Alan Keyes
May 16, 2002

ALAN KEYES, HOST: Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes. Up front tonight, more on the warnings given to the White House about possible terror attacks leading to September 11. Last night, we told you that President Bush was briefed about possible hijackings by Osama bin Laden's group. Today, the fallout from that revelation about the details of the briefing, what was done about it and why we're just finding out about this now.

Tonight we're going to ask this question: Was the 9-11 tragedy an intelligence failure as we've been talking about for some weeks now, or does it also include a White House failure?

But first, before we get reaction from the mother of one of the World Trade Center attack victims, we have this report from MSNBC White House correspondent Campbell Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMPBELL BROWN, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Good evening. Well, the atmosphere here tonight is one of damage control, with White House officials insisting they did everything they could given the nature of the threats.

(voice-over): Tonight White House officials say the hijacking threat was brought to President Bush's attention during an intelligence briefing on August 6. The president was spending the month at his Texas ranch. A senior U.S. official familiar with the briefing tells NBC News the possibility of a hijacking was not the only thing mentioned, that, in fact, quote, “it was not the major thing mentioned. Other threats like biology daily and chemical terror were discussed.” The official did say the president was informed that al Qaeda was, quote, “planning to strike us, probably here,” meaning in the U.S. The official says the possibility of al Qaeda using traditional hijackings, quote, “pops up, but not in a major way.”

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president did not, not, receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles.

BROWN: But even after a morning briefing by the president's spokesman, his national security adviser makes a rare appearance before reporters to give a more in-depth explanation, saying there was enough concern to issue a warning to federal agencies and put airlines on notice, but the information never involved specifics.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: But you have to realize that when you're dealing with something this general, there is a limited amount that you can do.

BROWN: But on Capitol Hill, Democrats railed against the White House for not admitting sooner there were concerns about a hijacking.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: Why did it take eight months for us to receive this information?

BROWN: The Sunday after September 11, here is what Vice President Cheney told NBC's Tim Russert.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There had been information coming in that a big operation was planned, but that's sort of a trend that you see all the time in these kinds of reports.

TIM RUSSERT, NBC NEWS: But no specific threat?

CHENEY: No specific threat.

BROWN: Yet today, even Republicans are raising concerns, asking why weren't warnings like the one from an FBI agent calling attention to suspicious foreigners enrolled in a flight school shared between intelligence agencies.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R), ALABAMA: Today I can tell you that the FBI has good some culpability in my judgment.

BROWN: Tonight, lawmakers are plowing ahead with a full-scale investigation, and White House officials are pledging they will cooperate.

Campbell Brown, NBC News, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEYES: Now this isn't the first time on our program, obviously, that we've dealt with this question. Back in February, we had a segment called “September 11: Who Dropped the Ball?” We focused in that segment on these very questions, and I want to play a little excerpt from that segment, sentiments that I expressed at the time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: Some of the information that appeared to be on the table before September 11 was in the hands of the intelligence agencies. There were other bits and pieces of information in the hands of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FBI, other agencies of this kind, including the Coast Guard.

What about the coordination problem? Aren't we looking at least in part at a problem where these pieces were not put together in a proper interagency process, where folks with the kind of intelligence that was needed could look at them and try to see, sort out what was important, what was not, see the big picture?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: Now I've got to tell you, the things that we were talking about back in February and the kind of emphasis that I was placing at that time on the need to look at the problem of coordination and to understand what role was being played by the NSC, charged as it is with that coordinating role. Now of course, a lot of that is front and center, and will be, I presume, for the next little while, as well as the concern I expressed at the end of that program, the need for an investigation — a serious, nonpartisan quest for answers that would allow us to understand what went wrong so we could be sure that what we are doing or trying to do would remedy it.

I think a lot of people have shared that concern, and we have learned that among folks who lost loved ones in the course of the terrible tragedy and attack on 9-11, there is now a growing sense that that kind of investigation is, in fact, needed to help them to understand what happened and to try to make sure that it does not have to happen again.

Joining us now in representing that viewpoint from the point of view of some of the folks who had victims in the 9-11 attack, we have Kathy Ashton. Kathy lost her 21-year-old son Tommy in the World Trade Center attack on September 11. Kathy, welcome to MAKING SENSE.

KATHY ASHTON, LOST SON IN WTC ATTACK: Thank you. Good evening.

KEYES: Why would you say that it's important that there should be an investigation to help the American people understand exactly what was happening, what the government was about, what was going on in terms of our national security before 9-11? What good is that going to do to folks like you?

ASHTON: Well, that's going to make all the difference in the world. It's never going to bring Tommy back to us, but unless we figure out what agencies, what people, what policies in our government and in our country enabled those murderers to kill Tommy and nearly 3,000 other human beings in this country on that day, we will never be able to believe that we can ever prevent this from happening again.

KEYES: I think that is something, that's a sentiment that I've had for the longest time, but you know, there are those who seem to believe that any effort to raise these kinds of questions is either partisan or you're looking to blame somebody. I don't sense that that's the reason that you're looking for an investigation into this.

ASHTON: Oh, absolutely not. You're absolutely right, Mr. Keyes, and I commend you for calling for this in February, as you just showed on the TV.

Since September, people like myself and many other family members have been outraged at the lack of an investigation into these events. The fact that 3,000 human beings could be murdered in this country without an investigation to determine the lapses in intelligence, immigration, aviation, and even domestic military, perhaps — there has to be a look at to determine what happened.

This is not politics for us. This is our loved ones. My son, my beautiful 21-year-old son, died that day. This has nothing to do with politics.

KEYES: Well, let me ask you a question, because, as I understand it, there are others who have victims in 9-11 who are taking some action here and who actually plan to come to Washington and talk with some of their representatives in June. Are you going to be part of that group?

ASHTON: Yes, I am. My husband, myself and other family members will be down at the Capitol on June 11 with many other family members. Senators McCain and Lieberman have sponsored a bill which I believe they announced in November. Here it is May, and the bill is calling for a Blue Ribbon commission to investigate exactly what we're talking about. Here in May, that hasn't happened yet. So we're going down there to try to encourage politicians to make this happen.

KEYES: Now, what do you think of the report that has now come out in the last 24 hours that prior to September 11, the president did have briefings that had some indication of hijackings and Osama bin Laden's connection with all of this?

ASHTON: Well, I think that — well, first of all, President Bush has done a wonderful job since September 11. I respect and admire everything he's done. What the president knew right before September 11, I'm not exactly sure. I'm not sure how that relates to everything in the total picture.

What has to be done is everything has to be investigated, and then let the chips fall where they may. Uncover everything first. I'm not looking to point fingers at this point. I just want all the information out on the table.

KEYES: See, I think that that is a sentiment that's shared by many Americans. I am very glad, I want to tell you, that you all have the courage to step forward, given the special role that in a way, sadly, you have to play in all of this. You represent the heart of grief that I think is there in all of America, and that heart of grief, I think, can't be allayed in some ways and assuaged, especially in terms of the future, if we don't know the truth, and the effort to get at it ought to be done in a serious, nonpartisan way that respects what I think is this sentiment on the part of the American people, which you all are well representing.

I wish you godspeed, Kathy. Very much so. In your efforts, and I hope you'll have a real impact on the seriousness with which folks in the Congress approach this. Thank you for coming on the show today.

ASHTON: Thank you.

KEYES: I appreciate it very much.

ASHTON: Thank you very much.

Next, the heart of the matter. We're going to be joined by two New York congressmen on opposite sides of the aisle. We'll be talking about whether we need a thorough investigation, what we should be looking for, and also the question of whether or not this is, in fact, legitimate, or is it just partisan as some have tried to suggest.

You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), NORTH CAROLINA: I think that we need to find out what information was available to the government, instead of focusing so much on this committee or that committee or this particular branch of government. We need to find out what information was available and whether appropriate action was taken in response to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: Senator John Edwards today on MSNBC.

Now, a reminder that our chat room is humming right along tonight. Sandy asks, “is it wrong to question how the administration acted?” And you can join in right now at chat.MSNBC.com.

But first, joining us to get to the heart of the matter tonight, two Congressmen from New York who are members of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. We've got Republican Peter King and Democrat Eliot Engel. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.

