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American Morning

America's New War: President Bush to Visit CIA

Aired September 26, 2001 - 09:40   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.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Bush went across to visit the FBI to say thank you and cheer on those leading the investigation. The president leaves the White House again to go to another federal agency. This one has come under quite a bit of criticism in the wake of the September 11th attacks.

For more on that, let's bring in my colleague over at the White House Major Garrett -- Major.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

You know, after the September 11 attacks, there was a good deal of Monday morning quarterbacking in Washington about why the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, didn't pick up any strands whatsoever of this attack. And there was some questions being raised whether the CIA director George Tenet would suffer as a result of that.

Well clearly, as the Bush administration has assembled what's called it's war cabinet, George Tenet has not suffered at all. Here at the White House every morning briefing the president. That was true before the September 11th attacks. But now he stays. The briefing are much longer. He is stays for the war cabinet meetings every morning, later on in the day and he's become a crucial adviser to the president. The president will travel over to CIA headquarters, a little bit of a symbolic visit, to say, don't worry, I support you, you do important work, and you will do more important work in the future, and I will give you the tools and the money to do that the work even better.

There's a tremendous reassessment within the White House about exactly what the CIA should do as far as its human intelligence overseas. Should it deal with some more nefarious characters that under its own guidelines and congressional legislation hasn't for a while. It's under active consideration. the message today, the CIA does important work. The White House wants to tell the employees it's important now, will be more important in the future -- John.

KING: And, Major, a trip outside of Washington tomorrow to Chicago. What's the importance of that trip? Business for the president? Symbolism?

GARRETT: A little bit of both, John, heavy symbolism. It will be the first time the president has left Washington by Air Force One since the September 11th attack. He'll be flying to a major U.S. airport, O'Hare International, to talk with airline workers there to tell them it's important that the airline industry function, and that the work they do is important to that functioning. Also signal the American public, regain your confidence, get back on the airplanes, it's going to be safe to fly. Also express some confidence in the White House and Congress's ability to get an airline security piece of legislation through Congress. There's no signal from the White House that the president will specify exactly what he wants in the legislation tomorrow.

There's a good deal of dialogue between the White House and Congress about what exactly the political traffic will bear. Nothing has really borne fruit on that yet. But there are key issues -- strengthening the cockpit, putting federal Marshals aboard every airplane, possibly even arming the pilots themselves, although the White is a little bit leery of endorsing that type of proposal. Each one comes with cost, both to the airlines and Congress. All those things are being sorted out. That's a big part of the trip tomorrow.

KING: Major Garrett at the White House, thank you very much this morning.

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