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American Morning
Interview with Rep. Jane Harman
Aired February 10, 2004 - 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Questions about what intelligence agencies knew before the war in Iraq have prompted President Bush to form an investigative panel. But Congresswoman Jane Harman argued in a Sunday "Washington Post" article that five inquiries have already been conducted on intelligence failures and she contends that something needs to be done now.
Representative Harman sits on the House Intelligence Committee.
She joins us from Washington this morning.
Nice to see you, Congresswoman Harman.
Thank you for being with us.
REP. JANE HARMAN (D-CF), VICE CHAIRWOMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Good morning.
Here's what you wrote, a piece, at least, in the "Washington Post." "We cannot wait until November, till after November, to begin making needed improvements. Waiting will freeze in place an intolerable national security situation, shattered U.S. credibility and deeply flawed intelligence."
So the question then, how do you fix U.S. credibility and fix flawed intelligence when clearly this is a very deeply entrenched problem?
HARMAN: Well, it's a huge problem and it was a worldwide intelligence failure, at least with respect to prewar intelligence on Iraq. But in the short-term, there are at least four things we can do that I wrote about. One of them is to insist that analysts not only tell us what they know, but what they don't know. It should be clear that there was a lot of dispute about what was in Iraq prewar. That's one.
The second thing that we absolutely should do is scrub the intelligence products we have now. Are we accurate on North Korea? Are we accurate on Iran? Are we accurate on Libya in light of what we have learned about the failures in Iraq intelligence?
The third thing is to recruit a much more diverse group of spies with cultural sensitivity and language skills than we presently have.
And, finally, we should reinvigorate the U.N. inspector force. Those folks, after all, had a much more accurate picture of what was going on in Iraq than we did.
And if we do all of these things now -- President Bush could insist that at least in this country we begin this right now -- we'll be ahead of the game and then after the election, if another presidential commission wants to look at this, so be it. But I don't think we should wait. I don't think the terrorists are going to wait. I don't think the world is going to wait for the U.S. election.
O'BRIEN: In an interview on "Meet The Press" the other day, President Bush had this to say.
Let's listen.
He said, "I went to Congress with the same intelligence Congress saw, the same intelligence I had, and they made an informed judgment based on the information that I had."
He's essentially saying that Congress, you all, bear part of the blame, too.
Do you think that's fair?
HARMAN: Well, first of all, we don't see precisely the same intelligence products he does. We don't see the daily brief, the PDB that he sees, which is -- I've never seen one -- has more information than what we get. Nonetheless, I believed the intelligence I was shown. I'm, you know, fairly careful about what I do and I believed it. And the intelligence was, in large part, wrong. And so I suppose the president can blame Congress.
I don't think the point is to blame anybody. I think the point is to fix the problem right now. That's what leadership requires, stepping up and saying we made mistakes and on my watch I'm going to fix those mistakes.
O'BRIEN: You know, you just asked the question a moment ago, are we wrong? Are we wrong in North Korea, in Iran, in Syria, in Libya, in Pakistan?
HARMAN: Right.
O'BRIEN: Do you think Americans are now sitting back and saying whoa, so wrong in Iraq, that it's fair to say we probably are wrong in these areas? And what do you do about that in a short enough term to make a difference?
HARMAN: Well, those are the things I just outlined, Soledad. We can fix our intelligence products right now to make certain that they are more accurate. I think if we don't do that, this credibility crisis will continue. And it's not just Americans who are saying whoa. It's the entire world that's saying whoa.
I was just at an international security conference in Munich over the weekend. Our secretary of defense and others were there. And many, many leaders from around the world raised the WMD issue and raised the question -- in fact, even some Americans did -- at this conference, can the preemption doctrine of this administration be taken seriously if our intelligence products are faulty? Preemption depends on accurate, timely and actionable intelligence and we ain't got it yet.
O'BRIEN: You say leadership is a key problem.
HARMAN: You bet.
O'BRIEN: Do you think George Tenet should lose his job?
HARMAN: I think that George Tenet, yesterday, should clarify how to do analysis at his agency. He has the confidence of the president. That's what matters. And I certainly would not want to create a vacuum at the top of the CIA. But I think this is on the president's watch. A lot of his administration spokesmen, not just the intelligence officials, were using these intelligence products or some other products to make very bold, flat statements about the situation in Iraq, which now appear to be wrong. And it is the president's responsibility to correct the problem, not to kick the can down the road until next March, but to step up right now and say there are at least four or five things I can do now and I am going to do them.
O'BRIEN: Congresswoman Jane Harman joining us this morning.
Nice to see you.
HARMAN: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us.
