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American Morning
Interview with Senator John D. Rockefeller
Aired March 10, 2003 - 07:15 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: While the U.S. tries to win enough Security Council votes for an ultimatum that would force Iraq to disarm, there are some questions about whether the Bush administration is withholding vital intelligence information from U.N. weapons inspectors.
Senator J. Rockefeller of West Virginia is the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, and he joins us from Washington.
Good morning -- good of you to join us, sir.
SEN. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, (D-WV), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Thank you.
ZAHN: Let's start off with a report in "The New York Times" this morning about weapons inspectors apparently finding a bomb they believe might be configured to -- excuse me -- a rocket configured to strew bomblets (ph) laced with biological or chemical materials. Is this a smoking gun?
ROCKEFELLER: Potentially. But on the other hand, it's not totally confirmed. The Iraqis have sort of admitted to it under duress. And it can carry chemical or biological weapons. It's a cluster-type bomb. It's very dangerous. They're not meant to have it. And it's another reason why, you know, the whole inspection process is kind of under fire.
ZAHN: Do you think that's appropriate that it's under fire? Does the inspection process have any credibility in your eyes?
ROCKEFELLER: It does have credibility, but it -- Hussein doesn't, and their aggressive approach to Hussein strikes me not to have been quite aggressive enough. They should have known about this. It wasn't reported. He shouldn't have it in the first place. So he's in violation.
ZAHN: One of your colleagues on the Intelligence Committee, Senator Levin, argues that he believes the weapons inspectors are hampered by the lack of specific intelligence information. Here's what he had to say no the air yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: Now, Tenet, the head of the CIA, has said, well, we have already now shared all of the actionable intelligence, but there is a conflict between what he says in public and what he's written me in those classified letters. We have asked him over and over again to clarify that discrepancy, and he has not done so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Are your colleague's claims true?
ROCKEFELLER: Carl Levin is correct. I've seen the figures both from George Tenet, and I've seen other figures, and they do not correspond with each other. I think there are more -- there's more intelligence that we have that we have not shared. Why we have not done that, I cannot imagine. It's against our interests not to share information with the inspectors, but Carl Levin is correct about that.
ZAHN: You no doubt have heard the administration's defense that they don't want to provide any information that would in any way violate their sources or their methods. Do you buy that?
ROCKEFELLER: No, because the point here is we're trying to get a majority on the Security Council, and I mean, one way to get a majority on the Security Council is to come up with kind of a smoking gun. And within this number that has not been declared to the international inspectors, there could be some smoking guns, and you've just mentioned one in "The New York Times" this morning. I mean, I think that is potentially a smoking gun.
ZAHN: As you know, there is a point of view out there, and it's a very specific corner of the critics of the Bush administration, that suggests that the administration is not providing this information because they're trying to ensure inspectors are not able to verify that Iraq is disarming. Is there any validity to that?
ROCKEFELLER: I think that's a possibility. I mean, I've always felt that the president had made up his mind I think up to six months or eight months ago that he was going to go into Iraq, and nothing that either the inspectors or the Security Council did was going to change his mind on that. So you could postulate that, you know, from what you said.
On the other hand, it doesn't make any sense if they are fighting so hard to get the votes and this would help them get a few more votes and it probably would. It would probably bring them Pakistan, which may come with us anyway, and Mexico and Chile, all of whom have reason to want to deal with us for economic reasons. So why would they not have done that? It doesnt make any sense to me.
ZAHN: Final question for you this morning, sir. We've analyzed endlessly the arrest of Shaikh Mohammed, of course, which everybody sees as a very pivotal breakthrough for the administration. How much closer do you think the U.S. and Pakistani officials are to getting Osama bin Laden?
ROCKEFELLER: I was in Pakistan two weeks ago, and that was just before the Shaikh Mohammed thing, and I think that bin Laden is probably not far behind.
But I think it's also just as Americans and our administration has a tendency to focus on individuals, like Hussein, rather than just focusing on Hussein plus what's going to have to happen after we defeat him, and that is the resurrection of Iraq, the stabilization of Iraq. He talks about democracy in Iraq that can't possibly happen, but stabilization can. And he's not talked to the American people about that, what that will mean, all of the tribalism there, all of the different factions that are fighting each other and have for centuries.
So it's a question of coming clean with the American people. What's the cost? Are the American people going to be willing to pay the cost for a period of years to help stabilize Iraq? If we dont, then there will have been no point really in going in and beating Saddam Hussein, because we'll come basically back to the same situation where we are now. That's the kind of state, not nation, that it is.
ZAHN: Senator John. B. Rockefeller, thank you again for dropping by this morning. We appreciate your perspective.