Now before we begin, I'd like to let you listen to something that Vice President Cheney had to say, speaking in your home state of New York tonight. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: Basically what I want to say to my Democratic friends in the Congress is that they need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions, as were made by some today, that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9-11. Such commentary is thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: Now I'll start with you, Eliot Engel, because it seems to me that this kind of was a high fast ball inside trying to back the Democrats away from what has become in the last couple days increasingly a call for more vigorous investigation into what happened. Do you think that the implication that somehow raising these issues is a matter of partisanship for the Democrats is an accurate implication?

REP. ELIOT ENGEL (D), NEW YORK: No, and I think it's raising a red herring. Quite frankly, I think that all members of Congress, the Democrats and Republicans alike, want to know what really went on. I was listening to Kathy before on your show, and I agree with everything she said. We want a thorough investigation. We want to know exactly what went on to the best of our ability, and it's certainly not unpatriotic or hurting the war effort to question.

Obviously, there was some memos that were presented to President Bush prior to September 11 that leave some questions to be answered. I mean, we want to know why it took eight months for us to find out about these memos. We want to know why there obviously wasn't proper coordination between the FBI and the CIA. The FBI — an FBI agent in Phoenix over the summer questioned why there were so many Middle Eastern Arab men taking training lessons to fly airplanes and mentioned Osama bin Laden, and nothing was done about that.

And we want to know. The dots were there. If they were all connected, would we have done anything differently? Would we have acted differently? And it's not unpatriotic or making political hay to ask those questions.

KEYES: Now, Peter King, there did seem to be something of that implication in what the vice president was saying this evening, but is it or is it not legitimate to ask for some accountability here, especially from the Congress' point of view? You all have been asked to appropriate an awful lot of money to deal with these matters. How can you do so if you don't know what the problem is?

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: Alan, I think there's two different issues here. Actually, I was at the dinner where the vice president spoke tonight, and the point he was trying to make is it's wrong for anyone to try to suggest that somehow President Bush knew something before September 11 and didn't take action. As far as the investigation, I certainly have no problem with an investigation as to what went on with the intelligence failure.

I basically agree with everything you said back on your February show. I think going back many years, probably going back almost 50 years since the time when the CIA was formed, we have the CIA and the FBI and then INS, and we go through all these alphabet soup federal agencies who are more interested in protecting their turf, I believe, than in coordinating and cooperating.

So I think there's two issues. I think that it's wrong to suggest that somehow the president might have known something and didn't act, but it's a very legitimate question to ask how can these agencies be coordinated better, why in the past did they allow these turf battles. For instance, Eliot mentioned about the FBI memo. I agree completely. In fact, that FBI memo only made it about halfway up the ladder and it was stopped. And why isn't all FBI information coordinated with the CIA? Why isn't the CIA and the FBI told what INS is doing? That's the immigration service.

And these are the real issues. And I think they are important and should be looked into. So I think that, you know, maybe we're not saying entirely the same thing, but I would think that we're probably almost on the same page. I think what Vice President Cheney was concerned about was somehow an implication that President Bush himself knew something and didn't take action.

KEYES: Well, let me raise another — the issue in another way, though, because the president is obviously served by folks and I've heard people talking about the coordination issue as if this is something new that the government hasn't had to deal with. We've dealt with this for decades, and indeed there are laws on the books, including the law that establishes the National Security Council, that were precisely meant to establish a coordinating mechanism among agencies in order to deal with national security threats.

Here is what the NSC does, according to the official White House Web site. “It is the president's principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisers and Cabinet officials. The function of the council has been to advise and assist the president on national security and foreign policy. The council also serves as the president's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies.”

The question I keep asking, folks, is why do we talk as if there is not someone in the president's circle responsible for this coordinating effort when we are looking at what appears to be a failure of coordination? Isn't there a specific place we need to address the question as to why that coordination didn't occur, given the law? Eliot Engel.

ENGEL: I think you're right, Alan. We absolutely need to address that problem, and I think that Vice President Cheney again is barking up the wrong tree if he's implying that somehow to make these questions, to question these things, is somehow being unpatriotic and undermining the effort to fight terrorism.

I think there's been a general tendency on Vice President Cheney's part to keep things locked up, to keep things sealed. We can't find out what happened with Enron, and he doesn't want anybody to investigate. I think that's absolutely wrong.

KEYES: But isn't it true, though, that there is another concern that has to be there when you're dealing with national security? Peter King, I mean, we're dealing with very sensitive issues sometimes that cannot be simply laid out in public without destroying our capacity to deal effectively with threats we might be facing right now? Can this be done, Peter King, effectively within the Congress so that oversight can be exercised?

KING: Well, first of all, again, I want to emphasize that Vice President Cheney was talking about implications that president himself should have done more.

Having said that, I agree. There has to be a full investigation, but there is a concern of national security. For instance, how much information do we release, because that could tip off our adversaries as to what we have, how we find it, and also how we go about analyzing it.

But at the same time, we can't use that as a shield to say, “we can't go ahead with an investigation.” I think we should have, if there is going to be an investigation, a select committee. I don't think all 435 members of the House and all 100 members of the Senate should be made immediately available all the data to them. I think part of those hearings should be held behind closed doors. Some should be held in the public eye.

But as Mrs. Ashton said before, the families are entitled to know. I agree fully with Eliot on that. I believe the administration does too. It's important, though, that we do it in a way that doesn't become reckless and, as always, again, believe me, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I'm just saying there are members on both sides who could try to capitalize on this, and I think it's important to do it in a way that nothing's compromised.

KEYES: But let me ask a kind of embarrassing question, though, because one of the things that has bothered me, and I addressed this in a way to both of you, is that, yes, we needed a period of grace after September 11 when we united, when we wanted to make sure the world understood they weren't going to face a divided America. But by the time we got here in January, February, when we were doing our show back there in February, I kind of had the sense that the period of grace was fine, but we needed to start to get some facts now.

Why has it taken so long for Congress to get its act together, in terms of a serious investigation of what appears to be the most egregious breach of our national security in the history of our country?

ENGEL: Well, I think part of the problem is — and I agree with Pete. I think that there really needs to be one committee, a select committee or whatever, to do the investigation. The problem is you have many committees overlapping. Everyone wants a piece of the action. And I think it does any investigation, a tremendous disservice. I think that we need to get to the bottom of this.

And again, it's disturbing just this week that we find out about this FBI memo and the CIA memo eight months after September 11. To me, that's unconscionable that we didn't know about these memos in the aftermath of September 11.

KEYES: Well, how...

KING: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I'm sorry, go ahead.

KEYES: Go ahead. No, you go ahead.

KING: I was just going to say something about the FBI. I think that in addition to what we're talking about as far as intelligence information not being shared between and among the agencies, there's also the issue here of the FBI living in a mind-set of the Cold War, where it looks upon its goal to solve crimes rather than to prevent acts of terrorism.

And I can tell you, any number of times during the fall I was in meetings with the president on other issues where he would bring up the frustration he was having in trying to convince the FBI and to make them change their whole way of doing business so that they're not afraid, you know, to take a risk, where they're not trying to just to try to get evidence to solve something after the fact.

But I think it's significant that Director Mueller actually I think just took office several days before September 11. And I'm hoping that he can find a way to reform and reshape and refocus the FBI, because these problems go — they go back many years, and if we don't change them — I agree, the burden will be on the president. The burden pill be on people like Eliot and me, because we have to make sure this never happens again, or at least we know we've done everything we possibly can to avoid something like this from happening again.

ENGEL: And I think that the FBI and the CIA need to coordinate much better than they have. They cannot each go about their merry way trying to have turf battles here. We're obviously in a very difficult fight against terrorism, and everything needs to be coordinated, and it's clear to me that there was a severe lack of coordination.

KEYES: But does that mean — this is the question, though, that I was trying to put on the table a minute ago, because different Congresses have addressed this issue. The legislation that deals with our national security establishment, the National Security Council, was put on the books in '47. It's been amended a couple of times. And that is what was supposed to deal precisely with the question and problem you have just raised.

And is it always a question of mechanisms, or is it sometimes a question of the kind of personnel that you have put in these positions and whether or not in point of fact they are doing the job? Because sometimes, you know, you have a race car and it's the car that's the problem. Sometimes it's the driver. And it seems to me that you all are going to have to look at both these possibilities, aren't you?

