Ex-Boss: FBI Lacked Means to Stop 9/11
— -- Ex-Boss: FBI Lacked Means to Stop 9/11
W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 8 — Rejecting accusations that FBI was lax infighting terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks, former directorLouis Freeh told a congressional panel today that it did the bestit could given legal limitations and insufficient resourcesprovided by Congress.
Freeh told the House and Senate intelligence committees that hehas seen no evidence that the FBI and intelligence agencies couldhave prevented the attacks. The committees are conducting a jointinquiry into intelligence failures leading up to the attacks.
Freeh, who stepped down in June 2001 after eight years headingthe FBI, rejected some of the key points made by inquiry staff:that the bureau was more focused on prosecuting terrorists thanpreventing attacks and that the CIA and FBI have not cooperated infighting terrorists.
He said that with terrorists taking haven in foreign countries,the FBI and CIA's ability to stop them will inevitably be limited.
"Al Qaeda type organizations, state sponsors of terrorism likeIran and the threats they pose to America are beyond the competenceof the FBI and the CIA to address," he said.
He said the FBI was denied the staff and money it needed tofight terrorism. In 2000, for example, he said he requested 864additional people for counterterrorism at a cost of $380.8 million.He said he received five people and $7.4 million.
Similarly, Congress was slow to provide funding for improvingthe FBI's antiquated computer systems, Freeh said. Lawmakers haveidentified the FBI's technological problems as a major hindrance tothe sharing of information.
The FBI's ability to stop terrorists was also set back by lawsrestricting its investigations, Freeh said. Many of thoserestrictions were changed after the attacks.
"I repeatedly testified before Congress that FBI agents werestatutorily barred from obtaining portions of credit reports oncertain national security subjects which used car dealers couldorder and read," he said.
Speaking before Freeh, inquiry staff director Eleanor Hill saidtoday that intelligence agencies had made "several impressiveadvances" in fighting terrorism since the end of the Cold War. Inmany cases, agencies could do little about factors beyond theircontrol, such as al Qaeda finding sanctuary in Taliban-controlledAfghanistan, she said.
But Hill said intelligence agencies "did not fully learn thelessons of past attacks," dating back to the 1993 World TradeCenter bombing.
"On Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda was able to exploit the gaps inthe U.S. counterterrorism structure to carry out its devastatingattacks," she said.
The inquiry has not found any single piece of evidence in thehands of intelligence agencies that, by itself, would haveprevented the attacks. But it has identified a series of cluesthat, if pieced together, might have led to the hijacking plot.
Two of the biggest clues involved the FBI in the months betweenFreeh's departure and the attacks. One was a July 2001 memo by aPhoenix FBI agent warning that al Qaeda might be training terroristpilots at U.S. flight schools. The other was the August 2001 arrestof a suspicious student pilot, Zacarias Moussaoui, who has sincebeen charged with conspiring in the attacks.
As the committees wind down their inquiry, they're looking toset up an independent commission to conduct a broaderinvestigation, looking at issues such as airline security andimmigration in addition to intelligence.
The commission could be included in legislation 2003intelligence activities, expected to be considered by thecommittees late today.
But a leader of a group of victims' relatives, Stephen Push ofFamilies of Sept. 11, said talks between lawmakers and the Bushadministration about the commission have been slowed by new WhiteHouse demands. He said they included differences about thecommission's membership, the length of the investigation, and theadministration's control over the final report.
The White House had initially opposed an independent commissionbecause of concerns about possible leaks and distractions foragencies involved in fighting terrorism. But with backing for thecommission building in Congress, it announced last month it wouldsupport it.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Bushadministration was working closely with congressional leaders "toget the commission up and running as quickly as possible and to doso in a way that accommodates the concerns we have heard inmeetings with families of the victims."
—The Associated Press
Court Rules Immigration Hearings May Be Closed by Government
P H I L A D E L P H I A , Oct. 8 — A federal appeals court ruled today thatimmigration hearings may be closed by the government, dealing ablow to media organizations who sought access to hearings involvingforeigners swept up in the nation's terrorism investigation.
The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appealsreversed a lower court ruling and said the attorney general has theright to close the hearings for reasons of national security.
Justice Department lawyers had argued that national security wouldbe threatened if reporters and others were allowed to attend.
