Officials Warned of Attack Before 9/11
— -- Hearing Into 9/11 Intelligence Failures
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 18 — An intelligence briefing two months before theSept. 11 attack warned that Osama bin Laden would launch aspectacular terrorist attack against U.S. or Israeli interests,congressional investigators said today.
The briefing, for senior government officials, was part of "amodest, but relatively steady stream of intelligence informationindicating the possibility of terrorist attacks inside the UnitedStates," said the 30-page statement by Eleanor Hill, staffdirector for the House and Senate intelligence inquiry into theSept. 11 attacks.
But Hill said the credibility of the sources was sometimesquestionable and no specific details about the attacks wereavailable.
"They generally did not contain specific information as towhere, when and how a terrorist attack might occur and generallyare not corroborated by further information," her statement said.
Hill's statement was being presented to committee memberstoday at the inquiry's first public hearings. Lawmakers havebeen meeting behind closed doors since June, looking intointelligence failures leading up to the attacks and how they can becorrected.
"These public hearings are part of our search for the truth — not to point fingers or pin blame, but with the goal of identifyingand correcting whatever systemic problems might have prevented ourgovernment from detecting and disrupting al Qaeda's plot," saidSen. Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asthe hearing opened.
Leaders of two groups of victims' relatives, Stephen Push andKristin Breitweiser, were the first scheduled witnesses. Both lostspouses in the attacks.
The July 2001 briefing for senior government officials said thatbased on a review of intelligence information over five months "webelieve that [bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attackagainst U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks."
"The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict masscasualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attackpreparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or nowarning," it said.
Among other intelligence reports mentioned by Hill:
In September 1998, the intelligence community obtainedinformation that bin Laden's "next operation could possiblyinvolve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into a U.S.airport and detonating it."
In the fall of 1998, intelligence agencies received informationabout a bin Laden plot involving aircraft in New York andWashington areas.
Between May and July, 2001, the National Security Agencyreported at least 33 communications indicating a possible, imminentterrorist attack.
But intelligence agencies generally believed that any attack wasmore likely to occur overseas than in the United States.
On Tuesday, the top Republican on the Senate panel, Sen. RichardShelby of Alabama, said some of the most troubling information seenby the committees already has been made public: the so-calledPhoenix memo, in which an FBI agent warned that U.S. flight schoolsmay be training terrorist pilots, and the handling of the ZacariasMoussaoui case. Moussaoui was arrested in August 2001 after heraised suspicions when he sought training at a Minnesota flightschool. He has since been charged with conspiring in the attacks.
"Those two events alone could have changed Sept. 11. Would ithave? We don't know," Shelby said.
Both Shelby and Graham have complained that the Bushadministration has not been cooperating with their investigation.
"What we are trying to do is get people who had hands on theseissues," Graham said today on NBC's Today program,"...and what we're being told is no, they don't want to make thosekinds of witnesses available.
"We can only talk to the top of the pyramid," Graham said."Well, the problem is, the top of the pyramid has a generalawareness of what's going on in the organization, but if you wantto know why Malaysian plotters were not put on a watch list ...you've to talk to somebody at the level where those kinds ofdecisions were made."
The hearings are believed to mark the first time that standingcommittees from both houses of Congress have sat together for aninvestigation. Because House and Senate committees follow differentrules in staging hearings, special procedures had to be adopted.The committees' leaders, Graham and Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., willalternate as chairman.
The Bush administration has looked to the intelligence inquiryto produce the definitive report on problems leading up to theattack. Committee members say they have become frustrated bydelays, blamed on both the difficulties of declassifyinginformation for public hearings and what they see as lack ofcooperation by the administration.
Public hearings were to have begun in June. Delayed repeatedly,none has been scheduled beyond today's. Congressional staffhave said the administration has been reluctant to providehigh-level officials as witnesses, including Secretary of StateColin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
With just weeks left in the congressional year, momentum hasgrown in Congress for a separate, independent commission to lookinto the attacks. The White House has opposed an independentcommission, saying it could lead to more leaks and tie up personnelneeded to fight terrorism.
— The Associated Press
Who Was Bin Laden's Guiding Force?
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 18 — As a young man, Ayman al-Zawahiri was one ofmany young, well-educated Egyptians who was attracted to messianicIslam.
A doctor, he was appalled by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistanand spent two tours of duty tending to victims of the conflict.
