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U.S. Overlooked Terrorism Signs Well Before 9/11
Thu Sep 19 16:22:15 2002
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U.S. Overlooked Terrorism Signs Well Before 9/11
http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2Dna%2Dintel19sep19

Inquiry: A House-Senate panel report says Al Qaeda was focusing on a
domestic attack and the use of planes as weapons as far back as mid-'90s.

By GREG MILLER
TIMES STAFF WRITER

September 19 2002

WASHINGTON -- The nation's intelligence agencies failed to heed serious
warnings dating back to the mid-1990s that the Al Qaeda terrorist network was
increasingly focused on striking targets in the United States and using
aircraft as weapons, according to a report issued by congressional
investigators Wednesday.

The document, which represents the first comprehensive look at intelligence
failures surrounding Sept. 11, 2001, lists newly disclosed terrorist plots
and other clues that did not point directly to last year's attacks, but
suggest that U.S. spy agencies should have been looking for just such a
plot.

Among the revelations is an intelligence report of a 1998 plot in which Arab
suspects possibly linked to Al Qaeda were to pilot an explosive-packed plane
into the World Trade Center. That same year, intelligence officials learned
that Al Qaeda was trying to establish an active cell in the United States.
And just one month before the attacks on the trade center and the Pentagon,
intelligence agencies obtained information suggesting Al Qaeda operatives
were possibly plotting to crash an airplane into the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.

The disclosures were released as part of Congress' first public hearings on
intelligence failures surrounding Sept. 11. The House and Senate Intelligence
committees are expected to hold a series of public hearings over the next
month before producing a final report early next year.

Wednesday's document represents preliminary findings that seem to undercut
administration officials' repeated assertions over the last year that the
nature and magnitude of the attacks were all but inconceivable until they
happened.

Indeed, the report raises serious questions about the extent to which U.S. spy
agencies had mobilized to respond to the emerging Al Qaeda threat. As recently
as 2000, the report says, the CIA's counterterrorism center had just five
analysts focused full-time on Al Qaeda, and the FBI had just one.

That was despite the fact that in 1998, CIA Director George J. Tenet had
written a memo declaring "war" on Al Qaeda and saying, "I want no resources
or people spared in this effort, either inside CIA or the [intelligence]
community."

Though money and manpower aimed at terrorist targets grew subsequent to that
memo, the report says "there was no massive shift in budget or reassignment
of personnel to counter-terrorism until after Sept. 11, 2001."

In fact, the report says, "relatively few of the FBI agents interviewed by
[investigators] seem to have been aware of Tenet's declaration."

Many lawmakers said the report points to systemic intelligence breakdowns.

"We now know that our inability to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks
was an intelligence failure of unprecedented magnitude," said Sen. Richard
C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence
Committee. "Some people who couldn't seem to utter the words 'intelligence
failure' are now convinced of it."

Shelby appeared to be referring to Tenet, who in testimony before the committee
earlier this year insisted that Sept. 11 was not an intelligence failure.

The report, the product of an ongoing investigation of the attacks by
congressional intelligence committees, is likely to put new pressure on the
White House to account for intelligence breakdowns and push for substantial
reform. But there were new signs at Wednesday's hearing that lawmakers and
the White House remain at odds over how much of what the investigation
uncovers should be released to the public.

Members complained Wednesday that they have been blocked by the White House
from disclosing whether any intelligence warnings mentioned in the report were
ever conveyed to Presidents Clinton or Bush.

The White House has refused to allow such disclosures even in cases in which
the underlying information has already been declassified or publicly reported,
said Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

As a result, the report contains repeated references to intelligence that was
brought to the attention of "senior government officials," without making
clear who the officials were.

Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, said that the administration's stance
stems from its concern that "the president should be able to receive candid
intelligence assessments and advice without congressional interference," and
that exposing such communications "could have a chilling effect" on what
intelligence officials share with the president.

Eleanor Hill, the staff director of the congressional investigation, stressed
during testimony Wednesday that the investigation has not uncovered a "smoking
gun" indicating that any federal agency or official had information before
Sept. 11, 2001, identifying when, where or how the attacks would be carried
out.

But the report, based on reviews of more than 400,000 documents and interviews
with nearly 500 people, lists dozens of pieces of data that point to at least
the possibility of an event like the attacks of Sept. 11.

Many of the findings are sketched out only in general terms because details
remain classified. The report, for instance, doesn't spell out the exact
nature of many of the warnings intelligence officials were said to have
received, or whether they were pursued.

