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What Did Bush Know of Warnings Before 9-11?
Aired May 18, 2002 - 10:00 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, I would have done everything in my power to protect the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN KARL, HOST: An old refrain echoes through Washington, What did he know and when did he know it, and why was it kept secret for so long?
Congress wants answers about the terror attack warnings before September 11. We'll talk to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas and to reporters who cover the White House and the Hill about the political fall out.
Also, as another wartime president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, becomes a national obsession with a best selling book and a new made- for-TV movie, we'll talk to historians about the lessons of LBJ, overwhelmed by fighting a far and a credibility gap.
All just ahead on CNN SATURDAY EDITION.
Good morning in California, the rest of the West, Oregon and all of our viewers across North America. I'm Jonathan Karl in Washington.
Over the next hour, we want to hear from you about the pre-9/11 warnings and the congressional investigations in to who, what and when.
And later in the hour, why a former president -- LBJ -- is all the rage. Our e-mail address is saturday.edition@cnn.com.
We'll talk to two members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in just a moment, but first a news alert.
(NEWSBREAK)
KARL: The president's weekly radio address is in just a couple of minutes. But joining us first is Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas. Both are members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, which, of course, will play a key role in any congressional investigation into the terrorist attack warnings.
Welcome to SATURDAY EDITION to both of you.
Senator Wyden, right to you. Didn't the Democrats way overplay their hands this week by suggesting the president knew something and could have done something to stop September 11?
SEN. RON WYDEN (D), OREGON: First of all, I don't think it's constructive to have political types trying to get the jump on each other. I think we want to get the jump on the terrorists. And that's what's in the country's interest. That's first and foremost on my mind this morning.
I will also say, though, in addition...
KARL: But the Democrats came right out immediately after the story broke...
(CROSSTALK)
WYDEN: ... in addition on this point, the Congress and the public appropriately place their trust in the administration after September 11. And I do think it's a misuse of that trust to call anybody irresponsible who asks tough questions about what sure looks like an intelligence failure.
KARL: But what did you take of the way the Democrats responded to this story?
SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: We've got a lot of magpies and crows that sit on the split fence rail in Kansas. They're part of the second guessing game.
I thought it was unconscionable in regards to insinuating -- and I use the word insinuate, they didn't right come and say that this was the case -- that the president somehow knew about this and then sat back and did nothing.
Now having said that...
KARL: OK...
ROBERTS: ... my friend over here...
KARL: I need to interrupt because we're going to go to the president's radio address. We will pick up that thought right after.
BUSH: ... Medicare is one of the most important and compassionate programs in American history. It provides medical care to the elderly and people with disabilities. It is a source of security and dignity for tens of millions of Americans.
The health of America's senior citizens is one of America's most sacred obligations, and it is a commitment my administration will fully honor.
Yet we need to do more to fulfill Medicare's promise. Seniors should have affordable coverage choices that meet their needs, but Medicare does not do that.
Many seniors need prescription drug coverage; Medicare does not provide it. And because Medicare does not cover prescription drugs, seniors often pay the highest prices for drugs out of their own pockets, forcing too many of our seniors to choose between paying for pills or paying their bills.
Medicare is an essential program, but it has not kept pace with the advances in medicine. The Medicare program is costly for seniors and too often does not provide the choices that our seniors need and our seniors want. So Medicare must be strengthened, and it must be improved.
Congress is working hard to pass legislation that will help many seniors with their drug costs and guarantee all senior citizens prescription drug coverage. I strongly support these efforts.
At the same time, I am working for a Medicare endorsed drug card that will allow seniors to get lower prices from drug manufacturers right away. And I'm working for temporary assistance with drug costs for seniors with limited incomes, even before the full prescription drug benefit becomes available a few years from now.
Medicare also needs to give every senior affordable, up-to-date health insurance options. Right now, more than 5 million Medicare members have access to valuable modern health insurance benefits and prescription drug coverage and Medicare Plus Choice plans.
These improved benefits along with innovative treatments probably saved Joe Hoten's (ph) life. Mr. Hoten (ph) served in the Navy in World War II. He joined his Medicare Plus Choice in 1995. Because his health plan covers annual check-ups, Joe's doctor caught a spot and got it treated before it turned into life-threatening cancer. Many of these treatments and programs that can save and improve lives and reduce health care costs are only available through Medicare's private plans. Unfortunately, millions of Medicare members do not have the option to choose these benefits.
The federal government has long provide reliable coverage choices to all of its employees, but current law prevents private health plans from giving Medicare enrollees the same choices. As a result, over a hundred private plans have left Medicare and millions of seniors have lost the valuable additional benefits that private plans provide.
We must act now to provide every Medicare member with more choices and more savings. Medicare needs a fair system of competition, a system that encourages additional benefits and options for better care at lower costs.
