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American Morning

CIA's Role in Making Middle East Peace

Aired April 30, 2002 - 08:26   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.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: At the Ramallah compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, negotiations are under way about exactly how to turn over six Palestinians to American and British control. It's all part of a deal that is supposed to end with Yasser Arafat being released from the compound where he's been under virtual house arrest for more than a month.

The CIA has been acting behind-the-scenes in the Middle East. The question this morning is what role, if any, did it have in negotiating this deal at Ramallah?

CNN national security correspondent David Ensor joins us from Washington with more on that and a couple of other things -- hello, David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Jack.

Well, the CIA is not talking about any role they may or may not have had in those negotiations. But the agency has been in the thick of anything that the United States is interested in in the Middle East for quite some years now. And you can probably assume that the agency was involved in the negotiations.

These are the prisoners, the Palestinian prisoners accused of involvement in the killing of an Israeli cabinet officer. Those are going to be guarded now by British and Americans. And that deal was, we believe, brokered at least in part with help from the CIA.

George Tenet, the director of Central Intelligence, is being asked by the Bush administration to stand by to be ready to go to the region to try to get security talks going again between the Israelis and the Palestinian security people. The problem there is that so much damage was done to Palestinian security services in the Middle East by the recent Israeli incursions, that the Palestinians are, A, not inclined to cooperate, and B, don't have the wherewithal.

So agency officials saying if and when Tenet goes, a large part of the job will be figuring out what the Palestinians will need in order to be able to cooperate against terrorism in the Middle East -- Jack.

CAFFERTY: Well, it's not inconceivable that our CIA may, in fact, be involved at some level in helping to restore some of those facilities that were destroyed in the recent violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, correct?

ENSOR: Absolutely correct. In fact, it's not official but there's a kind of general understanding that the CIA helped pay for those facilities in the first place. It certainly has helped train and equip the Palestinian security forces in the past, Jack.

CAFFERTY: This is probably as good a time as any to revisit what was the number one criticism in the wake of the events of September 11, which was that overseas we didn't have enough intelligence on the ground, that we were relying much too heavily on technology, and because of that our intelligence was not sufficient to give us any kind of heads up on the events that were about to take place September the 11th.

There has been a congressional commission investigating all of this ever since those dark days and I'm just curious what you're hearing about what they may have learned and about we may or may not be told at this point about any failings that may have existed?

ENSOR: Well, I can tell you that the members of that joint committee that is trying to look into 9/11 intelligence failures, some of them, at least, are hopping mad. They are asking for a meeting with Vice President Cheney or the president, preferably as soon as this week, to complain that the administration and the intelligence community has been dragging its feet on delivering documents that might be useful to that sort of an investigation.

So there's a storm brewing on this matter. Senators Shelby and Gramm, the chairman and the ranking member of the House -- of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are, in particular, upset and asking for a meeting with, probably with Vice President Cheney. They are saying that unless the administration sends a clear signal to the intelligence community that it is supposed to turn over documents concerning any possible intelligence failures leading to 9/11 that those documents are not likely to be turned over.

The investigation is in something of a state of, how should we put it, disarray this week after the Friday resignation of the staff director, Bridge Schneider (ph), a former CIA inspector general. Apparently some members of the committee were not happy with his work.

Particularly, the committee is not happy with the FBI, which it says has not been delivering documents, sources say particularly on the issue of Zacarias Moussaoui, the suspected 20th suicide hijacker who is, of course, being held in a U.S. prison facing a trial here.

You will recall that there were reports that the Minnesota office of the FBI had tried to alert Washington that this man apparently wanted to try to learn to fly an aircraft without trying to learn to land it, and they were concerned something might be afoot. The committee wants to look into whether or not the FBI missed important signals. But, as I say, sources close to the committee say they're not getting the cooperation that they need and they want to talk to the White House about it -- Jack.

CAFFERTY: More to come, it sounds like. David, thank you. It's always good to have you on the program.

ENSOR: Thank you.

CAFFERTY: David Ensor, CNN's national security correspondent, joining us from Washington. Have a good one.

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