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American Morning

New York Angered Over Terrorist Intelligence Gap

Aired March 05, 2002 - 08:16   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: More now on the reaction of that nuclear threat report from CNN national security correspondent David Ensor, who joins us every Tuesday with our intelligence brief.

David, I don't know whether you had a chance to listen in on the conversation we just had, but you have some new information about why the CIA didn't actually want to get the word out. Why is that?

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, they're a little -- I guess to put it mildly, upset, over there at the CIA and at some of the other federal agencies that this story has gotten so much attention. Not because it's wrong, they say it is true, there was an intelligence report that a Russian nuclear weapon might be missing and there might be a plot to use it in New York City. But, they say, the report right from the very start, in the very first write-up of this one DIA source's information, said that he was not a credible source. And they say they have no evidence -- and they watch closely -- that any Russian nuclear weapon is missing or has ever been missing.

So they feel that the amount of attention this has been given has been kind of out of whack. They say that if this kind of intelligence report was given to Mayor Giuliani and other New York officials -- there were two or three others in that same week that were more worrisome -- he would have had little less to do but listen to intelligence reports, they say, if this had -- if this kind of thing was passed on. So they are saying this thing has been blown out of proportion, quite frankly. Although they are admitting there was one DIA source who made this claim -- Paula.

ZAHN: But you just heard what our guests had to say. Essentially, you know, John Timoney said, "Hey, we're big guys. We run big city police forces." You know, just at least alert us to this possibility so we can be thinking about a plan if this ends up being something we really do have to worry about.

ENSOR: Well, what they say at the CIA and at other agencies in this town -- and I'm only quoting them, this is not my views I'm expressing -- is that if they put out that report, they'd have to put out many others. In that same week, there were several others that were more worrisome than this one because more credible. This was never seen as a credible threat. It was frankly described as a bogus report by an irresponsible DIA source that was not regarded as a serious person, someone who was credible. So what they're feeling is, is that the media sometimes picks up a particular item, makes a lead out of it -- because we always think what's new is obviously the lead -- and kind of it gets out of hand after a while. It loses its sense of proportion. That is the view from federal officials I've spoken to at least. And they're also...

ZAHN: What's...

ENSOR: Sorry, go ahead.

ZAHN: Oh, go ahead, David. Finish that thought.

ENSOR: Well, they're sort of upset about the "TIME" magazine piece in general, which of course has a lot of other criticisms. It's a cover piece in "TIME" magazine, it has some other criticisms of the CIA's handling of this war. And they're sort of in a position of saying they think there's a number of factual errors and they're defending the way the CIA has behaved in Afghanistan, saying the war wouldn't have gone nearly so quickly if there hadn't been good intelligence gathered quickly and effectively for U.S. forces -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right. We're going to have to leave our intelligence briefing there for this morning. David Ensor, thanks for your update. I appreciate it.

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