ENGEL: I was going to say, I think we have to look at both the possibilities, and I think what makes this different now, Alan, than ever before is the events of September 11. I think they're so horrific, we never in the history of our country have lost so many Americans in one day. And we in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, demand answers, and I think the American public agrees with us. I think there's very little difference between my opinion and Pete's opinion on these matters, and I think most of the Congress feels the same.

KEYES: Peter, a last word.

KING: Yes, I think it's fair to say also that over the last 50 years nobody has ever looked toward the NSC to actually carry out that function, even though the law does ask you to. For instance, Henry Kissinger and we can go back to Brzezinski, even back to George Bundy, I don't think any NSC adviser looked upon as his or her role to be coordinating the FBI and CIA.

But I think that's been a failing, and I think it's important that someone has to do it, and not just the FBI and the CIA, but also INS. We go right down the whole line, the defense establishment. They can't be having these turf battles. It's absolutely disgraceful in this day and age to be having these petty intramural fighting, while innocent Americans are getting killed and murdered.

ENGEL: And I think the Bush administration needs to tell what they knew and when they knew it. I think that this attitude that somehow you have to cover things up and if you want answers to questions you're being unpatriotic has really got to go.

KEYES: Well, I want to thank you both...

(CROSSTALK)

KEYES: I'm sorry. I want to thank you both for joining us tonight. Appreciate it very much, and I particularly think the last comment is relevant to where we're going right now, because we're going to be talking to a couple of folks who were involved with the National Security Council, former members of the NSC staff — Steve Emerson, author of the bestselling book “Islamic Jihad,” among others. And we're going to be asking the very questions that we have been raising in the course of this segment about the NSC's proper role, what it has been, what it can be, what it was or wasn't in the run-up to September 11.

Stay tuned. You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I am Alan Keyes. We are talking today about what could be the most massive failure of America's national security establishment in our history, in the run-up to September 11.

I've got to tell you, I feel that we're making a little progress because when we did this back in February, we were still in the midst of a time when there were some folks who thought it was somehow unpatriotic even to suggest there had been a failure.

Now we are at least willing to face the facts and to look at this in terms of that failure and to try to understand it, hopefully in an objective way that will strengthen us for the future. Joining us now to talk about this, Michael Ledeen, a former consultant to the national security council as well as the State and Defense Department, and author of the new book “The War Against Terror Masters.”

Also with us, Charles Kupchan, an international relations professor at Georgetown University and a former national security council member.

Finally, Steve Emerson, MSNBC terrorism analyst.

Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I want to start tonight with Steve Emerson because I understand, Steve, you have been having some chats with folks who are involved over at the White House in the NSC and have some information about how they see the run-up to September 11.

The impression is out there in the public that maybe more was known than we were told about, maybe things were not done effectively in dealing with this information and that was at least part of the failure in terms of anticipating these events on 9/11. Do you think that there was such a failure? How do you see it?

STEVE EMERSON, TERRORISM EXPERT: I think there was a failure but I think it was very case specific, meaning I think what was going on in the summer of 2001 that the NSC, the national security council, was coordinating counterterrorism policy for different agencies, and essentially they're operating on the basis of intuition, gut, and some of the cable traffic that they were picking up from CIA interceptions overseas, all indicating that there was going to be a major attack against the United States, probably overseas.

The problem was that this counterterrorism and security group, known as the CSG, which had met in July and August, was not privy to the very hard core raw data that was being collected by the FBI, particularly by agents on the ground in Phoenix and in Minnesota, who had documented pilots that were training from the Middle East in order to carry out possible terrorist attacks.

The Phoenix memo done by the FBI agent was never shared with senior officials in the FBI, nor was it provided to the president nor was it provided to the national security council. So in a sense the National Security Council was operating almost blindly, not getting the support it needed from the intelligence agency mandated with carrying out intelligence gathering in the United States.

If there was a failure, then the failure belongs on the shoulders of the FBI.

KEYES: Does that mean that when these kinds of more generalized warnings involving al Qaeda, things like this, came over from the CIA, that this was shared with the FBI and that a demand was made, basically share it with us, what you've got about al Qaeda, and they didn't do so?

EMERSON: Well, I don't know how demands are made, but essentially, you know, these are institutions that are supposed to share willingly without demand...

KEYES: Steve, I've got to stop you there. Anybody who has been in the government knows that this ain't so, and Condoleezza Rice sitting at the top of that with a coordinating responsibility knows just like me that it ain't so, and if you want it to happen, you've got to make it happen, and the question would be how did she do so?

EMERSON: There were FBI representatives as well as representatives from the FAA, INS, Customs and Treasury on the counterterrorism and security group, and they were the organization which was entrusted with designing and orchestrating counterterrorism policy.

The FBI agents or officials on that panel were not entrusted themselves with access to the information that was being developed out of the field offices in Minnesota and in Phoenix, so how is it that we can expect the national security council to say OK, we want to see everything else you have. They expected, they believed they were getting access to it.

KEYES: Let me ask you, Michael Ledeen, in light of what Steve Emerson is saying, what your sense would be of the failure we're looking at here because — in light of the experience that you have had and your knowledge of how the government operates, why would it be the case that this raw material would be out there and that it wouldn't be processed in a way that allowed folks to get some kind of a synoptic vision here?

MICHAEL LEDEEN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Because it was illegal for them to share the information. All these congressman, everybody is yelling and screaming, has conveniently forgotten that the FBI was prohibited by law from sharing information from CIA which they could conceivably use in a court case.

The catastrophe of the FBI is that they stopped being an analytical organization and they were just a law enforcement organization. So for example, when they went to — started to look at the first World Trade Center bombing, and they found endless tracks that pointed back to Iraq and possibly other nations overseas, they dropped it immediately.

They were told this is not what we do, we are prosecuting a case. And the catastrophe for the CIA, I mean, it is no excuse for the CIA to say we didn't have memos from Phoenix or Oklahoma City or Minneapolis. Their problem was they had nobody inside the terrorist organizations overseas so they never did know what the planning was. They had no way to know that.

KEYES: But there was no one, then, in the government — I'm asking this question in a way kind of naively — whose job it is to help overcome those differences? Because it was my understanding — I worked a little while on the NSC staff — and it certainly seemed to me that part of the function was to help overcome those difficulties so the president wouldn't be flying blind.

LEDEEN: But the FBI wasn't supposed to tell you or to tell me or anybody else at the NSC what was going on in court cases. Grand jury information was always restricted and just held by the people prosecuting the case. Remember that the whole structure of American law is designed to protect the innocent and to protect information from getting out that may not be accurate.

KEYES: But that doesn't seem to apply, Michael, to things like the Phoenix memo that aren't part of a case. But let me go to Charles Kupchan. What is your sense, Charles, of what the problem is that we are facing here within the agencies but also among the agencies in the run-up to September 11?

CHARLES KUPCHAN, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: For starters I think it is probably too early to point fingers.

We don't have enough information yet. We haven't seen the memos. I'm sure there are more memos, so I'm not ready to make a judgment about who is to blame here.

Second thing, I think it's important to keep in mind that now that we know what happened, we look back at pre-September 11 and we say this should have been done, that should have been done, and part of the problem here is we're always fighting the last war.

If you look at, for example, at people who have done studies of surprise attack, oftentimes the intelligence is there but the intelligence agencies don't pick it up and report it because they're not thinking about it.

For example, Israel was attacked in '73, saw what was happening, did not think it was possible, therefore did not prepare. So I think the key here is that nobody was really thinking they were going to take these aircraft and fly them into buildings, and to some extent no one was really amassing the information that pointed in that direction.

But I guess in the end I am probably going to come down with Steve Emerson. If at this point there is a party that seems to have dropped the ball here, I think the FBI is the leading candidate, and that's because they did have this information about these people at flight schools and that should have been passed up the food chain to the head of the agency and that should have been put into the pool of information at the NSC. That did not happen.

KEYES: One of the things, though, that I found a little — how can I put it — noteworthy in the course of Condoleezza Rice's presentation today, was a distinction she made between hijackings before September 11 and hijackings after September 11, which have this new meaning because they were used as missiles.

