-Caveat Lector-
townhall.com
Robert Novak
September 27, 2001
Tom Ridge's challenge
WASHINGTON -- The monumental challenge facing Tom Ridge in battling
terrorism on the home front is emphasized by a slowly emerging scandal.
The FBI had advance indications of plans to hijack U.S. airliners and
use them as weapons, but neither acted on them nor distributed the
intelligence to local police agencies. From the moment of the Sept. 11
attacks, high-ranking federal officials insisted that the terrorists'
method of operation surprised them. Many stick to that story.
Actually, elements of the hijacking plan were known to the FBI as early
as 1995 and, if coupled with current information, might have uncovered
the plot.
This looks less like an intelligence failure than a law enforcement
fiasco. While the CIA missed the conspiracy's overseas roots, the FBI
did not share or interpret available information. Can former
Pennsylvania Gov. Ridge, operating from a White House office, get this
most famous and haughty of American police agencies to share what it
knows with local officers in the interest of the public's safety? A
critical question about the new kind of war declared by President Bush
is whether he conveys undisputed authority for Ridge to change the FBI's
ways.
The shape of what happened Sept. 11 dates back to 1995, when chemicals
intended to destroy U.S. commercial flights in mid-air exploded in a
Manila apartment used by convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef (now serving a
life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing). Chief
Superintendent Avelino Razon of the Philippine police revealed shortly
after the attacks that the terrorist cell discovered in 1995 had drawn
up plans for using suicide pilots.
On Sept. 19, CNN's Eileen O'Connor reported that the Philippine police
in 1995 had learned of the plan to turn passenger airliners into flying
bombs. The targets she listed: the Pentagon, CIA headquarters outside
Washington, the TransAmerica building in San Francisco, the Sears tower
in Chicago and New York's World Trade Center. More details were
revealed last Sunday in The Washington Post.
This background would have been critical had it been connected on Aug.
13 with a flight school in Eagan, Minn., telling the FBI of peculiar
behavior by one of its students, Zacarias Moussaoui. He wanted to take
747 simulator training but only to learn how to steer, not to land or
take off. Moussaoui was arrested for lack of a valid visa and held for
deportation. But no connection was made with the 1995 revelations.
Indeed, senior government officials are still in denial. Federal
Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey, at her New York JFK Airport press
conference Monday, said: "No one could imagine someone being willing to
commit suicide, being willing to use an airplane as a lethal weapon."
The FBI could, but apparently never alerted the FAA.
A week after the attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller said: "The fact
that there were a number of individuals that happened to receive
training at flight schools here is news, quite obviously. If we had
understood that to be the case, ... perhaps one could have averted
this." But the FBI could have linked the Philippine revelations with
information about Moussaoui.
"It's the same old FBI," said a law enforcement expert who did not want
his name used, complaining that the bureau always has kept state and
local police in the dark. That view was expressed this week in
Charleston, S.C., during a private conference of police officials.
They see protection of citizens a responsibility more of 650,000 state
and local officers than of the 11,500 FBI agents. "This is not a
federal problem," Johnny Mack Brown of Greenville, S.C., former head of
the National Sheriffs' Association, told me.
"This is an American law enforcement problem. The FBI certainly has to
get this information to the local authorities."
That defines Tom Ridge's daunting mission. Some senators, though they
like and respect Ridge, would have preferred New York Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani as a tough former federal prosecutor not awed by the bureau.
But anybody, working as terrorism czar from the White House with no line
authority, might suffer the fate of ineffective federal drug czars. The
president must make sure his fellow former governor can open to the
nation's police vital intelligence hoarded by the FBI.
================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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