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Senate Select Commission Planning to Release Report Sharply Criticizing CIA for Prewar Intelligence
Aired October 27, 2003 - 08:15 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Senate Select Commission on Intelligence is planning to release a report that is expected to sharply criticize the CIA for the quality of its prewar intelligence. But some leading law makers are wasting no time speaking out.
Here is what Senator Carl Levin told CNN "Late Edition" yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI), CHAIRMAN, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: You're here, it's very obvious already, very disturbing evidence that intelligence was exaggerated, was hyped inside the intelligence community, as we go through this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: For more on the Senate report now, Spencer Ackerman is an assistant editor with the "New Republic" magazine and he joins us from Washington, D.C. this morning.
Spencer, good morning.
Nice to see you.
SPENCER ACKERMAN, ASSISTANT EDITOR, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": Good morning, Soledad.
Thanks for having me.
O'BRIEN: We -- my pleasure.
We have heard that this report is going to be scathing.
Give me a sense of realistically just how bad will it be.
ACKERMAN: Well, from the early reports that we've received, the Senate Intelligence Committee, under the drip of Senator Pat Roberts, is expected to completely excoriate the CIA and lay all the blame for what appears to be faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs at the feet of the CIA.
O'BRIEN: So if all the blame is being left, then, at the feet of the CIA, as you say, does this mean that the White House is -- has no blame here?
ACKERMAN: Well, it doesn't mean that the White House has no blame, but it does appear...
O'BRIEN: In the report, I should say.
ACKERMAN: In the report it certainly does appear that way. Senator Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the committee, has expressed concern that the Intelligence Committee is not properly investigating the role of the White House and the Pentagon in the creation and expression of the intelligence to the public. But as it appears so far, from a report that was described in the "Washington Post" as 95 percent complete, the CIA appears to be the chief target of this rather scathing report.
O'BRIEN: And, in fact, there seems to be, at least from testimony thus far, no evidence of any sort of pressure being brought to bear on -- at least from what people are testifying, from -- who work at the CIA, from the White House.
What has your reporting told you about that?
ACKERMAN: My reporting has basically said the exact opposite, that there were a variety of mechanisms to exhibit pressure on low ranking intelligence analysts who worked on this issue directly. In particular, there were visits in 2002 to Langley, the CIA's headquarters, by the vice president, his chief of staff and senior Pentagon officials that, whether the intent was to pressure the analysts to come up with a politically desirable conclusion, certainly that's how the analysts felt the visits were intended to accomplish.
Similarly, the Pentagon established a separate office, somewhat of a hybrid between a policy shop and an intelligence shop, under the directorate of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and his deputy, William Luti, that sort of went back over what the CIA had been saying about Iraq's ties to al Qaeda and its weapons of mass destruction programs, in a secondary sense, and exhibited far more alarm than the CIA had. And those reports were brought to bear on the intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA.
And so there certainly does seem to be a disconnect between what the Senate Intelligence Committee is saying the analysts felt from the White House and what they've told to other reporters.
O'BRIEN: Spencer Ackerman, assistant editor at the "New Republic," joining us this morning.
And, again, as you say, contradicting what we have heard from some of this testimony.
Thanks for your update for us.
Appreciate it.
ACKERMAN: Thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Sharply Criticizing CIA for Prewar Intelligence>
Aired October 27, 2003 - 08:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Senate Select Commission on Intelligence is planning to release a report that is expected to sharply criticize the CIA for the quality of its prewar intelligence. But some leading law makers are wasting no time speaking out.
Here is what Senator Carl Levin told CNN "Late Edition" yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI), CHAIRMAN, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: You're here, it's very obvious already, very disturbing evidence that intelligence was exaggerated, was hyped inside the intelligence community, as we go through this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: For more on the Senate report now, Spencer Ackerman is an assistant editor with the "New Republic" magazine and he joins us from Washington, D.C. this morning.
Spencer, good morning.
Nice to see you.
SPENCER ACKERMAN, ASSISTANT EDITOR, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": Good morning, Soledad.
Thanks for having me.
O'BRIEN: We -- my pleasure.
We have heard that this report is going to be scathing.
Give me a sense of realistically just how bad will it be.
ACKERMAN: Well, from the early reports that we've received, the Senate Intelligence Committee, under the drip of Senator Pat Roberts, is expected to completely excoriate the CIA and lay all the blame for what appears to be faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs at the feet of the CIA.
O'BRIEN: So if all the blame is being left, then, at the feet of the CIA, as you say, does this mean that the White House is -- has no blame here?
ACKERMAN: Well, it doesn't mean that the White House has no blame, but it does appear...
O'BRIEN: In the report, I should say.
ACKERMAN: In the report it certainly does appear that way. Senator Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the committee, has expressed concern that the Intelligence Committee is not properly investigating the role of the White House and the Pentagon in the creation and expression of the intelligence to the public. But as it appears so far, from a report that was described in the "Washington Post" as 95 percent complete, the CIA appears to be the chief target of this rather scathing report.
O'BRIEN: And, in fact, there seems to be, at least from testimony thus far, no evidence of any sort of pressure being brought to bear on -- at least from what people are testifying, from -- who work at the CIA, from the White House.
What has your reporting told you about that?
ACKERMAN: My reporting has basically said the exact opposite, that there were a variety of mechanisms to exhibit pressure on low ranking intelligence analysts who worked on this issue directly. In particular, there were visits in 2002 to Langley, the CIA's headquarters, by the vice president, his chief of staff and senior Pentagon officials that, whether the intent was to pressure the analysts to come up with a politically desirable conclusion, certainly that's how the analysts felt the visits were intended to accomplish.
Similarly, the Pentagon established a separate office, somewhat of a hybrid between a policy shop and an intelligence shop, under the directorate of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and his deputy, William Luti, that sort of went back over what the CIA had been saying about Iraq's ties to al Qaeda and its weapons of mass destruction programs, in a secondary sense, and exhibited far more alarm than the CIA had. And those reports were brought to bear on the intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA.
And so there certainly does seem to be a disconnect between what the Senate Intelligence Committee is saying the analysts felt from the White House and what they've told to other reporters.
O'BRIEN: Spencer Ackerman, assistant editor at the "New Republic," joining us this morning.
And, again, as you say, contradicting what we have heard from some of this testimony.
Thanks for your update for us.
Appreciate it.
ACKERMAN: Thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Sharply Criticizing CIA for Prewar Intelligence>