But it did leave me with a kind of chilling sense that maybe before September 11 they heard the word hijacking and didn't respond to it with a sense of urgency. I mean, were they writing off the possibility that several hundred people might be held hostage on an airplane, as if that's something we'll deal with when we get to it rather than something we'll try to prevent? I'm not quite sure why that distinction should have been so important in terms of trying to find out what was going on, apprehend the people who might do it. Shouldn't there have been a sense of urgency anyway?

KUPCHAN: I agree with you, Alan. I think it's not a very compelling distinction to make. If American passenger aircraft are going to be hijacked, it's a horrible thing. We ought to try to stop it regardless of what's going to happen to the planes.

But I do think it's interesting to think about how we as Americans thought about the phenomenon of hijacking before, and that is the pilot was supposed to cooperate, was supposed to do what the hijacker said. And that's partly because it was beyond our imagination that they would take the controls and fly them into buildings like guided missiles.

So that's part of what I'm trying to get at here is that right now we know and we say who dropped the ball, but then we simply weren't thinking along these lines, even though clearly we should have been.

KEYES: Michael Ledeen, in looking at that sort of distinction, before and after, was there possibly as a result of the situation in which we found ourselves, the end of the Cold War and so forth, a certain degree of relaxation in our national security establishment as we were coping with the world in this period?

MICHAEL LEEDEN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INST.: Oh, absolutely. Look, Alan, every president since Jimmy Carter has declared war on terrorism. And George W. Bush is the first one to wage war on terrorism. Hundreds of Americans have been killed all over the world. I mean, when you talk about these memos — we had extensive information from Ramsi Yousef's computer that was captured in the Philippines in the mid-1990's which laid out the whole strategy of taking over commercial aircraft and using them as weapons. So that wasn't something that came as a total surprise to us.

KEYES: Can I interrupt you there, though? Why is it that we are continually told, and even today Condoleezza Rice was talking as if this is something that would never have occurred to anybody in a million years? That doesn't seem to be quite true.

LEEDEN: No. It passed into the system and it passed right out. But if you want to look at the ultimate horror story, it's not a memo from the FBI. The ultimate horror story is the Clinton White House that was offered Osama bin Laden and all the information about him by the government of Sudan and walked away from it four or five times, didn't want to hear about it, didn't want to know about it.

KEYES: Charles Kupchan, in light of that kind of thing, this investigation is going to have to do more than just look at what happened a few months before 9-11, right? I mean, we're going to have to go back into the history to find out what had put our national security establishment in the situation in which it found itself, including the lack of sort of operations, human intelligence operations in parts of the world that were so threatening to us potentially. Isn't that the case?

KUPCHAN: I think there's no question about that, and that I think after the end of the Cold War, if a part of the world didn't have significant military, economic, industrial capability, we were beginning to tune out — large parts of Africa, Afghanistan, South Asia. We didn't have people on the ground. We really didn't infiltrate any of these systems.

That's clearly got to change. And at the same time, you really do have to begin to crack heads here in Washington in terms of getting better coordination and raising the importance of intelligence in the NSC. As someone who served there, I can tell you that, you know, you spend all day running around with your head cut off trying to keep ahead of the policy issues, getting the president ready for meetings. The intelligence stuff is the stuff that sort of used to fall by the wayside because you didn't have time for it.

My guess is that the NSC is going to change that, make sure that intelligence issues get right in front of everybody the first thing in the morning.

KEYES: Well, we're going to get back for more with our guests after this. I want all three of you to be thinking about a couple questions, including the question I was raising with the congressmen a few minutes ago as to whether or not it is right to suggest that the concern to investigate this is somehow partisan, somehow inappropriate. I'd like to hear what you all have to say about that.

And later, in my “Outrage of the Day,” I'll be addressing that very question, a little response to Vice President Cheney. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: We're back with Michael Leeden, Charles Kupchan and Steve Emerson. And I want to start with you, Steve, directing at the question that we were discussing in the B block. Is it, in fact, some kind of partisan this or that to be raising these sorts of questions and insisting on a serious investigation, or is it something we really need to do?

EMERSON: I think we need to do it. I mean, I also think we need to bear in mind that ultimately, as Ari Fleischer said today, you know, the bad guys did this. It wasn't the U.S. government that did it, and it wasn't a cover-up. Even though the question smacks of Watergate, what did we know and when did we know it, there really wasn't a sinister effort by the government to withhold information.

Here I think we have to recognize that every agency involved in the process — the CIA, the FBI, the other agencies — all have their own biases and restrictions. For example, the CIA wanted to be involved only in analysis. It didn't really want to project itself into the human intelligence gathering that's messy, or to do aggressive covert operations like the Predator. In fact, in the week before 9-11, the CIA chief refused to take the role of assuming the Predator role, the high drone that has the capability of killing people with unmanned rockets, so to speak. The CIA refused to assume that role when asked at a principals' meeting on September 4, 2001, in an effort to interdict bin Laden.

Similarly, the FBI has become so bureaucratized, it's become such a cubbyhole approach, and the only success that the FBI has had nationally for the last 20 years, major success, has been the organized crime approach. Unfortunately, the organized crime paradigm doesn't fit militant Islam, because you need to look at the entire globe, and the FBI wasn't. So everything was compartmented, and nobody shared intelligence.

So in the end, we've got to reform these institutions. We've got to unleash them. We've got to give them the powers to collect intelligence, and the political correctness that existed before 9-11 is going to dissipate.

KEYES: Michael Leeden, I know that you're aware of some of the history here. When I listen to that sort of statement, and I think Steve has some good points that he's making, I'm going back in my mind to previous looks at how we fight terrorism, to vice president at that time Bush senior who headed an effort to look into how we ought to fight terrorism and actually rejected a proactive approach that was offered him by some folks in the Reagan years who disagreed with the more passive and defensive approach.

Later Al Gore was involved in a similar sort of thing. Don't we have a history here of folks really not taking this seriously enough and doing the kind of hard thinking that was necessary and applying it?

LADEEN: Yes, but the Congress is hardly the institution to investigate this and come to a proper conclusions, because all of the shackling of the various intelligence agencies came as a result of investigations of pseudo-scandals and some real scandals by Congress.

All the restrictions on CIA came out of investigations in the '60s, '70s and '80's. Senator Torricelli who's now demanding investigations to figure out why the CIA didn't have the information it was supposed to have, I mean, he's the one who was responsible for imposing on the Clinton Administration the restriction that CIA people couldn't talk to bad guys with questionable human rights records, which raises the whole question, what do we need them for anyway?

Even the State Department can go talk to people with good human rights records. Look, there's no need to reinvent anything here. Everybody knows how this is supposed to be done and what needs to be done. What's been required for the last 25 or 30 years are two things, one is the will to do it, and that means leadership, and the second is a legislature that will let you do it. We have not had either one.

KEYES: Charles, quickly, do we have the will right now? Yes or no.

KUPCHAN: I think we do. I think we're seeing some of it dissipate because we are getting more partisan in the language. But I think there should be an open investigation of this, not with any partisan act but to get the facts.

KEYES: I hate to interrupt you but we have run out of time. Thank you all for being with me tonight. Let's hope this is the beginning of a constructive discussion of this that will lead to some good results for the country. Next my outrage of the day involving Dick Cheney's remarks this evening. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: Now time for my outrage of the day. Listen again to what vice president Cheney said tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT: Basically what I want to say to my Democratic friends in the Congress is that they need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions as were made by some today that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9/11.

Such commentary is thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: I'd like to say that I think it's outrageous and irresponsible to suggest that folks who are raising questions and looking for truth in this matter are somehow arguing something that is simply partisan or unpatriotic — and a word of friendly advice to folks in the administration, the president and Vice President Cheney. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ALAN KEYES, HOST: Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes. Up front tonight, more on the warnings given to the White House about possible terror attacks leading to September 11. Last night, we told you that President Bush was briefed about possible hijackings by Osama bin Laden's group. Today, the fallout from that revelation about the details of the briefing, what was done about it and why we're just finding out about this now.

Tonight we're going to ask this question: Was the 9-11 tragedy an intelligence failure as we've been talking about for some weeks now, or does it also include a White House failure?

