Feds Criticized as Pre-9/11 Clues Revealed

May 16, 2002

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Some lawmakers -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- demanded answers Thursday from the White House after disclosures that the federal government might have missed several pre-September 11 clues that suggested the United States would be the subject of a terrorist attack.

On Wednesday, the White House acknowledged that President Bush had received a warning last summer that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network might attempt to hijack a U.S. airliner. That warning was passed on in one of his daily intelligence briefings.

But senior Bush administration officials said that there was no speculation about the use of an airplane as a bomb or weapon and no specific, credible information about the possibility of a hijacking.

"The reports are disturbing that we are finding this out now."
— U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt, House minority leader

The revelation followed reports of an internal memo from an FBI agent in Arizona who last summer questioned what he thought was an unusual number of Arab students taking flight lessons and wondered whether bin Laden was involved.

U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, also pointed to the arrest last summer of Zacarias Moussaoui, who had aroused suspicions at a Minnesota flight school. He was arrested on an immigration charge but has since been charged with conspiracy in the September 11 attacks.

"You put all that together, and you've dotted a lot of things, you've closed some circles, but it didn't happen," Shelby, R-Alabama, said. "I think it was a lost opportunity. If you put it all in context, not just the briefing of the president, but the FBI is involved here, and I think they could have done a better job, but they didn't."

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt, the House minority leader, called for some kind of congressional inquiry into what was known by the CIA, FBI and other government agencies about possible attacks before the deadly hijackings.


What Bush knew before September 11
According to Bush officials:
-- Intelligence reports before September 11 warned of possible attacks from al Qaeda.
-- A potential hijacking was mentioned as one in a range of things that might be done.
-- There was no specific threat that the government could have acted on.

"The reports are disturbing that we are finding this out now," he said. "I think what we have to do now is to find out what the president, what the White House knew about the events leading up to the events of 9/11, when they knew it and, most importantly, what was done about it at that time."

Gephardt, D-Missouri, warned against jumping to conclusions but added, "We need to do better." He described himself as "surprised" by the latest revelations.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer insisted Thursday the administration took appropriate steps last summer when terror warnings began surfacing, and he stressed that there had been no indication that jets would be deliberately crashed.

"The president did not -- not -- receive information of the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new type of attack that had not been foreseen," he said. "As a result a series of changes and improvements have been made to the way the United States deals with a terrorist threat."

Fleischer also said the concept of a "hijacking" before September 11 was not the same as today.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said there are important questions that have yet to be answered.

"Why did it take eight months for us to receive this information?" said Daschle, D-South Dakota. Later, he added, "I'm concerned about whether the public was adequately protected."

Shelby also criticized the White House for not revealing the information about Bush's intelligence briefing before Wednesday evening.

"The fact that they've waited this long to get it out is troubling," Shelby said.

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, offered similar comments, even before the White House revelation regarding Bush's intelligence briefing.

"[There was a] common theme at that time that bin Laden was up to something."
— A Bush administration official

Graham, D-Florida, said U.S. authorities failed to recognize clues before September 11 about a potential terrorist attack -- including that memo -- known as the Phoenix document -- from the FBI agent.

Graham said the House and Senate intelligence panels soon will hold hearings about various memos and reports, including the Phoenix document.

A key question, said Graham, would be "why these dots weren't seen and connected."

Asked whether the September 11 attacks might have been averted had the Phoenix document raised more red flags, Graham said, "Well, it might have been if this had been seen in the context of other information, which indicated that there was a potential conspiracy to use commercial airliners as weapons of mass destruction." (Full story)

White House officials, however, said vague talk of the threat of potential hijackings was a recurring issue in U.S. intelligence data and cautioned against considering this new information with "post-9/11 thinking."

"A general warning of the prospect of a hijacking would be looked at much more differently today than it was pre-9/11," one senior official said.

Another official said there was a "common theme at that time that bin Laden was up to something" and that intelligence reports in the weeks and even months before September 11 warned of the prospect of new attacks from al Qaeda.

Yet another official familiar with the intelligence reports at the time said a potential hijacking was mentioned as one "in a range of things that might be done" and said there was no specific threat upon which the government could have acted.

This official pointed out that the United States did publicly warn last summer about the possibility of a terrorist attack on the Arabian peninsula.

Another U.S. official said the "chatter" about bin Laden dated back to the Clinton administration but "reached a pitch" in spring 2001 and began to receive more attention in intelligence circles and at the highest levels of government.

In May 2001, for example, Bush asked Vice President Dick Cheney to lead an administration task force to assess the country's counterterrorism effort.

At that time, Cheney told CNN: "Well, the concern here is that one of our biggest threats as a nation is no longer, sort of, the conventional military attack against the United States but rather that it might come from other quarters.

"It could be domestic terrorism, but it may also be a terrorist organization overseas or even another state using weapons of mass destruction against the U.S., a hand-carried nuclear weapon or biological or chemical agents," Cheney said. "The threat to the continental United States and our infrastructure is changing and evolving. And we need to look at this whole area, oftentimes referred to as homeland defense."

-- CNN White House Correspondent John King contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/16/bush.sept.11/index.html