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American Morning

White House Denies Manipulating Intel

Aired June 05, 2003 - 07:32   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The White House rejecting charges that it manipulated intelligence about Iraq to bolster its case for war, specifically whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But the heat certainly rising again in the White House and the questions continue.
For us this morning, national security correspondent David Ensor has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The simple fact that eight weeks into the occupation of Iraq U.S. forces still have not found any of the weapons of mass destruction that American intelligence predicted were there is raising the political pressure on the administration almost daily.

REP. JOSEPH HOEFFEL (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Like millions of Americans, I'm wondering where the (expletive deleted) the weapons of mass destruction are.

REP. ELIOT ENGEL (D), NEW YORK: I'm deeply concerned about reports that the administration twisted the arms of our intelligence analysts to produce analysis which agreed with the policies that you wanted to pursue.

JOHN BOLTON, UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE: I personally never asked anybody in the intelligence community to change a single thing that they presented. And I am not aware of any other official in this administration who did that.

ENSOR: Undersecretary of State John Bolton said finding weapons of mass destruction may take time.

BOLTON: The finding of the weapons, the production means, will occur in due course. If this stuff had just been lying around on the ground, UNMOVIC would have found it.

ENSOR: But critics suspect a conspiracy to justify the war. Some dissident former CIA officers say Pentagon hawks took hearsay from Iraqi defectors around exiled leader Ahmed Chalabi and presented it to the president as fact.

RAY MCGOVERN, FORMER CIA OFFICER: When Rumsfeld couldn't get the answers that he wanted from the Central Intelligence Agency, he created his own mini-CIA in the bowels of the Pentagon. ENSOR: At the Pentagon, officials held a special briefing Wednesday to respond to that charge, saying a small special plans office did analyze but never collected intelligence and never twisted arms.

DOUGLAS FEITH, UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE: See, this suggestion that we said to them, This is what we're looking for, go find it, is precisely the inaccuracy that we are here to rebut.

ENSOR: At the CIA, officials say an internal review is looking at whether an October classified report saying Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was seeking to reconstitute its nuclear program was based on solid intelligence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But the real answer to that question will await the work of the 1,400 plus member Iraq Survey Group, which is assembling now in Baghdad to carry on the search for weapons. It includes Australians and Britons, as well as Americans. U.S. intelligence officials are still saying, though, they do expect that group to find, at a minimum, Iraqi chemical weapons that have been missing since the end of the first Gulf War -- Bill.

HEMMER: There's a piece in the "Washington Post" today that suggests the vice president, Dick Cheney, made numerous trips to the Pentagon to talk with CIA analysts and in essence shape the argument for weapons of mass destruction.

What can you add to that?

ENSOR: Dick Cheney did go to the CIA headquarters in Langley, just up the river from the Pentagon, a number of times. So did his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, Louis Libby. They were there a lot. But U.S. intelligence officials say it did not affect in any way what they reported to the president and others, that the intelligence they gave, they believe, was the straight stuff.

Now, you know, as long as weapons are not found, this controversy is going to grow. If they get found, it'll be over in a minute.

HEMMER: Yes, meanwhile, you have about 1,500 analysts on the ground in Iraq to be there in place very soon.

What's the indication in Washington you're getting about what their search will take them, what they will do and what intelligence they may be acting upon right now?

ENSOR: Well, the very -- you get, you hear various accounts of how many sites there are yet to look at. One I've heard is they've looked at 200 out of 600. There may be a very large number of sites in this California sized country.

Remember, it took a long time to find Eric Rudolph. Finding an individual, finding an individual weapon may take a long time. It could even take years. But there are a lot of weapons that have not been accounted for since the end of the last Gulf War. The Iraqis said they destroyed them, but they never showed where or which scientists did it. So most of the analysts I talk to still say they believe there are weapons hidden in Iraq.

HEMMER: We'll see.

David, thank you.