But first, before we get reaction from the mother of one of the World Trade Center attack victims, we have this report from MSNBC White House correspondent Campbell Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMPBELL BROWN, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Good evening. Well, the atmosphere here tonight is one of damage control, with White House officials insisting they did everything they could given the nature of the threats.

(voice-over): Tonight White House officials say the hijacking threat was brought to President Bush's attention during an intelligence briefing on August 6. The president was spending the month at his Texas ranch. A senior U.S. official familiar with the briefing tells NBC News the possibility of a hijacking was not the only thing mentioned, that, in fact, quote, “it was not the major thing mentioned. Other threats like biology daily and chemical terror were discussed.” The official did say the president was informed that al Qaeda was, quote, “planning to strike us, probably here,” meaning in the U.S. The official says the possibility of al Qaeda using traditional hijackings, quote, “pops up, but not in a major way.”

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president did not, not, receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles.

BROWN: But even after a morning briefing by the president's spokesman, his national security adviser makes a rare appearance before reporters to give a more in-depth explanation, saying there was enough concern to issue a warning to federal agencies and put airlines on notice, but the information never involved specifics.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: But you have to realize that when you're dealing with something this general, there is a limited amount that you can do.

BROWN: But on Capitol Hill, Democrats railed against the White House for not admitting sooner there were concerns about a hijacking.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: Why did it take eight months for us to receive this information?

BROWN: The Sunday after September 11, here is what Vice President Cheney told NBC's Tim Russert.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There had been information coming in that a big operation was planned, but that's sort of a trend that you see all the time in these kinds of reports.

TIM RUSSERT, NBC NEWS: But no specific threat?

CHENEY: No specific threat.

BROWN: Yet today, even Republicans are raising concerns, asking why weren't warnings like the one from an FBI agent calling attention to suspicious foreigners enrolled in a flight school shared between intelligence agencies.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R), ALABAMA: Today I can tell you that the FBI has good some culpability in my judgment.

BROWN: Tonight, lawmakers are plowing ahead with a full-scale investigation, and White House officials are pledging they will cooperate.

Campbell Brown, NBC News, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEYES: Now this isn't the first time on our program, obviously, that we've dealt with this question. Back in February, we had a segment called “September 11: Who Dropped the Ball?” We focused in that segment on these very questions, and I want to play a little excerpt from that segment, sentiments that I expressed at the time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: Some of the information that appeared to be on the table before September 11 was in the hands of the intelligence agencies. There were other bits and pieces of information in the hands of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FBI, other agencies of this kind, including the Coast Guard.

What about the coordination problem? Aren't we looking at least in part at a problem where these pieces were not put together in a proper interagency process, where folks with the kind of intelligence that was needed could look at them and try to see, sort out what was important, what was not, see the big picture?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: Now I've got to tell you, the things that we were talking about back in February and the kind of emphasis that I was placing at that time on the need to look at the problem of coordination and to understand what role was being played by the NSC, charged as it is with that coordinating role. Now of course, a lot of that is front and center, and will be, I presume, for the next little while, as well as the concern I expressed at the end of that program, the need for an investigation — a serious, nonpartisan quest for answers that would allow us to understand what went wrong so we could be sure that what we are doing or trying to do would remedy it.

I think a lot of people have shared that concern, and we have learned that among folks who lost loved ones in the course of the terrible tragedy and attack on 9-11, there is now a growing sense that that kind of investigation is, in fact, needed to help them to understand what happened and to try to make sure that it does not have to happen again.

Joining us now in representing that viewpoint from the point of view of some of the folks who had victims in the 9-11 attack, we have Kathy Ashton. Kathy lost her 21-year-old son Tommy in the World Trade Center attack on September 11. Kathy, welcome to MAKING SENSE.

KATHY ASHTON, LOST SON IN WTC ATTACK: Thank you. Good evening.

KEYES: Why would you say that it's important that there should be an investigation to help the American people understand exactly what was happening, what the government was about, what was going on in terms of our national security before 9-11? What good is that going to do to folks like you?

ASHTON: Well, that's going to make all the difference in the world. It's never going to bring Tommy back to us, but unless we figure out what agencies, what people, what policies in our government and in our country enabled those murderers to kill Tommy and nearly 3,000 other human beings in this country on that day, we will never be able to believe that we can ever prevent this from happening again.

KEYES: I think that is something, that's a sentiment that I've had for the longest time, but you know, there are those who seem to believe that any effort to raise these kinds of questions is either partisan or you're looking to blame somebody. I don't sense that that's the reason that you're looking for an investigation into this.

ASHTON: Oh, absolutely not. You're absolutely right, Mr. Keyes, and I commend you for calling for this in February, as you just showed on the TV.

Since September, people like myself and many other family members have been outraged at the lack of an investigation into these events. The fact that 3,000 human beings could be murdered in this country without an investigation to determine the lapses in intelligence, immigration, aviation, and even domestic military, perhaps — there has to be a look at to determine what happened.

This is not politics for us. This is our loved ones. My son, my beautiful 21-year-old son, died that day. This has nothing to do with politics.

KEYES: Well, let me ask you a question, because, as I understand it, there are others who have victims in 9-11 who are taking some action here and who actually plan to come to Washington and talk with some of their representatives in June. Are you going to be part of that group?

ASHTON: Yes, I am. My husband, myself and other family members will be down at the Capitol on June 11 with many other family members. Senators McCain and Lieberman have sponsored a bill which I believe they announced in November. Here it is May, and the bill is calling for a Blue Ribbon commission to investigate exactly what we're talking about. Here in May, that hasn't happened yet. So we're going down there to try to encourage politicians to make this happen.

KEYES: Now, what do you think of the report that has now come out in the last 24 hours that prior to September 11, the president did have briefings that had some indication of hijackings and Osama bin Laden's connection with all of this?

ASHTON: Well, I think that — well, first of all, President Bush has done a wonderful job since September 11. I respect and admire everything he's done. What the president knew right before September 11, I'm not exactly sure. I'm not sure how that relates to everything in the total picture.

What has to be done is everything has to be investigated, and then let the chips fall where they may. Uncover everything first. I'm not looking to point fingers at this point. I just want all the information out on the table.

KEYES: See, I think that that is a sentiment that's shared by many Americans. I am very glad, I want to tell you, that you all have the courage to step forward, given the special role that in a way, sadly, you have to play in all of this. You represent the heart of grief that I think is there in all of America, and that heart of grief, I think, can't be allayed in some ways and assuaged, especially in terms of the future, if we don't know the truth, and the effort to get at it ought to be done in a serious, nonpartisan way that respects what I think is this sentiment on the part of the American people, which you all are well representing.

I wish you godspeed, Kathy. Very much so. In your efforts, and I hope you'll have a real impact on the seriousness with which folks in the Congress approach this. Thank you for coming on the show today.

ASHTON: Thank you.

KEYES: I appreciate it very much.

ASHTON: Thank you very much.

Next, the heart of the matter. We're going to be joined by two New York congressmen on opposite sides of the aisle. We'll be talking about whether we need a thorough investigation, what we should be looking for, and also the question of whether or not this is, in fact, legitimate, or is it just partisan as some have tried to suggest.

You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), NORTH CAROLINA: I think that we need to find out what information was available to the government, instead of focusing so much on this committee or that committee or this particular branch of government. We need to find out what information was available and whether appropriate action was taken in response to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: Senator John Edwards today on MSNBC.

Now, a reminder that our chat room is humming right along tonight. Sandy asks, “is it wrong to question how the administration acted?” And you can join in right now at chat.MSNBC.com.

But first, joining us to get to the heart of the matter tonight, two Congressmen from New York who are members of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. We've got Republican Peter King and Democrat Eliot Engel. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.

Now before we begin, I'd like to let you listen to something that Vice President Cheney had to say, speaking in your home state of New York tonight. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: Basically what I want to say to my Democratic friends in the Congress is that they need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions, as were made by some today, that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9-11. Such commentary is thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: Now I'll start with you, Eliot Engel, because it seems to me that this kind of was a high fast ball inside trying to back the Democrats away from what has become in the last couple days increasingly a call for more vigorous investigation into what happened. Do you think that the implication that somehow raising these issues is a matter of partisanship for the Democrats is an accurate implication?

