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American Morning

CIA May Have Let Two of 9/11 Hijackers Slip Right Through Fingers

Aired June 03, 2002 - 09:07   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: This morning we have been reporting the "Newsweek" story that says the CIA let two of the 9/11 hijackers slip right through their fingers. And tonight, the A&E network program "Investigative Reports" actually focuses in on pre-9/11 warnings the government may have missed in a documentary called "Intelligence Failure."

Joining me are two featured players from Denver, Gary Hart, Co- Chairman of the U.S. Commission on National Security, and with me here in New York, "New York Times" reporter and terrorism expert, Judith Miller -- good to have both of you with us this morning. Good morning.

SEN. GARY HART, CO-CHAIRMAN, U.S. COMM. ON NATIONAL SECURITY: Thank you.

ZAHN: Judith, first of all, the significance of this "Newsweek" story on the heels of everything we've learned about the FBI over the last two weeks.

JUDITH MILLER, "NEW YORK TIMES": Well I think that is precisely it. The FBI was not the only institution that was not sharing information. The CIA knew about these two hijackers, or soon-to-be hijackers, did not give the information to the FBI, even though the two agencies are supposedly working side by side at a counter- terrorism center out at Langley at the CIA. It's yet another instance in which if you don't have people who have individual dots sharing them, how can you ever put them together? I think it's very, very serious.

ZAHN: Senator Hart, do you have any faith that when you look at the reforms that have just been recently made at the FBI and the fact now that the president is jointly briefed by the CIA and the FBI director that any of this will change?

HART: Well I think it has to change and I think the policy makers are coming to that conclusion. The question is, why did it take us 10 years after the end of the Cold War to begin to think differently in this country?

What I fear is that the proposed reforms in the FBI and other agencies are simply going to be not connecting the dots, but focusing on the old dots. What the FBI ought to do, it seems to me, is get this new unit outside the J. Edgar Hoover building, put a 35-year-old in charge of it, recruit heavily in the Arab-American community for very bright 25 and 30-year-olds, and build an entirely new system for protecting the homeland. And I don't frankly see that happening.

ZAHN: In the meantime, are you surprised that we haven't seen any resignations within the FBI or the CIA?

HART: Well, of course. We don't have a system, whether it's the military or government or anywhere else, where people are held accountable. And I think that's a fundamental failure of American democracy at the end of the 20th century.

No heads roll. And because of that, there is no -- the reward system works for those who keep their heads down and don't take chances or don't issue warnings. I think there is already fear for the agent who issued one warning that was not paid attention to, and she will have to be -- people will have to look after her. Because the way the system works is the people at the bottom are the ones that are fired if they issue warnings.

ZAHN: I see you shaking your head. And we should say that Cynthia Rowley's, of course, name was brought up in number of the Sunday shows yesterday -- excuse me, Coleen -- and a number of senators said they will make sure that she is protected by whistle- blower laws.

MILLER: I think that I'm not as worried about Special Agent Rowley. I am worried about the people who don't have that kind of protection, who have tried day after day to make things better. I mean, in addition to heads not rolling, we haven't seen a single offer a resignation, someone who himself or herself feels that they let the ball drop and that they should come forward and take some individual responsibility.

ZAHN: Is that because of what Senator Hart just described, the lack of accountability you find in these systems of the FBI and CIA.

MILLER: Well lack of accountability and something has changed in this country. After World War II, a great number of people both offered their resignations and did resign and were -- or were moved aside. I mean, I think that it's too easy to blame a bureaucracy and say, "Oh, the system is wrong." It's the individuals in the system who have to, I think, take a good look at themselves. And that's something we've tried to do tonight in this documentary.

ZAHN: And I wanted to share with our audience -- Senator Hart, before I chat with you, I wanted to listen to a very small part of what you say in this documentary tonight about the issue of accountability and what it is you think ultimately could change the system to help protect Americans from a future terrorist attack -- let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HART: This is a mess. This is a mess. That's the problem. And it's not a question of, are the people at the airports doing their job? It's a question is the entirety of the United States government coordinated to prevent this from happening? And the answer is no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who can make that happen?

HART: The president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think he will?

HART: After the next attack, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Why do you say after the next attack, Senator Hart?

HART: Well because nine months have gone by and we're just getting around to changing the way the FBI does business. It is amazing to me how little has changed in the past nine months given the fact that we lost 3,000 American lives.

And by the way, in terms of accountability, I would put members of Congress in there as well. Oversight committees are supposed to be finding out why things are not happening. So now there are a lot of members of Congress finger-pointing and saying you've got to do this, you've got to do that. Well where have they been for the last nine months?

ZAHN: Judy, you're nodding yes.

MILLER: I think I have to agree with that. I mean, there's enough blame to go around. There's too much blame to go around. And what strikes me as interesting also is how long it's taken for these individual memos in the FBI offices across the country to kind of surface.

We had FBI Director Mueller saying that, in fact, it couldn't have been prevented, 9/11. There wasn't enough information. And now we see months afterwards that he's beginning to say very different things.

ZAHN: Is it clear to you what he's saying right now? Because in an interview on Thursday he basically said maybe if you connected the dots it could have been prevented, and then seemed to back of from that.

MILLER: Well I think he still believes that, and he's going to have to believe that because so much information is coming out. But Paula, what he's now saying also is, "I was only on the job a week before September 11th." So I think he clearly must also be worried about his own (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ZAHN: Senator Hart, a final word from you this morning about what you see as the inevitability of another terrorist attack against the U.S. What could the president do now that he hasn't done up to this point?

HART: Well the most important thing that needs to be done is to create a national homeland security agency. Not an office or a council, but an agency to empower either Governor Ridge or someone to coordinate, to reorganize, to consolidate and coordinate genuinely under -- by statute with budgetary authority the disparate pieces of this puzzle.

I think we are virtually no better protected today than we were a few months ago. And the system that we're undertaking here of exhortation by Governor Ridge simply isn't enough. And the buck will stop on the president's desk when the next attack occurs.

ZAHN: Judith, just about 10 seconds left and we've got to go.

MILLER: I'm not sure that I would use the word "inevitable" for the next attack. I just think that the responsibility of everyone now, journalists and the government considering it, is to make sure that we do everything we can to prevent the next attack.

ZAHN: Judith Miller, thanks for your insights this morning. Senator Gary Hart, thank you for joining us well. Appreciate it very much.

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