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American Morning

Interview with Senator Bob Graham

Aired October 29, 2003 - 08:16   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Bush says foreign fighters and Saddam loyalists are behind the latest deadly violence. He told reporters in a rare White House news conference yesterday that the U.S. will stay the course in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These terrorists are targeting the very success and freedom we're providing to the Iraqi people. Their desperate attacks on innocent civilians will not intimidate us or the brave Iraqis and Afghans who are joining in their own defense and who are moving towards self-government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Joining us now from Capitol Hill with his reaction to the president, Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida.

Good to see you, Senator Graham.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-FL), INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: Good morning, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, what's your assessment as to who is behind all of this? And would you separate it into two groups? Perhaps the suicide bombers are one faction and those that are aiming at U.S. troops are another.

GRAHAM: Well, I think there are two groups. First, the Saddam Hussein loyalists who put off, took off their uniforms, became apparent civilians but are still carrying out military type operations. And then second, groups such as al Qaeda and Hezbollah, which have thousands of trained terrorists, have infiltrated some of those into Iraq and they are supplementing Hussein's old forces.

O'BRIEN: All right, so that's a deadly mix there, obviously.

GRAHAM: Yes.

O'BRIEN: And one of the big concerns that has been expressed time and again is that whole issue of U.S. intelligence capability. We're not talking about the prewar intelligence now, we're talking about occupation intelligence.

Do you think it's satisfactory? Do we need more Arabic translators there to help the U.S. troops? What needs to be done? GRAHAM: Well, you've put your finger on one thing, is that we need more of our agents who are acculturated to the country in which they're operating. In the case of Iraq, that would include Arabic speakers.

At the end of our year long inquiry into 9/11, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees made a series of recommendations as to what should be done to increase the capability of our intelligence services to deal with the new threat of terrorism. Unfortunately, we've gotten virtually no support for those recommendations from either the White House or the Republican leadership in the Congress. And so they have languished. And some of the basic problems that we identified as contributing to 9/11, such as the lack of having people who can get inside these terrorist organizations to determine what they're about to do while we still have a change to stop them have not yet been implemented.

O'BRIEN: It sounds like a pretty good argument for hastening the, I guess Iraqification is the term that they're using. In other words, having Iraqis do more of the heavy lifting. After all, who knows better the local intelligence picture than Iraqis?

GRAHAM: I would agree with you a hundred percent that we need to turn more authority, security and governmental over to the Iraqis as rapidly as possible so that we are, in fact, seen as liberators, not occupiers. But we also need to be looking to the international community. There are countries such as Russia, which had a long history in Iraq. We should be doing those things, which include the willingness to share power as well as to share burden, in order to get the Russians and other countries that have real capabilities engaged. This, as long as this operation is America doing it alone, we're going to continue to find casualties, extremely high costs and a schism with much of the Iraqi population.

O'BRIEN: The "New York Times" is reporting this morning that a top U.S. intelligence official believes some of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were spirited away to Syria prior to the war.

Have you heard anything about that previous to seeing this piece?

GRAHAM: That's been suggested. That would be another condemnation of our intelligence if significant amounts of weapons of mass destruction were able to be moved from Iraq to any other country without our knowledge. It also raises the prospect of proliferation. If these weapons are now in the hands of either governmental agents, or, more likely, non-governmental terrorists, exactly the thing that we had hoped to avoid by initiating the war against Iraq will have happened, and that is terrorists having access to chemical, biological, possibly nuclear weapons.

O'BRIEN: All right, you've taken your hat out of the ring for the presidential bid and now there's a lot of talk about the fact that you're on the cusp of a decision as to whether to stay in the office that you currently hold.

Do you want to make an announcement this morning for us? GRAHAM: Miles, I'd like to make an announcement because you're an old friend from Tampa. But I think we're going to wait a few more days. It won't be long. I'm talking with family and friends and others. It's a tough decision. I have loved my service in the Senate. It's very gratifying to be able to serve the people of your state and the nation. But life goes on and I've got to decide what would be best for me and my family and the causes that I care about in the next stage of my career.

O'BRIEN: So you're leaning against running?

GRAHAM: I'm -- I am absolutely vertical at this point.

O'BRIEN: OK. Excellent political skills after all these years.

Senator Bob Graham, always a pleasure chatting with you.

GRAHAM: Thanks, Miles.

