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How
U.S. Counterterrorism Failed on 9/11, and Why the Bush Administration
Can't Fix It
September 26, 2002
By Mark G. Levey
 PART
1
On 9/11, a long and complex chain of events came together
when four hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade
Center, the Pentagon and Central Pennsylvania, an attack which
left 3,000 innocent people dead. That eventuality was neither
unforeseeable nor unforeseen, which is the overwhelming message
of the Congressional Joint Intelligence Committee Staff Statement
released on Wednesday, September 18, 2002. Shocking testimony
heard two days later by the panel showed that investigators
in the FBI office in New York, then the Bureau's antiterrorism
center, received orders from Washington on August 29, 2001
to abort a criminal probe of the hijackers after NY agents
learned that one of the terrorist suspects whose identity
and intentions had been known to the CIA for 18 months - had
reentered the US on July 4.
Contrary to repeated Bush Administration claims since September
11, 2001, US intelligence had specific, credible and corroborated
forewarning that terrorists planned to use airliners to attack
New York and Washington, DC area targets. The 9/11 mode of
terrorist attack had, in fact, been known of and planned for
by American intelligence years in advance. Among the findings
of the Congressional staff report released last week:
"[S]hortly after Usama Bin Ladin's May 1998
press conference, the Intelligence Community began to
acquire intelligence information indicating that Bin Ladin's
network intended to strike inside the United States. Many
of these reports were disseminated throughout the Intelligence
Community and to senior U.S. policy makers." (Joint Inquiry
Staff Statement, Part 1, 9-18-2002, pg. 14)
"In June 1998, the Intelligence Community
obtained information from several sources that Usama bin Laden
was considering attacks in the U.S., including Washington,
DC and New York. This information was provided to senior U.S.
Government officials in July 1998." (Joint Inquiry Staff Statement,
Part 1, 9-18-2002, pg. 15)
"In August 1998, the Intelligence Community
obtained information that a group of unidentified Arabs planned
to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into
the World Trade Center. The information was passed to the
FBI and the FAA. The FAA found the plot highly unlikely given
the state of that foreign country's aviation program. Moreover,
they believed that a flight originating outside the United
States would be detected before it reached its intended target
inside the United States. The FBI's New York office took no
action on the information, filing the communication in the
office 's bombing repository file. The Intelligence Community
has acquired additional information since then indicating
there may be links between this group and other terrorist
groups, including al-Qa'ida." (Joint Inquiry Staff Statement,
Part 1, 9-18-2002, pg. 15 and pg. 27)
"In September 1998, the Intelligence
Community obtained information that Usama Bin Ladin's next
operation could possibly involve flying an aircraft loaded
with explosives into a U.S. airport and detonating it; this
information was provided to senior U.S. Government officials
in late 1998." (Joint Inquiry Staff Statement, Part 1, 9-18-2002,
pg. 15)
"In the fall of 1998, the Intelligence
Community received information concerning a Bin Ladin plot
involving aircraft in the New York and Washington, DC areas."
(Joint Inquiry Staff Statement, Part 1, 9-18-2002, pg. 15)
"In November 1998, the Intelligence
Community obtained information that a Bin Ladin terrorist
cell was attempting to recruit a group of five to seven young
men from the United States to travel to the Middle East for
training. This was in conjunction with planning to strike
U.S. domestic targets.." (Joint Inquiry Staff Statement, Part
1, 9-18-2002, pg. 15) · "A December 1, 1998 Intelligence Community
assessment of Usama Bin Ladin read in part: 'UBL is actively
planning against U.S. targets . . . Multiple reports indicate
UBL is keenly interested in striking the U.S. on its own soil
. . . al-Qa'ida is recruiting operatives for attacks in the
U.S. but has not yet identified potential targets'." (Joint
Inquiry Staff Statement, Part 1, 9-18-2002, pg. 17)
"A classified document signed by a senior U.S.