Medicare is crucial to elderly Americans. I urge members of both parties to work together to protect and improve Medicare and to maintain our moral commitment to millions of Americans. Thank you for listening.
KARL: All right, the president's radio address.
And next up, fair questions to the Bush White House or a political and a media feeding frenzy? We'll continue our conversation with Senators Wyden and Roberts and take your questions when CNN SATURDAY EDITION returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: There's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice doing her part for damage control of the Bush administration handling of the pre-September 11th warnings. We're back with two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas.
Now, Senator Roberts, you just heard Condoleezza Rice say that nobody would have ever imagined somebody crashing a plane into the Pentagon. But, in fact, they did. In a 1999 report by the National Intelligence Council, which is part of the CIA, prepared by the Library of Congress, said just such a scenario about a plane crashing into the Pentagon or crashing into the CIA headquarters.
ROBERTS: Well, you know, we heard those reports back in '99, as I told you, before I was chairman of the Emerging Threats Subcommittee. We had every commission -- we had the Bremmer Commission, we had the Gilmore Commission, the Hart-Rudman Commission, the CSIS study, every academic, every military person. They all warned us the oceans no longer protect us. It wasn't a matter of if, but when.
We asked them to prioritize. And they started a list. OK, what keeps you up at night -- bioterrorism, cyber attacks, chemical weaponry, a weapon of mass destruction, and then bombs and explosives and hijackings?
Now in the hijackings, it was in the traditional sense.
KARL: Now, wait a minute, in this 1999 report, talks about a plane being hijacked and driven, you know, crashed into the Pentagon.
ROBERTS: That was a possibility. Those kind of reports also mentioned the Eiffel Tower, the Heidelberg Gate, the CIA building...
KARL: So it wasn't an unthinkable scenario?
ROBERTS: ... for -- no, it's not an unthinkable scenario. But if you and I sat down with a yellow tablet and said, "OK, Jon, Pat, Ron, what are the terrorists going to do next," you could list 100. They could do 101.
These reports and the report we just say yesterday in the Intelligence Committee was very generic, very informational to the president. Far different from a credible and specific and time- conscious and target-conscious alert, which does get into a formal warning product, like we should have done with the USS Cole.
We should have connected the dots with the USS Cole. We had that situation -- a young man simply resigned, he quit on the day afterward, saying "I had the information that could have prevented this."
We had those hearings in the Intelligence Committee. So this is really nothing new. The report that the president got was generic. To get a formal warning product and take action, it must be specific and it must be credible.
This was a general report that you're talking about.
KARL: So this report that you two saw as members of the Intelligence Committee yesterday was the August 6th briefing that the president got that warned about hijackings.
Senator Wyden, based upon what you've seen in that report, has this story been way overblown? I mean, this has dominated political discussion, news media coverage for the past two days.
WYDEN: I think it's clear that we've got to zero in on the structural problems with respect to our intelligence gathering and information sharing capability.
For example...
KARL: Has this report been overblown?
WYDEN: Jonathan...
KARL: Has this report, what the president was told in August...
WYDEN: I do not think that this question of getting at the facts here and what happened has been overblown.
And I think Senator Roberts has made a number of points. And I want to add one in addition. There is no question that Ms. Rice talked about the history and that terrorists had not used a plane specifically in this way.
But what really troubles me is that the intelligence community had information that now we have people going to these flight training schools to learn how to steer airplanes. To me, that that should have set off warning alarms. That should have set off, you know, alarms. You know, and I just want to give you an example of what needs to be done.
Senator Roberts and other Republicans helped me in the intelligence bill here recently to set up a terrorist tracking system, a database, so that on an ongoing basis, all of these agencies would know about the threats and know about them world wide.
That should have been in place a long time ago. Had it been in place, I think that there is a chance that information from those flight training schools, where people were learning how to steer planes, could have been used differently.
KARL: Right. Well, I mean, finally -- frankly, I think it's amazing that that July 10 memo that you're referring to, the Phoenix memo that warned about the use of these flight training schools, that that in the FBI, was not turned over to the CIA until last week.
How is that? I mean, that had names. And now we know that two of those names turned out to be Al Qaeda confirmed by the CIA.
WYDEN: Jonathan, here is the problem. What seems like a meaningless scrap of information to one agency can really be a key piece of solving a puzzle to another...
KARL: But after September 11, how does that meaningless scrap...
(CROSSTALK)
WYDEN: Well, that's the whole point. That's what needs to be changed.
KARL: Why did it take so long? Are you aware of it?
ROBERTS: Yes, we're aware of it. We know that the Phoenix memo is a problem. There are a lot of problems. A lot of mistakes were made. All the way through this, we have known that the analytical ability of the intelligence community leaves a great deal to be desired. As I said, look at all of the past mistakes.
