Senator: Hearings To 'Get To The Bottom' Of Lapses

June 4, 2002

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Amid damaging disclosures involving both the FBI and the CIA, lawmakers prepared to open hearings Tuesday into apparent intelligence lapses that have emerged since the devastating September 11 terrorist attacks.

"What we've got to do, I believe, is get to the bottom of the successes and failures because we owe that to the American people," said Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Shelby made his comments after intelligence officials told CNN the CIA had warned the FBI in January 2000 that one of the September 11 hijackers had participated in an al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia and merited closer attention.

However, it wasn't until August 2001 -- three weeks before the terror attacks -- that the CIA put that man, Khalid Almihdhar, and Nawaf Alhazmi, another man at the Malaysia meeting, on a watch list that could have prevented them from entering the United States. Alhazmi was another September 11 hijacker.

"I can tell you I believe again this points toward more failures at the CIA, at the FBI and all over the intelligence agencies," Shelby said.

Earlier, he told ABC that CIA Director George Tenet was in "denial" and that "facts will be brought out to prove that." Another Intelligence Committee member, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, said Sunday that "some hard questions have to be answered."

The latest revelations come on the heels of harsh criticism of the FBI for what some lawmakers say was a series of overlooked clues and leads that preceded the worst terrorist attack on American soil.

For example, an FBI agent in Phoenix, Arizona, wrote a July 2001 memo urging a broad review of Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons in the United States and raising the prospect that Osama bin Laden was involved. Also last summer, the agency's Minneapolis field office pursued an investigation of a terrorism suspect but could not get approval from FBI headquarters in Washington to seek a search warrant for the man's computer. That suspect, Zacarias Moussaoui, was later charged as a conspirator in the deadly hijackings.

The House and Senate intelligence hearings begin Tuesday, but the initial sessions will be closed to the public. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to hear from Coleen Rowley, the FBI whistleblower from Minneapolis who wrote a critical letter about FBI headquarters.

In a tacit acknowledgment of criticism of the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence agencies, President Bush said Monday the FBI is "doing a better job" and is sharing intelligence information with the CIA -- a task many lawmakers say the agency failed to do in the months leading up to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Speaking in Little Rock, Arkansas, Bush obliquely referenced news stories that have detailed the apparent intelligence failures.

"When you read about the FBI, I want you to know that the FBI is changing its culture," Bush said. "The FBI prior to September the 11th was running down white-collar criminals and that's good, was worrying about spies and that's good. But now they've got a more important task, and that is to prevent further attack.

"And, so, the FBI is changing. And they're doing a better job of communicating with the CIA. They're now sharing intelligence."

"They (intelligence agencies) have not followed up on leads that have sat in their laps."  — Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama

Administration officials maintain there was no single clue or memo that could have thwarted the attacks. But, in a break with earlier statements, FBI Director Robert Mueller last week said it was possible, though unlikely, that the FBI could have gotten "lucky" and connected the dots to discover at least some of the hijackers before September 11.

Shelby said details about how the nation's top law enforcement and security agencies handled intelligence information on terrorism before September 11 point to a problem of coordination and communication.

"They have not followed up on leads that have sat in their laps," he told ABC.

-- CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor contributed to this report.
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