Government official in December 1998 read in part:
'The intelligence community has strong indications that Bin
Ladin intends to conduct or sponsor attacks inside the United
States'." (Joint Inquiry Staff Statement, Part 1, 9-18-2002,
pg. 17)
"In the spring of 1999, the Intelligence
Community obtained information about a planned Bin Ladin attack
on a U.S. Government facility in Washington, D.C." (Joint
Inquiry Staff Statement, Part 1, 9-18-2002, pg. 16)
"In March of 2000, the Intelligence
Community obtained information regarding the types of targets
that operatives in Bin Ladin's network might strike. The Statue
of Liberty was specifically mentioned, as were skyscrapers,
ports, airports, and nuclear power plants." (Joint Inquiry
Staff Statement, Part 1, 9-18-2002, pg. 16)
"A briefing prepared for senior government
officials at the beginning of July 2001 contained the
following language: 'Based on a review of all source reporting
over the last five months, we believe that UBL will launch
a significant terrorist attack against U.S. and/or Israeli
interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular
and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities
or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will
occur with little or no warning'." (Joint Inquiry Staff Statement,
Part [2], 9-18-2002)
"[I]n August 2001, a closely held intelligence
report, for senior government officials, included information
that bin Laden had wanted to conduct attacks in the United
States since 1997. The information included discussion of
the arrest of Ahmed Ressam in December 1999, and the 1998
bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. It mentioned
that members of al Qaeda, including some U.S. citizens, had
resided or traveled in or traveled to the United States for
years, and that the group apparently maintained a support
structure here. The report cited uncorroborated information
obtained in 1998 that bin Laden wanted to hijack airplanes
to gain the release of U.S.-held extremists. F.B.I. judgments
about patterns of activity, consistent with preparation of
hijackings . . ."(Ibid.)
"Two weeks before the September 11 terrorism
attacks, a desperate FBI agent begged his superiors to
launch an aggressive hunt for one of the the men who would
participate in the suicide hijackings, warning that 'someday
someone will die' because his request was denied . . . on
August 29, 2001 [the NY field office agent asked his Washington
superiors] to allow his office to search for Khalid Almihdhar,
who would later help commandeer the aircraft that slammed
into the Pentagon. But lawyers in the FBI's National Security
Law Unit refused. . . The CIA [had] monitored Almihdar at
a meeting of al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia more than 18
months before the September 11 attacks, and knew at that time
that he held a visa that allowed him to enter and exit the
United States repeatedly. But the [congressional] report found
that the CIA did not adequately inform other agencies and
made no effort to until summer 2001 to add the names of Almidhar
or Alhazmi [a second 9/11 hijacker who also attended the Malaysia
al Qaeda meeting] to immigration watch lists . . ." (Washington
Post, A1, Sept. 21, 2002)
Prior to the September 2002 Congressional findings, it was
unthinkable to suggest (in any reputable U.S. publication)
that Americans in high positions of trust and responsibility
had advance knowledge of the attacks but, for whatever reason,
allowed them to happen nonetheless, the evidence now supports
precisely that conclusion by a preponderance of the evidence,
simply because there is no other explanation that makes sense
in light of the best available facts. Readers are invited
to make up their own minds, and to consider the alternative
explanations (including the various stories offered by White
House, Pentagon and CIA officials) which must be given careful
consideration. The closer one looks, however, the more implausible
the various Administration accounts become. Consider the sampling
of quotes below in light of the foregoing Congressional findings
of fact:
George W. Bush. On September 16, 2001, Bush claimed,
"Never did anybody's thought process about how to protect
America ‹ did we ever think that the evildoers would fly not
one but four commercial aircraft into precious U.S. targets.
Never." (cited in Don Van Natta, Jr., NYT On-line, "Democrats
Raise Questions Over Remarks on Warnings" 5-18-2002)
Dick Cheney. In an hour-long interview on 'Meet the
Press' on September 16, 2001, Dick Cheney admitted that the
government had information that a ''big operation'' was planned
by the terrorists. But, he said, there was "no specific threat
involving really a domestic operation." (Ibid.)
Colin Powell, Secretary of State. On September 12,
2001, Powell stated, "I have not seen any evidence that there
was a specific signal that we missed." (Id.)
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary. In response to a reporter's
question hours after the attacks, Fleischer stated "Had
there been any warnings that the president knew of?" the White
House spokesman alleged, "No warnings." (Id.)
George Tenet, CIA director. The New York Times reported,
"The director said the CIA knew 'in broad terms' last summer
that terrorists might be planning major operations in the
United States. But, he said, 'we never had the texture' -
meaning enough specific information - to stop what happened."
