GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) Good morning, everyone. It was one of those get the bad news out now Fridays at the White House. CIA director Porter Goss steps down under pressure but doesn't say why. And the White House is preparing to kick off the week tomorrow by announcing that Air Force General Michael Hayden, the deputy director of national intelligence, will replace Goss. Hayden's confirmation hearings will be held by the Senate Intelligence Committee. And here with us now are two of its key members, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, and from Atlanta, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. Welcome to both of you. And, Senator Feinstein, let me begin with you. When Director Goss resigned Friday, you put out a statement where you said you were worried about the intelligence community. Does the appointment of General Hayden, if indeed it does happen, reassure you?

 

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (DEMOCRAT

 

Well, I think General Hayden is a logical choice. He is very well respected. He is a professional. He has run an agency, the NSA, which is twice the size of the CIA. However, it's going to be a very interesting hearing, no question about that. There's a lot of respect for General Hayden. There are a couple of things. Our 1906 authorization bill provided that a civilian should run the CIA. Now, that bill has not passed, so that is not the law, but that is clearly the thinking of the...

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) Why is that important?

 

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (DEMOCRAT

 

Well, because this isn't the DIA or the NSA, which are military agencies. This is a civilian agency, and it's meant to be a civilian agency. So, you know, he might think about resigning his commission if he's going to do this. You can't have the military, I think, control, you know, most of the major aspects of intelligence.

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) They would be controlling all the agencies if he was appointed. What was your second concern?

 

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (DEMOCRAT

 

Well, my second concern is, he - the domestic surveillance program has been put together by the NSA. And, of course, he was the head of the NSA for part of that time. Now, I've had the briefing and really can't discuss it but you can be sure that members have major questions about this program, particularly because the President and the Administration chose not to use the legal means, which is to get a warrant through the Federal - excuse me - the foreign intelligence surveillance court, which should have been the case.

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) Senator Chambliss, what do you think of the appointment?

 

SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (REPUBLICAN

 

Well, certainly General Hayden is very well respected in the community. Dianne is exactly right about that. I too have a little bit of concern, frankly, about military personnel running the CIA. It is a civilian agency. It operates differently from the way that the defense intelligence agency operates. But at the end of the day, Mike Hayden is just a class individual, and somebody who has an awfully lot of experience. Yes.

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) If General Hayden resigned his commission, would that allay your concern on that score? Or does the fact that he's had so much military experience raise questions for you?

 

SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (REPUBLICAN

 

Well, I think the fact that he is a part of the military today would be the major problem. Now, just resigning commission and moving on, putting on a striped suit, a pinstriped suit versus an Air Force uniform I don't think makes much difference, George. But anyway Dianne is right, we'll have to see what the hearing – how they unfold and how he is going to approach the CIA, if in fact he's the President's choice.

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) What is the most important thing you want to hear from him about that approach?

 

SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (REPUBLICAN

 

Well, first of all, let me say that Porter Goss took what has been a well-documented broken agency and was moving it in the right direction. He got rid of the folks who had been in key positions when major failures occurred in our intelligence community. And, unfortunately, for that he came under a lot of criticism. I think for the wrong reasons. We had an agency that leading up to September 11 had some, some major failures. Leading up to the Iraqi war, pardon me, had some very major failures. Porter now is improving the morale in the agency. He has recruiting up. From an operational standpoint he's had some great success and is now the next...

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) Excuse me. Let me just interrupt you right there for a second because you said you had a lot of praise for Director Goss. Then do you think it was wrong for President Bush to allow Director John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, to force Porter Goss out?

 

SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (REPUBLICAN

 

Well, under the new legislation, George, the director of national intelligence is the chief intelligence officer of the United States versus the 1947 legislation which makes the director of the CIA that individual. So Porter worked for the DNI, and it's the DNI's call. I don't think this was the President's call, I think it was the director's call.

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) Well, he did allow it to happen. Senator Feinstein, you wanted to come in on Director Goss?.