REP. ELIOT ENGEL (D), NEW YORK: No, and I think it's raising a red herring. Quite frankly, I think that all members of Congress, the Democrats and Republicans alike, want to know what really went on. I was listening to Kathy before on your show, and I agree with everything she said. We want a thorough investigation. We want to know exactly what went on to the best of our ability, and it's certainly not unpatriotic or hurting the war effort to question.

Obviously, there was some memos that were presented to President Bush prior to September 11 that leave some questions to be answered. I mean, we want to know why it took eight months for us to find out about these memos. We want to know why there obviously wasn't proper coordination between the FBI and the CIA. The FBI — an FBI agent in Phoenix over the summer questioned why there were so many Middle Eastern Arab men taking training lessons to fly airplanes and mentioned Osama bin Laden, and nothing was done about that.

And we want to know. The dots were there. If they were all connected, would we have done anything differently? Would we have acted differently? And it's not unpatriotic or making political hay to ask those questions.

KEYES: Now, Peter King, there did seem to be something of that implication in what the vice president was saying this evening, but is it or is it not legitimate to ask for some accountability here, especially from the Congress' point of view? You all have been asked to appropriate an awful lot of money to deal with these matters. How can you do so if you don't know what the problem is?

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: Alan, I think there's two different issues here. Actually, I was at the dinner where the vice president spoke tonight, and the point he was trying to make is it's wrong for anyone to try to suggest that somehow President Bush knew something before September 11 and didn't take action. As far as the investigation, I certainly have no problem with an investigation as to what went on with the intelligence failure.

I basically agree with everything you said back on your February show. I think going back many years, probably going back almost 50 years since the time when the CIA was formed, we have the CIA and the FBI and then INS, and we go through all these alphabet soup federal agencies who are more interested in protecting their turf, I believe, than in coordinating and cooperating.

So I think there's two issues. I think that it's wrong to suggest that somehow the president might have known something and didn't act, but it's a very legitimate question to ask how can these agencies be coordinated better, why in the past did they allow these turf battles. For instance, Eliot mentioned about the FBI memo. I agree completely. In fact, that FBI memo only made it about halfway up the ladder and it was stopped. And why isn't all FBI information coordinated with the CIA? Why isn't the CIA and the FBI told what INS is doing? That's the immigration service.

And these are the real issues. And I think they are important and should be looked into. So I think that, you know, maybe we're not saying entirely the same thing, but I would think that we're probably almost on the same page. I think what Vice President Cheney was concerned about was somehow an implication that President Bush himself knew something and didn't take action.

KEYES: Well, let me raise another — the issue in another way, though, because the president is obviously served by folks and I've heard people talking about the coordination issue as if this is something new that the government hasn't had to deal with. We've dealt with this for decades, and indeed there are laws on the books, including the law that establishes the National Security Council, that were precisely meant to establish a coordinating mechanism among agencies in order to deal with national security threats.

Here is what the NSC does, according to the official White House Web site. “It is the president's principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisers and Cabinet officials. The function of the council has been to advise and assist the president on national security and foreign policy. The council also serves as the president's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies.”

The question I keep asking, folks, is why do we talk as if there is not someone in the president's circle responsible for this coordinating effort when we are looking at what appears to be a failure of coordination? Isn't there a specific place we need to address the question as to why that coordination didn't occur, given the law? Eliot Engel.

ENGEL: I think you're right, Alan. We absolutely need to address that problem, and I think that Vice President Cheney again is barking up the wrong tree if he's implying that somehow to make these questions, to question these things, is somehow being unpatriotic and undermining the effort to fight terrorism.

I think there's been a general tendency on Vice President Cheney's part to keep things locked up, to keep things sealed. We can't find out what happened with Enron, and he doesn't want anybody to investigate. I think that's absolutely wrong.

KEYES: But isn't it true, though, that there is another concern that has to be there when you're dealing with national security? Peter King, I mean, we're dealing with very sensitive issues sometimes that cannot be simply laid out in public without destroying our capacity to deal effectively with threats we might be facing right now? Can this be done, Peter King, effectively within the Congress so that oversight can be exercised?

KING: Well, first of all, again, I want to emphasize that Vice President Cheney was talking about implications that president himself should have done more.

Having said that, I agree. There has to be a full investigation, but there is a concern of national security. For instance, how much information do we release, because that could tip off our adversaries as to what we have, how we find it, and also how we go about analyzing it.

But at the same time, we can't use that as a shield to say, “we can't go ahead with an investigation.” I think we should have, if there is going to be an investigation, a select committee. I don't think all 435 members of the House and all 100 members of the Senate should be made immediately available all the data to them. I think part of those hearings should be held behind closed doors. Some should be held in the public eye.

But as Mrs. Ashton said before, the families are entitled to know. I agree fully with Eliot on that. I believe the administration does too. It's important, though, that we do it in a way that doesn't become reckless and, as always, again, believe me, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I'm just saying there are members on both sides who could try to capitalize on this, and I think it's important to do it in a way that nothing's compromised.

KEYES: But let me ask a kind of embarrassing question, though, because one of the things that has bothered me, and I addressed this in a way to both of you, is that, yes, we needed a period of grace after September 11 when we united, when we wanted to make sure the world understood they weren't going to face a divided America. But by the time we got here in January, February, when we were doing our show back there in February, I kind of had the sense that the period of grace was fine, but we needed to start to get some facts now.

Why has it taken so long for Congress to get its act together, in terms of a serious investigation of what appears to be the most egregious breach of our national security in the history of our country?

ENGEL: Well, I think part of the problem is — and I agree with Pete. I think that there really needs to be one committee, a select committee or whatever, to do the investigation. The problem is you have many committees overlapping. Everyone wants a piece of the action. And I think it does any investigation, a tremendous disservice. I think that we need to get to the bottom of this.

And again, it's disturbing just this week that we find out about this FBI memo and the CIA memo eight months after September 11. To me, that's unconscionable that we didn't know about these memos in the aftermath of September 11.

KEYES: Well, how...

KING: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I'm sorry, go ahead.

KEYES: Go ahead. No, you go ahead.

KING: I was just going to say something about the FBI. I think that in addition to what we're talking about as far as intelligence information not being shared between and among the agencies, there's also the issue here of the FBI living in a mind-set of the Cold War, where it looks upon its goal to solve crimes rather than to prevent acts of terrorism.

And I can tell you, any number of times during the fall I was in meetings with the president on other issues where he would bring up the frustration he was having in trying to convince the FBI and to make them change their whole way of doing business so that they're not afraid, you know, to take a risk, where they're not trying to just to try to get evidence to solve something after the fact.

But I think it's significant that Director Mueller actually I think just took office several days before September 11. And I'm hoping that he can find a way to reform and reshape and refocus the FBI, because these problems go — they go back many years, and if we don't change them — I agree, the burden will be on the president. The burden pill be on people like Eliot and me, because we have to make sure this never happens again, or at least we know we've done everything we possibly can to avoid something like this from happening again.

ENGEL: And I think that the FBI and the CIA need to coordinate much better than they have. They cannot each go about their merry way trying to have turf battles here. We're obviously in a very difficult fight against terrorism, and everything needs to be coordinated, and it's clear to me that there was a severe lack of coordination.

KEYES: But does that mean — this is the question, though, that I was trying to put on the table a minute ago, because different Congresses have addressed this issue. The legislation that deals with our national security establishment, the National Security Council, was put on the books in '47. It's been amended a couple of times. And that is what was supposed to deal precisely with the question and problem you have just raised.

And is it always a question of mechanisms, or is it sometimes a question of the kind of personnel that you have put in these positions and whether or not in point of fact they are doing the job? Because sometimes, you know, you have a race car and it's the car that's the problem. Sometimes it's the driver. And it seems to me that you all are going to have to look at both these possibilities, aren't you?

ENGEL: I was going to say, I think we have to look at both the possibilities, and I think what makes this different now, Alan, than ever before is the events of September 11. I think they're so horrific, we never in the history of our country have lost so many Americans in one day. And we in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, demand answers, and I think the American public agrees with us. I think there's very little difference between my opinion and Pete's opinion on these matters, and I think most of the Congress feels the same.

