Lawmakers Demand Answers on Sept. 11 Hijack Threat
By RON FOURNIER
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (May 16) - Top lawmakers on Thursday pushed for tough inquiries after the White House revealed President Bush was told a month before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American airplanes.
''Was there a failure of intelligence?'' asked House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. ''Did the right officials not act on the intelligence in the proper way? These are things we need to find out.''
Federal agencies and airlines were quietly alerted last summer that there were ''nonspecific'' threats of hijackings by al-Qaida, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. After those warnings were issued, Bush was told of the threats during a CIA briefing while on vacation in his Texas ranch the first week of August, Fleischer said.
But the president and U.S. intelligence did not know that suicide hijackers were plotting to use planes as missiles, as they did against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Fleischer said.
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said his agency had received ''general information relating to threats,'' mostly ''as they related to airline operations overseas. ... That information was then passed on to the airlines, as we customarily do'' sometime last June or July, Mineta said.
''There was really no specificity to the information we received at that time,'' Mineta told reporters at an appearance in St. Louis. ''There was no way we could have, let's say, connected the dots to point to what happened on the 11th of Spetember.''
A spokesman for the trade group that represents the country's major airlines, Michael Wascom of the Air Transport Association, said he was not aware of ''any warnings or notifications in advance of Sept. 11 concerning specific security threats to any of our airlines.''
A CIA official declined to describe what piece of intelligence led to the concern about hijackings, or how it was collected.
The piece of information suggested that al-Qaida terrorists might hijack an airplane in an attack that would target U.S. citizens. That came as little surprise to counterterrorism officials because hijacking planes is a common terrorist tactic, intelligence officials said.
A senior CIA official said it's not clear the information was a bona fide hint of the Sept. 11 plot - or something entirely unrelated to it. It contained no mention of using hijacked airliners as missiles, or of a specific date or location of attack.
In any case, the information was deemed important enough to mention to Bush during one of his daily CIA threat briefings. The suggestion that a hijacking might be in the offing was one potential terrorist attack mentioned among several considered possibilities, and did not generate a lengthy discussion with the president.
Intelligence officials were well aware that terrorists inspired by bin Laden had considered using airliners as weapons in the past. But it appears that sort of plot was not in daily thinking of senior counterterrorism officials.
Donn Marshall, whose wife, Shelley, died in the Pentagon attack, expressed bitterness at the revelations. ''The notion that American planes might be hijacked - that should have caused more concern, even if we didn't think that they might be flown into things,'' said Marshall, of Marbury, Md.
The development, the first direct link between Bush and intelligence gathered before Sept. 11 about the attacks, instantly drew strong criticism from Capitol Hill, mainly by Democrats but also from members of Bush's party.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., called on Bush to release to congressional investigators ''the entire briefing that he was given,'' and also a recently revealed pre-Sept. 11 FBI memo from the agency's Arizona office that warned of suspicious activity by Arabs at U.S. flight schools.
Gephardt said Congress needs to find out - in hearings open to the public - what Bush and other officials knew, when they knew it and what they did with the information. He hinted he might push for additional inquiries.
''Right now we have an inquiry that's going on in the intelligence committees,'' Gephardt said. ''It may or may not be sufficient to get all this done.''
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said: ''There were two separate FBI reports plus a CIA warning, none of which were coordinated. The question is, if all three had been connected, would that have led to more vigorous activity? That's the reason why we need the commission to look at it.''
But Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., termed Daschle and Gephardt's ''effort to blow this up into a scandal'' as irresponsible. ''Their unspoken implication is that the president knew these attacks were coming and did nothing,'' Bond said.
Peppered with questions about the presidential heads-up, Fleischer sought to play down the development. He said there were long-standing concerns that Muslim extremists might carry out traditional hijackings, and that bin Laden had been a major worry for years.
''I don't think this should come as any surprise to anybody,'' he said of the warning given to Bush. ''But the president did not - not - receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new type of attack that was not foreseen.''
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the panel had received the same general warning that ''was not specific in its content.''
However, Shelby said on NBC's ''Today:'' ''There was a lot of information, I believe and others believe, if it had been acted on properly we may have had a different situation on Sept. 11.''
On CNN, Shelby also questioned why the White House waited so long to acknowledge Bush's knowledge of the hijacking threat. He said of the warning: ''I think it should have been acted on, but it wasn't.''
Shelby also suggested he may demand that the White House release the top-secret CIA briefing received by Bush, and the FBI memo.
The revelation instantly created a politically charged atmosphere in which every White House statement about pre-Sept. 11 threats was subjected to new scrutiny. Fleischer, for example, was asked by reporters hours after the attacks whether ''there had been any warnings that the president knew of.''
He replied, ''No warnings.''
Fleischer stood by the comment Thursday, saying there indeed was no warning of suicide hijackings against American landmarks.
Bush himself said in January, ''Never did we realize that the enemy was so well organized.''
White House officials said Bush was steadfast in private that CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller have done a good job overhauling their agencies to close the gaps exposed by the Sept. 11 attacks. Their jobs are not in jeopardy, officials said.
One Bush associate quoted the president as saying ''no one knew'' that bin Laden was plotting to make the leap from traditional hijackings to the highly sophisticated suicide attacks on U.S. landmarks.
Fleischer said that starting in May 2001, there had been increased threats of terrorism strikes against U.S. targets - primarily abroad - and that security was tightened at U.S. embassies and military installations.
The Associated Press reported earlier this month that FBI headquarters did not act on a memo last July from its Arizona office warning there were a large number of Arabs seeking pilot, security and airport operations training at at least one U.S. flight school and which urged a check of all flight schools to identify more possible Middle Eastern students.
A section of that classified memo also makes a passing reference to bin Laden, speculating that al-Qaida and other such groups could organize such flight training, officials said.