 

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (DEMOCRAT

 

Yeah, I wanted to respond. I think the agency has low morale, I think it has major problems. It is growing enormously. I think in a way too much has been thrown at it. You know, 50% increase in analysts and operatives, 100% increase in something else. And what you find is that you don't have the midlevel supervision that's really necessary because you just can't hire people in this kind of agency. You have to know where to put them, how they function, how to protect them, how to make them the most useful. We still have a terrible language shortage, a cultural deficit in terms of this new type of intelligence collection. We were pretty good at KGB versus CIA, but when it comes to the shadowy world of terror, when it comes to a culture about which we know little and have - difficulty permeating, I think the agency has a long way to go.

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) Well, Senator Chambliss, one of the ways that Director Negroponte is trying to deal with that is that it's been reported at least that he wants to reduce the CIA to its core mission, counter-terrorism and spying. And take away a lot of the analysis and put that in the director's office, the director of national intelligence. Do you agree with that approach?

 

SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (REPUBLICAN

 

I'm not sure I do because the CTC is working very, very well.

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) Counter-terrorism center.

 

SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (REPUBLICAN

 

We've got a lot of analysts over there who are very professional. They've got an awful lot of experience. And it is moving in the right direction. By the same token, the NCTC performs a slightly different mission. If we move all the analysts over there, I think we lose some capability within the CIA.

 

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (DEMOCRAT

 

I agree with Saxby on that point. I think we need analysis capability. What had happened is that the analysis was wrong in the national intelligence estimate for the most part. And it shouldn't have been that wrong. The judgments that were made were bad judgments. I think that's what needs to be corrected. We got to find out why, how to prevent it, how to extend red teaming. And it is true, Porter Goss has done some of this. I think another thing, I think he made a real mistake in bringing his top staff in from the hill. I think they really rent asunder parts of that, that agency. And whoever it is, whether it's Michael Hayden or someone else, they have to put good top people in. And I don't think you can move out all your best directorate operations people. And I think up to 20 of them resigned. To me that was a dangerous signal where you have your seasoned people resigning.

 

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (ABC NEWS)

 

(Off-camera) Go ahead, Senator.

 

SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (REPUBLICAN

 

Let me respond to that just very quickly, though. Dianne, you and I know very well about the failures that occurred there. We worked on this every day in Intel committee. And if we're going to have the same people operating at the highest levels of the CIA that led us into September 11, that led us into the WMD issue and the Iraqi war, then we'd be kidding ourselves. Porter was asked to come in and make wholesale changes and get people in there who could do a better job. And that's exactly what he's done. That's not very popular because these have been a long time professional people and good people for the most part within the CIA that he asked to move on. And now whoever steps in is going to have a very difficult time, in my opinion from a morale standpoint, not because of what's going on now, but because of the unsettling fact that here all of a sudden in an agency where we have a lot of stability over the years we have the third director since June of 2004.

 

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (DEMOCRAT

 

Well, this is where I disagree. I think in a way it's going to bring a breath of fresh air for those intelligence professionals who are there. Most of the failures at least that I've seen, Saxby, was really in the analytical area. It was - well, you can take the mobile biological labs. This has really bothered me. You had a very distinguished Secretary of State go out before the world, you know, hold up a vial of a chemical weapon and the intelligence said there were 100 metric tons of various chemicals in Iraq. None were there. You had the Secretary of State say it's incontrovertible that there were mobile biological labs. And the basis for that was so flawed and so weak, it never should have come through as a judgment. Now, that's an analytical problem. I think you have to have analysts who...

 

SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (REPUBLICAN

 

Well, it's - it's really joint collection and analytical, Dianne, because you and I know that probably our biggest deficiency at the agency leading up to Porter's appointment was the fact that our humic collection assets had diminished so much over the last decade that we simply weren't getting the best intelligence available. And that's where he has concentrated over the last year and a half, recruiting better people, training people in a better way. And it's moving in the right direction but humic collection is so vitally important because if the analysts don't have the right information, their analysis is not going to make much difference.