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American Morning

Interview with Senator Bob Graham

Aired July 24, 2003 - 08:03   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, also this morning, the results of a congressional investigation into intelligence shortcomings before September 11 are about to be released.
Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida is a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee. He's also running for president.

Senator Graham joins us this morning from the Capitol to talk about that report.

Good morning to you, sir.

Thanks for joining us.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D), FLORIDA: Good morning, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: The report details many failures in intelligence. Which organization, in your mind, deserves the bulk of the blame, the FBI, the CIA?

GRAHAM: Well, unfortunately there's a lot of blame to be spread around. The CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the National Security Council, the White House itself and not only this administration, but previous administrations. We tried to present a balanced, factual narrative of the beginning, the middle and the end of the plot that ended up in one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in the history of the world with 3,000 Americans killed.

O'BRIEN: So are you saying, then, that the attacks could have been prevented?

GRAHAM: Yes. If there had been more cooperation and sharing of information, if there had been more creativity and some luck, this plot could have been discovered well before it resulted in September the 11th. Unfortunately, a lot of the information on that is in the section of the report which is being censored and therefore won't be available to the American people.

O'BRIEN: In fact, lots of the portions of the report have been blacked out. We won't know for certain, for example, exactly what President Bush was told on August 6th in a briefing a month and a few days before the September 11 attacks. Also, a 28 page section of the report about the role of foreign governments has been excised from the report.

Do you think the public has the right to know this information or do you think there is risks to national security in releasing it? GRAHAM: Absolutely. There may be a few areas which there is a legitimate national security interest. But most of this censorship is driven not by national security, but by the desire to avoid embarrassment to a foreign government or governments, to avoid embarrassment to U.S. agencies whose lapses contributed to September the 11th, to avoid questions about how well have the lessons learned from September the 11th been applied to increase the security of Americans today.

O'BRIEN: You have said there's much valuable information that needs to be released that will not be released. I know you cannot go into specific details, but classify or clarify for me a little bit about what kind of information you're talking about.

GRAHAM: Well, what were these foreign governments doing to assist the terrorists? There's been a lot of focus on the fact that they were not clamping down on groups within their country which were raising money, ostensibly for charities, which, in fact, was going to fund terrorists. Yes, that's part of it. But in my judgment, a relatively minor part.

The larger issues are foreign governments that themselves were providing financing to terrorists, foreign governments which, through their operatives in the United States, were renting apartments, providing travel assistance, introducing terrorists to networks which helped support and hide them for the 18 or so months they were in the United States so they could plan, practice and finally execute a very sophisticated terrorist attack.

O'BRIEN: Sir, there are many folks who will say you're taking this critical position because you're running for president and this is a good platform to get a decent amount of air time on.

Do you think there's any truth in that?

GRAHAM: Well, I have been giving interviews throughout the morning with Senator Dick Shelby, a very effective former chair and vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, a Republican. And he has said almost verbatim what I have just said. This is not a partisan issue, it's an issue of the government and its respect for the people of the United States, with the people being denied the opportunity to fully understand what their federal government did in terms of protecting those who lost their lives on September the 11th and protecting them today.

O'BRIEN: Florida senator and presidential candidate Bob Graham.

Thank you for joining us.

GRAHAM: 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 July 24, 2003 - 08:03   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, also this morning, the results of a congressional investigation into intelligence shortcomings before September 11 are about to be released.
Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida is a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee. He's also running for president.

Senator Graham joins us this morning from the Capitol to talk about that report.

Good morning to you, sir.

Thanks for joining us.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D), FLORIDA: Good morning, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: The report details many failures in intelligence. Which organization, in your mind, deserves the bulk of the blame, the FBI, the CIA?

GRAHAM: Well, unfortunately there's a lot of blame to be spread around. The CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the National Security Council, the White House itself and not only this administration, but previous administrations. We tried to present a balanced, factual narrative of the beginning, the middle and the end of the plot that ended up in one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in the history of the world with 3,000 Americans killed.

O'BRIEN: So are you saying, then, that the attacks could have been prevented?

GRAHAM: Yes. If there had been more cooperation and sharing of information, if there had been more creativity and some luck, this plot could have been discovered well before it resulted in September the 11th. Unfortunately, a lot of the information on that is in the section of the report which is being censored and therefore won't be available to the American people.

O'BRIEN: In fact, lots of the portions of the report have been blacked out. We won't know for certain, for example, exactly what President Bush was told on August 6th in a briefing a month and a few days before the September 11 attacks. Also, a 28 page section of the report about the role of foreign governments has been excised from the report.

Do you think the public has the right to know this information or do you think there is risks to national security in releasing it? GRAHAM: Absolutely. There may be a few areas which there is a legitimate national security interest. But most of this censorship is driven not by national security, but by the desire to avoid embarrassment to a foreign government or governments, to avoid embarrassment to U.S. agencies whose lapses contributed to September the 11th, to avoid questions about how well have the lessons learned from September the 11th been applied to increase the security of Americans today.

O'BRIEN: You have said there's much valuable information that needs to be released that will not be released. I know you cannot go into specific details, but classify or clarify for me a little bit about what kind of information you're talking about.

GRAHAM: Well, what were these foreign governments doing to assist the terrorists? There's been a lot of focus on the fact that they were not clamping down on groups within their country which were raising money, ostensibly for charities, which, in fact, was going to fund terrorists. Yes, that's part of it. But in my judgment, a relatively minor part.

The larger issues are foreign governments that themselves were providing financing to terrorists, foreign governments which, through their operatives in the United States, were renting apartments, providing travel assistance, introducing terrorists to networks which helped support and hide them for the 18 or so months they were in the United States so they could plan, practice and finally execute a very sophisticated terrorist attack.

O'BRIEN: Sir, there are many folks who will say you're taking this critical position because you're running for president and this is a good platform to get a decent amount of air time on.

Do you think there's any truth in that?

GRAHAM: Well, I have been giving interviews throughout the morning with Senator Dick Shelby, a very effective former chair and vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, a Republican. And he has said almost verbatim what I have just said. This is not a partisan issue, it's an issue of the government and its respect for the people of the United States, with the people being denied the opportunity to fully understand what their federal government did in terms of protecting those who lost their lives on September the 11th and protecting them today.

O'BRIEN: Florida senator and presidential candidate Bob Graham.

Thank you for joining us.

GRAHAM: 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