CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer - Transcript

CNN

SHOW: CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER 12:00

HEADLINE: Interview With Bernard Kerik; Bryant Charged With Sexual Assault; North Korea Moves Ahead With Nuclear Program

GUESTS: Bernard Kerik, Jay Rockefeller, Chuck Hagel, Roy Black, Wendy Murphy, William Odom, Robert Gallucci, Wendy Sherman, Bob Baer, Frank Anderson, James Gibbons, Jane Harman, Jonah Goldberg, Robert George, Donna Brazile, Ryan Lizza

BYLINE: Wolf Blitzer, Matthew Chance, Chris Burns, Nic Robertson, Jim Boulden, Bruce Morton

HIGHLIGHT:
Bernard Kerik discusses the reconstruction efforts under way in Iraq. Then, Eagle County district attorney charged NBA star Kobe Bryant with sexual assault. Finally, "New York Times" report North Korea has started a second nuclear plant.

BODY:
BLITZER: President Bush expressing confidence in the pre-war intelligence he received on Iraq.

Welcome back to LATE EDITION.

We're joined now by two key members of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee. Here in Washington, the panel's vice chairman, Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. And in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. He also serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senators, welcome to LATE EDITION.

Senator Rockefeller, let me begin with you and put up on the screen two polls just out today, CNN-Time magazine polls.

First, this question: The State of the Union statement about Iraq and nuclear material, was it justified in the president's State of the Union address? The American public is very evenly split. Look at these numbers, 47 percent say justified, 45 percent say not justified.

On the question, should there be an investigation into this State of the Union statement, 43 percent support that idea, 52 percent oppose it. The country, once again, pretty evenly split.

Question to you: Should there be a formal, bipartisan, independent investigation that looks into the whole issue of pre-war intelligence, and should it be public?

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: The answer to the first question is yes, and it's ongoing.

Right after the State of the Union message, and right after the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy, people came out with their debunking of Iraq, I called up Bob Mueller at the FBI and asked for an investigation, and then, since then, Pat Roberts and I together have asked for from the CIA and the State Department investigations. And we're doing it in the Senate, and the House is doing it in their Intelligence Committee.

So there are plenty of investigations, and the question is, what's the point of them? The point of them is to find out if we were being misled, if somebody inserted that in, because, clearly, George Tenet had not wanted to see the Niger thing in the...

BLITZER: I want to get more on that, the Niger business, in a second.

But, Senator Hagel, do you support this notion of having open public hearings so the American public can see what exactly was the state of U.S. intelligence going into the war?

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: I do, Wolf, eventually, but I think the way we are proceeding currently is the responsible way to go. Chairman Roberts, Vice Chairman Rockefeller are handling this exactly right. They're coming at it from a bipartisan way. They're letting the staff do some interviews. We're bringing those people up. We'll continue to do this over the next few weeks.

And then, ultimately, the public needs to be reassured that, in fact, the intelligence the president was given, the intelligence that was used, and how he framed the debate and the decision to go into Iraq was intelligence that they can have confidence in, the process they can have confidence in. And that's, by the way, important for the world to have that same confidence in our word.

BLITZER: Especially going into potentially other crises with North Korea, Iran, other countries around the world. If the president is going to use intelligence, Senator Hagel, you want to make sure the American public and the world has confidence in his words.

HAGEL: Well, I think that is the essence of the exercise here. Yes, we need to know all the other pieces, and sometimes they, I suspect, appear a little silly to outsiders, but this is the larger view, the wider lens here of our creditability.

And if there is something wrong with our intelligence, our intelligence process, the way we move it forward and then the policy and decisions we make based on that intelligence, we need to fix it. We need to know what it is. And America needs to know that and understand it and have confidence.

And just to your point, again, North Korea, I think, and many of us did, the most important, dangerous threat to the world. I thought it long before we went into Iraq it was far more dangerous, North Korea, than Iraq. Today, all the papers, we know what's going on, or we think we know at least enough that's going on, to present a very difficult, complicated situation.

