CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer - Transcript

CNN

SHOW: CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER 12:00

July 18, 2004 Sunday

Transcript # 071800CN.V47

HEADLINE: Interview With King Abdullah of Jordan; Interview With Joseph Wilson; Interview With Carmen bin Ladin

GUESTS: King Abdullah, Saxby Chambliss, Richard Durbin, John McLaughlin, Joseph Wilson, Bill Richardson, Marc Racicot, Carmen bin Ladin

BYLINE: Wolf Blitzer

HIGHLIGHT:
Interviews with King Abdullah of Jordan, Joseph Wilson and Carmen bin Ladin.
BLITZER: President Bush commenting on a U.S. Senate panel's findings that the United States went to war in Iraq based upon some bad intelligence from the CIA.

Joining us now are two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee: in Chicago, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois; here in Washington, Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia.

Senators, welcome back to "LATE EDITION."

And Senator Durbin, I'll begin with you by reading from the current issue of "Time Magazine," reporting on what's going to be in the new 9/11 commission's report. Among other things, they say this: Between eight and 10 of the 14 so-called muscle hijackers passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. The report does not, however, offer evidence that Iran was aware of the plans for the 9/11 attacks.

What do you know about any alleged Iranian connection to the 19 hijackers?

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: I don't know of any personal connection. And certainly within the Intelligence Committee, anything that's been disclosed, we couldn't discuss here at this point.

But I will tell you that Iran continues to be worrisome not only in terms of it's relationship to the United States, but to the other countries in the Middle East. It also gives us fair warning that we focused so much energy on Iraq, when other countries may have been more directly linked to 9/11. That should give us pause as well.

BLITZER: All right, let me read another excerpt, Senator Chambliss for you, from the "Time" magazine article: "Iranian officials approached the al Qaeda leadership after the bombing of the USS Cole and proposed a collaborative relationship in future attacks on the U.S. But the offer was turned down by bin Laden because he did not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia."

What do you know about this, if anything?

SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS ®, GEORGIA: Well, there's certainly a contradiction to the Iranian action relative to al Qaeda operatives who we know were located within Iran, who were arrested and kept incarcerated.

And I'm like Dick, obviously we can't talk about things that were given to us in a classified area. But suffice it to say that this is somewhat new and somewhat surprising information.

But is it relevant? I'm not totally surprised that any of the hijackers might have passed through Iran. It's been a safe haven for terrorists. President Bush identified Iran as one of the three in the axis of evil.

So Iran is a concern. It has been, and it's going to continue to a concern.

BLITZER: Senator Chambliss, do you agree with Senator Durbin that perhaps the administration should have been paying more attention to Iran as opposed to Iraq?

CHAMBLISS: I think the administration has been paying a lot of attention to Iran. We know that they are working on even more nuclear capability than what they've got now. The administration has been very focused on that. And their political situation is a little bit different from what we had in Iraq.

I think the president was right to do what we did with Iraq first. But now I think there continues to be focus on Iran, and there should be.

BLITZER: Do you agree with this other reported recommendation, Senator Durbin, of the 9/11 panel that there should be a new so-called intelligence czar, director, for all of the various intelligence agencies at the Cabinet level, that that would be a better way of dealing with intelligence in the United States?

DURBIN: I'm open to suggestions for reform for one basic reason: Intelligence is our first line of defense in any war on terrorism. Our intelligence failed us before the invasion of Iraq. The people of this country were mislead as to the situation in Iraq. And we have lost almost 900 Americans soldiers, and thousands have been seriously injured. And there is no end in sight.

When you take a look at how important intelligence must be for our future, you realize that the current situation is untenable. And I don't use that as any reference to George Tenet.

But we need a new leadership, a new vision and reform in intelligence immediately.

BLITZER: What about that? Are you open, Senator Chambliss, to a new intelligence czar?

CHAMBLISS: I'm very open to it. I've been very hesitant about getting on board with any concept to declare somebody to be an intelligence czar because what we need to do is, well, we've got to step back and take a look at the whole intelligence operation in the United States and abroad. And we've got some 20 federal agencies, give or take a couple, that are involved in intelligence.

We don't have a coordination from an information sharing or the intelligence gathering standpoint or dissemination either vertically or horizontally that we need to have.

