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Tenet defends 1999 threat information { February 24 2004 }

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   http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/politics/24CND-INTE.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/politics/24CND-INTE.html

February 24, 2004
C.I.A. Chief Reports to Senate on Threats Facing U.S.
By BRIAN KNOWLTON, International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 — The C.I.A. director, George J. Tenet, said today that his agency "didn't sit on our hands" after it received information from Germany in 1999 about a terror suspect who is now believed to have piloted one of the hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001.

During a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Mr. Tenet was asked about a report in The New York Times today that in March 1999 German intelligence officials gave the Central Intelligence Agency the United Arab Emirates phone number and first name of the suspect, Marwan al-Shehhi and asked the Americans to track him. Mr. Shehhi is thought to have later piloted the plane that crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center.

At a time when American intelligence has been under close scrutiny over its prewar analyses of the situation in Iraq, The Times said the C.I.A.'s action in regard to the German information "is considered particularly significant because it may have represented a missed opportunity for American officials to penetrate the Qaeda terror cell in Germany that was at the heart of the plot."

Mr. Tenet tersely referred his questioner, Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, to references in one classified and one unclassified report, implying that the information about Mr. Shehhi in the Times's report should already have been familiar to people acquainted with American intelligence data, like the members of the committee.

"In 1999, the Germans gave us a name, Marwan, and a phone number, and that's it," he said. "We didn't sit on our hands. They didn't give us a first and a last name until after 9/11."

Mr. Tenet said he would discuss the issue in more detail in closed session with the Intelligence Committee.

[The German interior minister, Otto Schily, said today that it would be wrong to think that German intelligence officials had any idea in 1999 that "Marwan" was linked to any upcoming attack, and that "at that time, we had no idea" of any such connection. Mr. Shehhi's name was passed to the Americans as part of "routine" data exchanges, he said, according to a Reuters reporter who spoke with Mr. Schily.]

Mr. Tenet also warned that despite important inroads against global terrorism and significant progress in Iraq and Afghanistan, the world remained "equally, if not more, complicated and fraught with dangers for American interests" than it was a year ago.

And, he said, there remains a danger of attacks on American targets with "catastrophic weapons."

Mr. Tenet's assessment was seconded by two other officials who oversee agencies involved in intelligence, Robert S. Mueller III of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby of the Defense Intelligence Agency. They sat on either side of Mr. Tenet at the hearing.

American intelligence agencies and their foreign allies have unearthed plots, Mr. Tenet said, that are "chilling."

"On aircraft plots alone, we have uncovered new plans to recruit pilots and to evade new security measures in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe," Mr. Tenet said. "Even catastrophic attacks on the scale of 9/11 remain within Al Qaeda's reach."

"Make no mistake," he added, "these plots are hatched abroad, but they target U.S. soil and that of our allies."

Mr. Tenet did not elaborate or offer details about those plots.

He said that the United States had done much to dismantle the top leadership of Al Qaeda, with attacks on "every significant operational area."

"We are creating large and growing gaps in Al Qaeda's hierarchy," Mr. Tenet asserted, depriving it of safe havens and sending Osama bin Laden "deeper underground."

But he also said that Al Qaeda had also inspired like-minded militants around the world — "a global movement infected by Al Qaeda's radical agenda" — who would form a new wave of terror.

"The steady growth of Osama bin Laden's anti-U.S. sentiment through the wider Sunni extremist movement, and the broad dissemination of Al Qaeda's destructive expertise, ensure that a serious threat will remain for the foreseeable future — with or without Al Qaeda," Mr. Tenet said.

Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director, agreed that Al Qaeda retained the ability to "strike in the United States and to strike United States citizens abroad with little or no warning."

He warned of strong indications that "Al Qaeda will revisit missed targets until they succeed, such as they did with the World Trade Center."

Among such targets, he said, were the White House and the Capitol.

Al Qaeda retains a cadre of supporters across the United States, Mr. Mueller said, and while many are engaged in fund-raising or recruitment, others apparently are planning operations.

As Al Qaeda's capabilities wane, Mr. Tenet said, other extremist groups will become "the next wave of terrorist threat." These, he said, include the Zarqawi network, the Ansar al-Islam network in Iraq, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Mr. Tenet reported a particularly "heightened risk of poison attacks"; he said a Qaeda program to produce anthrax was "one of the most immediate" terror threats.

On Iraq, Mr. Tenet said that attacks on American and coalition forces had dropped from its peak in November to a level about that recorded last August. The capture of Saddam Hussein "was a psychological blow that took some of the less committed Baathists out of the fight, but hard-core regime elements, Baath Party officials, military intelligence and security officers are still organizing and carrying out attacks."

Mr. Tenet said that it was a mistake to oversimplify the Iraqi people as composed of three clear-cut groups — the Kurds and Sunni and Shiite Muslims or to exaggerate their opposition to the American goal of a largely secular democracy. For example, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an important Shiite cleric, had praised free elections and shown "in our reading, a clear-cut opposition to theocracy, Iranian-style," Mr. Tenet said.

And even among the Sunnis of central Iraq, a hotbed of past support for Saddam Hussein, "Sunni Arabs have begun to engage the coalition and assume local leadership roles," Mr. Tenet said.

Mr. Tenet also admitted to uncertainty about the Iranian nuclear program.

Iran said it had a low-enriched uranium program purely to support nuclear energy generation. But "the difference between producing low-enriched uranium and weapons-capable high-enriched uranium is only a matter of time and intent, not technology," the C.I.A. chief said.

Mr. Tenet said it would be difficult for intelligence officials to "confidently assess whether this red line has been crossed."

Mr. Tenet expressed serious concern that the recent elections in Iran — in which large numbers of reform-minded candidates were excluded from running — signaled a "serious blow" to government-led reform. "Greater repression is the likely result," he said.

Asked whether political differences over the Iraq war with countries like France and Germany had hurt intelligence cooperation, Mr. Tenet and and Mr. Mueller both said it had not. Mr. Tenet said that with the French, for example, there had been "excellent cooperation across the board."

Admiral Jacoby, the D.I.A. chief, said he was concerned about the continued stability of American allies in the Islamic world.

"Islamic and Arab populations are increasingly opposed to U.S. policies," he said. "The loss of a key leader could quickly change government support for U.S. and coalition operations." As an example, he cited the two recent assassination attempts on Pakistan's leader, President Pervez Musharraf, who has aided the United States in its effort against Al Qaeda in the region.

Continued poverty in much of the Islamic world, and rising numbers of young people, Admiral Jacoby added, combine to "virtually assure a terrorist threat for years to come."



Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company


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