The collection assets and the leap-ahead technology we have to produce an amazing amount of material, and if you paid attention to all of it, you wouldn't do anything else.
But what Ron has suggested in the committee yesterday, and one of the focuses of the investigation is, how can we better share that information, how can we streamline it, how can we really coordinate it? And now knowing what we know after 9/11, I can assure you there's a whole new attitude, a whole new sense.
Before, we were into risk aversion. Before, we were not thinking out of the box.
KARL: And yes, I'm not talking about the guessing, the second- guessing of pre-9/11. But I'm talking since 9/11. It seems that it's still broken if the FBI still took eight months to turn over information that's highly relevant now. ROBERTS: Well, you know, that's hindsight, 20/20. If you get a piece of information, and we asked about that specific piece of information in the committee yesterday. The report back was, "Well, they were a little concerned about racial profiling." And the report back was, basically, bad judgment.
Well, there's been bad judgment on a lot of things. But I can tell you that the attitude that I have found at the CIA, FBI, after working on this for three or four years, both on Emerging Threats and Intelligence, is much better.
The esprit de corps at least was much better until all of this happened. I worry about that. And I think we're going to do a much better job.
The Intelligence Committee can do its job. We have a good team. We have started...
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: When do you have...
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: We're going to get a lot of briefings first before we go to public hearings, so we know exactly what we're talking about.
KARL: Could it be by June, or do you think it's going to be much later?
ROBERTS: I think, probably, we're on a two or three month time schedule. I think that's what, you know, Bob Graham indicated.
You got Bob Graham, who is a good man; you've got Porter Goss, who is a good man; one Republican and one Democrat and very dedicated members of the committee.
I hope this doesn't get loose -- you know one of the problems, Jon, we have 16 committees that are claiming jurisdiction in the Senate of the United States -- 16.
KARL: You guys could have more hearings on this than Enron, I would imagine.
Let's take a quick question from a view e-mail here. This comes from Carol (ph). She says, "What is a traditional hijacking? And shouldn't the airlines have been notified earlier?"
WYDEN: That's right at the heart of it. And we're going to have a hearing, for example, on Tuesday on aviation security, and I'm going to ask specifically then, what did the government tell the airlines and when did they tell them? Because to me, given the fact that there was no history, absolutely no history, Jonathan, of people using an airplane in this precise way, to murder civilians, and then you have people off at these flight training schools learning how to steer airplanes, suggests to me that there is a very serious structural, organizational deficiency in the way intelligence is gathered and shared.
KARL: And yet, some of the people saying there should've been a bigger warning put out last summer complained when the administration was putting out warnings in the fall.
ROBERTS: We've had -- I'm going to make a guesstimate here, and I don't think this is classified, that, you know, FBI and the intelligence committee warning the FAA and the Department of Transportation, probably -- what? -- 60, 70, 80, 90 times in the last two or three years about possible hijackings.
We've had, you know...
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: There so many warnings, so they kind of lose their punch.
ROBERTS: Well, we've had them for 30 years, but we didn't take the extra step and then the additional step in regards to tie it together to using them as a missile.
And so now, what Ron has said is exactly correct: We've got to structurally find out how we can better work with Justice, DOD, CIA and all the other intelligence agencies so that...
(CROSSTALK)
WYDEN: Here's what Oregonians tell me at my town meetings, they say, "You got a terrorist tracking system in this intelligence bill. Why in the world wasn't that done many months ago?" That's what Senator Roberts and I are going to tackle.
KARL: Well, both members of the Intelligence Committee, you've got a very busy several months ahead of you, and I'm sure we'll talk with you again.
Senator Wyden, Senator Roberts, thanks a lot for coming on our show.
ROBERTS: Our pleasure. Thank you very much.
WYDEN: Thank you.
KARL: And straight ahead, the political fallout from the terrorist attack warnings. We'll get some insight from three reporters who cover the White House and Congress when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: ... second-guessing has become second nature. The American people know this about me and my national security team and my administration: Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, I would've done everything in my power to protect the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: There's President Bush calling Washington a town of second-guessers.
Joining us to talk about the political impact of the 9/11 revelations on both the White House and the Congress are reporters who covered the story: Mike Allen at the Washington Post; Alison Mitchell of the New York Times, making her first appearance on CNN -- on this show anyway; and of course, at the White House, our very own Kelly Wallace.
Kelly, how are you?
KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hello, good to be with you. Sorry I can't be there in the studio with you, but the work of the White House goes on.
KARL: Well, you're here via satellite.
WALLACE: Exactly.
KARL: Mike Allen, first question to you. You were sitting there in the briefing room when all of this was going on, the feeding frenzy started. How worried is the White House about what's going on?
