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Fbi bosses thwarted 911 investigation { March 21 2006 }

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   http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0603210151mar21,1,610456.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0603210151mar21,1,610456.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Bosses thwarted me, agent tells 9/11 trial

By Richard A. Serrano
Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times
Published March 21, 2006


ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks described Monday how his superiors in Washington repeatedly blocked his attempts to learn whether Moussaoui was part of a larger terrorist cell about to hijack planes in the United States.

Agent Harry Samit also said his FBI superiors didn't share other critical intelligence information, including a memo from an FBI agent in Phoenix about suspected terrorists taking flying lessons, and a briefing for President Bush warning that planes might be hijacked.

Furthering his frustrations, Samit said, was that his bosses told him right after the first two hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center that it was "just a coincidence" with the case he was trying to make against Moussaoui.

Under cross-examination by defense lawyers in Moussaoui's sentencing trial, Samit said his superiors were guilty of "criminal negligence and obstruction."

He accused them of "careerism" and said they thwarted his efforts in order to protect their positions within the FBI.

"They obstructed it," he said, calling their actions a "calculated" decision "that cost us the opportunity to stop the attacks."

Samit's recollections were the first ground-level account of how FBI agents in Minneapolis, where Moussaoui was arrested, were appalled that supervisors in Washington would not support their attempts to obtain search warrants to find out why the 37-year-old Frenchman was taking flying lessons and what role he might have in a wider plan to attack America.

Prosecutors are trying to win a death sentence by proving that had Moussaoui cooperated with Samit upon his arrest in mid-August 2001, the government would have used his assistance to identify some of the 19 hijackers and to keep them off the planes.

Defense lawyers maintain that the government already had plenty of leads in the summer of 2001 that a major terrorist plot was afoot.

Under defense questioning, Samit said that FBI headquarters rejected his attempts to obtain a search warrant of Moussaoui's personal belongings.

Samit said Washington kept telling him there was "no urgency, and no threat." He said headquarters also accused him of overreacting and acting out of control.

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune




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