The New York Times
April 13, 2004
9/11 Panel Is Said to Offer Harsh Review of Ashcroft
By PHILIP SHENON and LOWELL BERGMAN
WASHINGTON, April 12 — Draft reports by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks portray Attorney General John Ashcroft as largely uninterested in counterterrorism issues before Sept. 11 despite intelligence warnings that summer that Al Qaeda was planning a large, perhaps catastrophic, terrorist attack, panel officials and others with access to the reports have said.
snip
The draft reports, they said, quote the F.B.I.'s former counterterrorism chief, Dale Watson, as saying he "fell off my chair" when he learned that Mr. Ashcroft had failed to list combating terrorism as one of the department's priorities in a March 2001 department-wide memo.
snip
Commission officials said that Mr. Ashcroft might also be asked about why he stopped flying commercially on government business in the summer of 2001 — the department has said the move was requested by the F.B.I. in response to threats to Mr. Ashcroft's safety unrelated to Al Qaeda — and his extensive use thereafter of a luxurious F.B.I. jet, a $40 million Gulfstream 5. The plane had been purchased for use in special investigations and for the transport of terrorists and other dangerous suspects.
Current and former F.B.I. officials have told the commission that they were infuriated by Mr. Ashcroft's use of the jet and that it was seen as emblematic of his detachment from the needs of investigators.here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/politics/13PANE.html?pagewanted=print&position=
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