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Bush cites fbi cia { June 5 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57990-2002Jun4.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57990-2002Jun4.html
Bush Cites CIA-FBI Breakdown
House-Senate Panel Starts Probing 9/11 Intelligence Failure
By Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 5, 2002; Page A01
President Bush acknowledged yesterday that the FBI and the CIA failed to share key information in advance of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as members of a House-Senate panel opened a broad congressional inquiry into the intelligence failure with promises that they would not engage in a partisan witch hunt.
The 37-member panel held its first, closed-door meeting amid a welter of reports of how tips about planning for the attacks were mishandled by the country's intelligence agencies. At the root of some of those blunders is the long-standing resistance by the FBI and the CIA to share information, a matter shaping up as one of the central issues the intelligence panel will address.
"The turf-guarding problem has a penalty that cannot be tolerated," Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), a committee co-chairman, said after the session.
Visiting the Fort Meade headquarters of the National Security Agency, Bush addressed the debate about the performance of the intelligence system and expressed confidence that the problems between the CIA and the FBI have been solved.
"In terms of whether or not the FBI and the CIA were communicating properly, I think it is clear that they weren't," Bush said. "Now we have addressed that issue. The CIA and the FBI are now in close communication."
Bush said he was concerned that blame-laying between the FBI and the CIA will distract them from devoting themselves to fighting terrorist acts.
"In terms of the gossip and the finger-pointing, the level-three staffers trying to protect -- you know, trying to protect their hide, I don't think that's of concern. That's just typical Washington, D.C.," Bush said. "But I am -- what I am concerned about is tying up valuable assets and time -- and possibly jeopardizing sources of intelligence."
In its opening session, the House-Senate panel worked on the procedures that will govern its largely secret inquiry into the nation's $30 billion intelligence system.
"We have now, I think, laid the foundation," said Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), the other co-chairman, after the meeting ended. Graham noted that this is the first time in 200 years that two congressional committees -- the House and Senate intelligence committees -- have joined to conduct an inquiry.
Although they said their goal was to find out what went wrong with the intelligence system before Sept. 11 and to correct the problems, committee members said they do not want to be led in their probe by the latest news of an intelligence misstep.
"We will be a fact-driven, witness-driven review inquiry -- not driven by outside forces," Goss said.
Several members vowed to rise above politics in conducting an inquiry that is expected to stretch into the fall. "This is not a matter of pointing fingers or finding fault. We want to find facts. We're going to make recommendations . . . to make sure this doesn't happen again," Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said on CNN.
The panel began by setting ground rules and hearing from members of a specially formed staff who have begun sifting through a massive cache of highly classified documents turned over by the intelligence agencies. Under the new rules, the House and Senate will alternate chairing the investigative panel, with the House holding control this week.
Panel members heard from their new staff director, Eleanor Hill, a former Defense Department inspector general who is in her first week on the job. She was hired belatedly in a staff shake-up, and her arrival was delayed until she received a security clearance.
Among those expected to be early witnesses are Richard A. Clarke, formerly the White House's top counterterrorism official, a source close to the committee said.
The panel has been inundated with thousands of documents from the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency, which analyzes electronically intercepted information. The CIA alone has provided the committee a paper chronology that stretches 327 feet and includes more than 2,000 information points, each of which is backed by some 100 documents. The 30-member staff has read through about 100,000 documents.
During his visit to the NSA, Bush took pains to praise the employees, saying he is grateful for the "long, long hours" they are logging to defeat al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. A sign above him outside the NSA headquarters read: "We won't back down. We never have. We never will."
While there were intelligence failings leading up to Sept. 11, Bush said he has "seen no evidence to date that said this country could have prevented the attack."
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said last week that it is conceivable that part of the Sept. 11 plot could have been uncovered in advance had all federal agencies pooled their information and recognized clues they had at hand, including the training of al Qaeda operatives at U.S. flight schools.
Both the FBI and the CIA, it has emerged in recent days, for many months had information about the al Qaeda ties of two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, and both agencies were given information that the men had entered the United States.
Egyptian officials yesterday sought to play down a report in the New York Times that President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview that his country had warned U.S. intelligence of an impending al Qaeda plot a week before the September attacks. U.S. officials denied that Egypt had issued such a warning.
Bush, asked whether the United States failed to heed a warning from Egypt, said, "No, no -- listen, there's all kinds of speculation. Obviously, if we could have, we would have prevented the attacks."
State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said, "This was credible but not specific information that pointed to al Qaeda threats against U.S. interests, Egyptian interests, and others as well."
To meet the underlying problem illustrated by this week's controversy between the FBI and the CIA over handling of information about two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee has in next year's spending authorization bill called for a new, faster data system to track suspected terrorists. All intelligence agencies would be able to plug into the system, according to congressional sources.
Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who attended a January 2000 meeting of suspected al Qaeda associates in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, were listed in CIA files as suspected terrorists. But their names were not officially passed to the FBI or other agencies for action until Aug. 23, 2001, after both were already inside the United States. However, the CIA did verbally inform the FBI of one of the men's attendance at the Kuala Lumpur meeting, and said he had a visa that should have drawn suspicion.
The FBI initiated an investigation to find the men last August, but was unsuccessful. The two were among the hijackers who crashed an American Airlines flight into the Pentagon.
One potential solution already in the works is the FBI's new Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, announced last October by Attorney General John D. Ashcroft. It is designed to coordinate efforts of the FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Service to keep track of all foreigners who enter the country.
The Justice Department said yesterday its the task force has identified 23 people in the United States who have ties to terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda. A department official said all are either in federal custody or are under surveillance. "Some may already be held as material witnesses" in the terror investigation, the official said, adding that the individuals have different levels of involvement with terrorist organizations.
Another aspect of the tracking force, to be run by the FBI, the CIA and the State Department, requires people seeking nonimmigrant visas to file additional background information. In some cases security opinions and even background investigations may be required before visas are granted.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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