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American Morning
Congressional Committee to Release 9/11 Findings
Aired September 18, 2002 - 08:09 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: A congressional committee that's been looking into 9/11 intelligence failures is expected to drop some bombshells this morning when it make some of those findings public for the first time.
National Security Correspondent David Ensor joins us now live from Washington with a preview -- David, good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: What do you think we're going to be most surprised by?
ENSOR: Well, it's going to be a fascinating morning and I don't really dare predict, because we haven't seen the staff report yet. But they are saying that the, that a lot of classified information about 9/11, about the use of aircraft as weapons will be released in a declassified form at the hearings today.
They'll start with a couple of witnesses who are survivors of victims of 9/11. We'll be reminded of the tragedy and its depth and the importance of getting to the bottom of it and making sure this doesn't happen again.
And to that end, staff director Eleanor Hill will testify next. And she's going to read a 30 page report with a lot of detail about what intelligence agencies, the CIA and others, knew before 9/11. And they're looking for clues to see whether U.S. intelligence missed anything. They believe in some cases they did.
They also say that they don't think the U.S. government told the American people enough about the nature of the threat, the seriousness of the threat from Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network. There was a lot of intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda was serious about coming after Americans and they say that not enough of that was communicated to the American people -- Paula.
ZAHN: But, David, hasn't it also been made public through even CNN's reporting that it is abundantly clear that somewhere in all of this the dots weren't connected in any way, sometimes at the CIA and the FBI and sometimes with other government agencies?
ENSOR: Well, that's right. And, of course, we have the advantage of hindsight now. Remember that back during the summer before 9/11, we in the media were, we were talking about Gary Condit. We weren't talking about al Qaeda and the threat to the United States. So the country just wasn't ready. This committee believes, or the staff at least believe that there was a responsibility on the part of the U.S. government to have prepared people, to have warned people to a greater extent than they did.
ZAHN: But, David, is there any speculation about who is going to look really bad in all this? We know enough yet -- I know it hasn't been released -- but just speculation about who might take the biggest fall here?
ENSOR: Hard to say. The only piece of information that's so far out in public, which was first reported on CNN, was two intercepts that were collected by the National Security Agency, the eavesdropping intelligence agency, on the day before September 11, which seemed to indicate, they were kind of in code, you know, the match begins tomorrow, that kind of thing.
ZAHN: Right.
ENSOR: If that had been translated in time, that might have been a warning to others. But we do not know who's going to take the fall, if anybody, from the information today -- Paula.
ZAHN: All right, David Ensor.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 18, 2002 - 08:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: A congressional committee that's been looking into 9/11 intelligence failures is expected to drop some bombshells this morning when it make some of those findings public for the first time.
National Security Correspondent David Ensor joins us now live from Washington with a preview -- David, good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: What do you think we're going to be most surprised by?
ENSOR: Well, it's going to be a fascinating morning and I don't really dare predict, because we haven't seen the staff report yet. But they are saying that the, that a lot of classified information about 9/11, about the use of aircraft as weapons will be released in a declassified form at the hearings today.
They'll start with a couple of witnesses who are survivors of victims of 9/11. We'll be reminded of the tragedy and its depth and the importance of getting to the bottom of it and making sure this doesn't happen again.
And to that end, staff director Eleanor Hill will testify next. And she's going to read a 30 page report with a lot of detail about what intelligence agencies, the CIA and others, knew before 9/11. And they're looking for clues to see whether U.S. intelligence missed anything. They believe in some cases they did.
They also say that they don't think the U.S. government told the American people enough about the nature of the threat, the seriousness of the threat from Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network. There was a lot of intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda was serious about coming after Americans and they say that not enough of that was communicated to the American people -- Paula.
ZAHN: But, David, hasn't it also been made public through even CNN's reporting that it is abundantly clear that somewhere in all of this the dots weren't connected in any way, sometimes at the CIA and the FBI and sometimes with other government agencies?
ENSOR: Well, that's right. And, of course, we have the advantage of hindsight now. Remember that back during the summer before 9/11, we in the media were, we were talking about Gary Condit. We weren't talking about al Qaeda and the threat to the United States. So the country just wasn't ready. This committee believes, or the staff at least believe that there was a responsibility on the part of the U.S. government to have prepared people, to have warned people to a greater extent than they did.
ZAHN: But, David, is there any speculation about who is going to look really bad in all this? We know enough yet -- I know it hasn't been released -- but just speculation about who might take the biggest fall here?
ENSOR: Hard to say. The only piece of information that's so far out in public, which was first reported on CNN, was two intercepts that were collected by the National Security Agency, the eavesdropping intelligence agency, on the day before September 11, which seemed to indicate, they were kind of in code, you know, the match begins tomorrow, that kind of thing.
ZAHN: Right.
ENSOR: If that had been translated in time, that might have been a warning to others. But we do not know who's going to take the fall, if anybody, from the information today -- Paula.
ZAHN: All right, David Ensor.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
