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The following is a transcript of an interview with House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio, that aired on Dec. 3, 2023.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Mike Turner.
REP. MIKE TURNER: Good morning, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Good to have you here. So our colleagues here at CBS have heard from more Israeli soldiers, mainly female, saying that they had reported up the chain of command warnings about a potential Hamas attack. The New York Times, the FT. They have details, specific ones going back a year. The White House says this wasn’t shared with the U.S. intelligence. If this is America’s closest Mideast ally, should that concern us?
REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, I think what you saw was just a general dismissal by Israel and Israel’s intelligence community of the possibility of this level of a threat, which really goes to, you know, the complete breakdown that occurred here. It’s been amazing to have our intelligence community now working closely with the Israeli intelligence community and see the gaps that they have. And this obviously could have been an institutional bias that the result of them dismissing it, but the other aspect that made this so dangerous, is that even when the October 7th began to unfold, their their forces didn’t react, they didn’t have the deployment ability to respond, not just the intelligence ability to prevent it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Which raises questions now about have those gaps been filled? How can you take Israeli assurances that everything they’re doing is precise and targeted? And exact? Does the United States know where Yahya Sinwar, the-the commander, who was the architect of this is? Israel says that he’s in South Gaza.
REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, certainly the United States is assisting in the location of Hamas leadership as Israel moves to eliminate the threat of Hamas. And I just received a briefing from CIA Director Burns on Friday, who just came back from the Middle East. He’s been working diligently, he’s doing a great job on negotiating for the release of hostages, and also in trying to make certain that our intelligence apparatus is working closely with Israel to try to fill some of those gaps that they clearly have.
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MARGARET BRENNAN: How? What do you attach it to?
REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, and that’s the problem, because so- I do think we’ve got substance on our side. Yeah, this is…