Some of the joint committee's most significant findings have already been
reported, including the so-called Phoenix memo in which an Arizona FBI agent
made a futile effort to urge bureau headquarters to investigate Arabs in
flight schools; the failure to grasp the implications of the August 2001
arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, now believed by authorities to have been the
intended 20th hijacker; and the failure of the CIA to put two of the
Sept. 11 hijackers on a terrorism watch list until they had already
entered the United States.

But the report also contained a number of provocative findings not previously
disclosed. Many center on a series of warnings that Al Qaeda or other
terrorist groups might use airplanes as weapons.

In January 1996, the report says, the intelligence community obtained
information regarding a planned suicide attack by individuals associated
with a "key Al Qaeda operative" to fly a plane from Afghanistan and attack
the White House.

The report also says the CIA had been aware of a key Al Qaeda figure involved
in the Sept. 11 plot since 1995, "but did not recognize his growing importance"
and paid scant attention to him. The figure is not identified in the report
but is believed to be Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the
plot.

In 1998, intelligence officials obtained information that "a group of
unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign
country into the World Trade Center." Intelligence officials have since
found possible links between that group and Al Qaeda.

That same year, intelligence officials got another warning, this time
indicating that "Osama bin Laden's next operation could possibly involve
flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into a U.S. airport and
detonating it."

Two years later, in 2000, a would-be informant walked into the FBI's Newark,
N.J., office saying he had attended a training camp in Pakistan and that he
was supposed to meet others in the United States to take part in a
hijacking plot, the report says. He warned agents that "there would be
pilots among the hijacking team." But although the informant passed an
FBI polygraph test, the FBI "was never able to verify any aspect of his
story," the report says.

Despite these and other warnings, the report says, intelligence officials
never seriously studied the possibility that airplanes could be used as
weapons.

Indeed, less than a year before the attacks, "the FBI and Federal Aviation
Administration had assessed the prospects of a terrorist incident targeting
domestic civil aviation in the United States as relatively low."

The report's findings challenge White House officials' repeated claims that
they couldn't have foreseen the nature of the attacks.

In May, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said at a White House news
conference, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people
would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center ... that
they would try to use an airplane as a missile."

The report indicates that intelligence and law enforcement agencies also
underestimated the likelihood that Al Qaeda would launch an attack on U.S.
soil. This was true even though intelligence showed Al Qaeda was seeking
to establish a cell in the United States in 1998, and that by 2000 Bin Laden
was considering targets including skyscrapers, ports, airports, nuclear
plants and the Statue of Liberty.

These warnings were followed by a spike in intelligence traffic in the summer
of 2001 indicating an Al Qaeda attack of devastating proportions was imminent.

Between May and July, the National Security Agency—which eavesdrops on
electronic signals around the globe—intercepted at least 33 communications
indicating possible imminent attack. Reports indicated that Bin Laden
followers were planning to enter the United States via Canada and other
routes, and were plotting operations using high explosives.

But instead of bracing for a domestic strike, Hill said, agencies were
overwhelmingly focused on vulnerabilities overseas. One senior FBI official
interviewed as part of the inquiry told investigators "he thought there was
a high probability—98%—that the attack would occur overseas."

Wednesday's hearing also included emotional testimony from spouses of two
victims of the Sept. 11 attacks: Kristen Brietweiser, 31, whose husband worked
in the World Trade Center; and Stephen Push, whose wife was a passenger on the
plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

Both called for an independent commission to conduct further investigations
of the intelligence failures surrounding Sept. 11. Legislation creating such
a commission could be considered by the Senate as early as this week.

=============================================================================

Investigation of the WTC Incident - Email: wtc@nist.gov
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=33213

Bush, He must immediately be arrested for.... — Joe Spenner
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=33259

Goodbye to All That - by Rep. Cynthia McKinney
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=33262

Then Rick asked who these secret societies actually were. She said there
were too many to name but one was called “The Dead Head.” I have studied
secret societies myself and even have a couple of family members who are
members of such societies or groups but I have never heard of this group
FULL STORY HERE:
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=33256

NO BLOOD FOR OIL!!!! STOP THE WAR!!!! — Mitchel Cohen
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=33232

Hello, I wrote President Bush a letter this morning. — Kenneth Chrane
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=33236

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I
can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will
not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do,
I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God,
I will do." - Edward Everett Hale
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• Probe: U.S. Knew of Jet Terror Plots - 09/20/02 — t r u t h o u t, Thu Sep 19 18:43