For nearly a year, reporters and members of the public have beenbarred from deportation hearings for hundreds being held in thenation's terrorism investigation.
Media organizations and civil rights groups sued to reopen thehearings, or to allow them to be closed only if the governmentcould persuade a judge that secrecy was necessary.
The two-judge majority disagreed, however, writing that thetypes of deportation hearings being closed were "extremelynarrow" and that the attorney general is in a better position thanimmigration judges to determine their importance to nationalsecurity. U.S. Circuit Judge Anthony J. Scirica dissented.
Two publications in New Jersey, the New Jersey Law Journal andthe North Jersey Media Group, which publishes the Herald News ofWest Paterson, challenged the rules in March. The American CivilLiberties Union argued the case on behalf of the media.
A federal judge in Newark ruled in May that the secrecy ruleswere too broad, and said the government could only close hearingson a case-by-case basis. The ruling was stayed while the case wasappealed.
The 3rd Circuit's decision only applies to immigration hearingsin its coverage area — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and theVirgin Islands. The government's secrecy rules also have beenchallenged elsewhere.
In a similar case in Michigan, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court ofAppeals ordered the Justice Department in August to hold a new,open detention hearing for a Lebanese man who co-founded an Islamiccharity suspected of funneling money to terrorists.
Unlike criminal or civil trials, immigration hearings are notalways public. The Justice Department had argued that whiledetention hearings have traditionally been open, a 40-year-old lawallowed judges to exclude the public if doing so was in thenation's best interest.
—The Associated Press
WTC Victims List Drops Below 2,800
N E W Y O R K, Oct. 8 — The number of people listed as victims of lastyear's World Trade Center attack has dropped below 2,800, afterthree people were found alive and one duplication was eliminatedfrom the list of names read at last month's anniversary ceremony,officials said Monday.
The victim count stood at 2,797 after investigators found thatMaria Bengochea, 46, of Manhattan, and Germaan Castillo Garcia, 36,of Brooklyn, were erroneously reported missing, according to EllenBorakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner.
Another name, Nickola Lampley, was removed from the list afterthe woman was found by The Associated Press in Brooklyn on the dayher name was read aloud at the ground zero ceremony.
Lampley, 24, said she had been working about four blocks fromthe trade center on Sept. 11, 2001, but was not hurt in thecollapse of the twin towers.
Her sister Alecia, 23, said she reported Nickola missing whenshe could not reach her in the days after the attack. They spokewithin the next week, but Lampley's name remained on the list formore than a year because police could not locate her.
City officials who released the list in anticipation of theanniversary remembrance cautioned that the ceremonial reading, ledby former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, might have included names ofpeople who were not killed.
"They wanted to make sure they didn't leave anybody out,"Borakove said.
The fourth name eliminated from the ceremony list of 2,801victims was a duplication, Borakove said. It was removed from thetoll after investigators determined it duplicated Gricelda James,44, an administrative assistant who worked in the north tower.
Erroneous missing-persons reports swelled the trade centervictim tally to a peak of 6,700 about two weeks after the attack.
The number dropped steadily and then leveled at 2,823 for severalmonths until investigators began preparing a list for theanniversary.
The official toll had been 2,801 since Sept. 6, when the cityreleased the names to be read.
The dropped names put the number of people classified as missingat about 65. Much of the work to eliminate errors is stalled bythose cases, many of which stump missing-persons investigators withwrong phone numbers, misspelled names or confusions with foreignconsulates halfway around the world.
The list also includes victims whose remains have beenidentified and those presumed dead whose relatives have obtainedcourt-issued death certificates.
As of Monday, 1,411 victims had been identified, 682 by DNAalone, Borakove said. The medical examiner has 19,923 pieces ofhuman remains in storage, 4,916 of which have been identified.
Just nine victims have been identified in the four weeks sincethe anniversary of the attack. Borakove said the number does notrepresent a lull in DNA identifications — more than 150 matcheshave been made for remains of people who already had other partsidentified, she said.
Remains are stored in 18 trailers parked in a lot outside themedical examiner's office on Manhattan's East Side, near New YorkUniversity Hospital.
Victims' families and the city are working with an architect todesign a more permanent and peaceful area for visiting the remains.
