ZGram - 10/1/2002 - "Hearings on 9/11 step up pressure on administration" - we fervently hope!

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

October 1, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

 From the Miami Herald comes this:

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Posted on Mon, Sep. 30, 2002

Hearings on 9/11 step up pressure on administration

BY FRANK DAVIES

fdavies@herald.com

WASHINGTON - A steady stream of disclosures about unheeded warnings 
and missed clues before Sept. 11 is intensifying pressure on the 
White House and intelligence agencies to reveal who knew what before 
the attacks and to improve counterterrorism.

With five public hearings and three staff reports, the joint 
House-Senate investigation into the intelligence community has 
produced more revelations and moments of drama than many in 
Washington expected.

''I've been surprised at what they have been able to get out of the 
intelligence community -- these hearings are putting some heat on the 
agencies,'' said Dennis DeConcini, a former Arizona senator who 
chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee in the early 1990s.

And friction has increased between the CIA and the joint 
investigation. CIA Director George Tenet complained in a letter 
Friday to the leaders of the intelligence committees that some staff 
members were motivated by ''bias, preconceived notions and apparent 
animus'' toward the CIA during the investigation.

E-mail traffic, cables and the exact text of briefings have shown 
that the CIA and FBI were aware by the summer of last year that al 
Qaeda terrorists were preparing an attack, possibly using aircraft as 
weapons, and that the United States was in danger.

''The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass 
casualties,'' the CIA told the White House in a July 2001 briefing.

AGENTS' TESTIMONY

The most wrenching testimony has come from federal agents on the 
front lines of counterterrorism. Testifying behind screens to conceal 
their identity, they told how their warnings about terrorist threats 
and suspicious behavior, such as Islamic extremists taking flight 
lessons, were often ignored.

''Someday, someone will die,'' a frustrated FBI agent in New York 
told a supervisor 13 days before the World Trade Center was destroyed.

Top intelligence officials have stressed the context of the 
three-year period before the attacks, as overworked counterterrorism 
agents scrambled to analyze a flood of threats, some contradictory, 
many lacking credibility.

''People think we were asleep at the switch,'' said Dale Watson, 
counterterrorism chief at the FBI. ``We worked hard on this, and we 
worked people nearly to death.''

But in careful words, the staff reports paint a detailed picture of 
intelligence officials who never seriously analyzed the threat from 
''weaponized airliners'' and lost track of terrorist suspects who 
later became hijackers, and an FBI that saw little domestic threat 
from Osama bin Laden.

STAFF WORK

With all the talk about an independent commission to investigate 
Sept. 11, the behind-the-scenes work of the 24-member staff since 
February went largely unnoticed. Staff members hired by the House and 
Senate intelligence committees examined 400,000 pages of records and 
interviewed about 400 people.

''I'm stunned by how powerful the staff report is,'' said Mel 
Goodman, a professor at the National War College, who was a CIA 
analyst for 24 years. ``There are major failures described here. If 
anything, the [media] coverage has been somewhat underplayed.''

The depth of the staff work should not be a surprise, said Jeffrey 
Smith, a former general counsel of the CIA, now in private practice. 
Critics of the two intelligence committees say they are too cozy with 
the agencies they oversee, but Smith said a good staff can take 
advantage of that.

''The agencies are accustomed to dealing with these committees,'' 
Smith said. ``Better than a commission just starting up, these 
committees have the best chance of prying out some secrets.''

The report and continuing hearings ''put tremendous pressure'' on the 
White House to release documents about warnings that top officials 
received, said Goodman, a senior fellow at the Center for 
International Policy.

Relatives of Sept. 11 victims have seized on the disclosures to push 
for more information. Leaders of the two intelligence committees from 
both parties have joined the chorus, as they digest what the 
investigation has found so far.

What the White House knew about specific threats, in the Bush and 
Clinton administrations, is a major question hovering over these 
hearings. So far, the Bush administration has refused to release the 
declassified documents, saying it would hinder the ability of 
advisors to speak candidly to the president.

But most members of the two intelligence committees say the White 
House should give in, to help complete the picture of what happened 
before the attacks. Arguing for disclosure are the two chairmen from 
Florida: Sen. Bob Graham, a cautious Democrat, and Rep. Porter Goss, 
a Republican and retired CIA agent.

''People in this town know Graham and Goss are not going to 
politicize this, and their opinion carries real weight,'' said 
DeConcini, now a top Washington lobbyist.

Adding to the pressure is the stepped-up lobbying of the families of 
Sept. 11 victims, who want to make sure an independent commission 
goes beyond the joint inquiry and digs deeper into what the 
government did and did not do.

''I hope the White House is listening to us, and they need to get the 
information out,'' said Stephen Push, whose wife, Lisa Raines, died 
on the airliner that hit the Pentagon. ``The joint inquiry has done a 
good job as far as it goes, but they're not going to get to the 
bottom of it.''

President Bush reversed course and now supports an independent 
commission. The Senate and House will try to work out differences in 
two bills to set up the probe.

As the hearings continue for at least two more weeks, Graham and Goss 
will try to oversee a fractious, diverse membership of 37 senators 
and representatives, some with very different agendas.

Last week, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., criticized as ''unnecessary 
theater'' the calling of agents to testify in public sessions behind 
screens.

BRIEFING BOOK

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., criticized the staff for a briefing book 
that said a top CIA official, Cofer Black, would ''dissemble'' if 
asked certain questions. ''I won't say it's shameful, but it's damn 
close,'' said Roberts, who warned that public hearings could 
demoralize the intelligence agencies during the war on terrorism.

Staff Director Eleanor Hill said the briefing book used ''a poor 
choice of words,'' adding that ''we do not question the integrity'' 
of top officials.

That was not enough for Tenet. In his letter to Graham and Goss, 
Tenet asked the committees ``to eliminate the misguided efforts of 
the joint inquiry staff to poison the atmosphere of what should be an 
exercise in objective and fair oversight.''

PRAISE FOR STAFF

But most members of the two committees have praised Hill and her 
staff for thorough work under tight time pressure. The inquiry is 
planning to issue its final report and recommendations by February.

''Hill has done a very good job organizing a huge amount of material, 
and carefully drawing some conclusions that make sense,'' said Rep. 
Michael Castle, R-Del.

Even with the intense news focus on Iraq, the joint inquiry is no 
longer below the radar screen. And attention will build as the 
hearings shift from field agents and midlevel officials to the 
directors of the CIA and FBI in the next two weeks.

It's clear that some members are reaching early conclusions.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., echoed the words of others when he 
said: ``We have found far too many breakdowns in intelligence 
gathering and processing. The intelligence community could have -- 
and in my judgment should have -- anticipated an attack on U.S. soil 
on the scale of 9/11.''

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