MIKE ALLEN, WASHINGTON POST: Well, their friends say they should be very worried, and they have a couple problems in the days ahead. In addition to the question the senators were pointing to -- and that is, what should the president have known? -- a lot of people are asking why the information that was put out the other night was not given out some time in the previous eight months.
The administration has a tough strategy because, in coming weeks, they are going to go push for limited hearings. They want to continue to have closed, classified hearings. A key point for administration officials on talk shows tomorrow is to going to be to say, "We're still at war with Al Qaeda, we don't want to give them a road map to our vulnerabilities," which is just going to make more people think they have something to hide.
KARL: Well, Kelly, I mean, we saw the first lady talking about this on her trip to Europe. We saw Condoleezza Rice come out and give all kinds of information about what the administration knew before September 11th. I mean, it seems like some pretty extraordinary steps down there. What's your sense about what they worry about in terms of political fallout?
WALLACE: Well, extraordinary, definitely, when you mention the first lady, Laura Bush, sort of stepping into the political fray, issuing a statement overseas, in Europe, in defense of her husband.
What I'm told here, Jonathan, is that this administration very aware that if charges kind of hang out there, they can kind of stick and that perceptions of the president can change. So what officials here were saying was going on yesterday, they were responding vigorously to what they said were some unfair charges.
You had Ari Fleischer in the briefing room here talking about Democrats playing politics, and as you know, he singled out New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. They were very concerned with comments she made about a New York Post headline that said, "Bush Knew." They said that really crossed the line, and so they were responding.
And that's what they'll continue to do, Jonathan.
KARL: The headline said, the 9/11 bombshell, "Bush Knew," my favorite quote was the editor of the New York Post saying, "Well, we weren't saying Bush knew about 9/11."
Alison, what about the Democrats? I mean, they came out -- I mean, talk about rapid response, I felt like we were in the middle of the fall campaign.
ALISON MITCHELL, NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, well, I think that the Democrats have been looking for a while for ways to bring down the president's popularity, I believe. I also think this time there were some serious questions, and they jumped on it.
And maybe they all jumped on it with too much of a chorus because there could be some -- it could backfire on them a bit.
WALLACE: We did see -- I think you did see the Democrats, it looked like, dial back just a little bit. They're facing a delicate balancing act, of course, you know, wanting to raise questions.
But what you're seeing from Vice President Cheney and others, very much kind of sending a warning to Democrats that it's, quote, "irresponsible," to ask some of these questions that they felt crossed the line in a time of war.
So clearly, the administration putting out there that Democrats better be careful. Democrats firing back, saying that they have a responsibility to ask some of these questions.
KARL: But let's pick up on what Mike said. Mike's telling us that, tomorrow, we're going to see Cheney, we're going to see Rice come out on the Sunday shows, and they're going to say, "Hey, secrecy is important here; we don't want to give the enemy a road map." How's that going to be...
MITCHELL: You know, I think both parties -- there's a problem here with both parties, which is, we can't seem to have a serious conversation anymore about serious issues.
There are serious questions here. There are intelligence, perhaps, failures that need to be looked into. It would be nice if it could be done in a nonpartisan environment.
But both parties are on attack, and that stops real inquiry and discussion.
KARL: Well, let's listen to how Ari Fleischer was handling Kelly Wallace, Mike Allen and the others at the briefings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think that anybody who made insinuations or suggestions that this president had information that could've prevented the attacks and did not act on them is asking questions in such a way as to create an impression that the president could've and should've done something that he didn't do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: Well, Mike, you heard Republicans say that you guys in that briefing room, that you reporters were doing the work of the Democrats, I mean, with your questions, insinuating this president knew and didn't do anything about it.
ALLEN: Right, and what was interesting was that, yesterday, as Kelly pointed out, the White House really fought back. They came back, starting with, I guess, with Vice President Cheney on Thursday night. They also came back very, you could say, surely (ph).
This is a real risk for the White House, because a big part of President Bush's popularity is his personal appeal, his talk about changing the tone.
And Ari, your viewers saw, very tough comments this week. He always smiles when he says them. He said very tough political things about Senator Clinton and others.
KARL: And about reporters, Kelly, was this the day that the press corps turned against the president, the White House press corps turned against Bush?
WALLACE: Well, it just was a different environment here, Jonathan. Especially since the September 11th attacks, as Mike certainly knows as well, it was really the first time this White House very, very, very much on the defensive.
And one point that Mike raised, a lot of reporters, Mike included, asking the question, why has it been eight months and no U.S. official ever mentioned that there was even this very general information about a possibility of an Al Qaeda hijacking of a U.S. commercial airliner?
We had a lot of reporters going through comments Vice President Cheney made, even President Bush; a lot of people asking, why was this information not put out sooner?