When we now, the United States, speak to our allies and the world about what we think we know, and what we will eventually know more about, then they have to have confidence in that, because something will have to be done here to deal with this North Korean problem.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to get more on North Korea in just a few moments, Senator Hagel. Stand by. I want to bring back Senator Rockefeller.

You raised the issue of the Niger documents, which were clearly a forgery. You say that Bob Mueller, Robert Mueller, the FBI director, you want him to investigate. The FBI is investigating.

The question is this: Those documents, the forged documents, who do you suspect forged those documents? Because the impression is, the implication is somebody deliberately forged those documents to try to get the United States to go to war against Iraq.

ROCKEFELLER: I don't agree with that. I think it's possible, and I hope I'm wrong, but I think it's possible that that 16 -- so- called famous 16-word sentence was inserted into the State of the Union to help shape American -- the viewpoint. Because, after all, it's the biggest part of the weapons of mass destruction.

But I do not agree that, you know, that we have to -- that we knew beforehand.

BLITZER: I'm not suggesting that anyone knew deliberately, but what I'm asking, the documents alleging that Niger was providing uranium or thinking of providing uranium to Iraq, that was a forged document, right?

ROCKEFELLER: It was a forged document, yes. And it was...

BLITZER: Who forged that document?

ROCKEFELLER: Well, we don't know. That's what I am trying to tell you.

BLITZER: Who do you suspect?

ROCKEFELLER: I don't know. I don't know.

BLITZER: Someone must have a motive in trying to get these documents in Italy out there.

ROCKEFELLER: Not necessarily. It have been done sometime before. I mean, look, Niger has a relationship with the United States and with France. We're their closest allies. They're looked at very carefully by the International Atomic Energy Agency folks. They can't just sort of do something all by themselves, and they didn't, I don't think. I think it was trumped up, but I can't tell you who forged it.

BLITZER: I don't want to beat this too much over the head, but that could be a significant question which the Senate Intelligence Committee should be asking: Where did these documents come from? Who created these documents?

ROCKEFELLER: And we may get to that.

But can I make a point that really backs up what Senator Hagel said? And I just agree with every word that he said.

The reason that we're focused so much on this, let's say the Niger incident, it's not because it's only 16 words. It's not because it's like this is because this is politics. It's because if we're going to be in this complicated world that we are and we're looking at Iran, we are looking at North Korea -- North Korea, I agree, is far more dangerous, always was than Iraq to us and our imminent security, soldiers in South Korea, for example -- people have to really trust all of that intelligence. They have to believe in it. So it's very important.

This isn't just parsing. This isn't trying to gain political advantage. Chuck Hagel and I don't care about that. Our committee doesn't care about that. It's that intelligence has to be right when you're talking about the doctrine of preemption. And therefore, you have to look at it very, very carefully.

BLITZER: All right, Senator Hagel, as you know, several of your colleagues in the House and the Senate say now heads should roll, someone should take responsibility for getting those 16 words in the president's statement.

Listen to two of your colleagues, what they said during the course of this past week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R), ALABAMA: I think it's time for George Tenet to walk the plank.

REP. EDWARD MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: George Tenet must resign for the credibility of the intelligence community.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BLITZER: Senator Shelby and Congressman Markey, they say George Tenet should just simply resign as a result of this fundamental flaw. Others saying that Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, had a responsibility to go ahead and make sure that every word the president uttered could be backed up.

What do you say, Senator Hagel?

HAGEL: Well, I don't agree that Senator Shelby and Congressman Markey's assertion that George Tenet should walk the plank. This intelligence business is bigger, wider, deeper than just about one person. As I have said, George Tenet was not a one-man show here. Certainly Dr. Rice, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, Vice President Cheney all were involved in the process. And to try to very quickly dispatch Mr. Tenet as the bad guy here, as the purveyor of bad intelligence, I think is a bit irresponsible.

The fact is, we need to get more facts and understand the issues, what happened, what didn't happen. Then we may make some recommendations to the president as to what we think he should do or not do.

But to just throw George Tenet's body from the train and say that takes care of the problem, I don't think is the way to do this.

BLITZER: Senator Rockefeller?

