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American Morning

Interview With Representative Porter Goss

Aired January 29, 2004 - 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: Joining us from Capitol Hill with more on this weapons controversial is Representative Porter Goss of Florida. He's the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he is also a former CIA and Army intelligence officer. He joins us this morning as well.
Congressman Goss, thank you for being with us. Appreciate you joining us. David Kay, we hear him say we were just wrong about pretty much everything. How bad a position is U.S. intelligence in now considering what's going on in Iran, considering what's happening in North Korea?

REP. PORTER GOSS (R-FL), CHMN., INTELLIGENCE CMTE.: There's no question that there are insufficiencies. Dr. Kay has pointed that out very well. The question is why are those insufficiencies there?

And when you go back at some of the recommendations that have been made by the people who have been looking into our intelligence capacities since the early '90s, you'll discover there is no surprise.

We simply didn't make the right investments. We weren't paying enough attention to the warnings. We didn't have sufficient attention at the top. We were a little bit overly political correct about association with some of the bad guys.

And we didn't do the core mission of intelligence which is to get plans and information on the inner circle of the mischief makers. That just was a part that we didn't get done.

I think that's our problem, and I think that that correction has to be made and, in fact, is being made as we speak.

O'BRIEN: At the end of the day, the U.S. went to war, based in large part on this information that now turns out to be faulty. Who do you blame? Who's responsible? Who should take the blame?

GOSS: Well, I think everybody shares in the fact that we didn't have a full, complete picture. But we had a lot of pieces that suggested that we needed to deal with Saddam. And Dr. Kay said that very clearly. He said that President Bush acted prudently and took the right step.

I certainly agree with that as an American citizen and as a person who hopes for the future of a civilized society in our globe. I think that we had to get rid of Saddam.

I think that in the fog of war, you're never going to have a complete picture and intelligence is never going to be 100 percent. People always say if you bat .500 in baseball, you're doing great. If you bat .500 in intelligence, you're not doing well at all. And we weren't batting as well as we should have been.

And I think that the understanding that we have to make that commitment now to intelligence is becoming more clear on Capitol Hill, and that's a very important point.

O'BRIEN: Senator John McCain said he'd like to see an outside independent investigation. Would you like to see the same?

GOSS: I'd like to let the people that are presently doing investigations finish their work before we decide to have another investigation. But I think it's inevitable down the road that we are going to have yet other commissions who are going to look at the situation in Iraq, the situation with our intelligence, just like we are going to continue, in my view, to have people looking into how 9/11 came to pass and what happened.

Even after the Caine (ph) Commission does its job, I'm sure there will be further looks, just like we're still talking about the assassination of President Kennedy.

O'BRIEN: Those who disagree with you on that say considering the obvious scope of this problem, waiting is not prudent.

GOSS: I'm sorry?

O'BRIEN: There are those who disagree with you who would say that considering the obvious, massive scope of the problem, you're saying let's wait until the investigation is done, the first investigation is done. They say let's not wait because obviously the problem is so huge.

GOSS: Soledad, the first investigation has been done. It's called the Joint Inquiry by the Senate and the House Intelligence Committees. And we have made a number of recommendations, some of which are being implemented already in order to correct deficiencies.

It takes five to seven years to build the kind of assets that you need in the intelligence community that we're talking about. This is no silver bullet. It's going to take time and determination and commitment.

We have that from the administration, from the leadership in the intelligence community. And we are going to have to just be very vigilant, very alert and do the best we can. Work overtime, as we are, with our intelligence people now to protect ourselves until we can get those assets online and properly adjusted to the threats as they exist today. Terrorism is very different than conventional war fare.

O'BRIEN: So you're saying that for the population of the United States, we're really not protected for the next five to seven years until everything else is brought up to speed?

GOSS: I think the population is well protected. I'm suggesting that it can be better protected if we have better information.

We've done very well since 9/11. And we thank the good lord and knock on wood and go through all the other (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for that good luck and good fortune.

But it is not going to be possible to drop our vigilance. We are not going to be able to forget the fact that there is such a thing as terrorism. And terrorists want to kill Americans just because we are Americans. That's a very hard thought for most Americans to understand.

O'BRIEN: Congressman Porter Goss joining us this morning. Nice to see you. Thanks for being with us.

