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Cia defends response to tip about sept 11 { February 24 2004 }

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   http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--sept11commission0224feb24,0,509648,print.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--sept11commission0224feb24,0,509648,print.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

CIA director defends U.S. response to tip about Sept. 11

By HOPE YEN
Associated Press Writer

February 24, 2004, 7:24 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- CIA Director George Tenet rejected suggestions Tuesday that his agency failed to aggressively track one of the Sept. 11 hijackers after receiving his first name and phone number two years before the attacks, saying the information wasn't sufficient.

"You got a name, named Joe, and here's the phone number," Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee in an annual public meeting on national security threats. "We didn't have enough, but we didn't sit around."

A federal commission reviewing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said Monday it was examining the adequacy of the U.S. response to the March 1999 tip from German intelligence officials. The information appears to be one of the earliest indicators of the 2001 hijacking and may have been a missed chance for U.S. intelligence to uncover a terror cell in Germany that was key to the hijacking plot.

The New York Times, in its Tuesday editions, quoted German intelligence officials who said they gave the CIA the first name and telephone number of Marwan al-Shehhi and asked U.S. officials to track him. The Germans said they never heard back from U.S. officials until after Sept. 11.

Al-Shehhi was a member of the al-Qaida cell in Hamburg, Germany, and a roommate of suspected Sept. 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta. Al-Shehhi was the hijacker who took the controls of United Airlines Flight 175, which flew into the south tower of the World Trade Center, while Atta took over American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Tuesday that the Bush administration has acted "to improve our intelligence gathering, to improve our intelligence sharing of information."

"There are a number of steps that this administration has taken to address that matter," he said, citing counterterrorism efforts such as the USA Patriot Act.

The Sept. 11 panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was established by Congress to study the nation's preparedness before the attacks and its response. It also is to recommend ways to guard against similar disasters.

The commission met behind closed doors Tuesday to discuss its investigations and to plan private interviews in the coming weeks with Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore.

The panel also will hold in March a two-day hearing featuring public testimony from top U.S. officials including Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The commission has until May 27 to finish its work but is seeking at least a two-month extension, citing delays because of disputes with the administration over access to documents and witnesses.

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, the commission's Republican chairman, has said the panel will be forced to pare down inquiries into intelligence failures if Congress doesn't act this week to give it more time.

___

Sept. 11 panel: http://www.9-11commission.gov


Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press



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