and i know there was breathless attention by the media about these arrests and there was constantly on the news networks, i m glad that jim clapper is not sitting in front of the tv 24 hours a day and monitoring what s coming out of the media. well, you know, we kind of agree with you on that, mr. brennan. we don t want mr. clapper to be getting his briefings from us in the media either. i mean, we think he should be well aware of any terror threats or suspected plots or planned arrests or anything for that matter long before we in the media are reporting the story. after all, the job clapper now holds director of national security was created in 2004 to prevent the kind of intelligence fame failures that allowed 9/11 in the first place. clapper is to make sure all the dots are connected. joining us now, david gergen and former cia director james woolsey. thank you for joining us. good to be with you. david gergen, let me start with you. obviously this was not a great event for h
because constant reorganization is a really bad thing in the intelligence community. it jumbled everything up. i think that there s a reasonable likelihood that because the congress cut back on the authority of the dni when they finally got into the house of representatives and started redrafting the legislation that set this all up, they don t have as much authority in the hands of the dni as the initially they thought they should. but this is this is not the kind of issue that gave rise to the not connecting the dots before 9/11. that was a matter of the law enforcement community and the intelligence community being barred by a justice department policy for dealing with one another on important matters. this is not that. but, jim, there s another question here that many are asking, and that is whether in fact mr. brennan, who is terrific working for the president and white house, whether he has centralized the intelligence operation so much in the white house that someone like cl
how serious is it? any implication that it was coming here? any of the things that they have seen were coming here? director clapper? all right. i mean, point taken, there, sawyer s wording may have been vague. instead of saying today s arrest of a dozen terror suspects in the united kingdom, she said london, not uk. but then again, mr. brennan clearly understood what she meant when he jumped in to save his colleague. by this morning, clapper s office had dropped the ambiguity defense. they said this, director clapper had not yet been briefed on the arrest in the united kingdom at the time of this interview taping. his spokeswoman said the dni was working throughout the day on important intelligence matters including military and political developments on the korean peninsula. providing answers to questions concerning the ratification of
the arrests of the 12 individuals by the british this morning. reporter: yes. oh. this is something the british informed us this morning. reporter: later in the interview, i came back to the director. did he really not know? i was a little surprised you didn t know about london, director clapper. oh. i m sorry. i didn t. you referenced london but you didn t talk about the arrests. that was john brennan there, the president s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism who essentially bailed mr. clapper out. the interview was taped around 3:45 in the afternoon, yet you just heard clapper say he didn t know anything about the arrests. he clearly had never been briefed. once abc news released the clip, clapper s office went into sort of damage control mode. the statement released last night explained point blunder like this, the question about this specific news development was ambiguous. the dni s knowledge of the threat streams in europe is profound and multi di
the authority of the dni when they finally got into the house of representatives and started redrafting the legislation that set this all up, they don t have as much authority in the hands of the dni as the initially they thought they should. but this is this is not the kind of issue that gave rise to the not connecting the dots before 9/11. that was a matter of the law enforcement community and the intelligence community being barred by a justice department policy for dealing with one another on important matters. this is not that. but, jim, there s another question here that many are asking, and that is whether in fact mr. brennan, who is terrific working for the president and white house, whether he has centralized the intelligence operation so much in the white house that someone like clapper may be a little bit out of the loop on something like this. well, that s not impossible. the that happens. i mean, sometimes you get squeezed to the outside when