ROCKEFELLER: And I agree with Chuck Hagel absolutely, and for also an additional reason. If the president were to fire George Tenet, or if he were to resign -- and I have said this to him directly, George Tenet -- the message would be to the intelligence community, not just the CIA, but all 14 of them in the United States, that when you're doing your collection, when you're doing your analysis, when you produce your intelligence product, you're going to have on your mind what it is that the president may want you to come out with. And there is meant to be a gap between the analysis of intelligence and the making of policymaking.

And what Chuck Hagel and I are finding now as we go into this investigation, is that we are dealing more and more with the use of intelligence by policymakers. They're interconnected.

BLITZER: All right, let's take a quick call from California.

Go ahead with your question.

CALLER: It seems that British intelligence is just as questionable as yours, so why in the world would the president use British intelligence?

BLITZER: That's a fair question, and I want both of the senators to respond to it, but also to respond to these words that the president uttered last September, once again quoting British intelligence. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: According to the British government, Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order were given.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Senator Hagel, that seems to be also pretty much discredited right now, that the Iraqis were ready to launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes.

Why is the president citing British intelligence for information that the U.S. intelligence community says is simply wrong?

HAGEL: Well, I think that question should be better put to the White House or Dr. Rice, versus me. They'll have to explain that.

But it is a serious issue. Obviously, it is another example of a very serious inconsistency from what our intelligence shows.

BLITZER: Senator Rockefeller, it's one thing to quote British intelligence if you really believe they're right. It's another thing to quote British intelligence if your own experts are saying, "You know, they're wrong."

ROCKEFELLER: And I think you hit it on the head. In other words, if you quote them, you're factually correct. You have quoted what they have said. And they got it from maybe one or two other countries, and maybe they were locked into that agreement.

But to say, therefore, that it is true is very different than saying that it's a fact that British intelligence said so.

So, it's tricky, and it was potentially misleading to the American people.

BLITZER: Well, I want your quick reaction, if you have any reaction. This 45-minute assertion, that the Iraqis could get chemical and biological weapons ready to use against the U.S. troops within 45 minutes, that also seems to be at the heart of what this David Kelly, the late British scientist, was saying was simply wrong and should not have been included in British intelligence assessments. And he was found, apparently suicide, over the last few days.

Senator Rockefeller, is this a subject that the Senate Intelligence Committee should be investigating, in addition to the separate investigation that's under way in Britain right now, why this British scientist decided, apparently, to commit suicide?

ROCKEFELLER: I think that's a secondary matter for us to look at, if indeed we need to. I think the primary thing we need to look at is that there's now -- there's sort of been a morphing on the part of the administration. This is not political, this is policy.

You know, Wolf, it is possible to disagree on things without it being political. I mean, it really is. Everything now is if you're for the president, it's political or not political. I mean, that's silly.

The point is that we have now programs of weapons of mass destruction. That is, we find little...

BLITZER: As opposed to actual stockpiles.

ROCKEFELLER: As opposed to the stockpiles weaponized, ready to deliver. And the innuendo, the fact, no nuancing whatsoever in the State of the Union was that they were weapons of mass destruction. That is a very big difference between programs that lead to weapons.

BLITZER: Very quickly, Senator Hagel, I'll give you the last word on this very sensitive subject. How frustrated are you personally right now?

HAGEL: Well, I'm not frustrated, Wolf. These are complicated issues. We have a structure in place. That's why we have select intelligence committees in the House and the Senate, to work these things through.

But I think what is most important here, and we need to keep this in the wider frame of reference, the importance of what we are doing here. Because we are doing something not just for the short term. Iraq is part of a bigger picture here. This is long-term interest for this country and for the world's stability, security. And I think that's what we always have to keep in mind as we work our way along here.

I'm not frustrated. It is part of the job, and we'll do it right. Listen, these young men and women in Iraq and around the world, the strength that they bring to Rockefeller and me and all of us just by watching them day by day, the inspiration they give us, is something really to behold, and I know all of America is proud of them. And we are, and we'll do our job.

BLITZER: I know Senator Rockefeller agrees with you on that point as well. Senator Hagel, thanks very much.

Senator Rockefeller, thank you as well.