ROCKEFELLER: Thank you.
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 March 10, 2003 - 07:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: While the U.S. tries to win enough Security Council votes for an ultimatum that would force Iraq to disarm, there are some questions about whether the Bush administration is withholding vital intelligence information from U.N. weapons inspectors.
Senator J. Rockefeller of West Virginia is the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, and he joins us from Washington.
Good morning -- good of you to join us, sir.
SEN. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, (D-WV), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Thank you.
ZAHN: Let's start off with a report in "The New York Times" this morning about weapons inspectors apparently finding a bomb they believe might be configured to -- excuse me -- a rocket configured to strew bomblets (ph) laced with biological or chemical materials. Is this a smoking gun?
ROCKEFELLER: Potentially. But on the other hand, it's not totally confirmed. The Iraqis have sort of admitted to it under duress. And it can carry chemical or biological weapons. It's a cluster-type bomb. It's very dangerous. They're not meant to have it. And it's another reason why, you know, the whole inspection process is kind of under fire.
ZAHN: Do you think that's appropriate that it's under fire? Does the inspection process have any credibility in your eyes?
ROCKEFELLER: It does have credibility, but it -- Hussein doesn't, and their aggressive approach to Hussein strikes me not to have been quite aggressive enough. They should have known about this. It wasn't reported. He shouldn't have it in the first place. So he's in violation.
ZAHN: One of your colleagues on the Intelligence Committee, Senator Levin, argues that he believes the weapons inspectors are hampered by the lack of specific intelligence information. Here's what he had to say no the air yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: Now, Tenet, the head of the CIA, has said, well, we have already now shared all of the actionable intelligence, but there is a conflict between what he says in public and what he's written me in those classified letters. We have asked him over and over again to clarify that discrepancy, and he has not done so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Are your colleague's claims true?
ROCKEFELLER: Carl Levin is correct. I've seen the figures both from George Tenet, and I've seen other figures, and they do not correspond with each other. I think there are more -- there's more intelligence that we have that we have not shared. Why we have not done that, I cannot imagine. It's against our interests not to share information with the inspectors, but Carl Levin is correct about that.
ZAHN: You no doubt have heard the administration's defense that they don't want to provide any information that would in any way violate their sources or their methods. Do you buy that?
ROCKEFELLER: No, because the point here is we're trying to get a majority on the Security Council, and I mean, one way to get a majority on the Security Council is to come up with kind of a smoking gun. And within this number that has not been declared to the international inspectors, there could be some smoking guns, and you've just mentioned one in "The New York Times" this morning. I mean, I think that is potentially a smoking gun.
ZAHN: As you know, there is a point of view out there, and it's a very specific corner of the critics of the Bush administration, that suggests that the administration is not providing this information because they're trying to ensure inspectors are not able to verify that Iraq is disarming. Is there any validity to that?
ROCKEFELLER: I think that's a possibility. I mean, I've always felt that the president had made up his mind I think up to six months or eight months ago that he was going to go into Iraq, and nothing that either the inspectors or the Security Council did was going to change his mind on that. So you could postulate that, you know, from what you said.
On the other hand, it doesn't make any sense if they are fighting so hard to get the votes and this would help them get a few more votes and it probably would. It would probably bring them Pakistan, which may come with us anyway, and Mexico and Chile, all of whom have reason to want to deal with us for economic reasons. So why would they not have done that? It doesnt make any sense to me.
ZAHN: Final question for you this morning, sir. We've analyzed endlessly the arrest of Shaikh Mohammed, of course, which everybody sees as a very pivotal breakthrough for the administration. How much closer do you think the U.S. and Pakistani officials are to getting Osama bin Laden?
ROCKEFELLER: I was in Pakistan two weeks ago, and that was just before the Shaikh Mohammed thing, and I think that bin Laden is probably not far behind.
But I think it's also just as Americans and our administration has a tendency to focus on individuals, like Hussein, rather than just focusing on Hussein plus what's going to have to happen after we defeat him, and that is the resurrection of Iraq, the stabilization of Iraq. He talks about democracy in Iraq that can't possibly happen, but stabilization can. And he's not talked to the American people about that, what that will mean, all of the tribalism there, all of the different factions that are fighting each other and have for centuries.
So it's a question of coming clean with the American people. What's the cost? Are the American people going to be willing to pay the cost for a period of years to help stabilize Iraq? If we dont, then there will have been no point really in going in and beating Saddam Hussein, because we'll come basically back to the same situation where we are now. That's the kind of state, not nation, that it is.
ZAHN: Senator John. B. Rockefeller, thank you again for dropping by this morning. We appreciate your perspective.
ROCKEFELLER: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
