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Cia knew nyt { June 3 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/03/national/03TERR.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/03/national/03TERR.html
June 3, 2002
C.I.A. Was Tracking Hijacker Months Earlier Than It Had Said
By DAVID JOHNSTON and ELIZABETH BECKER
ASHINGTON, June 2 — The Central Intelligence Agency says in a classified chronology submitted to Congress recently that it picked up the trail of a Qaeda operative who turned out to be a Sept. 11 hijacker months earlier than was previously known, government officials said today.
The officials said the C.I.A. learned in early 2001 that Khalid al-Midhar, who died in the attack on the Pentagon, was linked to a suspect in the bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole in October 2000. The agency had said previously that it did not learn of Mr. Midhar's connections to Al Qaeda or his multiple visits to the United States until the month before the hijackings, when an increase in "chatter" about terrorist threats prompted a review of the C.I.A.'s terrorism files.
C.I.A. officials also neglected to advise the F.B.I. and other agencies when it learned of Mr. Midhar's connections to the terrorist group, the officials said. As a result, he was not put on any government watch list until after the August review, enabling him to enter the country unhindered. The State Department routinely renewed his expired visa in June 2001.
The performance of agencies like the F.B.I. and C.I.A. is under intense scrutiny as the House and Senate intelligence committees prepare for hearings, starting Tuesday, into the lapses that became known only after the Sept. 11 attacks. Much of the criticism to date has focused on the F.B.I.; today's disclosures about the C.I.A.'s knowledge, reported in this week's issue of Newsweek, are the first to draw questions about the C.I.A.'s actions.
In separate appearances on television news programs today, Attorney General John Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, defended their handling of their own investigations and said they were cooperating fully with Congress, passing tens of thousands of documents to the committees.
But Mr. Mueller acknowledged on the CBS program "Face the Nation" that "we have to do a better job pulling these pieces together, analyzing them and disseminating them."
The C.I.A.'s finding that Mr. Midhar could be tied to Al Qaeda terrorism was an important one, the government officials said. If other agencies had known it, the information might have led to the discovery that Mr. Midhar and an associate he lived with in California, Nawaq Alhazmi, another hijacker, had attended flight schools in the United States.
As a result, when an F.B.I. agent in Phoenix warned his headquarters in July 2001 that Osama bin Laden's followers might be studying at flight schools in this country in preparation for terrorist attacks, the agency did not realize that Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi had taken such flight training.
One intelligence official said the C.I.A.'s sharing its information would most likely not have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The notion that this would have changed history or rolled up the hijacking plot is highly speculative," the official said.
But such communications breakdowns in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks have led some officials, including Mr. Mueller, to say that a better sharing of information might have led the authorities to thwart the attacks.
The C.I.A. first learned of Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi in 2000, after the men were identified as participants in a January meeting of terrorist suspects in Malaysia. Sometime in 2000 the agency also learned that both men had visited the United States, Mr. Midhar on several occasions. But it did not understand the men's significance until after the Cole bombing in October 2000. By late that year or early the next, it had connected Mr. Midhar with a Qaeda suspect in that attack. The C.I.A. then learned that Mr. Midhar had entered the country multiple times before the Cole incident.
Yet it was not until Aug. 23, 2001, after the C.I.A.'s review of its terrorism files, that the names of the two men were passed on to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. By then, the immigration agency found, they had already entered the country. The F.B.I. began an investigation and was still searching for the two men when the hijackings occurred.
With Congressional hearings beginning this week, the intelligence agencies are preparing their cases to show why they failed to detect the Sept. 11 plot.
Mr. Ashcroft said that officials who missed or discounted clues would be held accountable.
"Yes, I believe they will be, if in fact it's merited and appropriate," Mr. Ashcroft said on the CNN program "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."
Members of Congress have criticized the F.B.I. for failing to understand or follow up on warnings from the Phoenix agent about Middle Eastern men taking flying lessons and for blocking an investigation by its Minneapolis office of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was later indicted on charges that he conspired in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"They don't have any excuse because the information was in their lap and they didn't do anything to prevent it," Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on the NBC program "Meet the Press."
In their hearings, which are expected to last through the summer, Congressional leaders said they would press for a full documentation of intelligence failures and for finding out who was responsible for those failures.
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, discounted recent calls for the resignation of Mr. Mueller, who took office only a week before Sept. 11. Instead, Mr. Grassley said on the ABC program "This Week," the actions of the senior members of the F.B.I. should be examined, and if those senior members had failed to warn Mr. Mueller properly of the threat, then "their heads should roll."
Congressional leaders also warned today that there should be no retaliation against Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis agent who wrote Mr. Mueller complaining that F.B.I. officials in Washington had rebuffed agents in Minneapolis who sought greater authority to investigate Mr. Moussaoui before Sept. 11. She also wrote that Mr. Mueller had misrepresented the Minneapolis complaints.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on "Face the Nation," "I will watch very carefully to make sure she is given all the whistle-blower protection."
"I don't want, because she raised problems, that she then be made a scapegoat herself," Mr. Leahy said.
While Mr. Mueller said last week that Ms. Rowley would suffer no reprisals for her criticism, the attorney general promised only that she would not lose her job.
When pressed to give his personal assurance that there would be no retaliation against Ms. Rowley, Mr. Ashcroft said: "She will not be fired for doing this. It's just that simple."
Later, Mr. Ashcroft's spokeswoman said that his answer had been incomplete.
"The attorney general has made it clear that there will be no retaliation against Ms. Rowley," said Barbara Comstock, the spokeswoman. "Both he and Mr. Mueller welcomed Ms. Rowley's letter."
Mr. Leahy said his committee would call Ms. Rowley to testify this week.
Mr. Mueller also said that since Sept. 11 the F.B.I. has prevented terrorist attacks overseas and in the United States, but he only discussed those foiled attacks that have already been made public.
For his part, Mr. Ashcroft defended himself against charges by Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, that he had gone too far in changing rules on domestic spying.
Last week the Justice Department and the F.B.I. announced an expansion of the agency's authority to track potential terrorists by monitoring the Internet, political groups, libraries and religious organizations, including places of worship like mosques. The attorney general said he was only giving the F.B.I. permission to visit places and attend events open to the public and to use the Internet.
"A 12-year-old, 13-year-old kid can go anywhere he wants to on the Internet looking for things like bomb-making sites," Mr. Ashcroft said. "Shouldn't the F.B.I. be able to go to those public places in the same way?"
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