Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Sunday

Armitage, Rumsfeld to Head to India, Pakistan

Aired June 02, 2002 - 11:04   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now Washington is planning its own push for peace between Pakistan and India, even as it manages its own war on terrorism. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will each makes trips to the region in the coming days, and CNN's Kathleen Koch joins us now with the latest from the White House. Good afternoon, Kathleen.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Fredricka. Well, President Bush is monitoring the brewing crisis in India and Pakistan from Camp David, the presidential retreat, this weekend speaking with his national security team.

And when asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer to mediate talks between the leaders of the two countries at some point this week, a senior administration official said: "It's important that the international community work with both sides to get them to step back and deescalate the situation" and the official said the United States is doing the same thing by sending Armitage, by sending Rumsfeld, and the official said that obviously there have been a lot of phone conversations on this topic this weekend -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Now about the "Newsweek" report that the CIA apparently had been watching too, the 9/11 terrorists, how is the White House responding to that report this morning?

KOCH: The first thing the White House did this morning was to point out that this began under the Clinton Administration, this monitoring of the CIA -- by the CIA of these hijackers. The senior administration official went on to say that there should not be a rush to judgment based on what he called a single report coming to light without context and input from the different parties.

Now the official said that the Bush administration is focused on fighting and winning the war on terrorism and what it wants to do is wait and see what findings come out of the committees, now those being the House and Senate Intelligence Committees that have already begun their probes, their different probes into what the intelligence committees -- the intelligence agencies, I should say, knew prior to 9/11, what they did with that information.

Now this morning, Wolf Blitzer spoke with the Attorney General about whether or not the FBI and the CIA are communicating better.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN ASHCROFT, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Their effort at sharing has now been reflected in the fact that there are CIA people stationed at the FBI and FBI people stationed at the CIA. The Patriot Act passed shortly after September the 11th allows a far greater level of sharing.

It used to be that certain kinds of sharing were prohibited by law and just as we needed new rules and regulations regarding FBI agents in the field and what kinds of things they could do, we needed to redo our efforts that allowed an interchange between intelligence resources, domestic and international.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: The attorney general insisting that the two agencies are working together in a significantly better way than they ever have before -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much, Kathleen Koch from the White House.

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