David Ensor, national security correspondent live here in D.C.

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 June 5, 2003 - 07:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The White House rejecting charges that it manipulated intelligence about Iraq to bolster its case for war, specifically whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But the heat certainly rising again in the White House and the questions continue.
For us this morning, national security correspondent David Ensor has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The simple fact that eight weeks into the occupation of Iraq U.S. forces still have not found any of the weapons of mass destruction that American intelligence predicted were there is raising the political pressure on the administration almost daily.

REP. JOSEPH HOEFFEL (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Like millions of Americans, I'm wondering where the (expletive deleted) the weapons of mass destruction are.

REP. ELIOT ENGEL (D), NEW YORK: I'm deeply concerned about reports that the administration twisted the arms of our intelligence analysts to produce analysis which agreed with the policies that you wanted to pursue.

JOHN BOLTON, UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE: I personally never asked anybody in the intelligence community to change a single thing that they presented. And I am not aware of any other official in this administration who did that.

ENSOR: Undersecretary of State John Bolton said finding weapons of mass destruction may take time.

BOLTON: The finding of the weapons, the production means, will occur in due course. If this stuff had just been lying around on the ground, UNMOVIC would have found it.

ENSOR: But critics suspect a conspiracy to justify the war. Some dissident former CIA officers say Pentagon hawks took hearsay from Iraqi defectors around exiled leader Ahmed Chalabi and presented it to the president as fact.

RAY MCGOVERN, FORMER CIA OFFICER: When Rumsfeld couldn't get the answers that he wanted from the Central Intelligence Agency, he created his own mini-CIA in the bowels of the Pentagon. ENSOR: At the Pentagon, officials held a special briefing Wednesday to respond to that charge, saying a small special plans office did analyze but never collected intelligence and never twisted arms.

DOUGLAS FEITH, UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE: See, this suggestion that we said to them, This is what we're looking for, go find it, is precisely the inaccuracy that we are here to rebut.

ENSOR: At the CIA, officials say an internal review is looking at whether an October classified report saying Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was seeking to reconstitute its nuclear program was based on solid intelligence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But the real answer to that question will await the work of the 1,400 plus member Iraq Survey Group, which is assembling now in Baghdad to carry on the search for weapons. It includes Australians and Britons, as well as Americans. U.S. intelligence officials are still saying, though, they do expect that group to find, at a minimum, Iraqi chemical weapons that have been missing since the end of the first Gulf War -- Bill.

HEMMER: There's a piece in the "Washington Post" today that suggests the vice president, Dick Cheney, made numerous trips to the Pentagon to talk with CIA analysts and in essence shape the argument for weapons of mass destruction.

What can you add to that?

ENSOR: Dick Cheney did go to the CIA headquarters in Langley, just up the river from the Pentagon, a number of times. So did his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, Louis Libby. They were there a lot. But U.S. intelligence officials say it did not affect in any way what they reported to the president and others, that the intelligence they gave, they believe, was the straight stuff.

Now, you know, as long as weapons are not found, this controversy is going to grow. If they get found, it'll be over in a minute.

HEMMER: Yes, meanwhile, you have about 1,500 analysts on the ground in Iraq to be there in place very soon.

What's the indication in Washington you're getting about what their search will take them, what they will do and what intelligence they may be acting upon right now?

ENSOR: Well, the very -- you get, you hear various accounts of how many sites there are yet to look at. One I've heard is they've looked at 200 out of 600. There may be a very large number of sites in this California sized country.

Remember, it took a long time to find Eric Rudolph. Finding an individual, finding an individual weapon may take a long time. It could even take years. But there are a lot of weapons that have not been accounted for since the end of the last Gulf War. The Iraqis said they destroyed them, but they never showed where or which scientists did it. So most of the analysts I talk to still say they believe there are weapons hidden in Iraq.

HEMMER: We'll see.

David, thank you.

David Ensor, national security correspondent live here in D.C.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com