Now if you just add another level of bureaucracy-and that's exactly what Dick's talking about here, that we need to look at-if you just add that, we're not going to do anything. But we're going to start hearings this week in the Senate Intelligence Committee where we look at the budgetary side of this, where we look at whether we add something to the FBI or take it away, add to the CIA or take it away. If that's what we're going to do, then I think, yes, I'm very open to it.

BLITZER: Senator Chambliss, at this late stage in the first term of the Bush administration, should the president nominate a new CIA director right now or let Acting Director John McLaughlin finish up?

CHAMBLISS: I think we need to go ahead and have a new CIA director, because whatever we do, we're not going to rush into this. We're going to take our time and get it right. If we don't, it would be a huge mistake for future generations.

BLITZER: So does that mean you don't have confidence in John McLaughlin?

CHAMBLISS: No, I have confidence in John. But you know, we need leadership in there that folks at the CIA know it's to be there for a while.

If John is going to be the permanent director, then fine, let's move in that direction. But if we're going elsewhere, I think we just need to get it done. And we can have hearings in a bipartisan way to make sure that we find somebody that's acceptable to us and to the Democrats.

BLITZER: Senator Durbin, do you want to weigh in on that?

DURBIN: Well, I'm torn on this, because on one side of it, I agree with Saxby, the sooner the better that we can feel that spot with a permanent person.

But I know the reality of the situation. I think we've made it clear, a number of us have, that we don't want a political choice. There are good people in Congress, but we need someone who is a professional, and not political.

We also need someone strong enough to wrestle together these 20 different agencies in a working relationship that has the confidence of the president, and here we are, 105 days away from an election. That makes it almost impossible for us to find that person and get that job done in short order.

BLITZER: Senator Durbin, when you say you don't want a political choice, I assume that means someone like Congressman Porter Goss, a Republican of Florida, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and himself a former CIA officer.

DURBIN: I like Porter Goss a lot, and I've enjoyed working with him in the House, and now in the Intelligence Committee. But I do believe that we should move away from a political person.

And we had so many allegations during our investigation about political influence, whether there was any or there wasn't. The next director of the CIA should be a professional person respected by both sides of the aisle who is not going to cave in to any political forces in Washington.

BLITZER: All right. I'm going to take a quick break.

But 10 seconds in order to tell us what about the not going forward with a, quote, "political" nominee.

CHAMBLISS: Well, it depends on what you consider political. If somebody in Congress is automatically labeled political, then I would disagree with that. I think Porter Goss, for example, does have the appropriate background. He's been a CIA officer. He understands the inner workings of the CIA. He knows what reforms ought to be made.

And, you know, we wouldn't take only his ideas, for example. It would be input from Dick and myself and others who are directly involved in it.

Whoever is the next director is going to have to be open to serious reforms.

BLITZER: All right, Senators, stand by. We're going to have a lot more to talk about. We'll take a quick break, though, first. When we come back, more of our conversation with Senators Chambliss and Durbin.

More "LATE EDITION" straight ahead.

(NEWSBREAK)

BLITZER: Just ahead, we will continue our conversation on Iraq and more with two U.S. Senators, Dick Durbin and Saxby Chambliss.

Later, the former U.S. acting ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson, speaks out for the first time on television about new questions and controversy surrounding his and his wife's role in the gathering on pre-war intelligence on intelligence on Iraq.

"LATE EDITION" will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to "LATE EDITION." We're talking with two members of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee: Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois, Republican Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.

Senator Chambliss, I want you to listen to what Prime Minister Tony Blair said this week after their own intelligence report came out, the so-called Butler Report, on failures in British intelligence leading up to the war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BLAIR, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: Any mistakes made, as this report finds, in good faith, I of course take responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Alright, now, he takes responsibility. There's a lot of criticism of the president in not making a similar statement after your Senate Intelligence Committee report came out.

CHAMBLISS: Well, the responsibility in the Senate report was taken by George Tenet. And George, being the leader that he is, has always been willing to step up and say: If the agency messed up under my watch, it's my responsibility, but I'm the one that told the president the information that was given to me by the analysts at CIA. And therefore, it's my responsibility.

You know, I don't think that...

