Admiral Stansfield Turner

Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence under President Carter and now a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, was Tuesday's guest. Excerpts from his remarks follow:

On the alleged manipulation of intelligence about Iraq's weapons:

"I really don't have the feeling it is a serious intelligence problem. [But] it is a serious public relations problem, a serious problem of policymakers overstretching the facts."

On whether US intelligence services need to be reshaped:

"One of the things the Bush administration is not doing today that sorely needs to be done ... is to reshape the intelligence process. We have 14 separate intelligence agencies. Seven of them are housed in the Defense Department ... and nobody is in charge.... The administration is dodging this one because it would involve riding herd on the Department of Defense."

On Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's plans to reshape US military alliances:

"Rumsfeld is moving us in the right direction. NATO has really been obsolete for over a decade. We have got to be more mobile. We have got to be ready to do more precision military operations on a smaller scale."

On using US troops to enforce peace between Arabs and Israelis:

"I really worry about getting our people caught in this body-bag type of situation - having the suicide bombers focusing on us or United Nations troops because they see us as the impediment."

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