Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
July 20, 2004
WASHINGTON — President Bush said Monday that his administration was
investigating possible links between Iran and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a
statement that distanced the president from acting CIA Director John McLaughlin,
who had downplayed a possible connection a day earlier.
"As to direct
connections with Sept. 11, we're digging into the facts to determine if there
was one," Bush said of Iran.
In a second sign of a potential rift
between the White House and the intelligence agency, White House Press Secretary
Scott McClellan told reporters that McLaughlin was not speaking for the
president when he said it was unnecessary to create a new, more powerful
intelligence czar, despite faulty information before the Iraq war.
"The
president is very much open to ideas that build upon the reforms that we're
already implementing," McClellan said. "I think [McLaughlin] was
expressing his view."
McClellan's comments indicated that the White
House was receptive to the i dea of fundamental reform in the intelligence
community, rather than the "modest changes" McLaughlin had endorsed in an
appearance on a Sunday talk show.
The White House-CIA differences
emerged as the independent Sept. 11 commission prepared to release its final
report Thursday on the 2001 terrorist attacks. The report is expected to
contain recommendations that could touch off a contentious drive toward
reforming the nation's intelligence-gathering bureaucracy.
The
independent commission is widely expected to report that some of the Sept. 11
hijackers had traveled freely between Iran and Afghanistan during 2000 and 2001.
Last month, the panel's chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, said
in a television interview that Al Qaeda had "a lot more active contacts,
frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq."
Iran's
emerging prominence in the Sept. 11 investigations looms as a potentially
difficult issue for the White House, because it could raise new questions about
why Bush led a war against Iraq but so far has taken a distinctly less bellicose
stance toward Iran.
McClellan argued that the United States indeed had
been "confronting" the threat from Iran, which Bush in 2002 listed, along with
Iraq and North Korea, as part of an "axis of evil." He added, however, that
Iraq was "a unique situation" because it had invaded its neighbors and had
possessed and used weapons of mass destruction.
McClellan also said the
White House was eager to learn what the Sept. 11 commission knew about any
connections between the hijackers and Iran. "Apparently it's something that's
evolved over time," he said.
The Iranian government has denied knowledge
or involvement in the Sept. 11 plot.
McLaughlin had said Sunday that
although "about eight" of the Sept. 11 hijackers may have passed through Iran
before their mission, the CIA had "no evidence that there is some sort of
official connection between Iran and 9/11."
Bush on Monday noted
McLaughlin' s comments, but said: "We will continue to look and see if the
Iranians were involved."
The president also renewed his accusation that
Iran's rulers were "harboring Al Qaeda leadership," and urged Tehran anew to
dismantle its nuclear weapons program. The United States has asked Iran to turn
over Al Qaeda members to their respective countries.
The president's
spokesman dismissed weekend media reports that Bush may delay naming a new CIA
director until after the Nov. 2 election as having "no basis in fact."
In brief remarks to reporters after meeting with Chilean President Ricardo
Lagos, Bush said that he was "still taking a good, hard look" at potential
successors to George J. Tenet as CIA director. Tenet left the agency July
11.
As for the reforming the intelligence-gathering apparatus, the
president said he was looking forward to seeing the Sept. 11 commission's
recommendations.
"They share the same desires I share, which is to make
sure that the president and the Cong ress get the best possible intelligence,"
Bush said.
"Some of the reforms, I think, are necessary: more human
intelligence, better ability to listen or to see things, and better coordination
amongst the variety of intelligence-gathering services," he said. "And so we'll
look at all their recommendations, and I will comment upon that, having studied
what they say."
The commission is expected to recommend the creation of
a single Cabinet-level position overseeing the 15 agencies that make up the
nation's intelligence-gathering community.
McLaughlin acknowledged on
"Fox News Sunday" that "a good argument" could be made for such consolidation,
but added that it was unnecessary because the CIA already had taken steps toward
reform since Sept. 11 and because a restructuring would impose additional
bureaucracy on the system.
White House officials have described
McLaughlin as a capable leader, but have also indicated that they do not see him
as a permanent replacement.
That may be in part because McLaughlin was
in a senior position at the agency during a stretch that included the failure to
prevent the Sept. 11 attacks and the erroneous assessments that Iraq had
stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and had restarted its nuclear
weapons program.
But it also appears that the professorial McLaughlin,
who came up through the analytical side of the CIA, doesn't have the sort of
rapport with Bush that the backslapping, gregarious Tenet did.
An
anecdote in a recent book by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward describes
McLaughlin giving a key briefing to Bush and other senior White House officials
on the evidence against Iraq before the war. Bush was unimpressed by the
presentation and complained that the evidence was weak, prompting Tenet to call
the case against Iraq a "slam dunk."
McClellan said Monday that
McLaughlin was "someone who is very capable and is doing a good job at the
CIA."