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American Morning
09/11 Report
Aired July 25, 2003 - 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Some family members of 9/11 victims are upset about what was not in a congressional report about the attacks. The House and Senate Intelligence Committee say the intelligence community missed opportunities to knit together threads of information that could have prevented the attacks, but portions of the report, those with information about briefings given to President Bush and possible Saudi Arabian connections, have been blacked out.
Stephen Push lost his wife on September 11, 2001, and he joins us this morning from Ft. Worth, Texas.
Good morning, sir. Thanks for joining us.
STEPHEN PUSH, HUSBAND OF 09/11 VICTIM: Good morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: You've read the report. What do you think?
PUSH: I'm very disappointed that the Bush administration has insisted on keeping a large portion of the report classified, the portion that deals with possible Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
O'BRIEN: The administration would say we're trying to protect national security, we cannot release the information and keep the people who live here safe?
PUSH: I have not heard anyone outside of the administration who actually believes that. We believe that this information was deleted specifically to prevent embarrassment about Saudi connections to 9/11 and the administration's inability or unwillingness to deal with that problem. And even the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of the two committees that issued this report, feels that that is the case, that this information is being withheld, not for legitimate security reasons.
O'BRIEN: In the summation of the report, it becomes clear that there is no one smoking gun, that is seems to be a series of missed connections and miss opportunities along the way. Do you think one person or one organization should be held accountable for failures here?
PUSH: I think there are probably a number of people that should be held accountable. The CIA failed to put two of the terrorists, who they knew about more than two years -- almost two years before the attacks, failed to put them on the terrorism watch list. The FBI failed to follow-up on numerous leads and failed to follow-up on important information they got from Phoenix and from the people investigating Zacharias Moussaoui.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was not part of the purview of this commission, but is also responsible for allowing the hijackers into the country. I think there has not been a proper accounting of what went wrong, and I think there are probably still people in sensitive positions today, in national security positions, who have had a long track record of poor performance that contributed to the disaster on 9/11.
O'BRIEN: What do you want to see, looking forward? I mean, you're giving us a litany of things that have been the problem historically, but looking forward, what do you want to see?
PUSH: Well, I think one of the most important things that needs to be done, and this was the top recommendation of the joint inquiry, is to develop a position of Director of National Intelligence. We currently have 15 intelligence agencies, all working separately; no one is in charge. And if you looked in the private sector or anywhere else in the nonprofit sector, you would never see an organization have 15 different departments, all doing the same thing with nobody directing what they're doing.
The reason why there was not sufficient communication between the CIA and the FBI and the other agencies is that they're compete wig one another, and it's a natural bureaucratic tendency to try to be the golden head boy and have the best information and keep it from your competitors. There has to be a director of national intelligence to bring some coherence to our intelligence policy so that we can get something for the billions of dollars we're spending every year.
O'BRIEN: About this report, President Bush yesterday said in Michigan this -- "I appreciate the hard work and careful thought that went into the report. My administration looks forward to working with the Congress and continuing to protect the American people. Your reaction to that comment?
PUSH: I hope that it's true, but for nearly two years now, I and other 9/11 families have been working for a thorough investigation, and the Bush administration has tried to block us at every step. If this is a turnaround, if the Bush administration is finally going to cooperate, they can prove it by providing the independent commission headed by Governor Tom Kane, which is supposed report on 9/11 next year, by providing that commission with all of the information that commission needs, including the president's daily briefings and the National Security Council minutes that were denied to the joint inquiry.
O'BRIEN: This report looks back at, really, the lowlights, lapses and failures that hit in the past. So when FBI director Mueller was addressing family members and pointing to the future, that the technology's improved, that things have gotten better, one, do you buy that, and, two, do you think we're safer today than we were 22 months ago?
PUSH: I don't think we're much safer today than we were 22 months ago. I know a lot has been done, but I'm not sure how effective it's been. There have been -- in example, in aviation security, we've spent a lot money, we've got all these new screeners, but whenever tests are done on the system, we find holes in it. What we need is an objective standard by which to judge how these agencies are performing, and we don't have that right now.
O'BRIEN: Stephen Push -- I'm sorry for interrupting you -- continue.
PUSH: That was one of the major recommendations for the hearing for the independent 9/11 commission, that there be established an independent agency, maybe a quasi-government that would actually rate these agencies on how well they're performing and publish statistics that the public could see so we know whether we're getting value for the money we're spending on intelligence.
O'BRIEN: Stephen Push, lots of families agreeing with you this morning. Thanks for joining us.
