CNN International Insight - Transcript

CNN INTERNATIONAL

SHOW: INSIGHT 05:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

HEADLINE: INSIGHT

GUESTS: Mike DeWine, Stephen Schwartz, Kendall Coffey

BYLINE: Jonathan Mann, Bob Franken

HIGHLIGHT:
A final report on the terrorist attacks of September 11.

BODY:
MANN: Saudi officials put these pictures on government-run television to make a point. Weapons, ammunition and chemicals found hidden underground and in farms and homes around Riyadh, evidence of a raid that led to the arrest of 16 suspects and of a Saudi effort to crack down on terror.

Welcome back.

Even before the U.S. report was released Thursday, the Saudi government knew it was in for trouble. As we've been reporting, exactly what the report says about the House of Saud has yet to emerge. Much of that portion of its findings has been censored.

But published accounts of the report speak, for example, of one figure who associated with two of the hijackers and suggests that he may have been a Saudi agent.

The Saudi ambassador to the U.S. responded even before the report came out.

"Reports that Omar Al-Bayoumi is an agent of the Saudi government are baseless and not true," his statement said. "It is unfortunate that reports keep circulating describing him as an agent of the Saudi government with attribution only to anonymous officials. This is blatantly false."

A short time ago, we got in touch with Senator Mike DeWine, a Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE DEWINE, (D-OHIO): The report was very harsh on the Saudis. When you look at what the report said, it was very, very critical of the Saudis and their failure to cooperate with the United States in regard to bin Laden.

MANN: Now, when you say that, forgive me for interrupting -- when you say that, many people won't be able to look at that portion of the report. I take it that portion is not going to be made public.

DEWINE: No. That -- no. If you look at the report, there are several pages that are public and very critical of the Saudis, and they specifically quote one U.S. government official, who is unnamed, but it does say -- quote that government official, unnamed government official, as saying that possibly if the Saudis had cooperated, that possibly September 11 could have been avoided.

I don't necessarily agree with that, but it does show, I think, that there are people in the U.S. government who feel the Saudis, number one, have not cooperated in the past in our previous investigations about past terrorist activities prior to September 11. And, number two, the Saudis have not been very cooperative in regard to bin Laden.

MANN: How much more critical are the pages that the rest of us will not get to see? You have seen them, presumably. What is being hidden from the rest of the U.S. public?

DEWINE: I don't think that, frankly, you're missing a whole lot in the sense of the grand sweep of the lessons that you should take.

The intelligence community will always be protective of sources and methods. That's correct. That's understandable. But if someone would sit down and read the 900-some pages of this report, they will get a very good understanding of the failures of the past. They will get a very good understanding, and really a blueprint, of what we need to do in the future.

MANN: Just to pursue matters with the question of Saudi Arabia, the government there has said in advance of the release of this report that it has cooperated very fully with the United States, that there's really no quarrel between the intelligence agencies of the two different governments, that all of this has been overblown by the media.

It sounds from what you're saying like the intelligence experts in the U.S. government themselves are telling you that the cooperation has not been appropriate.

DEWINE: Well, if you look at the report and read the public portion of the report, the public portion of the report, two or three pages, very important pages, if very highly critical of that lack of cooperation in two areas.

One is past cooperation with past terrorist investigations and the other is in regard to bin Laden. Specifically, it says -- quotes one government official as saying beginning in 1996, the cooperation has simply not been there in regard to going after bin Laden.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: Senator DeWine.