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American Morning
Interview With Former CIA Director James Woolsey
Aired February 13, 2004 - 07:04 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: Military officials say it could be four or five days before a National Guardsman is formally charged for allegedly trying to provide information to al Qaeda.
Ryan Anderson, a 26-year-old tank crew member, was arrested without incident yesterday at Fort Lewis in Washington State. Anderson's unit has been training at the base since November, preparing for deployment to Iraq. The military says Anderson's arrest was part of a joint investigation by the Army, the FBI and the Justice Department.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. COL. STEPHEN BARGER, PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. ARMY: Specialist Anderson will be held at the Fort Lewis Regional Corrections facility pending criminal charges of aiding the enemy by wrongfully attempting to communicate and give intelligence to the al Qaeda terrorist network in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Articles 80 and 104.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Anderson, a Muslim, was allegedly trying to communicate with al Qaeda through an Internet chat room. It is not believed that he actually made contact with any members of that terrorist organization.
Joining us this morning from Washington, D.C. to talk about the espionage arrest, as well as new government procedures for handling intelligence, is former CIA Director James Woolsey.
Nice to see you, Mr. Woolsey. Thanks for being with us.
JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Good to be with you, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: This young National Guardsman, now accused of espionage, how big of a problem is this? How unusual is this? And is there concerns in the military about soldiers funneling information to members of al Qaeda?
WOOLSEY: Well, first, I can say is that he's innocent until proven guilty.
But it is interesting, I think, in the "Times" story this morning that he was talking apparently in a local Muslim community about being a sniper and wanting to train people in the use of automatic weapons. And he was rebuked by one of the local Muslim leaders, a talk show host, and more or less told get out of here. You're not part of our community.
I think that shows that, you know, American Muslims, the vast majority of them, are on the right side in all of this. Theyre -- bravo to them. They're sort of standing up to crazies who show up in their midst.
O'BRIEN: Not much is known about this case so far, but it supposedly took place online. What kinds of systems are in place to make sure that information is -- excuse me -- not transferred from soldiers to al Qaeda and others?
WOOLSEY: I don't know how systematic surveillance, if it exists, really would work on -- within the military, but I rather think this young man, from what the stories in the press have said, was making himself pretty obvious about what he was doing, and, therefore, probably attracted some critical attention to himself by U.S. authorities, as well as by the Muslims in his own community.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about George Tenet and some of the changes that he has proposed for the CIA. Historically, the problem seems to have been sourcing, and many analysts would think that they were getting information from several sources when actually they were getting information from one source sort of described in several different ways. So, what was the quality of the information historically then that these analysts have been getting? And what's changed?
WOOLSEY: Well, the history of this is complex. The CIA has, I think, not enough gone back and looked at its prior assumptions on some of these assessments. And that's one thing that Jami Miscik, the deputy director for CIA for Intelligence, said yesterday in a speech here, the day before yesterday. They were going to do a great deal more.
But they were also going, she said, to be more specific about sources in the information that was given the analysts. Now, that's a good thing from the point of view of the analysts and from the point of view of people being able to assess whether or not a source is credible or not. From the point of view of counterintelligence, it has some risks. The way both Aldrich Aimes at the CIA and Robert Hanssen at the FBI were able to disclose to their masters in the Soviet Union and in Russia, things that they didn't have any business knowing about, was because information about sources was too widely disseminated in both the CIA and the FBI.
So, this is a little bit like liberty and equality. They're both good things, and sometimes they conflict, and sometimes security and being careful in counterintelligence conflicts with the need to know things about sources. You just have to call it the best way you can each step of the way.
O'BRIEN: The picture that has been painted in recent days and weeks about the intelligence community is that it is -- or the quality of the intelligence is almost sometimes embarrassingly bad. Do you think that that's a fair portrayal overall of the quality of the information that's coming in?
WOOLSEY: Not really. I think the CIA and American intelligence generally has had an important hand, for example, in uncovering the work of A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who is at the heart of a lot of the proliferation of nuclear materials and technology. They may well have been -- once all of the facts are in -- they may well prove to have been wrong about weapons of mass destruction in units of the Iraqi military.
But on the other hand, if they were, so were the Israelis and the Russians and the French and a lot of other people, and it's very interesting that so apparently were most of the Iraqi generals, whom David Kay says were quite possibly deceived by Saddam into believing that even though their unit didn't have, say, chemical weapons, the units on each of their flanks did.
So, I think we need to be a little cautious in completely condemning American intelligence in that kind of a crazy world. Even Saddam himself was deceived, according to Kay, quite possibly by his own scientists, telling him that they were working on weapons of mass destruction programs and pocketing the money instead. It was the twilight zone over there.
O'BRIEN: Former CIA Director James Woolsey joining us this morning. Thanks for being with us.