BLITZER: So you're suggesting, Senator Chambliss, the buck stops with George Tenet, not with the president.

CHAMBLISS: Well, what I'm going to say is that it was not the responsibility of President Bush, nor Tony Blair for that matter, to go behind the information that was given to them to try to determine whether or not it was correct or not. So I think President Bush accepted it in the way that he should have accepted it. And he's willing to move on, which is what we've got to do.

BLITZER: Senator Durbin, do you agree?

DURBIN: No, I don't. I think what Tony Blair said was refreshing and honest. Even his critics have to acknowledge that he's standing before them and acknowledging mistake were made in a very, very serious decision. President Bush has not taken that approach.

I think that what it gets down to, Harry Truman was right, the buck stops in the Oval Office. And whoever the president might be, Democrat or Republican, particularly in a serious situation where a nation is asked to go to war, that president should step up. What's at stake here is about more than responsibility. It's about credibility. What happens with the next crisis when a president comes forward and says, "I have the intelligence, and I want the American people to stand behind us now, put the lives of so many soldiers on the line."

Will that be a credible request in light of what's happened?

BLITZER: All right, fair question. Do you want to respond to that, Senator Chambliss?

CHAMBLISS: Well, when you say that it's up to the president to do exactly what Tony Blair did, I don't know what more he could say other than, "I accept the Senate report for what it is." And that's exactly what he said. And the report was very critical. And the president acknowledged that. And the fact that mistakes were made were, therefore, acknowledged by the president. I'm not sure what more he could say to take responsibility.

BLITZER: I want you to listen, Senator Durbin, to what the president did say this past week, responding to the pre-war intelligence. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Do you agree with the president, Senator Durbin?

DURBIN: The majority of the American people and myself disagree. At this point, they've said this was a bad decision not because Saddam Hussein needed to be coddled or ignored, but because we needed a stronger coalition before we invaded. We needed an end game strategy so we wouldn't see so many Americans killed over a year after this has occurred. We need better advisers than Ahmed Chalabi, who became a darling of some people in this administration and has turned out to be a fraud.

Yes, we needed to take more time to make this decision before we put American lives on the line.

BLITZER: So, Senator Durbin, did those Americans, more than 850 now, die in vain, those killed who have died in Iraq?

DURBIN: Absolutely not. We'll continue there. It will be a long, hard and expensive struggle in terms of money and lives. But we are going to bring self-governance and movement toward democracy in Iraq. It'll take much longer than anyone anticipated at a much higher cost.

BLITZER: Based on what you know right now, Senator Chambliss, how worried are you about a terror attack against the United States between now and the November elections, specifically surrounding the two political party conventions: the Democratic convention in Boston, the Republican convention in New York?

And I want you to respond. Listen to what Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary told me this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM RIDGE, U.S. SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Credible trustworthy sources, not terribly specific in terms of who, what, when, and where, the targeting and the opportunity to attempt to undermine the Democratic process. Clearly, part of that is the two conventions. But you have this period of several months upon which we need to heighten our alert and heighten our vigilance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: You're privy to all the intelligence, all the top intelligence out there. How worried should the American public be?

CHAMBLISS: Well, Tom, frankly is telling the American public exactly what we know: that there's a lot of conversation out there about another potential attack of terrorism occurring, but no specifics about who, what, when or where. Certainly, I think the terrorist community would like to disrupt our elections. They would like to not see George Bush in there because he is committing a positive force that's going to take them out.

But, you know, we've got to continue to do what we've been doing since September 11th, and that's do everything we can to gather the intelligence domestically and abroad relative to any attack against American assets. And hopefully we can disrupt any potential attack. The threat level within Washington and within the community has never been higher than what it is right now.

BLITZER: Only ten seconds left. I will give you the last word, Senator Durbin.

DURBIN: Well, I agree with Saxby. The information we have-you know, there's a lot of things that are thrown out there, but when there's a match, when we have information coming from two separate sources, we take it very seriously. And I think that's what Tom Ridge is alluding to. But again, intelligence is the first line of defense. And we can do a much better job in collecting and analyzing intelligence.

BLITZER: Senator Durbin, Senator Chambliss, both of you, thank you very much for joining us on "LATE EDITION."

DURBIN: Thank you.