in the blame here. They were pushing this gung ho. I think the real question is not whether the intelligence was good or bad, but is it good enough as we go forward?

If we're going to have a doctrine of preemption were we go and we whack people because we're concerned about what they're doing, we have to have better intelligence if this strategy is going to work.

In the absence of that intelligence, a preemptive attack doctrine is a very dangerous policy indeed.

LIN: So are you saying that the White House took information that may have been limited at the time and twisted it for its own political purpose?

WALSH: Well, I don't know if I had's use the verb "twisted." But it's pretty clear. The reporting I think is clear.

No. 1, the administration came to office wanting to get Saddam Hussein, to oust him from power. That is unchallenged.

No. 2, Secretary Wolfowitz indicated in remarks earlier this year that they were shopping around for a rational. Was it human rights abuses? Was it WMD? Whatever. And they settled on WMD because that's what they thought they could sell to the American public.

We also thirdly have instances in which intelligence analysts have complained that they've been pressured to give certain results that were in support of the administration's conclusion.

So, again, I think it's a couple of different things going on together. Part of it was intelligence that had assumptions that went unchallenged, part of it was an anxiousness on the part of the Bush administration to push forward with that intervention.

LIN: But when you look at also what else David Kay said about what was missed, I mean look, North Korea is developing its nuclear program. Libya suddenly admits to developing a nuclear program. Iran has a nuclear program in place. American intelligence missed all of that.

So does that suggest there is something wrong and that it should in fact be investigated? That there should be a congressional investigation as Joe Lieberman has suggested? WALSH: I think we should have a congressional investigation just so we can see the documents. And even before the list that you mentioned, remember back in 1998 we missed the planned nuclear test that India conducted. That came as a great surprise.

But I don't think we should just engage in intelligence bashing. No. 1, this is a hard job. It's hard to get good intelligence.

And, secondly, if you read between the lines, if you look at some of those documents and they've released some of them, there was a dispute within the intelligence community. The State Department intelligence folks consistently questioned -- were consistently skeptical of some of the claims being made by others.

And I do think, as I say, there was some pressure or whether if not intended, analysts felt as if there was pressure to come up with certain conclusions.

So sure, we've got to improve our intelligence. We ought to look at it, we ought to try. But I think we ought to be somewhat sympathetic and cut these folks a break. It's tough to do. And the real question is not whether it's good or bad, but is it good enough for us to go around attacking people preemptively. There, I think the answer is no.

LIN: You can imagine -- or I imagine, you can hear the debate raging in Washington all the way there in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

WALSH: You better believe it.

LIN: Jim Walsh, thank you very much for your perspective.

WALSH: Thank you, Carol.

LIN: Always appreciate it.

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 January 26, 2004 - 14:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now I want to explore this controversy with international security expert Jim Walsh. He is with Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jim, good to see you.
JIM WALSH, BELFER CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS: Good to see you, Carol.

LIN: Help us get to the bottom line here. Did Saddam Hussein and Iraq have weapons of mass destruction shortly before the United States went to war with that country?

WALSH: I think David Kay who was head of the Iraqi survey team gives a pretty clear answer. The answer is no. He says not only are there not weapons to be found in Iraq today, but furthermore, there weren't any weapons there in the run-up to the war, that the suspicion that in the late '90s that Iraq may have had chemical or nuclear or biological weapons turns out to be completely false.

LIN: The vice president made a speech in defending the United States' reasons to go to war. He flatly said that country has weapons of mass destruction. So on what did he base that information on?

WALSH: Well, Carol, that's a great question. And I can only encourage to you ask the vice president because pretty much everyone else thinks that there are no weapons in Iraq.

Why do I say that? I say that because we've been on the ground there for something like ten months. So we've had time to look at the facilities, time to read the documents, and we've had time to interview the scientists.

And these programs were big enough, thousands of people employed, that we would have found something out from interviewing these folks, maybe not from the top guy. But we would have worked our way down and found something if there was something to have been found. And it's not happening.

And that's why you get these rather flat but controversial remarks from David Kay.

LIN: Now how could American intelligence then be so wrong?

WALSH: That's a good question. A lot of folks, myself included, suspected that maybe Iraq had some weapons left over from their war with Iran. Remember during the 1980s there was an Iran/Iraq war. But some people said they had big programs that they were on the verge of threatening the United States that the danger was imminent. And then it turned out not to be true.

Now part of that may be problems with the intelligence. And David Kay lays it at the foot of the CIA. It's always easy to blame the intelligence people. I think that's only part of the problem. There were unchallenged assumptions. And the CIA and others have to work on that.

But the president and the White House, they have a share in the blame here. They were pushing this gung ho. I think the real question is not whether the intelligence was good or bad, but is it good enough as we go forward?

If we're going to have a doctrine of preemption were we go and we whack people because we're concerned about what they're doing, we have to have better intelligence if this strategy is going to work.

In the absence of that intelligence, a preemptive attack doctrine is a very dangerous policy indeed.

LIN: So are you saying that the White House took information that may have been limited at the time and twisted it for its own political purpose?

WALSH: Well, I don't know if I had's use the verb "twisted." But it's pretty clear. The reporting I think is clear.

No. 1, the administration came to office wanting to get Saddam Hussein, to oust him from power. That is unchallenged.

No. 2, Secretary Wolfowitz indicated in remarks earlier this year that they were shopping around for a rational. Was it human rights abuses? Was it WMD? Whatever. And they settled on WMD because that's what they thought they could sell to the American public.

We also thirdly have instances in which intelligence analysts have complained that they've been pressured to give certain results that were in support of the administration's conclusion.

So, again, I think it's a couple of different things going on together. Part of it was intelligence that had assumptions that went unchallenged, part of it was an anxiousness on the part of the Bush administration to push forward with that intervention.

LIN: But when you look at also what else David Kay said about what was missed, I mean look, North Korea is developing its nuclear program. Libya suddenly admits to developing a nuclear program. Iran has a nuclear program in place. American intelligence missed all of that.

So does that suggest there is something wrong and that it should in fact be investigated? That there should be a congressional investigation as Joe Lieberman has suggested? WALSH: I think we should have a congressional investigation just so we can see the documents. And even before the list that you mentioned, remember back in 1998 we missed the planned nuclear test that India conducted. That came as a great surprise.

But I don't think we should just engage in intelligence bashing. No. 1, this is a hard job. It's hard to get good intelligence.

And, secondly, if you read between the lines, if you look at some of those documents and they've released some of them, there was a dispute within the intelligence community. The State Department intelligence folks consistently questioned -- were consistently skeptical of some of the claims being made by others.

And I do think, as I say, there was some pressure or whether if not intended, analysts felt as if there was pressure to come up with certain conclusions.

So sure, we've got to improve our intelligence. We ought to look at it, we ought to try. But I think we ought to be somewhat sympathetic and cut these folks a break. It's tough to do. And the real question is not whether it's good or bad, but is it good enough for us to go around attacking people preemptively. There, I think the answer is no.

LIN: You can imagine -- or I imagine, you can hear the debate raging in Washington all the way there in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

WALSH: You better believe it.

LIN: Jim Walsh, thank you very much for your perspective.

WALSH: Thank you, Carol.

LIN: Always appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com