WOOLSEY: Good to be with 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 13, 2004 - 07:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Military officials say it could be four or five days before a National Guardsman is formally charged for allegedly trying to provide information to al Qaeda.
Ryan Anderson, a 26-year-old tank crew member, was arrested without incident yesterday at Fort Lewis in Washington State. Anderson's unit has been training at the base since November, preparing for deployment to Iraq. The military says Anderson's arrest was part of a joint investigation by the Army, the FBI and the Justice Department.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. COL. STEPHEN BARGER, PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. ARMY: Specialist Anderson will be held at the Fort Lewis Regional Corrections facility pending criminal charges of aiding the enemy by wrongfully attempting to communicate and give intelligence to the al Qaeda terrorist network in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Articles 80 and 104.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Anderson, a Muslim, was allegedly trying to communicate with al Qaeda through an Internet chat room. It is not believed that he actually made contact with any members of that terrorist organization.
Joining us this morning from Washington, D.C. to talk about the espionage arrest, as well as new government procedures for handling intelligence, is former CIA Director James Woolsey.
Nice to see you, Mr. Woolsey. Thanks for being with us.
JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Good to be with you, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: This young National Guardsman, now accused of espionage, how big of a problem is this? How unusual is this? And is there concerns in the military about soldiers funneling information to members of al Qaeda?
WOOLSEY: Well, first, I can say is that he's innocent until proven guilty.
But it is interesting, I think, in the "Times" story this morning that he was talking apparently in a local Muslim community about being a sniper and wanting to train people in the use of automatic weapons. And he was rebuked by one of the local Muslim leaders, a talk show host, and more or less told get out of here. You're not part of our community.
I think that shows that, you know, American Muslims, the vast majority of them, are on the right side in all of this. Theyre -- bravo to them. They're sort of standing up to crazies who show up in their midst.
O'BRIEN: Not much is known about this case so far, but it supposedly took place online. What kinds of systems are in place to make sure that information is -- excuse me -- not transferred from soldiers to al Qaeda and others?
WOOLSEY: I don't know how systematic surveillance, if it exists, really would work on -- within the military, but I rather think this young man, from what the stories in the press have said, was making himself pretty obvious about what he was doing, and, therefore, probably attracted some critical attention to himself by U.S. authorities, as well as by the Muslims in his own community.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about George Tenet and some of the changes that he has proposed for the CIA. Historically, the problem seems to have been sourcing, and many analysts would think that they were getting information from several sources when actually they were getting information from one source sort of described in several different ways. So, what was the quality of the information historically then that these analysts have been getting? And what's changed?
WOOLSEY: Well, the history of this is complex. The CIA has, I think, not enough gone back and looked at its prior assumptions on some of these assessments. And that's one thing that Jami Miscik, the deputy director for CIA for Intelligence, said yesterday in a speech here, the day before yesterday. They were going to do a great deal more.
But they were also going, she said, to be more specific about sources in the information that was given the analysts. Now, that's a good thing from the point of view of the analysts and from the point of view of people being able to assess whether or not a source is credible or not. From the point of view of counterintelligence, it has some risks. The way both Aldrich Aimes at the CIA and Robert Hanssen at the FBI were able to disclose to their masters in the Soviet Union and in Russia, things that they didn't have any business knowing about, was because information about sources was too widely disseminated in both the CIA and the FBI.
So, this is a little bit like liberty and equality. They're both good things, and sometimes they conflict, and sometimes security and being careful in counterintelligence conflicts with the need to know things about sources. You just have to call it the best way you can each step of the way.
O'BRIEN: The picture that has been painted in recent days and weeks about the intelligence community is that it is -- or the quality of the intelligence is almost sometimes embarrassingly bad. Do you think that that's a fair portrayal overall of the quality of the information that's coming in?
WOOLSEY: Not really. I think the CIA and American intelligence generally has had an important hand, for example, in uncovering the work of A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who is at the heart of a lot of the proliferation of nuclear materials and technology. They may well have been -- once all of the facts are in -- they may well prove to have been wrong about weapons of mass destruction in units of the Iraqi military.
But on the other hand, if they were, so were the Israelis and the Russians and the French and a lot of other people, and it's very interesting that so apparently were most of the Iraqi generals, whom David Kay says were quite possibly deceived by Saddam into believing that even though their unit didn't have, say, chemical weapons, the units on each of their flanks did.
So, I think we need to be a little cautious in completely condemning American intelligence in that kind of a crazy world. Even Saddam himself was deceived, according to Kay, quite possibly by his own scientists, telling him that they were working on weapons of mass destruction programs and pocketing the money instead. It was the twilight zone over there.
O'BRIEN: Former CIA Director James Woolsey joining us this morning. Thanks for being with us.
WOOLSEY: Good to be with 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.