HARMAN: 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
Aired February 10, 2004 - 08:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Questions about what intelligence agencies knew before the war in Iraq have prompted President Bush to form an investigative panel. But Congresswoman Jane Harman argued in a Sunday "Washington Post" article that five inquiries have already been conducted on intelligence failures and she contends that something needs to be done now.
Representative Harman sits on the House Intelligence Committee.
She joins us from Washington this morning.
Nice to see you, Congresswoman Harman.
Thank you for being with us.
REP. JANE HARMAN (D-CF), VICE CHAIRWOMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Good morning.
Here's what you wrote, a piece, at least, in the "Washington Post." "We cannot wait until November, till after November, to begin making needed improvements. Waiting will freeze in place an intolerable national security situation, shattered U.S. credibility and deeply flawed intelligence."
So the question then, how do you fix U.S. credibility and fix flawed intelligence when clearly this is a very deeply entrenched problem?
HARMAN: Well, it's a huge problem and it was a worldwide intelligence failure, at least with respect to prewar intelligence on Iraq. But in the short-term, there are at least four things we can do that I wrote about. One of them is to insist that analysts not only tell us what they know, but what they don't know. It should be clear that there was a lot of dispute about what was in Iraq prewar. That's one.
The second thing that we absolutely should do is scrub the intelligence products we have now. Are we accurate on North Korea? Are we accurate on Iran? Are we accurate on Libya in light of what we have learned about the failures in Iraq intelligence?
The third thing is to recruit a much more diverse group of spies with cultural sensitivity and language skills than we presently have.
And, finally, we should reinvigorate the U.N. inspector force. Those folks, after all, had a much more accurate picture of what was going on in Iraq than we did.
And if we do all of these things now -- President Bush could insist that at least in this country we begin this right now -- we'll be ahead of the game and then after the election, if another presidential commission wants to look at this, so be it. But I don't think we should wait. I don't think the terrorists are going to wait. I don't think the world is going to wait for the U.S. election.
O'BRIEN: In an interview on "Meet The Press" the other day, President Bush had this to say.
Let's listen.
He said, "I went to Congress with the same intelligence Congress saw, the same intelligence I had, and they made an informed judgment based on the information that I had."
He's essentially saying that Congress, you all, bear part of the blame, too.
Do you think that's fair?
HARMAN: Well, first of all, we don't see precisely the same intelligence products he does. We don't see the daily brief, the PDB that he sees, which is -- I've never seen one -- has more information than what we get. Nonetheless, I believed the intelligence I was shown. I'm, you know, fairly careful about what I do and I believed it. And the intelligence was, in large part, wrong. And so I suppose the president can blame Congress.
I don't think the point is to blame anybody. I think the point is to fix the problem right now. That's what leadership requires, stepping up and saying we made mistakes and on my watch I'm going to fix those mistakes.
O'BRIEN: You know, you just asked the question a moment ago, are we wrong? Are we wrong in North Korea, in Iran, in Syria, in Libya, in Pakistan?
HARMAN: Right.
O'BRIEN: Do you think Americans are now sitting back and saying whoa, so wrong in Iraq, that it's fair to say we probably are wrong in these areas? And what do you do about that in a short enough term to make a difference?
HARMAN: Well, those are the things I just outlined, Soledad. We can fix our intelligence products right now to make certain that they are more accurate. I think if we don't do that, this credibility crisis will continue. And it's not just Americans who are saying whoa. It's the entire world that's saying whoa.
I was just at an international security conference in Munich over the weekend. Our secretary of defense and others were there. And many, many leaders from around the world raised the WMD issue and raised the question -- in fact, even some Americans did -- at this conference, can the preemption doctrine of this administration be taken seriously if our intelligence products are faulty? Preemption depends on accurate, timely and actionable intelligence and we ain't got it yet.
O'BRIEN: You say leadership is a key problem.
HARMAN: You bet.
O'BRIEN: Do you think George Tenet should lose his job?
HARMAN: I think that George Tenet, yesterday, should clarify how to do analysis at his agency. He has the confidence of the president. That's what matters. And I certainly would not want to create a vacuum at the top of the CIA. But I think this is on the president's watch. A lot of his administration spokesmen, not just the intelligence officials, were using these intelligence products or some other products to make very bold, flat statements about the situation in Iraq, which now appear to be wrong. And it is the president's responsibility to correct the problem, not to kick the can down the road until next March, but to step up right now and say there are at least four or five things I can do now and I am going to do them.
O'BRIEN: Congresswoman Jane Harman joining us this morning.
Nice to see you.
HARMAN: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us.
HARMAN: 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
