FBI HQ Accused of Quashing Pre-9-11 Probes

May 24 -- An elite anti-terrorism FBI unit received both key memos that are the focus of an inquiry into Sept. 11 intelligence failures, and not only didn't act on them, but hindered the investigation, congressional leaders said today.

Lawmakers are demanding answers to what happened to FBI correspondence from agents in Phoenix and Minneapolis before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. And lawmakers are concerned about a letter sent by an FBI agent in Minnesota that is highly critical of the FBI's handling of the investigation.

"This was worse than dropping the ball. This was bureaucrats at headquarters actively interfering with an investigation that had a terrorist in hand," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement.

The bureau's Radical Fundamentalist Unit, headed by Supervisory Special Agent Dave Frasca, and its Osama bin Laden Unit, first got a memo that Phoenix FBI agent Ken Williams sent in early July. He informed his superiors of his concerns about Arabs linked to a London fundamentalist group who were attending flight schools in Arizona. Williams suggested a national sweep of such schools for possible terrorists.

Then, in August, agents arrested Zacarias Moussaoui on immigration charges after a flight school in Minnesota became suspicious of him and informed the FBI.

FBI agents in Minnesota asked for authority to get a warrant to check Moussaoui's computer, but were turned down, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress recently, because there was insufficient probable cause. Moussaoui has since been charged as the so-called 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A Scathing Letter

This week, a Minnesota agent wrote a scathing letter to Mueller and members of Congress, complaining that upper-level officials failed to connect the clues. Plus, agent Coleen Rowley charged some in the FBI hindered the work of field agents who understood the importance of what they were reporting.

"The agents in Minneapolis who were closest to the action, and in the best position to gauge the situation locally, did fully appreciate the terrorist risk/danger posed by Moussaoui and the possible co-conspirators even prior to Sept. 11," Rowley wrote, according to a recounting given to The Associated Press.