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American Morning
Air Terror Warnings Had Long History
Aired May 17, 2002 - 08:01 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Our "Big Question" this morning concerns what is going on stateside. Is the criticism of President Bush just politics or did the president know enough from intelligence briefings to actually prevent the 9/11 attacks? We will be asking that question all morning long and we want to know what you think.
We are posting the question on cnn.com. Obviously, it is a story a lot of you have very strong feelings about. Jack just confirming that we have heard from over 15,000 of you so far and 69 percent of you believe it is nothing but politics, this furor.
Well, to help us answer the "Big Question," our national security correspondent David Ensor reports from Washington. The terror warnings from intelligence sources go back much further than last summer, but the dots were never connected.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In 1994, French authorities foiled an attempt by some Algerians who had hijacked a plane to use it to knock down the Eiffel Tower in Paris. In 1995, the Philippine authorities notified the U.S. a suspect had told them Ramsey Yousef, the man behind the first World Trade Center bombing, was plotting to hijack an aircraft and use it to hit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In February of last year, CIA Director George Tenet warned Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda was the most immediate and serious threat to the United States.
GEORGE TENET, CIA DIRECTOR: As we have increased security around government and military facilities, terrorists are seeking out softer targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties.
ENSOR: Starting in last May, through the summer of 2001, U.S. intelligence officials say they warned the White House al Qaeda was planning a major attack against the U.S. In late July, the Phoenix office of the FBI sent a memo urging headquarters to investigate Middle Eastern men who were students in U.S. flight schools. The memo said Osama bin Laden's followers could be planning to use the training for some sort of terrorism.
Then, in the first week of August in Crawford, Texas at the president's ranch, the CIA briefer warned Mr. Bush that among other possibilities, al Qaeda might hijack aircraft. The CIA did not suggest a suicide plane attack, as it had no intelligence suggesting such a tactic.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: There was no time, there was no place, there was no method of attack. It simply said these are people who train and seem to talk possibly about hijackings.
ENSOR: U.S. officials say in that intelligence briefing more than one hijacking plot was mentioned, including British information about a 1998 plot to hijack a plane and demand freedom for the blind sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, in jail for involvement in the first World Trade Center bombing and a failed plot to bomb other New York landmarks.
Finally in mid-August, a Minnesota flight school told the FBI that Zacarias Moussaoui was seeking training to fly but not to land a 747. Moussaoui was arrested. The Minneapolis FBI sought and was refused permission to search Moussaoui's laptop computer for clues. In his own handwriting, the agent wrote a theory of his in the margin.
ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: In one of the notes, the agent at, in Minneapolis mentioned the possibility of Moussaoui being that type of person that could fly something into the World Trade Center.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ENSOR: Despite what we now know about the August Crawford briefing, back on September 11 aboard Air Force One, when White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was asked had there been any warnings the president knew of, Fleischer responded "no warnings."
With the advantage of hindsight, then, it is now possible to select key signals from the huge mass of intelligence the U.S. gathered in the months and years before September 11, signals which could have helped the U.S. prevent the attacks.
But U.S. officials strongly argue that it's not fair to blame them or the president for being unable to do so before September 11 -- Paula.
ZAHN: David, we just got an interesting piece of information from Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. She has just spoken with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and he told her that he was never briefed about the so-called Phoenix memo, which indicated the possibility of men, al Qaeda members training at flight schools in America. And he said he saw it for the first time essentially in the newspaper and had the information been connected, the dots, and made clear it was important, he said he would have been given that information.
What do you make of that?
ENSOR: Well, there, it's been clear for some weeks, even maybe more than a month now, that there's, there was a real communications problem within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There were enterprising agents in Phoenix and in Minnesota who had some sense that something might be afoot here, who even guessed that planes could be used as weapons and passed on those concerns in memos and e-mails to headquarters. Headquarters did nothing about it.
Within the FBI there was a problem. I understand that Director Mueller is taking some pretty serious steps to try to deal with the problem. He's organized a special unit within FBI. He's trying to get it so the communication improves and so that those kinds of pieces of evidence get to the right people in the future -- Paula.
ZAHN: And from, David, the White House point of view, the, I guess the way briefings have been done have been changed, too. Isn't it true now that the CIA and the FBI will jointly brief the president?
ENSOR: Yes. Condoleezza Rice said that in the mornings nowadays quite often George Tenet and Director Mueller from the FBI meet briefly with the president after the president's daily brief from the CIA briefer. So there's much more communication going on now between the FBI and CIA than there was in the past. And that is very, very necessary.
ZAHN: And, David, I guess as we discuss the vulnerabilities of the system, you've just got to wonder, as we've heard in some of our e-mails, about the wisdom of talking about all of these failings in such a public way. Is there any concern from the administration that this makes us even more vulnerable?
ENSOR: There may be some concern among some officials, but for the most part, most of the people that I've talked to feel that it's best to get it out, to talk it over and to try to correct any problems that might exist for the future. It's the future we now have to worry about, not so much the past.
ZAHN: All right, David Ensor, thanks for that briefing.
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