—The Associated Press
3 Portland Terror Suspects Plead Not Guilty
P O R T L A N D, Ore., Oct. 8 — Jeffrey Battle and his ex-wife OctoberLewis, American Muslims accused of plotting to wage war againstU.S. troops in Afghanistan, pleaded innocent Monday to all countsof a federal indictment.
A third defendant arrested in Portland, Patrice Lumumba Ford,31, pleaded innocent last Friday.
Battle, Lewis and Ford were among six people indicted by afederal grand jury last week on conspiracy charges alleging a planto travel to Afghanistan last winter and fight on the side ofal Qaeda and the Taliban.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has described the Portlanddefendants as members of a suspected terrorist cell.
A fourth suspect, Muhammad Bilal, 22, was arrested in Michigan.He will be brought to Portland to answer charges. His brother,Ahmed Bilal, turned himself in on Sunday to security officials atan Islamic university in Malaysia, where he had been studying, apolice official told The Associated Press.
The university turned him over to Malaysian authorities who werepreparing to send him back to the United States, the official said,speaking only on condition he not be identified by name.
A sixth suspect, Habis Abdulla al Saoub, was still being soughtoverseas.
Battle and Lewis appeared in federal court Monday wearing bluejumpsuits with ankle chains and plastic restraints on their wrists.Two members of Portland's Muslim community turned up at the courtto support them.
Kristen L. Winemiller, Battle's court-appointed attorney, saidshe couldn't comment on the case because she had not seen any ofthe government's evidence. "All I know is what I read in [the]newspaper," she said.
"We're looking forward to reviewing the evidence," she said. All three arrested in Portland are native U.S. citizens who hadconverted to Islam.
The five male suspects are accused of setting out forAfghanistan after the Sept. 11 terror attacks with the intention offighting on the side of al Qaeda and the Taliban. They encounteredproblems entering Afghanistan from China and returned home,according to the indictment.
Battle, who was raised a Jehovah's Witness in Florida and Texas,became interested in Islam after watching director Spike Lee'smovie Malcolm X in a theater in 1992, according to his mother,Deanna Douglas, who lives in Houston.
"He bought Malcolm X books and began reading all kinds ofIslamic literature," she said. Battle was inspired in particularby a decision by Malcolm X to seek the true source of Islam bytaking a journey to the Middle East rather than rely on theteachings of the Elijah Mohammed, leader of the Nation of Islam,Douglas said.
After Battle returned from Asia last year, he told his mother hewas traveling "to spread Islam," Douglas said. "That's what hesaid. He was teaching the religion, and he was learning."
Lewis converted to Islam after she met Battle in Houston andthey were married in a Portland mosque at a ceremony where womenand men sat separately. The couple divorced last year, butcontinued to live together.
All six suspects are charged with conspiracy to levy war againstthe United States, conspiracy to provide material support andresources to al Qaeda, and conspiracy to contribute services toal Qaeda and the Taliban.
Four of the men including Battle were charged with possessingfirearms "in furtherance of crimes of violence."
The indictment does not charge Lewis on the weapons counts. Lewis is accused of wiring a few hundred dollars at a time inNovember and December from Oregon to Battle, Ford, the Bilalbrothers and al Saoub as the party traveled to China and tried tocross into Afghanistan, the indictment alleges.
Prosecutors also noted a cryptic e-mail Lewis sent her husbandin which she said that U.S. Marines had already arrested threeAmericans for fighting on "you know who [sic] side."
Legal experts have said the case against Lewis, as outlined inthe indictment, appears the weakest.
The fiance of Lewis' mother, George Sanders, said October Lewisbelieved her husband was on a spiritual journey to Islamiccountries, and knew nothing of the alleged plan to fight againstthe United States.
"A Muslim wife does what a husband tells her, and that's allshe knew," Sanders said.
All three arrested in Portland had lived in the area for atleast several years, and Ford was a native Oregonian. All worked unremarkable jobs and were raising young familiesbefore the arrests — and none had raised much suspicion withfriends or former employers.
Battle worked as a security guard and nursing aide, Lewis as anursing aide. Before his arrest, Ford sold leather wallets and cellphones out of the back of his van, despite a distinguished academiccareer that included a stint at a Johns Hopkins University graduateprogram in Nanjing, China.
—The Associated Press