Condoleezza Rice was saying, "Look, it was one of many reports. It didn't pop into people's heads." But she's also saying, as the administration is gearing up for these congressional hearings, it, too, is really documenting what the president and his team knew and when. So a lot of questions raised. I think the sense of the administration is a little bit on the defensive, stung by the criticism, feeling some of it is out of line and hoping that it bounces back a bit.
KARL: All right, well, more with our reporters' roundtable, but first, we've got to go and get a news alert. We've got Miles O'Brien in Atlanta with the latest.
(NEWSBREAK)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KARL: An important source of information about the news of the day, the terrorism war, and transcripts of CNN's SATURDAY EDITION can be found online at cnn.com or AOL keyword, CNN.
Now I'd like you to listen to something that Jerry Nadler, Democrat of New York had to say immediately after this story broke in the papers. It was early Thursday morning. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: If the White House had knowledge that there was a danger or an intent to hijack an American airplane and did not warn the airlines, that would be nonfeasance in office of the highest order, That would make the president almost -- bear a large amount of responsibility for the tragedy that occurred.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: There you have a Democrat talking about the president bearing a huge amount of the responsibility for what happened on September 11. How many other people did you hear going that far up on Capital Hill, Alison?
MITCHELL: I don't think too many people went that far. Dick Gephardt did rephrase some of the old Watergate questions and came close to asking, you know, what do we need to find out, what do we know and when did they know it?
But I think that Mr. Nadler was about the only one who was that pointed against the president.
KARL: Are Democrats worried about the bounce back?
MITCHELL: I think they started to be a little worried about the bounce back on Friday, partly because the Republicans of course were trying to make it almost unpatriotic to be asking questions.
ALLEN: And I'm not sure if it's a straw man or a red herring, what the difference is...
KARL: A straw herring you mean?
(LAUGHTER) ALLEN: ... exactly, but when -- nobody is suggesting that the president knew that the planes were coming. I think the questions that are going to be hard for the White House in these many investigations as the senators were talking about is, did they take the vague information they have and did they see the enormity of it? Did they see the urgency of it?
The reporting that's come out is all about the people all around them who were so concerned, and that didn't seem to be either conveyed or didn't seem to register in the places that it counted most.
WALLACE: Exactly.
And Jonathan, I would just want to bring up, you know, we talk a lot about that FBI memo in July, an agent in Phoenix warning of Middle Eastern students possibly taking flight classes in the United States and tied to Osama bin Laden, Condoleezza Rice saying Thursday she does not recall seeing that memo here. She does not think the president saw that memo either.
They are reviewing that to see if that's the case. But this is -- these are some of the questions. Why wasn't some of that information kind of passed through, collected with all of the other intelligence officials? And why, possibly, did it never make it to the White House?
KARL: All right, we've got a quick phone call I want to take. And I forget where you're from caller, but -- Tennessee. What's your question?
CALLER: Yes, I'd like to know what is the status of the line of communications between the White House and the foreign intelligence committee in the Senate since it's controlled by the Democrats? And you know, they seem to be trying to place it all on the Democrats.
KARL: Well, it's an excellent question. Alison?
MITCHELL: I think -- well, are you asking about the foreign affairs committee or the Intelligence Committee?
KARL: No, the Intelligence Committee. How much did they know? You saw Republicans suggest that the Intelligence Committee had the very same information.
MITCHELL: Yes. The intelligence committees do get briefings that are somewhat similar to what the president gets. And they say that they had some of the information that the president had. They did not have the particular reference to hijackings. And I gather there were a few other...
ALLEN: Which is not a small point.
MITCHELL: Right.
KARL: Let's listen to what Condi Rice had to say. She came out on Thursday to try to set the record straight. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICE: Hijacking before 9/11 and hijacking after 9/11 do mean two very, very different things. And so focusing on it before 9/11, perhaps it's clear, after 9/11, you would have looked at those differently, but certainly not before 9/11.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: OK, Mike, did Condoleezza Rice did not know about the 1999 report that talked about the scenario or a plane being used to crashed into the Pentagon or CIA headquarters?
ALLEN: And well, Jonathan, not just that report. There are other incidents around the world of terrorists talking about crashing into the Eiffel Tower, into CIA headquarters.
When the president, earlier, before September 11, was in Genoa, Italy, for the Group of 8 summit, there were missile batteries around the city because of a threat that they were going to crash a plane and to try to kill the president...
KARL: And so did she not know about that when she came out to do that briefing? Or was this spin control? What's going on? I mean, I...
ALLEN: I don't know the answer to that. I think to some degree, we saw some genuine moments there with Dr. Rice in that she was still trying to learn it. She said that the specificity of this briefing arose when they got ready to send stuff to the Hill. As you pointed out, she said they were still checking to see if the president had ever heard about either the Moussaoui case or about the Phoenix FBI agent's warning.