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA
director Tenet "objected to the very word 'failure' in connection
with the intelligence gathering ahead of the devastating surprise
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon . . . 'Failure
means no focus, no attention, no discipline,' Mr. Tenet said,
waving his finger for emphasis.'" (James Risen, NYT, February
7, 2002, "Qaeda Still Able to Strike the US, Head of CIA Says")
James Pavitt, Deputy Director of CIA Operations. On
April 12, 2002, Pavitt, speaking at the Duke University Law
School Conference, stated, "We had very, very good intelligence
of the general structure and strategies of the al Qaeda terrorist
organization. We knew and we warned that al Qaeda was planning
a major strike. There need be no question about that. What
didn't we know? We never found the tactical intelligence,
never uncovered the specifics that could have stopped those
tragic strikes that we all remember so well. . . . Against
that degree of control, that kind of compartmentation, that
depth of discipline and fanaticism, I personally doubt, and
I draw again upon my 30 years of experience in this business,
that anything short of one of the knowledgeable inner circle
personnel or hijackers turning himself in to us would have
given us sufficient foreknowledge to have prevented the horrendous
slaughter that took place on the 11th." (Pavitt 4-12-2002
on CIA Public Affairs website)
Marine Corps Major Mike Snyder, spokesperson for NORAD
headquarters in Colorado. The Boston Globe reported,
"He said the two F-15s on alert at Otis were not immediately
ordered into the sky because a Cold War approach to air defense
- protecting US borders from incoming military aircraft -
did not anticipate the terrorist threat posed by hijackers
commandeering domestic, civilian aircraft." (Boston Globe,
Johnson 9-15-2001)
Robert Mueller III, FBI Director. a) On September
17, Mueller told the press, "There were no warning signs that
I'm aware of that would indicate this type of operation in
the country." (cited in Hirsh and Isikoff, Newsweek,
5-27-2002). b) In an April 19, 2002 speech to the Commonwealth
Club of California, Mueller stated, "There was never even
anything [referring to evidence and intelligence] saying,
'Something is planned in the United States,' (Mueller III
4-19-2002; Remarks prepared for delivery by Robert S. Mueller
III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation Commonwealth
Club of California San Francisco, CA April 19, 2002, www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/speech041902.htm)
Published reports and articles of record. The New
York Times reaffirmed administration's assertion that
they had received no warnings. "Bush administration officials
have said they had no evidence that any agency had warning
of the attacks." (Johnston 5-9-2002)
The above pronouncements are controverted by a wealth of
published reports. Major media accounts show that U.S. intelligence
knew of al Qaeda's intentions and operational plans to attack
targets in the U.S. years before 9/11, and the attacks were
indeed facilitated by the suppression of counterterrorism
field investigations. For some time prior to the September
18 Congressional findings a pattern of criminal negligence
(or worse) has been apparent in American counterterrorism
efforts. The findings confirm those earlier reports that 9/11
occurred after FBI and CIA commanders actively stifled preventative
action by rank-and-file investigators and counter-terrorism
experts who were pushing to arrest known al Qaeda operatives.
The smartest and most effective advocates for a more aggressive
counterterrorism policy were reportedly driven out of the
Bureau. Additional details have emerged that show that field
investigations were apparently ignored or derailed by FBI
and CIA superiors:
1996-2001. The CIA learned in 1996 that al Qaeda was
planning to used aircraft to attack US targets, including
the Trade Center and Pentagon, and had identified several
of the terrorists actually involved, but these persons were
allowed into the U.S., despite (or because of) their known
ties to terrorist planners. FBI field agents, meanwhile, were
investigating suspected terrorists enrolled in flight schools,
but these findings were ignored in Washington. In 1996, after
the Philippine police had discovered the 'Bojinka' plot, US
officials began investigating al Qaeda terrorist suspects
who were training in U.S. flight schools. "Since 1996, the
FBI had been developing evidence that international terrorists
were using US flight schools to learn to fly jumbo jets. A
foiled plot in Manila to blow up U.S. airliners and later
court testimony by an associate of bin Laden had touched off
FBI inquiries at several schools, officials say." (Washington
Post, Steve Fairnaru and James Grimaldi 9-23-2001)
1997-2001. FBI Counterterrorist specialist John O'Neil,
head of the NY counterterrorism office, had complained that
the Bush administration had impeded his investigations into
suspected Saudi terrorists and ignored his warnings of terrorist
capabilities. His FBI career ended "under a cloud' after someone
stole his briefcase containing classified papers from a locked
hotel room, and the briefcase later turned up empty. He died
on 9/11 at the World Trade Center where he was newly appointed
chief of security. "Soon after the late John O'Neil had become
head of the FBI's New York unit, he warned, 'A lot of these
groups now have the capability and the support infrastructure
in the United States to attack us here if they choose to'
. . . Among his colleagues, O'Neill was regarded as one of
the FBI's smartest counterterrorism officials - and one of
the most pugnacious. He clashed with the U.S. ambassador in
Yemen, Barbara K. Bodine, during his investigation into the
bombing of the USS Cole. . . " (Washington Post, A6,
9-12-2001)
1998. FBI was investigating Middle Eastern flight
school students in Phoenix. Summarizing a letter written by
former FBI Special Agent James Hauswirth, the Los Angeles
Times (5-27-2002) wrote: "In 1998, the office's international
terrorism squad investigated a possible Middle Eastern extremist
taking flight lessons at a Phoenix airport, wrote Hauswirth,
who retired from the FBI in 1999."
