Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics - Transcript

CNN

SHOW: JUDY WOODRUFF'S INSIDE POLITICS 16:00

September 8, 2004 Wednesday

Transcript # 090801CN.V15

HEADLINE: Kerry - Iraq War Hurt Economy at Home; Bush Reverses Position on National Intelligence Director; Senator Questions Saudi Connection to 9/11; Early Voting Becoming More Common

GUESTS: Bob Graham, Saxby Chambliss, Walter Robinson, Tom Fiedler, Dick Polman, Alan Johnson

BYLINE: Judy Woodruff, Ed Henry, Elaine Quijano, Bruce Morton, William Schneider, Paula Zahn

WOODRUFF: All right. Elaine Quijano at the White House, thank you very much.

Well, Senator Bob Graham is closely following the Bush administration's response to the 9/11 Commission recommendations in his new book, "Intelligence Matters." The Florida Democrat and former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman has leveled some strong charges against the president and the administration in connection with the 9/11 investigation and the war on terror.

Senator Graham joins me now on INSIDE POLITICS.

GRAHAM: Thank you, Judy.

WOODRUFF: We have the book here. We appreciate your being with us.

Senator, among other things, you say the 9/11 hijackers, two of them, had support in the United States from Saudi Arabian agents, and that the Bush administration blocked, you say, and covered up a thorough investigation of that.

However when the 9/11 Commission looked in, they say an investigation was done, no links were found, no support inside the U.S.

GRAHAM: Yes, and I don't know what the basis of the 9/11 Commission conclusion was. They did not give any of the facts upon which they reached that conclusion. I've laid out my facts in this book, and I'd be happy to have an open discussion.

It's clear to me, and I think it was clear the majority of a bipartisan House/Senate investigation on this issue that there was foreign involvement in supporting the terrorists. And that was a code word for Saudi Arabian involvement in providing housing, providing things like social security cards, flying lessons, and a substantial amount of cash.

WOODRUFF: The Saudi government is saying these are unsubstantiated and reckless, not to mention false.

GRAHAM: They are neither unsubstantiated-the information that we have comes largely from reports filed by the FBI and the CIA. In fact, in August of '02, a CIA agent said there was incontrovertible evidence that the Saudi government was involved in assisting the terrorists in the United States.

WOODRUFF: Are you saying the 9/11 Commission was just wrong about this?

GRAHAM: I'm saying I don't know what the basis of their facts are. I've laid out in this book fact after fact, as I say, largely from the files of the FBI and the CIA, which build the case that there was Saudi relationships, connections, and funding to at least two of the terrorists.

And the question that I've asked is: If two of these terrorists received the support, why were they picked out of the 19? What made them special?

My answer is I don't know why they would be picked out. Therefore, the suspicion that similar support was provided to others. The difference was, Judy, these two people had befriended-and in the case of one of them and actually lived with-an FBI informant for four months. That's why we happened to know more about them than we do about the other 17.

WOODRUFF: But the part, of course, that this jumps out-in addition to that-is you're saying the administration blocked and covered up.

GRAHAM: Well, what they did is we submitted a report which had a 27-page section on this issue of the Saudi connections to terrorists. Guess what part of the report was totally censored? That's it.

So, this administration has denied to the American people information that would allow them to assess Saudi Arabia's role in terrorism.

WOODRUFF: Something else-I mean, there are so many important things in the book. One other I want to ask you about is you say four minutes after combat began in Afghanistan, General Tommy Franks told you that the Bush administration ordered him to downgrade the mission in Afghanistan from a war to a manhunt. That his interests was not in Iraq, but in moving on to Somalia or Yemen.

If that's the case, why would Tommy Franks be enthusiastically endorsing George W. Bush?

GRAHAM: General Franks was saying on February the 19th, 2002, what the situation was as of that time. That important personnel and equipment were being redeployed from Afghanistan to get ready for a war in Iraq. That he had a different concept of how the war on terror ought to be fought. And that he was very suspect of the intelligence that we had in Iraq.

The world has moved forward since February of '02. General Franks' statements that he has made at the Republican convention and elsewhere are based on events subsequent, but that was his assessment of the situation four months after Afghanistan started and 14 months before we went to war against Iraq.

WOODRUFF: Vice President Cheney said yesterday, with regard to this election, he said if voters make the wrong choice, then the danger is that the U.S. will get hit again in a devastating way.

Is he right or not?

GRAHAM: He's right, except the wrong choice would be to continue. The people who told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we found out there were no such weapons of mass destruction. The people who told us that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. There was no such connection.

The people who removed the very equipment and personnel that was necessary to continue the war on terror in Afghanistan to success and then move to the other areas of the world which have a substantial al Qaeda presence.

WOODRUFF: So, you're saying there's more of a danger if the Bush administration is reelected?

GRAHAM: I would say-we're not talk about rhetoric. We're talking about actual-what they did. And what they did was downgrade the war in Afghanistan to allow al Qaeda to regroup and become a more lethal organization today than it was on September 11th.

We've erected recruiting billboards across the Middle East as a result of what we have done in Iraq, and we have cut our alliances with allies that will be critical to winning the war on terror.

WOODRUFF: Senator Bob Graham with some serious charges. The book is "Intelligence Matters," and we thank you very much for coming by.

GRAHAM: Good. Thank you very much, Judy.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.

GRAHAM: Thank you.