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American Morning

America Under Attack: Former CIA Director Discusses Possible Links to Attack

Aired September 12, 2001 - 10:48   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: A lot of people wanting information about how this investigation would take place, how government authorities will get to bottom of who carried out these attacks.

Let's bring in James Woolsey, former CIA director, director from '93 to '95, also a former ambassador.

Mr. Ambassador, good morning and thanks for joining us here.

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Good morning. Good to be with you.

KAGAN: Any clues you're hearing as they come -- as more information becomes available, that it's giving you an indication as to who might be responsible for these attacks?

WOOLSEY: Well, of course, there's a lot of information that points toward bin Laden's group, and that's understandable; bin Laden has been advertising himself now for some time, issuing, thought was, religious declaratives, condemnations, making videotapes, quoting poems, having his subordinates all talk about how they're going to be carrying out major terrorist operations against the U.S. So it may well be the case, that bin Laden's group was instrumental in this, and in fact, they carried it out.

But one wants to be careful using the word "behind it" because there's at least some possibility that someone else was behind it. This is a very complex operation, and the possibility was a state- sponsor behind or working with bin Laden, such as possibly Iraq, I think has to be investigated.

There's a book out late last year by Laurie Milroy (ph) called "Saddam's Study of Revenge" about the possibility that Saddam was behind the 1973 World Trade Center bombing and that Ramzi Yousef, who was the mastermind of that, was involved with Iraqi intelligence. That information has been pooh-poohed to some extent by the Clinton administration.

KAGAN: Mr. Ambassador, I'm going to have you hold on one second. We want to go live now to the White House.

(INTERRUPTED BY NEWS BRIEFING)

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