So they're still trying to find out all that was there because it clearly didn't register.
WALLACE: But also, let me get -- throw in there too, the question then it becomes, the officials at CIA or the other intelligence agencies, why were they not potentially compiling some of this information and putting it together in a way that could be communicated to the White House?
KARL: Yes...
WALLACE: You know, so far the president has been asked -- or Air Fleischer has been asked, "Has the president have confidence that his advisers, his intelligence advisers, you know, did not let him down?"
Ari Fleischer saying he does not feel they let him down. But that could be a continuing question for this White House.
KARL: Alison?
MITCHELL: You know, I think the problem here is everybody knew that when you went back and looked at what was there, that it probably wasn't going to be pretty.
I mean, the commissions that have looked into the intelligence structures long before this have said they don't communicate with each other, they don't have a way of getting the information to each other.
And I think everyone knew that his would all be there. What's happening now though is we're seeing very specifically what was there and what if maybe you had put it together, could have caused some kind of action.
And again, part of the problem now is there's such a politicized atmosphere that it's going to make it hard to have a sensible look at what might have known, whether you should reshape the intelligence community.
KARL: All right, Alison Mitchell, the New York Times, Mike Allen, the Washington Post, Kelly Wallace, CNN thank you all for joining us.
MITCHELL: Great to be with you.
ALLEN: Thank you.
KARL: Take care.
And just ahead, editorial cartoons, a postcard from my SATURDAY EDITION partner Kate Snow in Cuba. And he was elected to the White House in a landslide victory, only to leave four years later reviled: Why all of the attention to Lyndon Johnson? Three historians have the answer when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KARL: Political cartoonists ought to send Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter a thank-you note this week.
J.D. Crowe of the Mobile Register shows Carter puffing contentedly. Closer inspection shows the cigar is former President Carter.
Dick Wright of the Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch shows the two leaders side by side. Says Carter, "I just my friend Fidel. If he says he's not developing weapons, he's not. What's that smell?" There's a smoking vial in his pocket. But Castro answers, "My cigar."
Steve Sak of the Minneapolis Star Tribune shows reactions to the Carter trip. Castro applauds saying, "I like the part about lifting the embargo." A dissident says, "I like the part about democracy and human rights." And Bush thinks, "I like the part about this trip being over."
Last word from Vic Hargle (ph) of Stevens Media Group in Arkansas. He shows Carter adrift in shark infested waters, thinking, "Never should have let the White House arrange my transportation home." My SATURDAY EDITION partner, Kate Snow, is making her way back from covering the Carter trip. She started filing her reports last Saturday when she co-anchored the show live from Cuba. And she's covered every move of the Carter visit.
And she sent me one last postcard before she left.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Jon, hello again from Havana. President Carter has wrapped up his trip here. Over the course of a week, he met with about two dozen political dissidents. Many of them would come out and then talk to our cameras afterward.
But I want to tell you a little bit about what it was like to talk to regular people here in Cuba during our visit. That was a little more difficult. Some of them would talk to us on camera, but mostly about Carter's trip or the visit or the speech or what they do in their daily lives. But when it came to their rights and the rights that Cuban people lack, most people didn't want to talk to us.
For example, the hotel workers who can't even stay at the hotel where they work because they're not allowed, no one wanted to talk about that on camera. Instead, people would talk to us in hushed voices, in corners or in areas where no one else would see them.
I remember one woman's story that I will never forget. She said that her daughter had recently gotten married to a European just so she could get out of the country. She said, "I will probably never see her again." And then she got tears in her eyes and she said, "Please help us."
Jon, I think people here hope that the president's trip here will help them, that he brings some hope back with him on his return to the United States.
Jon, back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KARL: All right, well a special thanks to Kate Snow.
And from the saga of former President Jimmy Carter to the virtually inescapable national debate over another former president, tonight, CNN's sister company HBO, is premiering a new movie about President Lyndon Baines Johnson. "Path to War" is the story of the conflict Johnson had with himself and his closest advisers over the Vietnam War. The movie is the latest in a renewed interest in LBJ.
A new book about the 36th president is getting rave reviews. And now, joining us from New Orleans is presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. Welcome to the show.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Thank you.
KARL: And here in Washington, historian Deborah Shapley. And she is the author of a biography of the Johnson defense secretary, Robert McNamara, and was a consultant to the HBO film.
Robert Dallek, also here with us, wrote "Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times." He also served as a consultant to this film.
And before we get into our discussion, I want to play one of the very memorable clips from this movie.
Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not mining the ports, hitting the dikes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The CIA says hitting those dikes will flood the whole damn country, kill the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), starve them to death. Isn't that right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I have one more problem for your big computer. How long it will take 500,000 angry Americans to climb that White House wall and lynch their president if he does something like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: Well, I've got to say I saw this movie last night, and it's a wonderful movie.