1998. In 1998, the Federal Aviation Administration
warned airlines to be on a 'high degree of alertness' against
possible hijackings by members of Osama bin Laden's organizations.
(AP 5-26-2002)
May 18, 1998. FBI memo observed that an 'unusually'
large number of Middle Eastern men were attending flight schools.
The memo revealed that an Oklahoma FBI pilot had warned his
supervisor "that he has observed large numbers of Middle Eastern
males receiving flight training at Oklahoma airports in recent
months." The FBI pilot further observed, "this is a recent
phenomena and may be related to planned terrorist activity."
(Washington Post 5-30-2002)
2001. The Federal Aviation Administration published
a report called Criminal Acts Against Aviation on its Web
site in 2001 before the hijackings that said that although
Osama bin Laden 'is not known to have attacked civil aviation,
he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so.'
It added, 'Bin Laden's anti-Western and anti-American attitudes
make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation,
particularly to U.S. civil aviation'." (FAA website)
February - July 2001. In early 2001, during the trial
of four men accused of being involved in the 1998 embassy
bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, it was publicly revealed that
members of bin Laden's network had received flying lessons
in Texas and Oklahoma. Government witness, L'Houssaine Kherchtou,
testified that he had been asked by bin Laden to take flying
lessons in 1993. Another former bin Laden aide turned government
informant, Essam al-Ridi, stated that since 1998 he had been
passing the FBI information about an al Qaeda pilot-training
scheme. That information started to be received by the FBI
three years before the September 11 attack. (US v. bin Laden,
et al., Court transcript available at www.cryptome.org).
July 2001. The Phoenix FBI office again tried unsuccessfully
to draw attention to suspected terrorists taking flight training.
Meanwhile, Attorney General John Ashcroft, cognizant of the
warnings going out of the hijacking threat to American commercial
air carriers, for security reasons began to fly only on private
charter and military aircraft. Newsweek magazine reported,
"Back in July 2001, Bill Kurtz and his team hit pay dirt,
and no one seemed to care. A hard-driven supervisor in the
FBI's Phoenix office, Kurtz was overseeing an investigation
of suspected Islamic terrorists last July when a member of
his team, a sharp, 41-year-old counterterrorism agent named
Kenneth Williams, noticed something odd: a large number of
suspects were signing up to take courses in how to fly airplanes.
. ."
"Kurtz, who had previously worked on the Osama bin Laden
unit of the FBI's international terrorism section, was convinced
he and his colleagues might have stumbled on to something
bigger. Kurtz's team fired off a lengthy memo ["the Phoenix
memo"] raising the possibility that bin Laden might be using
U.S. flight schools to infiltrate the country's civil-aviation
system. . .
"[U]nder Attorney General John Ashcroft, the department was
being prodded back into its old law-and-order mind-set: violent
crime, drugs, child porn. Counterterrorism, which had become
a priority of the Clintonites (not that they did a better
job of nailing bin Laden), seemed to be getting less attention.
When FBI officials sought to add hundreds more counterintelligence
agents, they got shot down even as Ashcroft began, quietly,
to take a privately chartered jet for his own security reasons.
