Date: August 11, 2005 5:48:49 AM PDT
Subject: [Spy News] Former agent discusses FBI's September 11th intelligence failures
Former agent discusses FBI's September 11th intelligence failures
an ABC Action News report 08/10/05
related story: What did MacDill team know about September 11th hijackers?
(8/10/05)
TAMPA - If military officials at MacDill Air Force Base did indeed fail to
act on information about the September 11th terrorists, it would not have
been the only intelligence failure. The FBI also ignored other red flags.
Former FBI agent Coleen Rowley went public in 2002, revealing how her own
superiors at the bureau blocked efforts to uncover what turned out to be the
September 11th plot.
Rowley, an agent in Minneapolis before September 11th, warned FBI
headquarters about Zacarias Moussaoui, now the so-called 20th hijacker.
Moussaoui had been arrested for immigration violations one month before the
attacks.
Despite considerable intelligence pointing to Moussaoui's terrorist
connections, FBI managers blocked Rowley and her colleagues from obtaining a
warrant to search Moussaoui's computer.
"There were a couple of agents and an acting supervisor were literally doing
everything, I think, correctly in aggressively investigating and putting
their findings on paper, and then communicating those findings on paper and
then communicating those findings with headquarters," Rowley told Action
News. "So the people on the bottom were doing their job right."
In her now-famous memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Rowley wrote, "…by
the time the actual warrant was obtained, suspected terrorists were known to
have hijacked planes which they then deliberately crashed into the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon."
FBI management also ignored credible concerns from agents in the Phoenix
field office who warned that terrorists were taking flying lessons around
the country.
"In addition to the Minnesota case -- the only terrorist subject who has now
been charged -- there was a memo written in our Phoenix division urging that
flight schools be looked at and that suspects in flight schools be further
investigated," Rowley continued.
Rowley believes there were plenty of clues that should not have been ignored
that could have uncovered the September 11th plot.
But some critics of the larger U.S. intelligence community worry that since
FBI headquarters refused to listen to their own agents, they probably
wouldn't have listened to information coming from the Pentagon or military
intelligence at MacDill.
Meanwhile, after more than 20 years in the FBI, Rowley has since left the
agency. She's now running for Congress.
======================
What did MacDill team know about September 11th hijackers?
an ABC Action News report 08/10/05
related story: Former agent discusses FBI's September 11th intelligence
failures (8/10/05)
TAMPA - A series of investigations is underway in the wake of allegations by
a prominent congressman that a military team in Tampa knew about four of the
September 11th hijackers a year before the deadly terrorist attacks.
The secret military unit, known as Able Danger was supposedly based at
MacDill Air Force Base. On base to meet and greet troops Wednesday,
Florida's junior senator had to fend off questions about a potentially
troubling intelligence snafu there.
"What you mentioned is of great concern," Sen. Mel Martinez told Action News
reporter Don Germaise when he asked about the claims. "What we would have to
do is hear all the facts before I would make any comment."
A Pennsylvania congressman says one year before September 11th, the secret
military intelligence group developed a chart of suspected al Qaeda
operatives linked to Osama bin Laden. The chart featured four men who turned
out to be hijackers, including ringleader Mohammed Atta.
But Defense Department attorneys refused to let Special Operations turn that
information over to the FBI. The reason? Atta had a legal visa and hadn't
broken any laws.
"It's obvious: if we would've taken those four key al Qaeda leaders who were
all killed in the attacks on 9/11 and were involved in those aircraft, if we
would've brought them in and the FBI would've been allowed to thoroughly
investigate them, I'm convinced that holding them would've had an impact on
9/11. Perhaps delayed it, perhaps stopped it," observed U.S. Rep. Curt
Weldon of Pennsylvania.
Sen. Martinez on Tuesday refused to participate in such speculation.
"It's not about looking at the past in the way of just having recriminations
for the actions of others who, at the time, had no way of knowing what the
future held," he continued.
But the man who ran Tampa's FBI office in the 1990s had a different take.
"Unquestionably, the FBI would have not only wanted that information, but
they would have run with that information as fast as they could, believe
me," retired FBI agent Oscar Westerfield told Action News. "Without a doubt,
is dynamite, and for that to have languished there and not to have been
brought to the FBI's attention, I think, is deplorable."
Now there are calls for congressional investigations into why the unit's
information was kept from the FBI before the attacks and kept from the 9/11
Commission after the attacks.
"I think it's a mistake," offered Tampa's congressman, Rep. Jim Davis. "But
the more difficult question is, why did it happen and what do we do to make
sure it doesn't happen again?"
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