Same here.

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 October 29, 2003 - 08:16   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Bush says foreign fighters and Saddam loyalists are behind the latest deadly violence. He told reporters in a rare White House news conference yesterday that the U.S. will stay the course in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These terrorists are targeting the very success and freedom we're providing to the Iraqi people. Their desperate attacks on innocent civilians will not intimidate us or the brave Iraqis and Afghans who are joining in their own defense and who are moving towards self-government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Joining us now from Capitol Hill with his reaction to the president, Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida.

Good to see you, Senator Graham.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-FL), INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: Good morning, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, what's your assessment as to who is behind all of this? And would you separate it into two groups? Perhaps the suicide bombers are one faction and those that are aiming at U.S. troops are another.

GRAHAM: Well, I think there are two groups. First, the Saddam Hussein loyalists who put off, took off their uniforms, became apparent civilians but are still carrying out military type operations. And then second, groups such as al Qaeda and Hezbollah, which have thousands of trained terrorists, have infiltrated some of those into Iraq and they are supplementing Hussein's old forces.

O'BRIEN: All right, so that's a deadly mix there, obviously.

GRAHAM: Yes.

O'BRIEN: And one of the big concerns that has been expressed time and again is that whole issue of U.S. intelligence capability. We're not talking about the prewar intelligence now, we're talking about occupation intelligence.

Do you think it's satisfactory? Do we need more Arabic translators there to help the U.S. troops? What needs to be done? GRAHAM: Well, you've put your finger on one thing, is that we need more of our agents who are acculturated to the country in which they're operating. In the case of Iraq, that would include Arabic speakers.

At the end of our year long inquiry into 9/11, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees made a series of recommendations as to what should be done to increase the capability of our intelligence services to deal with the new threat of terrorism. Unfortunately, we've gotten virtually no support for those recommendations from either the White House or the Republican leadership in the Congress. And so they have languished. And some of the basic problems that we identified as contributing to 9/11, such as the lack of having people who can get inside these terrorist organizations to determine what they're about to do while we still have a change to stop them have not yet been implemented.

O'BRIEN: It sounds like a pretty good argument for hastening the, I guess Iraqification is the term that they're using. In other words, having Iraqis do more of the heavy lifting. After all, who knows better the local intelligence picture than Iraqis?

GRAHAM: I would agree with you a hundred percent that we need to turn more authority, security and governmental over to the Iraqis as rapidly as possible so that we are, in fact, seen as liberators, not occupiers. But we also need to be looking to the international community. There are countries such as Russia, which had a long history in Iraq. We should be doing those things, which include the willingness to share power as well as to share burden, in order to get the Russians and other countries that have real capabilities engaged. This, as long as this operation is America doing it alone, we're going to continue to find casualties, extremely high costs and a schism with much of the Iraqi population.

O'BRIEN: The "New York Times" is reporting this morning that a top U.S. intelligence official believes some of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were spirited away to Syria prior to the war.

Have you heard anything about that previous to seeing this piece?

GRAHAM: That's been suggested. That would be another condemnation of our intelligence if significant amounts of weapons of mass destruction were able to be moved from Iraq to any other country without our knowledge. It also raises the prospect of proliferation. If these weapons are now in the hands of either governmental agents, or, more likely, non-governmental terrorists, exactly the thing that we had hoped to avoid by initiating the war against Iraq will have happened, and that is terrorists having access to chemical, biological, possibly nuclear weapons.

O'BRIEN: All right, you've taken your hat out of the ring for the presidential bid and now there's a lot of talk about the fact that you're on the cusp of a decision as to whether to stay in the office that you currently hold.

Do you want to make an announcement this morning for us? GRAHAM: Miles, I'd like to make an announcement because you're an old friend from Tampa. But I think we're going to wait a few more days. It won't be long. I'm talking with family and friends and others. It's a tough decision. I have loved my service in the Senate. It's very gratifying to be able to serve the people of your state and the nation. But life goes on and I've got to decide what would be best for me and my family and the causes that I care about in the next stage of my career.

O'BRIEN: So you're leaning against running?

GRAHAM: I'm -- I am absolutely vertical at this point.

O'BRIEN: OK. Excellent political skills after all these years.

Senator Bob Graham, always a pleasure chatting with you.

GRAHAM: Thanks, Miles.

Same here.

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