PUSH: You're welcome.
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 25, 2003 - 09:07 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Some family members of 9/11 victims are upset about what was not in a congressional report about the attacks. The House and Senate Intelligence Committee say the intelligence community missed opportunities to knit together threads of information that could have prevented the attacks, but portions of the report, those with information about briefings given to President Bush and possible Saudi Arabian connections, have been blacked out.
Stephen Push lost his wife on September 11, 2001, and he joins us this morning from Ft. Worth, Texas.
Good morning, sir. Thanks for joining us.
STEPHEN PUSH, HUSBAND OF 09/11 VICTIM: Good morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: You've read the report. What do you think?
PUSH: I'm very disappointed that the Bush administration has insisted on keeping a large portion of the report classified, the portion that deals with possible Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
O'BRIEN: The administration would say we're trying to protect national security, we cannot release the information and keep the people who live here safe?
PUSH: I have not heard anyone outside of the administration who actually believes that. We believe that this information was deleted specifically to prevent embarrassment about Saudi connections to 9/11 and the administration's inability or unwillingness to deal with that problem. And even the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of the two committees that issued this report, feels that that is the case, that this information is being withheld, not for legitimate security reasons.
O'BRIEN: In the summation of the report, it becomes clear that there is no one smoking gun, that is seems to be a series of missed connections and miss opportunities along the way. Do you think one person or one organization should be held accountable for failures here?
PUSH: I think there are probably a number of people that should be held accountable. The CIA failed to put two of the terrorists, who they knew about more than two years -- almost two years before the attacks, failed to put them on the terrorism watch list. The FBI failed to follow-up on numerous leads and failed to follow-up on important information they got from Phoenix and from the people investigating Zacharias Moussaoui.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was not part of the purview of this commission, but is also responsible for allowing the hijackers into the country. I think there has not been a proper accounting of what went wrong, and I think there are probably still people in sensitive positions today, in national security positions, who have had a long track record of poor performance that contributed to the disaster on 9/11.
O'BRIEN: What do you want to see, looking forward? I mean, you're giving us a litany of things that have been the problem historically, but looking forward, what do you want to see?
PUSH: Well, I think one of the most important things that needs to be done, and this was the top recommendation of the joint inquiry, is to develop a position of Director of National Intelligence. We currently have 15 intelligence agencies, all working separately; no one is in charge. And if you looked in the private sector or anywhere else in the nonprofit sector, you would never see an organization have 15 different departments, all doing the same thing with nobody directing what they're doing.
The reason why there was not sufficient communication between the CIA and the FBI and the other agencies is that they're compete wig one another, and it's a natural bureaucratic tendency to try to be the golden head boy and have the best information and keep it from your competitors. There has to be a director of national intelligence to bring some coherence to our intelligence policy so that we can get something for the billions of dollars we're spending every year.
O'BRIEN: About this report, President Bush yesterday said in Michigan this -- "I appreciate the hard work and careful thought that went into the report. My administration looks forward to working with the Congress and continuing to protect the American people. Your reaction to that comment?
PUSH: I hope that it's true, but for nearly two years now, I and other 9/11 families have been working for a thorough investigation, and the Bush administration has tried to block us at every step. If this is a turnaround, if the Bush administration is finally going to cooperate, they can prove it by providing the independent commission headed by Governor Tom Kane, which is supposed report on 9/11 next year, by providing that commission with all of the information that commission needs, including the president's daily briefings and the National Security Council minutes that were denied to the joint inquiry.
O'BRIEN: This report looks back at, really, the lowlights, lapses and failures that hit in the past. So when FBI director Mueller was addressing family members and pointing to the future, that the technology's improved, that things have gotten better, one, do you buy that, and, two, do you think we're safer today than we were 22 months ago?
PUSH: I don't think we're much safer today than we were 22 months ago. I know a lot has been done, but I'm not sure how effective it's been. There have been -- in example, in aviation security, we've spent a lot money, we've got all these new screeners, but whenever tests are done on the system, we find holes in it. What we need is an objective standard by which to judge how these agencies are performing, and we don't have that right now.
O'BRIEN: Stephen Push -- I'm sorry for interrupting you -- continue.
PUSH: That was one of the major recommendations for the hearing for the independent 9/11 commission, that there be established an independent agency, maybe a quasi-government that would actually rate these agencies on how well they're performing and publish statistics that the public could see so we know whether we're getting value for the money we're spending on intelligence.
O'BRIEN: Stephen Push, lots of families agreeing with you this morning. Thanks for joining us.
PUSH: You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