By RON FOURNIER
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (May 16) - Top lawmakers on Thursday pushed for tough inquiries after the White House revealed President Bush was told a month before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American airplanes.
''Was there a failure of intelligence?'' asked House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. ''Did the right officials not act on the intelligence in the proper way? These are things we need to find out.''
Federal agencies and airlines were quietly alerted last summer that there were ''nonspecific'' threats of hijackings by al-Qaida, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. After those warnings were issued, Bush was told of the threats during a CIA briefing while on vacation in his Texas ranch the first week of August, Fleischer said.
But the president and U.S. intelligence did not know that suicide hijackers were plotting to use planes as missiles, as they did against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Fleischer said.
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said his agency had received ''general information relating to threats,'' mostly ''as they related to airline operations overseas. ... That information was then passed on to the airlines, as we customarily do'' sometime last June or July, Mineta said.
''There was really no specificity to the information we received at that time,'' Mineta told reporters at an appearance in St. Louis. ''There was no way we could have, let's say, connected the dots to point to what happened on the 11th of Spetember.''
A spokesman for the trade group that represents the country's major airlines, Michael Wascom of the Air Transport Association, said he was not aware of ''any warnings or notifications in advance of Sept. 11 concerning specific security threats to any of our airlines.''
A CIA official declined to describe what piece of intelligence led to the concern about hijackings, or how it was collected.
The piece of information suggested that al-Qaida terrorists might hijack an airplane in an attack that would target U.S. citizens. That came as little surprise to counterterrorism officials because hijacking planes is a common terrorist tactic, intelligence officials said.
A senior CIA official said it's not clear the information was a bona fide hint of the Sept. 11 plot - or something entirely unrelated to it. It contained no mention of using hijacked airliners as missiles, or of a specific date or location of attack.
In any case, the information was deemed important enough to mention to Bush during one of his daily CIA threat briefings. The suggestion that a hijacking might be in the offing was one potential terrorist attack mentioned among several considered possibilities, and did not generate a lengthy discussion with the president.
Intelligence officials were well aware that terrorists inspired by bin Laden had considered using airliners as weapons in the past. But it appears that sort of plot was not in daily thinking of senior counterterrorism officials.
Donn Marshall, whose wife, Shelley, died in the Pentagon attack, expressed bitterness at the revelations. ''The notion that American planes might be hijacked - that should have caused more concern, even if we didn't think that they might be flown into things,'' said Marshall, of Marbury, Md.
The development, the first direct link between Bush and intelligence gathered before Sept. 11 about the attacks, instantly drew strong criticism from Capitol Hill, mainly by Democrats but also from members of Bush's party.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., called on Bush to release to congressional investigators ''the entire briefing that he was given,'' and also a recently revealed pre-Sept. 11 FBI memo from the agency's Arizona office that warned of suspicious activity by Arabs at U.S. flight schools.
Gephardt said Congress needs to find out - in hearings open to the public - what Bush and other officials knew, when they knew it and what they did with the information. He hinted he might push for additional inquiries.
''Right now we have an inquiry that's going on in the intelligence committees,'' Gephardt said. ''It may or may not be sufficient to get all this done.''
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said: ''There were two separate FBI reports plus a CIA warning, none of which were coordinated. The question is, if all three had been connected, would that have led to more vigorous activity? That's the reason why we need the commission to look at it.''
But Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., termed Daschle and Gephardt's ''effort to blow this up into a scandal'' as irresponsible. ''Their unspoken implication is that the president knew these attacks were coming and did nothing,'' Bond said.
Peppered with questions about the presidential heads-up, Fleischer sought to play down the development. He said there were long-standing concerns that Muslim extremists might carry out traditional hijackings, and that bin Laden had been a major worry for years.
''I don't think this should come as any surprise to anybody,'' he said of the warning given to Bush. ''But the president did not - not - receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new type of attack that was not foreseen.''
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the panel had received the same general warning that ''was not specific in its content.''
However, Shelby said on NBC's ''Today:'' ''There was a lot of information, I believe and others believe, if it had been acted on properly we may have had a different situation on Sept. 11.''
On CNN, Shelby also questioned why the White House waited so long to acknowledge Bush's knowledge of the hijacking threat. He said of the warning: ''I think it should have been acted on, but it wasn't.''
Shelby also suggested he may demand that the White House release the top-secret CIA briefing received by Bush, and the FBI memo.
The revelation instantly created a politically charged atmosphere in which every White House statement about pre-Sept. 11 threats was subjected to new scrutiny. Fleischer, for example, was asked by reporters hours after the attacks whether ''there had been any warnings that the president knew of.''
He replied, ''No warnings.''
Fleischer stood by the comment Thursday, saying there indeed was no warning of suicide hijackings against American landmarks.
Bush himself said in January, ''Never did we realize that the enemy was so well organized.''
White House officials said Bush was steadfast in private that CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller have done a good job overhauling their agencies to close the gaps exposed by the Sept. 11 attacks. Their jobs are not in jeopardy, officials said.
One Bush associate quoted the president as saying ''no one knew'' that bin Laden was plotting to make the leap from traditional hijackings to the highly sophisticated suicide attacks on U.S. landmarks.
Fleischer said that starting in May 2001, there had been increased threats of terrorism strikes against U.S. targets - primarily abroad - and that security was tightened at U.S. embassies and military installations.
The Associated Press reported earlier this month that FBI headquarters did not act on a memo last July from its Arizona office warning there were a large number of Arabs seeking pilot, security and airport operations training at at least one U.S. flight school and which urged a check of all flight schools to identify more possible Middle Eastern students.
A section of that classified memo also makes a passing reference to bin Laden, speculating that al-Qaida and other such groups could organize such flight training, officials said.