But Mr. Dallek, Dr. Dallek, I'd like to ask you, you spent a lot of time studying Johnson, listening to his tapes. Does that level of anguish that we hear from Johnson about the war, does that ring true to you?
ROBERT DALLEK, AUTHOR, "LONE STAR RISING": Oh, absolutely. He suffered probably as much as anyone. He thought, initially, that they could get into that war and succeed. They had the French example before them of failure in Vietnam. But this was the United States. We had the capacity to defeat them. They weren't going to beat up on us, these little fellows running around in black pajamas. How could they defeat the mighty United States?
They found out very quickly that we were locked into a stalemate there, and it caused him terrible anguish. He didn't know how to get out of it. It was terribly frustrating and defeated him, destroyed his presidency.
KARL: And Professor Brinkley, we know of course from Robert Caro's wonderful biography about Johnson's Senate years, this was somebody who was used to having his way. What was this a new reality for him once he hit the White House?
BRINKELY: I don't think it was a new reality because it was a Cold War climate going on. In other words, when Johnson as a senator, through Dick Russell, got on the Armed Services Committee, he was there for the Korean War. He was there for McCarthy's witch hunts and the whole Eisenhower showdown with the Soviet Union.
So by the time Lyndon Johnson is president, this is the continuation of the Cold War, and he's looking at the world from Cold War lens. From that perspective, Lyndon Johnson thought, "I'm not going to lose Vietnam."
And he drew a lot of strength at times from the legacy of Harry Truman, because Truman oversaw the Korean War, and it turned unpopular. But Truman persevered. He ended up not running in '52. But history decided that we won the Korean War. And I think Johnson, for a while, hoped that, like Truman, be tough and the American people would recognize his greatness.
BRINKLEY: Of course, that didn't turn out to be the case.
KARL: Well, let's listen now to the real Lyndon Johnson, from back in 1964, talking about the escalation in Vietnam.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FORMER PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON: I knew the that hostile actions against United States ships in the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action and reply.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: Now this movie, it portrays Robert McNamara as the person that was really, along with the Joint Chiefs, pushing Johnson toward further escalation in Vietnam.
You have written a book on McNamara. What's you sense of how pivotal he was in terms of taking Johnson almost against his will into Vietnam?
DEBORAH SHAPLEY, HISTORIAN: Well, there's no question that he, McNamara, believed that the United States' military forces were going to be superior to anything that the enemy was going to throw against us.
So I think that Bob Dallek's point was very well taken, that between the superiority of our air power over anything the French had had before us in Indochina, the air generals made very powerful cases that air power could be very important, and the French hadn't had didly squat, if you want to put it that way, in the air department.
The didn't even bother to translate the French military history of the Vietnam, of their experience in Vietnam, until very late in the '60s, from French into English. That's how condescending we were about the historical record there.
So to answer your question, I think McNamara sees himself in 1964 and '65 as a broker between the chiefs who are saying, from early '64, "If we can just use our air power, we won't have another Korea. And it will be decisive, and we will take care of this pajama-clad enemy."
So he is trying to advocate a limited war and with some, perhaps, self-induced view that maybe they can get it over with quick.
KARL: This really quick, we have to take a break. But McNamara, was or course, a Kennedy hold-over, and the movie portrays him as somebody that really intimidated Johnson. Johnson was almost afraid of McNamara. Is that view true?
DALLEK: Well, I think there is some truth to it, but you know, Lyndon Johnson was never intimidated by anybody.
(LAUGHTER)
KARL: Yes.
DALLEK: He was a larger-than-life figure, and he called his own shots. McNamara was a formidable character, but not as formidable as LBJ.
SHAPLEY: And he wasn't...
KARL: That's Lyndon Johnson. We've got a take a quick break. We will come back with more on the surging interest on President Johnson with our panel of distinguished historians.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: We have learned at a terrible and a brutal cost, that retreat does not bring safety, and weakness does not bring peace. And it is this lesson that has brought us to Vietnam.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL GAMBON (as Lyndon Johnson): I feel like I'm going down in a plane. I can crash with it and burn up or jump and die. Where we were when I came in, I'd trade back to that. I'd trade back to the damned vice presidency to get out of this mess.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: A depressed President Johnson played by actor Michael Gambon in the new HBO movie "Path to War," out tonight. HBO and CNN are partner -- of course, are part of AOL Time Warner.
And we're part of a conversation with some of the people most knowledgeable about former President Johnson and the people and events around him. And I want to go right now to Professor Brinkley in New Orleans.
Why this fascination that seems to linger with Lyndon Johnson? I mean, his tapes on C-SPAN are, you know, you have people listening to them all over the country, a best selling book, now this movie on HBO. Why are people still so fascinated with Lyndon Johnson?
