Slade Gorton Interviews William Cohen

Mr secretary um help me uh you know with your experience and wisdom with this very troubling two-word phrase that inell actionable intelligence it seems to me that actionable intelligence with respect to going after Osama bin Laden after 19888 must have been based on the proposition that almost the sole goal is getting capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden and that what a lack of actionable intelligence meant was either one you didn't have a 90% chance of finding him where the whatever intelligence you had said he would be or two if you could you were going to kill three or 400 other people you know while you were doing it that the collateral damage would be too great to run the risk but actionable intelligence that on August 20th you after the Embassy bombings it seems to me must have been softer than that and that actionable intelligence must have been well we know there's a camp there and we're pretty sure they're going to be some bad guys there and besides the the blowing up those two things was so bad we got to do something tell me if that's correct but most of all tell me what in general terms for the future actionable intelligence means how much of it is the goal how much of it is your certainty that you can attain that goal and how much of it is just related to the fact that under some circumstances you're going to have to do something even though you aren't certain that you'll be a success uh Senator Gordon let me um let me give you a real case uh involving actual intelligence the so-called Pharmaceutical Plant in Sudan and I want to use that as an example because there um we were given information that Ben Laden following uh the bombings of the embassies in East Africa was seeking to get his hands on chemical and biological weapons to inflict as many Kill as many people as he could we were real concerned about that I was very concerned about that intelligence uh started to come in uh about this particular plant they had been gathering information on it I think I point this out in my written testimony but frankly I apologize not getting it to you much sooner I was still working on it as of yesterday last night but to give you an example this particular facility according to the intelligence we had at that time had been constructed under extraordinary security uh circumstances even with some surface of air uh missile capability your um um defense capabilities that uh the plant itself um had been constructed under these security measures that the father that that the the plant had been funded in part by the so-called military industrial corporation that Bin Laden had been living there that he had in fact money that had put into this military-industrial corporation that the uh owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad uh to meet with the father of the VX program uh and that U the U CIA had found traces of empa uh nearby uh the facility itself uh according to all the intelligence there was no other known use for empa at that time other than as a precursor to VX under those circumstances I said that's actionable enough for me that that plant uh could in fact be producing not baby aspirin or some other um U pharmaceutical for the benefit of people but it was enough for me to say we're going to take we should take it out and I recommended uh that now I was criticized uh for that saying you didn't have enough and I put myself in the position of coming before you and having uh someone like you say to me let me get this straight Mr secretary we've just had a chemical weapons attack Upon Our cities or our troops and we've lost several hundred or several thousand and this is the information which you had at your fingertips you had a plant that was built under the following circumstances you had a manager that went to Baghdad you had Saddam that Usama Bin Laden who had funded at least the the corporation and you had traces of EMP and you did what you did nothing uh is that uh a responsible activity on the part of the secetary of defense and the answer is pretty clear so I was satisfied even though that still is pointed as a mistake that it was the right thing to do then I believe it I would do it again based on that kind of intelligence so that was an example of actionable intelligence when it comes to uh other circumstances say you have to weigh it uh each and every case you say do you take action just for the sake of taking something do something I think we have a greater responsibility before I decide or make a recommendation to the president of the United States to launch a missile that's going to kill a lot of people I want to make sure as much as I can it's not out of passion but out of as much reason analysis as I can make to say this is a target that poses a threat to us Mr President and yes there are risks that you're going to kill some innocent people but we have an obligation to take it out it's individual analysis I can't give you specifics on it I gave you an example of where I thought it was the right thing