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CNN Live Saturday

Philippine Authorities Warned FBI Six Years Earlier of Terrorist Plot; Interview with Ron Kessler

Aired May 18, 2002 - 22:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Amid the political fight in Washington over who knew what, when, CNN reported shortly after 9/11 that Philippines authorities had warned the FBI six years earlier of a chilling terrorist plot.

CNN's Maria Ressa filed this report just one week after the attacks on New York and Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A small fire in an apartment in Manila six years ago led investigators to a plot that may have been taken seriously enough at the time. Ramsey Yousef, the man behind the first bombing of the World Trade center, was planning to recruit pilots to hijack U.S. jetliners and crash them into government buildings.

That apartment fire tipped off police to Yousef's hideout. He fled, but agents caught his right hand man, Abdul Hakim Mourad. And Mourad soon was telling a chilling tale.

RODOLFO MENDOZA, COL., PHILIPPINE INTELLIGENCE: Mourad narrated to us about a plan, maybe Ramsey sell in the continental U.S., to hijack a commercial plane and ram it to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia and also the Pentagon.

RESSA: Investigators also found evidence targeted commercial towers in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City.

RIGOBERTO PIGLAO, PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESMAN: The targets they listed were CIA headquarters, Pentagon, Transamerica, Sears and the World Trade Center.

RESSA (on camera): Investigators in Manila say the information was turned over to the FBI in 1995. Those worked on the case here say the story sounded far-fetched then until much of it became all too true.

(voice-over): Ramsey Yousef once listed his occupation as "international terrorist" on an ID card. He has long been considered a disciple of Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden. Yousef's right hand man in Manila, Mourad, was a pilot who admitted he had been trained in Afghanistan, as well as the U.S. AVELINO RAZON, PHILIPPINE NATL. POLICE: He was principally recruited by Yousef's group and bin Laden's group to undertake a suicide mission.

RESSA: Ramsey Yousef was caught in Pakistan and brought back to New York to stand trial for the original bombing of the World Trade Center. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Also found on a computer in the Manila apartment, a separate plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners on overseas flights. Mourad also was brought to the United States to be tried with Yousef for that conspiracy. He, too, is serving life in a U.S. prison.

But the question remains, did the U.S. recognize then how a deadly threat could become a reality now?

Maria Ressa, CNN, Manila.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL: Well, some are blaming the intelligence community for the lack of advanced warning of the attacks. Earlier today, Senator Richard Shelby spoke about troubles inside the FBI.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN RICHARD SHELBY (R), ALABAMA: I believe that the FBI has failed the American people in that regard, that is, the information they got out on I believe it's July the 10 memo, to headquarters, dealing with the flight school, basically saying they should act on it. Nothing was done on it. The FBI was either asleep or inept or both.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIGUEL: Now this at a time when confidence in the bureau is low in some quarters. Our next guest is the author of "The Bureau, the Secret History of the FBI." It's just out in hardcover. Ron Kessler joins me now with more on the FBI.

Mr. Kessler, thanks for being with us.

RON KESSLER, AUTHOR, "THE BUREAU": Thank you.

MIGUEL: Let's start with this latest threats here, this latest chatter that Kelly Wallace was referring to. How is that going to be treated differently in the post 9/11 era by the FBI?

KESSLER: Well, under Bob Molla (ph), the FBI's become much more proactive. They're emphasizing analysis more. And they're also putting material into computers, which were not used before. Under Louis Freeh (ph), who had an aversion to technology, he actually did not use e-mail himself, would you believe, when 85-year old grandmothers use it, the FBI's computers deteriorated to the point where there were using 386 and 486 machines, ones that even churches would not accept as donations. And the number of documents, just in counterterrorism alone, is 93 million, going back to 1993. So -- and they were not able to, for example, put in the word "flight schools" and retrieve documents, based on that. And there were just inundated with information, with leads. They couldn't analyze it. They couldn't retrieve the information. And they couldn't follow many of the leads.

MIGUEL: So I mean, obviously, the technology is being updated to the 21st century. But what about the level of cooperation with the other agencies, specifically with the CIA and INS. Do you think that's better?

KESSLER: That's better also. There was cooperation before, but they're working towards a more seamless relationship. You know, the important thing is still not looking in your computers and speculating about what could've happened, but rather finding out actually what is happening by penetrating these organizations. It's primarily the job of the CIA to do that, and also the FBI. And it's a very difficult job.