But he saw the Soviets as nothing more than an ephemeral enemy.Afghanistan, he believed in 1981, was a mere training course forthe Muslim mujahadeen "to wage their awaited battle against thesuperpower that now has the sole dominance over the globe, namely,the United States."
It was a turning point for Zawahiri when, during his service onbehalf of the Afghan resistance, he met a Saudi, six years hisjunior, who had the same political outlook. His name was Osama binLaden.
As reported by Lawrence Wright in the current issue of The NewYorker magazine, Zawahiri was a guiding force in making the most ofbin Laden's militancy and money on behalf of Islam.
Wright suggests that bin Laden might never have become aterrorist mastermind it not for Zawahiri, a figure virtuallyunknown in the West outside of intelligence and law enforcementcircles.
For Americans, Sept. 11 might be just another day on thecalendar were it not for the encouragement and political skillsZawahiri passed on to his al Qaeda colleague.
The two were affiliated with different militant groups over theyears but often found themselves together on the same turf,including Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
They did not forge a formal alliance until Feb. 23, 1998,becoming part of a new International Islamic Front for Jihad on theJews and Crusaders. The founding document said the killing ofAmericans and their allies — civilian and military — is an"individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country inwhich it is possible to do it."
By that standard, bin Laden has been fulfilling his duty. He iswanted by U.S. law enforcement for the near simultaneous bombingsof the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.
Zawahiri was involved as well, Wright reports, saying there wasa link between the bombings and the purported CIA breakup of anIslamic Jihad cell in Albania a month earlier.
On Aug. 6, 1998, Zawahiri sent a declaration to a London-basedArabic newspaper: "We are interested in briefly telling theAmericans that their messages has been received and that theresponse, which we hope they will read carefully, is beingprepared."
The embassy bombings occurred the next day. More than 200 peopledied and more than 5,000 were injured.
Wright also was told that bin Laden reviewed photographs of theU.S. Embassy in Kenya and suggested a spot where a truck could gothrough as a suicide bomber.
After the bombings, Wright said, American intelligence concludedthat Zawahiri was an equal partner in al Qaeda with bin Laden. Theyalso believed that Zawahiri was in charge of al Qaeda's Yemen cellwhen the USS Cole was bombed at the port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000. As Wright describes it, Zawahiri's scientific background mayhave been the catalyst for al Qaeda's interest in developingchemical and biological weapons.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Wright reports, Zawahiri and bin Laden werein the Afghan city of Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold. They lefttheir quarters there and fled to the mountains where they listenedto an Arabic radio station's news flashes about the attacks on theWorld Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Afterward, on an unspecified date, bin Laden and Zawahiri appeartogether on a videotape and are seen talking about the Sept. 11operations.
Zawahiri says, "This great victory was possible only by thegrace of God. This was not just a human achievement. It was a holyact. These 19 men [suicide bombers] who gave their lives for thecause of God will be well taken care of."
Wright says this may have been Zawahiri's last public statement.He speculates that Zawahiri may have died in the American militarycampaign that began in Afghanistan three weeks after Sept. 11.
— The Associated Press
New FDNY Communication System Could Take Years
N E W Y O R K, Sept. 18 — It could take several years before the FireDepartment of New York has a new and improved communication systemin place in the city's tallest buildings, the fire commissionersaid.
"It's not radios; it's infrastructure," Nicholas Scoppettasaid Tuesday. "We don't know yet what will be needed."
Published reports have found that serious radio problems leftmany commanders and firefighters unable to communicate with eachother during the Sept. 11 attacks. To make matters worse, firedepartment radios were incompatible with the police radio system.
In response to the findings, Scoppetta has said an improvedcommunications system is one of his top priorities. However,Scoppetta said that the problems are far-reaching, requiring morethan simply boosting radio communications.
Scoppetta said the fire department needs a new network ofantennas and boosters and must also determine how existingequipment can be shared with the police department.
The fire department cannot just buy the same radios as thepolice, since firefighters communicate inside or near buildingswhile police tend to relay messages through a dispatcher, Scoppettasaid.
Scoppetta told a City Council hearing that the fire departmentwould also be unable to buy its own fleet of helicopters, due tocost restraints.
Some critics have said that the fire department should have itsown helicopters since people trapped above a raging fire — such asthose who were stranded on the uppermost floors of the World TradeCenter — expect to have a chance for a rooftop escape.
— The Associated Press