KEYES: Peter, a last word.

KING: Yes, I think it's fair to say also that over the last 50 years nobody has ever looked toward the NSC to actually carry out that function, even though the law does ask you to. For instance, Henry Kissinger and we can go back to Brzezinski, even back to George Bundy, I don't think any NSC adviser looked upon as his or her role to be coordinating the FBI and CIA.

But I think that's been a failing, and I think it's important that someone has to do it, and not just the FBI and the CIA, but also INS. We go right down the whole line, the defense establishment. They can't be having these turf battles. It's absolutely disgraceful in this day and age to be having these petty intramural fighting, while innocent Americans are getting killed and murdered.

ENGEL: And I think the Bush administration needs to tell what they knew and when they knew it. I think that this attitude that somehow you have to cover things up and if you want answers to questions you're being unpatriotic has really got to go.

KEYES: Well, I want to thank you both...

(CROSSTALK)

KEYES: I'm sorry. I want to thank you both for joining us tonight. Appreciate it very much, and I particularly think the last comment is relevant to where we're going right now, because we're going to be talking to a couple of folks who were involved with the National Security Council, former members of the NSC staff — Steve Emerson, author of the bestselling book “Islamic Jihad,” among others. And we're going to be asking the very questions that we have been raising in the course of this segment about the NSC's proper role, what it has been, what it can be, what it was or wasn't in the run-up to September 11.

Stay tuned. You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I am Alan Keyes. We are talking today about what could be the most massive failure of America's national security establishment in our history, in the run-up to September 11.

I've got to tell you, I feel that we're making a little progress because when we did this back in February, we were still in the midst of a time when there were some folks who thought it was somehow unpatriotic even to suggest there had been a failure.

Now we are at least willing to face the facts and to look at this in terms of that failure and to try to understand it, hopefully in an objective way that will strengthen us for the future. Joining us now to talk about this, Michael Ledeen, a former consultant to the national security council as well as the State and Defense Department, and author of the new book “The War Against Terror Masters.”

Also with us, Charles Kupchan, an international relations professor at Georgetown University and a former national security council member.

Finally, Steve Emerson, MSNBC terrorism analyst.

Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I want to start tonight with Steve Emerson because I understand, Steve, you have been having some chats with folks who are involved over at the White House in the NSC and have some information about how they see the run-up to September 11.

The impression is out there in the public that maybe more was known than we were told about, maybe things were not done effectively in dealing with this information and that was at least part of the failure in terms of anticipating these events on 9/11. Do you think that there was such a failure? How do you see it?

STEVE EMERSON, TERRORISM EXPERT: I think there was a failure but I think it was very case specific, meaning I think what was going on in the summer of 2001 that the NSC, the national security council, was coordinating counterterrorism policy for different agencies, and essentially they're operating on the basis of intuition, gut, and some of the cable traffic that they were picking up from CIA interceptions overseas, all indicating that there was going to be a major attack against the United States, probably overseas.

The problem was that this counterterrorism and security group, known as the CSG, which had met in July and August, was not privy to the very hard core raw data that was being collected by the FBI, particularly by agents on the ground in Phoenix and in Minnesota, who had documented pilots that were training from the Middle East in order to carry out possible terrorist attacks.

The Phoenix memo done by the FBI agent was never shared with senior officials in the FBI, nor was it provided to the president nor was it provided to the national security council. So in a sense the National Security Council was operating almost blindly, not getting the support it needed from the intelligence agency mandated with carrying out intelligence gathering in the United States.

If there was a failure, then the failure belongs on the shoulders of the FBI.

KEYES: Does that mean that when these kinds of more generalized warnings involving al Qaeda, things like this, came over from the CIA, that this was shared with the FBI and that a demand was made, basically share it with us, what you've got about al Qaeda, and they didn't do so?

EMERSON: Well, I don't know how demands are made, but essentially, you know, these are institutions that are supposed to share willingly without demand...

KEYES: Steve, I've got to stop you there. Anybody who has been in the government knows that this ain't so, and Condoleezza Rice sitting at the top of that with a coordinating responsibility knows just like me that it ain't so, and if you want it to happen, you've got to make it happen, and the question would be how did she do so?

EMERSON: There were FBI representatives as well as representatives from the FAA, INS, Customs and Treasury on the counterterrorism and security group, and they were the organization which was entrusted with designing and orchestrating counterterrorism policy.

The FBI agents or officials on that panel were not entrusted themselves with access to the information that was being developed out of the field offices in Minnesota and in Phoenix, so how is it that we can expect the national security council to say OK, we want to see everything else you have. They expected, they believed they were getting access to it.

KEYES: Let me ask you, Michael Ledeen, in light of what Steve Emerson is saying, what your sense would be of the failure we're looking at here because — in light of the experience that you have had and your knowledge of how the government operates, why would it be the case that this raw material would be out there and that it wouldn't be processed in a way that allowed folks to get some kind of a synoptic vision here?

MICHAEL LEDEEN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Because it was illegal for them to share the information. All these congressman, everybody is yelling and screaming, has conveniently forgotten that the FBI was prohibited by law from sharing information from CIA which they could conceivably use in a court case.

The catastrophe of the FBI is that they stopped being an analytical organization and they were just a law enforcement organization. So for example, when they went to — started to look at the first World Trade Center bombing, and they found endless tracks that pointed back to Iraq and possibly other nations overseas, they dropped it immediately.

They were told this is not what we do, we are prosecuting a case. And the catastrophe for the CIA, I mean, it is no excuse for the CIA to say we didn't have memos from Phoenix or Oklahoma City or Minneapolis. Their problem was they had nobody inside the terrorist organizations overseas so they never did know what the planning was. They had no way to know that.

KEYES: But there was no one, then, in the government — I'm asking this question in a way kind of naively — whose job it is to help overcome those differences? Because it was my understanding — I worked a little while on the NSC staff — and it certainly seemed to me that part of the function was to help overcome those difficulties so the president wouldn't be flying blind.

LEDEEN: But the FBI wasn't supposed to tell you or to tell me or anybody else at the NSC what was going on in court cases. Grand jury information was always restricted and just held by the people prosecuting the case. Remember that the whole structure of American law is designed to protect the innocent and to protect information from getting out that may not be accurate.

KEYES: But that doesn't seem to apply, Michael, to things like the Phoenix memo that aren't part of a case. But let me go to Charles Kupchan. What is your sense, Charles, of what the problem is that we are facing here within the agencies but also among the agencies in the run-up to September 11?

CHARLES KUPCHAN, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: For starters I think it is probably too early to point fingers.

We don't have enough information yet. We haven't seen the memos. I'm sure there are more memos, so I'm not ready to make a judgment about who is to blame here.

Second thing, I think it's important to keep in mind that now that we know what happened, we look back at pre-September 11 and we say this should have been done, that should have been done, and part of the problem here is we're always fighting the last war.

If you look at, for example, at people who have done studies of surprise attack, oftentimes the intelligence is there but the intelligence agencies don't pick it up and report it because they're not thinking about it.

For example, Israel was attacked in '73, saw what was happening, did not think it was possible, therefore did not prepare. So I think the key here is that nobody was really thinking they were going to take these aircraft and fly them into buildings, and to some extent no one was really amassing the information that pointed in that direction.

But I guess in the end I am probably going to come down with Steve Emerson. If at this point there is a party that seems to have dropped the ball here, I think the FBI is the leading candidate, and that's because they did have this information about these people at flight schools and that should have been passed up the food chain to the head of the agency and that should have been put into the pool of information at the NSC. That did not happen.

KEYES: One of the things, though, that I found a little — how can I put it — noteworthy in the course of Condoleezza Rice's presentation today, was a distinction she made between hijackings before September 11 and hijackings after September 11, which have this new meaning because they were used as missiles.

But it did leave me with a kind of chilling sense that maybe before September 11 they heard the word hijacking and didn't respond to it with a sense of urgency. I mean, were they writing off the possibility that several hundred people might be held hostage on an airplane, as if that's something we'll deal with when we get to it rather than something we'll try to prevent? I'm not quite sure why that distinction should have been so important in terms of trying to find out what was going on, apprehend the people who might do it. Shouldn't there have been a sense of urgency anyway?