"The attorney general was hardly alone in seeming to de-emphasize
terror in the young Bush administration. Over at the Pentagon,
new Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld elected not to relaunch
a Predator drone that had been tracking bin Laden, among other
actions." (Hirsh and Isikoff, Newsweek, 5-27-2002)
August 15, 2001 - September 11, 2001. TIME
Magazine, quoting FBI agent Coleen Rowley's open memo to FBI
Director Mueller, reported that FBI Minneapolis field agents
investigating Zakararia Massaoui "'became desperate' to probe
the laptop computer they seized from Moussaoui and 'conduct
a more thorough search of his personal effects.' As Rowley
describes it, the agents then encountered the first in the
series of "roadblocks" thrown up by their superiors in Washington
that, she says, ultimately scuttled their attempts to investigate
Moussaoui."
TIME also stated, " In the late 1990s, it turns out,
French police had placed Moussaoui on a watch list: using
London as his base, Moussaoui shuttled in and out of Kuwait,
Turkey and Continental Europe, forming ties with radical Islamist
groups and recruiting young men to train and fight the jihad
in Chechnya. French intelligence officials also believed Moussaoui
spent time in Afghanistan, and his last trip before arriving
in the U.S. last February was to Pakistan. A French justice
official says the government gave the FBI 'everything we had'
on Moussaoui, 'enough to make you want to check this guy out
every way you can. Anyone paying attention would have seen
he was not only operational in the militant Islamist world
but had some autonomy and authority as well.' . . ."
"In her memo, Rowley maintains that before Sept. 11, the
Minneapolis agents had 'certainly established,' based on French
sources and other intelligence, that Moussaoui 'had affiliations
with radical fundamentalist groups and activities connected
to Osama bin Laden. . . ."
"Her memo rails against but doesn't name a handful of midlevel
officials who 'almost inexplicably' blocked 'Minneapolis [FBI
agents] ' by now desperate efforts to obtain a FASA search
warrant ... HQ personnel brought up almost ridiculous questions
in their apparent efforts to undermine the probable cause."
One supervisor complained that there might be plenty of men
named Zacarias Moussaoui in France; how did the agents know
this was the same man? (The agents checked the Paris phone
books and found but one Moussaoui.) At another point the field
office tried to bypass their bosses altogether and alert the
CIA's Counterterrorism Center; Rowley says FBI officials chastised
the agents for going behind their backs. She reserves her
toughest words for a supervisor who repeatedly belittled the
French intelligence on the case. Rowley claims that in late
August the supervisor did forward the FASA request to lawyers
at the National Security Law Unit, an FBIHQ office that vets
warrant proposals before passing them on to the Justice Department.
But the supervisor 'deliberately further undercut' the request
by withholding 'intelligence information he promised to add
and making several changes in the wording of the information.'
The resistance from Washington got so bad, she writes, that
agents in her office joked that some FBI officials 'had to
be spies or moles, like Robert Hansen [sic], who were actually
working for Osama bin Laden.' On Aug. 28, the NSLU turned
down the Minnesotans' FISA request." (TIME Magazine,
May 22, 2002, "How the FBI Blew the Case").
Basic fairness demands that the reader understand, despite
the overwhelming evidence that contradicts the statements
of innocence made by Bush officials, that there are many details
about 9/11 that remain unanswered or obscured. Before Mr.
Bush and his staff are condemned in the public mind of a cover-up,
there are the normal rules of evidence proof of motive,
opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity,
absence of mistake or accident - to be taken into consideration
before sound conclusions can be drawn. These missing pieces
of the elaborate jigsaw puzzle may only be answered with some
certainty in a court of law, when and if American intelligence
officials in key operational positions are placed under oath,
and under the penalty of perjury compelled to tell the whole
truth about what they knew, when they knew it, and what information
and recommendations they passed up the chain of command to
the top. Right now, the Bush Administration is resisting an
independent commission of inquiry with full subpoena power
and the ability to question ranking American officials about
the intelligence failure.
Perhaps, most important, are the unanswered gaps in the existing
record about the decision-making process at the top. It was
these actions by decisionmakers that resulted in orders and
policies that were handed down to American intelligence, law
enforcement, immigration and military personnel that allowed
9/11 to happen. The tragedy occurred not because of the incompetence
among the rank-and-file, but because their diligent efforts
were repeatedly subverted and derailed from above. The American
people need to know and understand that fact.
Read Part Two tomorrow.
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