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Shelby: More of 9/11 report should be public
(CNN) -- A congressional report on the intelligence failures before the September 11 attacks, due to be released Thursday, is expected to criticize the FBI and CIA, among other agencies, and highlight possible missed opportunities to prevent the deadly terror plot. Officials said the report details how several men who had been under earlier FBI scrutiny had dealings with 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi while they were staying in San Diego, California. U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, spoke Thursday with CNN anchor Bill Hemmer about the investigation's purpose and findings. HEMMER: [The report] reveals that the CIA did not tell the FBI about two of these hijackers in San Diego until about three weeks before the attacks of 9/11 took place. How damaging is that information? SHELBY: Well, it happened because there was lack of coordination between not only the FBI and the CIA in the instance you mentioned, but other instances throughout the work in the intelligence community. It's a lack of coordination. Sometimes, it's a lack of a clear mission. It's a lack of having a facility where all intelligence comes into and is fused and disseminated. We're hoping that the agencies will learn a lot from this joint investigation. HEMMER: Learn a lot like what? SHELBY: [Like] what went wrong, how they can improve themselves, how they can do things differently, and I believe in a lot of instances, they will. HEMMER: Nine hundred pages. Is there any one piece of evidence inside this report that you believe could be a smoking gun that may have prevented what happened on 9/11? SHELBY: Bill, I don't believe that there's a huge smoking gun, but there's a lot of evidence and a lot of information that if put together at the proper time ... collectively perhaps could have made a difference. HEMMER: Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat out of Florida, has been quite critical and talks about a number of areas that have been left out. He calls it "unnecessarily blanked out" -- a 28-page section of this report. How fair is that assessment, sir? SHELBY: I think that's a fair assessment. I've worked with Sen. Graham and Congresswoman [Nancy] Pelosi and Congressman [Porter] Goss regarding all of this investigation. I can tell you, I believe, my own judgment is, that they could have declassified a lot more of this report and let the American people see it. HEMMER: Do you think in that case that we're not getting the full story? SHELBY: You're not getting all of the story. You're getting a lot of it, but I can tell you you're getting more than bits and pieces, and the American people will put most of it together. HEMMER: There is an intelligence briefing that the president received on August 6, 2001. That apparently was redacted as well. What is the damage? What is the harm out there within the intelligence community to put this information into this report and make it public? SHELBY: Well, there's always the risk that you can declassify too much. In other words, you give away sources and methods, and you don't want to do that, and you don't want to put anybody in harm's way that would have contributed to the intelligence success. On the other hand, where it's just going to be embarrassing and perhaps people just don't want to get out front on it, I think the American people have a right to know. HEMMER: What is your assessment then? Would this have been embarrassing to the government, or is this something that needs to be protected? Your conclusion on that is what? SHELBY: Well, my judgment is that, not all of it, but a lot more could be declassified. I can't talk about the details.
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