BRINKLEY: Well, he's the Paul Bunyan of American politics. He's just larger than life. Stories about him are just legend all over Washington, whether it's some of his odd behavior, kind of urinating whenever he felt like it, or the fact that he could push legislation through and manipulate people, his intimidation tactics.
But I think largely it's the sense of drama about Lyndon Johnson, this incredible tragedy, the poor kid from Texas who makes it to the White House because John F. Kennedy is assassinated.
And he has this idea of a great society and does more than any other person since Abraham Lincoln to give African Americans a new sense of freedom in this country with the civil rights acts. The great society programs are with us today, many of them. And it was a remarkable social agenda.
But then to have the tragedy of the Vietnam War, this sort of incredible failure which not only caused his presidency essentially to collapse but is still a wound that our country hasn't completely healed from.
So it makes for great drama, and I can't think of any 20th century American president with the exceptions of the Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin, that seems to have just kind embodied the spirit of America in some over-large fashion.
KARL: All right, let's go to another clip from the movie, this clip of Robert McNamara.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR (as Robert McNamara): One, if we back down in Vietnam, it will only be a matter of time before we have to go in some place else. Two, the commitments we've made and the price of breaking them, and three, our prestige before the world. Could the stakes be any higher?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: All right now, let's talk about the anguish and the battle of Vietnam, the president's decision making, what does that whole process that Johnson went through to teach us about today and what President Bush is going through?
DALLEK: Well, what presidents always need to understand is that if you're going to sacrifice blood and treasure, you need to have a stable consensus in this country for it.
Johnson's great mistake was his failure to build a proper consensus to fight that war. It wasn't as if it were Pearl Harbor and you need to jump right into the fighting. He had a lot of time, and he didn't do it. He didn't do this properly. And I think it was a real blow to his presidency, destroyed it.
SHAPLEY: I think what the movie shows so well is that it takes you into the closed room of the Johnson White House and a feeling of being around a table just like we are now and having the chairman of the Joint Chiefs say, "Oh, we haven't hit them yet." And you sense what it was like to make these decisions in secret without, as Bob says, a national debate.
The Bush people faced the same issue in the warnings over the potential terrorist actions. They were judging risks. They sat around, and they chose to make these decisions. Well, we will see how they made the decisions.
But the movie conveys a certain, a sense of privacy and making decisions alone, and not willing to go out into public and have a big national debate on the stakes.
DALLEK: What the movie shows you is that history counts. You need to study history if you're going to make effective current policy. It's very important.
KARL: And Professor Brinkley, we have of course the fact that Johnson, his administration lied about what was going on in Vietnam. How much does that lingering credibility gap that started with Johnson affect us today as we see this whole -- this current controversy?
BRINKELY: Well, of course, it affected us. I think the combination of Lyndon Johnson's lies on Vietnam and Richard Nixon's during the Watergate troubles, kind of created a crisis in this country. And it's one that Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter tried to fill. Ford's memoir was called "A Time To Heal," and Jimmy Carter's was "Keeping Faith." And both of them were trying to say, "We're bringing a new sense of honesty and decency to the White House."
I think one point that needs to be made is, Johnson was this intimidating, towering figure. These ivy-leaguer sometimes made him feel inadequate, meaning the Bob McNamara, the great number crunchers who had come in with this memos, the Kennedys with all of their Harvard east coast connections, Mac Bundy and Bill Bundy, the elite, the wisemen, the best and the brightest, as they've been called.
Johnson kind of felt sometimes that these were a different breed, and there was a bit of envy at times, I think, of both their fine, you know, upbringing. And also, he loathed them at the same time.
KARL: Professor Brinkley, thank you for joining us. We're out of time. Robert Dallek, Deborah Shapley, it's been a great conversation and a lot more to talk about. Thank you so much.
BRINKLEY: Thank you.
KARL: And when we return, my turn.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KARL: Yesterday, Republican Senator Jon Kyl handed me a press release he first put out back on February 24, 1998, warning about the danger of an impending attack on American civilians by Osama bin Laden.
I promise you, that press release and others like it were completely ignored by us in the news media. Back in February 1998, reporters weren't chasing leads about Osama bin Laden; we were chasing Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky.
Then there was the Library of Congress study warning that terrorists may try to crash a plane into the Pentagon. That 1999 report, which was publicly available over the Internet, was also ignored.
And last summer, when Senator Dianne Feinstein and others were warning about an imminent attack, we in the news media were obsessed with shark attacks and Gary Condit.
If there is any finger-pointing to be done about ignoring the signs before 9/11, we should also be pointing the fingers at ourselves.
And thank you for watching CNN's SATURDAY EDITION. I'm Jonathan Karl in Washington.
"PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profile singer Celine Dion right after a news alert.
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