The CIA did have some assets in the al Qaeda organization, but they were not in the inner circle. And that is what needs more work and more resources devoted to.

MIGUEL: You talk about getting that human intelligence on the ground, penetrating these groups. It was said that Kenneth Williams, the agent in Phoenix who wrote this memo about large numbers of Middle Eastern men training at U.S. flight schools, had penetrated, had worked, you know, the Muslim community in Arizona, and had written this memo. We've heard a lot about the non-specificity of a lot of these threats pre 9/11, but this one seemed to have a bit more detail. What happened within the FBI on that situation?

KESSLER: Nothing happened to it. You know, it went up to chief level and then was dismissed. But just keep in mind that after September 11, when the FBI started interviewing 5,000 Middle Easterners just because they came from the Middle East, basically, there was a lot of -- there were a lot of objections. Now can you imagine what would have happened before September 11 if the FBI had started interviewing these Middle Easterners, simply because they were going to flight school, which is the normal thing to do for people from all over the world.

You know, it -- basically a lot of people are looking at a movie and rewinding it, and looking at the beginning and saying, "Well, you should've known what the end was." That doesn't mean that a lot needs -- does not need to be done to upgrade the FBI and develop more resources. But you know, we all were aware of these attacks that al Qaeda had undertaken against our interests. And we were all aware that bin Laden was out to get us. He had said that publicly. And yet, none of us took that seriously. And that's the bottom line about this whole controversy, whether they were going to use hijacking or whether they were going to use biological or nuclear weapons, which we also heard they were thinking about or trying to get.

The fact is they were after us. And the fact is that none of us took it seriously.

MIGUEL: What about the internal FBI reactions, so far, to the news of this past week? How do you think they're handling it? Do they acknowledge shortcomings?

KESSLER: Oh, they do. And Mueller is really correcting all of the mistakes of Freeh by emphasizing analysis, by centralizing the investigation in Washington, by upgrading the computers. He's a big technology fan. There's a great sense of urgency now. And I think -- you know, the agents themselves are very good, very dedicated. You saw in the case of Phoenix agent how on top of things he was.

The problem was the leadership. Louis Freeh focused on a few big cases that he wanted to micromanage. He screwed up about half of those. He ignored the computers. He ignored almost everything else in the FBI. And it's going to take a little while to get it back in shape, but I think that it's going in the right direction.

MIGUEL: The anthrax investigation, though, has to be particularly frustrating. Whoever sent those letters is still out there. What about the latest on that? And what has been Director Mueller's reaction? And how is he trying to deal with that?

KESSLER: They have a massive investigation going. They're narrowing it down to certain laboratories. They're learning more and more about the science. Keep in mind that it's really hard when someone just drops something in a mailbox, to trace who sent it. They did eventually get the Unibomber after many years. And I'm quite sure they will get this suspect as well.

MIGUEL: And I wanted to know a little bit more about what President -- former President Bill Clinton said today, if you think that's going to exonerate the agency about saying that they -- the report that he had in 1999, warning of suicide hijackings, was little of no value, and basically was going to talk about just what the group might do, what they could consider doing.

KESSLER: Yeah, well, that's exactly right. Now we've heard for years that all kinds of terrorists might do all kinds of things. And unless you actually have more specifics or take action, there's no point in getting excited. I mean, most of these so-called new warnings and speculation have been in the press for many, many years. Very little of this is new. And again, we all read the material. None of us took action. The important thing was that Bush finally did finally go after the Taliban in Afghanistan. And even then, some of these same Democrats who are questioning whether Bush knew something or didn't know something, said -- questioned whether we should continue in Afghanistan.

So there's a lot of hypocrisy going on. Intelligence doesn't mean that you actually know, you know, what's going on at any given time. It's not like turning on a TV set or anything you can see what's happening. It requires a great deal of work to penetrate an organization like al Qaeda, which -- where you have bin Laden, with a $5 million reward on his head. It's now $25 million. He still hasn't been turned in by his cohorts. It's not impossible to penetrate, I think. Both the CIA and the FBI are going to do a much better job.

But you know, to put it in simplistic terms and say, as Shelby did, you know, they've failed us, period. They should've known, that's simplistic.

MIGUEL: The name of the book is "The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI." Ron Kessler, thank you for your time tonight. We do appreciate it.

KESSLER: Thank you.

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