KUPCHAN: I agree with you, Alan. I think it's not a very compelling distinction to make. If American passenger aircraft are going to be hijacked, it's a horrible thing. We ought to try to stop it regardless of what's going to happen to the planes.

But I do think it's interesting to think about how we as Americans thought about the phenomenon of hijacking before, and that is the pilot was supposed to cooperate, was supposed to do what the hijacker said. And that's partly because it was beyond our imagination that they would take the controls and fly them into buildings like guided missiles.

So that's part of what I'm trying to get at here is that right now we know and we say who dropped the ball, but then we simply weren't thinking along these lines, even though clearly we should have been.

KEYES: Michael Ledeen, in looking at that sort of distinction, before and after, was there possibly as a result of the situation in which we found ourselves, the end of the Cold War and so forth, a certain degree of relaxation in our national security establishment as we were coping with the world in this period?

MICHAEL LEEDEN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INST.: Oh, absolutely. Look, Alan, every president since Jimmy Carter has declared war on terrorism. And George W. Bush is the first one to wage war on terrorism. Hundreds of Americans have been killed all over the world. I mean, when you talk about these memos — we had extensive information from Ramsi Yousef's computer that was captured in the Philippines in the mid-1990's which laid out the whole strategy of taking over commercial aircraft and using them as weapons. So that wasn't something that came as a total surprise to us.

KEYES: Can I interrupt you there, though? Why is it that we are continually told, and even today Condoleezza Rice was talking as if this is something that would never have occurred to anybody in a million years? That doesn't seem to be quite true.

LEEDEN: No. It passed into the system and it passed right out. But if you want to look at the ultimate horror story, it's not a memo from the FBI. The ultimate horror story is the Clinton White House that was offered Osama bin Laden and all the information about him by the government of Sudan and walked away from it four or five times, didn't want to hear about it, didn't want to know about it.

KEYES: Charles Kupchan, in light of that kind of thing, this investigation is going to have to do more than just look at what happened a few months before 9-11, right? I mean, we're going to have to go back into the history to find out what had put our national security establishment in the situation in which it found itself, including the lack of sort of operations, human intelligence operations in parts of the world that were so threatening to us potentially. Isn't that the case?

KUPCHAN: I think there's no question about that, and that I think after the end of the Cold War, if a part of the world didn't have significant military, economic, industrial capability, we were beginning to tune out — large parts of Africa, Afghanistan, South Asia. We didn't have people on the ground. We really didn't infiltrate any of these systems.

That's clearly got to change. And at the same time, you really do have to begin to crack heads here in Washington in terms of getting better coordination and raising the importance of intelligence in the NSC. As someone who served there, I can tell you that, you know, you spend all day running around with your head cut off trying to keep ahead of the policy issues, getting the president ready for meetings. The intelligence stuff is the stuff that sort of used to fall by the wayside because you didn't have time for it.

My guess is that the NSC is going to change that, make sure that intelligence issues get right in front of everybody the first thing in the morning.

KEYES: Well, we're going to get back for more with our guests after this. I want all three of you to be thinking about a couple questions, including the question I was raising with the congressmen a few minutes ago as to whether or not it is right to suggest that the concern to investigate this is somehow partisan, somehow inappropriate. I'd like to hear what you all have to say about that.

And later, in my “Outrage of the Day,” I'll be addressing that very question, a little response to Vice President Cheney. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: We're back with Michael Leeden, Charles Kupchan and Steve Emerson. And I want to start with you, Steve, directing at the question that we were discussing in the B block. Is it, in fact, some kind of partisan this or that to be raising these sorts of questions and insisting on a serious investigation, or is it something we really need to do?

EMERSON: I think we need to do it. I mean, I also think we need to bear in mind that ultimately, as Ari Fleischer said today, you know, the bad guys did this. It wasn't the U.S. government that did it, and it wasn't a cover-up. Even though the question smacks of Watergate, what did we know and when did we know it, there really wasn't a sinister effort by the government to withhold information.

Here I think we have to recognize that every agency involved in the process — the CIA, the FBI, the other agencies — all have their own biases and restrictions. For example, the CIA wanted to be involved only in analysis. It didn't really want to project itself into the human intelligence gathering that's messy, or to do aggressive covert operations like the Predator. In fact, in the week before 9-11, the CIA chief refused to take the role of assuming the Predator role, the high drone that has the capability of killing people with unmanned rockets, so to speak. The CIA refused to assume that role when asked at a principals' meeting on September 4, 2001, in an effort to interdict bin Laden.

Similarly, the FBI has become so bureaucratized, it's become such a cubbyhole approach, and the only success that the FBI has had nationally for the last 20 years, major success, has been the organized crime approach. Unfortunately, the organized crime paradigm doesn't fit militant Islam, because you need to look at the entire globe, and the FBI wasn't. So everything was compartmented, and nobody shared intelligence.

So in the end, we've got to reform these institutions. We've got to unleash them. We've got to give them the powers to collect intelligence, and the political correctness that existed before 9-11 is going to dissipate.

KEYES: Michael Leeden, I know that you're aware of some of the history here. When I listen to that sort of statement, and I think Steve has some good points that he's making, I'm going back in my mind to previous looks at how we fight terrorism, to vice president at that time Bush senior who headed an effort to look into how we ought to fight terrorism and actually rejected a proactive approach that was offered him by some folks in the Reagan years who disagreed with the more passive and defensive approach.

Later Al Gore was involved in a similar sort of thing. Don't we have a history here of folks really not taking this seriously enough and doing the kind of hard thinking that was necessary and applying it?

LADEEN: Yes, but the Congress is hardly the institution to investigate this and come to a proper conclusions, because all of the shackling of the various intelligence agencies came as a result of investigations of pseudo-scandals and some real scandals by Congress.

All the restrictions on CIA came out of investigations in the '60s, '70s and '80's. Senator Torricelli who's now demanding investigations to figure out why the CIA didn't have the information it was supposed to have, I mean, he's the one who was responsible for imposing on the Clinton Administration the restriction that CIA people couldn't talk to bad guys with questionable human rights records, which raises the whole question, what do we need them for anyway?

Even the State Department can go talk to people with good human rights records. Look, there's no need to reinvent anything here. Everybody knows how this is supposed to be done and what needs to be done. What's been required for the last 25 or 30 years are two things, one is the will to do it, and that means leadership, and the second is a legislature that will let you do it. We have not had either one.

KEYES: Charles, quickly, do we have the will right now? Yes or no.

KUPCHAN: I think we do. I think we're seeing some of it dissipate because we are getting more partisan in the language. But I think there should be an open investigation of this, not with any partisan act but to get the facts.

KEYES: I hate to interrupt you but we have run out of time. Thank you all for being with me tonight. Let's hope this is the beginning of a constructive discussion of this that will lead to some good results for the country. Next my outrage of the day involving Dick Cheney's remarks this evening. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEYES: Now time for my outrage of the day. Listen again to what vice president Cheney said tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT: Basically what I want to say to my Democratic friends in the Congress is that they need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions as were made by some today that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9/11.

Such commentary is thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEYES: I'd like to say that I think it's outrageous and irresponsible to suggest that folks who are raising questions and looking for truth in this matter are somehow arguing something that is simply partisan or unpatriotic — and a word of friendly advice to folks in the administration, the president and Vice President Cheney.

I think they will look better, seem less defensive, if they simply, in a humble fashion open their hands and say yes, let's look at this in a serious way because when you lose the World Trade Center and a chunk of the Pentagon, something sure went wrong and we too want to find out what it is.

On behalf of all the American, especially folks like Kathy Ashton, and I think folks like that will be able to judge when the Democrats are doing partisan game playing and punish them for it.

That's my thinking. Thanks. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. See you Monday.

I think they will look better, seem less defensive, if they simply, in a humble fashion open their hands and say yes, let's look at this in a serious way because when you lose the World Trade Center and a chunk of the Pentagon, something sure went wrong and we too want to find out what it is.

On behalf of all the American, especially folks like Kathy Ashton, and I think folks like that will be able to judge when the Democrats are doing partisan game playing and punish them for it.

That's my thinking. Thanks. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. See you Monday.