GOSS: Thank you, Soledad.

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 January 29, 2004 - 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: Joining us from Capitol Hill with more on this weapons controversial is Representative Porter Goss of Florida. He's the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he is also a former CIA and Army intelligence officer. He joins us this morning as well.
Congressman Goss, thank you for being with us. Appreciate you joining us. David Kay, we hear him say we were just wrong about pretty much everything. How bad a position is U.S. intelligence in now considering what's going on in Iran, considering what's happening in North Korea?

REP. PORTER GOSS (R-FL), CHMN., INTELLIGENCE CMTE.: There's no question that there are insufficiencies. Dr. Kay has pointed that out very well. The question is why are those insufficiencies there?

And when you go back at some of the recommendations that have been made by the people who have been looking into our intelligence capacities since the early '90s, you'll discover there is no surprise.

We simply didn't make the right investments. We weren't paying enough attention to the warnings. We didn't have sufficient attention at the top. We were a little bit overly political correct about association with some of the bad guys.

And we didn't do the core mission of intelligence which is to get plans and information on the inner circle of the mischief makers. That just was a part that we didn't get done.

I think that's our problem, and I think that that correction has to be made and, in fact, is being made as we speak.

O'BRIEN: At the end of the day, the U.S. went to war, based in large part on this information that now turns out to be faulty. Who do you blame? Who's responsible? Who should take the blame?

GOSS: Well, I think everybody shares in the fact that we didn't have a full, complete picture. But we had a lot of pieces that suggested that we needed to deal with Saddam. And Dr. Kay said that very clearly. He said that President Bush acted prudently and took the right step.

I certainly agree with that as an American citizen and as a person who hopes for the future of a civilized society in our globe. I think that we had to get rid of Saddam.

I think that in the fog of war, you're never going to have a complete picture and intelligence is never going to be 100 percent. People always say if you bat .500 in baseball, you're doing great. If you bat .500 in intelligence, you're not doing well at all. And we weren't batting as well as we should have been.

And I think that the understanding that we have to make that commitment now to intelligence is becoming more clear on Capitol Hill, and that's a very important point.

O'BRIEN: Senator John McCain said he'd like to see an outside independent investigation. Would you like to see the same?

GOSS: I'd like to let the people that are presently doing investigations finish their work before we decide to have another investigation. But I think it's inevitable down the road that we are going to have yet other commissions who are going to look at the situation in Iraq, the situation with our intelligence, just like we are going to continue, in my view, to have people looking into how 9/11 came to pass and what happened.

Even after the Caine (ph) Commission does its job, I'm sure there will be further looks, just like we're still talking about the assassination of President Kennedy.

O'BRIEN: Those who disagree with you on that say considering the obvious scope of this problem, waiting is not prudent.

GOSS: I'm sorry?

O'BRIEN: There are those who disagree with you who would say that considering the obvious, massive scope of the problem, you're saying let's wait until the investigation is done, the first investigation is done. They say let's not wait because obviously the problem is so huge.

GOSS: Soledad, the first investigation has been done. It's called the Joint Inquiry by the Senate and the House Intelligence Committees. And we have made a number of recommendations, some of which are being implemented already in order to correct deficiencies.

It takes five to seven years to build the kind of assets that you need in the intelligence community that we're talking about. This is no silver bullet. It's going to take time and determination and commitment.

We have that from the administration, from the leadership in the intelligence community. And we are going to have to just be very vigilant, very alert and do the best we can. Work overtime, as we are, with our intelligence people now to protect ourselves until we can get those assets online and properly adjusted to the threats as they exist today. Terrorism is very different than conventional war fare.

O'BRIEN: So you're saying that for the population of the United States, we're really not protected for the next five to seven years until everything else is brought up to speed?

GOSS: I think the population is well protected. I'm suggesting that it can be better protected if we have better information.

We've done very well since 9/11. And we thank the good lord and knock on wood and go through all the other (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for that good luck and good fortune.

But it is not going to be possible to drop our vigilance. We are not going to be able to forget the fact that there is such a thing as terrorism. And terrorists want to kill Americans just because we are Americans. That's a very hard thought for most Americans to understand.

O'BRIEN: Congressman Porter Goss joining us this morning. Nice to see you. Thanks for being with us.

GOSS: Thank you, Soledad.

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