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American Morning

Saudi Officials to Meet With President Bush Over 9/11 Report

Aired July 29, 2003 - 07:10   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: Now to the fallout over the 9/11 report and an urgently-called meeting at the White House. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud Al Faisal, will meet today with President Bush, hoping to put an end to accusations that Saudi Arabia helped finance the hijackers.
The Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, who will also attend, issued a statement last week demanding that 28 pages in the 9/11 report be declassified. The statement said -- quote: "Saudi Arabia has nothing to hide. We can deal with questions in public, but we cannot respond to blank pages."

CNN's White House correspondent, Chris Burns, is live from the White House for us this morning.

Chris -- first and foremost, do you expect the president will declassify these 28 pages? Good morning.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

A very good question. There is a big debate within the Bush administration over whether to do that, because there are some within the administration who say that by releasing them they could be releasing very sensitive intelligence information. National security is really the reason they maintain that part of the report classified. However, of course, the Saudis will come back and say, look, we've got nothing to hide. We want those pages declassified so we can respond to them. So, that is the upshot of that. We'll see what the decision is on that.

Of course, there are those among the Democrats who accuse the Bush administration of trying to hide information that perhaps might embarrass the Bush administration about perhaps not acting quickly enough to try to prevent the 9/11 attacks themselves. So, a bit of a debate going on right now -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about Condoleezza Rice. She is usually the beneficiary of terrific press, and now she's taking the heat. Is the White House concerned about the challenges to her credibility?

BURNS: Well, White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said that really the president remains fully behind Condoleezza Rice. He, according to Scott McClellan, says that Rice is doing an outstanding job, that Steve Hadley, her assistant, addressed the issues last week about the intelligence information that was used for President Bush's speech -- the State of the Union speech back in January in which he included those 16 words which alleged that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Africa. That line was later discredited. And now, there are calls from Capitol Hill that perhaps heads ought to roll here at the White House.

And so, of course, the White House is fighting those back and saying that really everything was done to check on that information, and that too much is being focused on that one item, that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction and that he had to be stopped.

So, that is the argument by the Bush administration. They are not -- at this moment at least, they're not about to let anybody go right now -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right, CNN's White House correspondent, Chris Burns. Chris, 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.




Report>


Aired July 29, 2003 - 07:10   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the fallout over the 9/11 report and an urgently-called meeting at the White House. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud Al Faisal, will meet today with President Bush, hoping to put an end to accusations that Saudi Arabia helped finance the hijackers.
The Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, who will also attend, issued a statement last week demanding that 28 pages in the 9/11 report be declassified. The statement said -- quote: "Saudi Arabia has nothing to hide. We can deal with questions in public, but we cannot respond to blank pages."

CNN's White House correspondent, Chris Burns, is live from the White House for us this morning.

Chris -- first and foremost, do you expect the president will declassify these 28 pages? Good morning.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

A very good question. There is a big debate within the Bush administration over whether to do that, because there are some within the administration who say that by releasing them they could be releasing very sensitive intelligence information. National security is really the reason they maintain that part of the report classified. However, of course, the Saudis will come back and say, look, we've got nothing to hide. We want those pages declassified so we can respond to them. So, that is the upshot of that. We'll see what the decision is on that.

Of course, there are those among the Democrats who accuse the Bush administration of trying to hide information that perhaps might embarrass the Bush administration about perhaps not acting quickly enough to try to prevent the 9/11 attacks themselves. So, a bit of a debate going on right now -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about Condoleezza Rice. She is usually the beneficiary of terrific press, and now she's taking the heat. Is the White House concerned about the challenges to her credibility?

BURNS: Well, White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said that really the president remains fully behind Condoleezza Rice. He, according to Scott McClellan, says that Rice is doing an outstanding job, that Steve Hadley, her assistant, addressed the issues last week about the intelligence information that was used for President Bush's speech -- the State of the Union speech back in January in which he included those 16 words which alleged that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Africa. That line was later discredited. And now, there are calls from Capitol Hill that perhaps heads ought to roll here at the White House.

And so, of course, the White House is fighting those back and saying that really everything was done to check on that information, and that too much is being focused on that one item, that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction and that he had to be stopped.

So, that is the argument by the Bush administration. They are not -- at this moment at least, they're not about to let anybody go right now -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right, CNN's White House correspondent, Chris Burns. Chris, 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.




Report>