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American Morning

'Fortune' Reporter Discusses Phoenix Memo

Aired May 22, 2002 - 09:10   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: For more now on the so-called Phoenix memo and the man who wrote it. That was the memo written last summer, written by an FBI agent in Phoenix calling for a check of flight schools because of concern about Middle Eastern men who were training at those schools.

Well, bowing to intense political pressure, the White House has now released some portions of the memo to the Senate Judiciary Committee. And yesterday the author of the memo himself, agent Kenneth Williams, met with some members of the committee, including Sen. Arlen Specter, whom I spoke with about this a little bit earlier this morning.

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SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R-PA), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: I don't that think it's a smoking gun which is a problem for the president, because the president, I think, acted entirely properly on the very generalized briefing he got last August the 6th. But I do think that the failure of the FBI to follow up on this Phoenix memo is a very, very serious matter.

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ZAHN: And while a lot of judgments are being made whether to make this memo public, Richard Behar, Senior Investigative Reporter for "Fortune" magazine, has actually read the so-called Phoenix memo. He joins us from Miami this morning.

Good morning. Glad to have you with us, Richard.

RICHARD BEHAR, SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, "FORTUNE": Good morning, Paula. Thank you.

ZAHN: When you got your hands on the memo and you read it for the first time, what did you think?

BEHAR: I thought it was a pretty chilling document. And I thought that as a reporter if I had gotten my hands on something like this back in July, I would have been all over it.

ZAHN: You say it was chilling. Can you share with us any portions of the memo that you found particularly frightening? BEHAR: Yes. I will share a few details directly from my notes that should take about a minute or less. It was dated July 10, Phoenix squad 16th, Kenneth Williams, and it was approved by his superior William Kurtz. And the memo was sent on to I would say about roughly a dozen FBI officials.

It seems to me that Williams and Kurtz did their job. But what the dozen other officials did remains to be seen. The document's title included a group called the Islamic Army of the Caucuses. And I've since learned that that group -- there are indications that that group may have ties to Osama bin Laden.

The document has a synopsis that says, "Osama bin Laden and al Mujajirun..." -- which, by the way, is known as a radical Islamic group in London -- "supporters are attending civil aviation university colleges in Arizona." There are some FBI codes here: G-3, X1.

The probe was instituted in April 17, year 2000, and says, quote, "A possible effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the U.S. to attend civil aviation universities and colleges." And finally, it mentions a fatwah which, of course, we know is a death contract issued by a spiritual leader of this group, al Mujajirun, named Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed Fostok, who was arrested a number of years ago for allegedly suggesting that the British prime minister can be killed. But then he was released without charges and denies saying so.

And it lists some of the students that Williams was investigating. Now what happened...

ZAHN: Richard, before you go any further, were any of those students believed to be the 19 hijackers that we know were involved in the September 11 crisis?

BEHAR: It doesn't appear so.

ZAHN: Now let me ask you this, too...

BEHAR: And yet the significance...

ZAHN: No, go ahead.

BEHAR: I'm sorry. The significance of this document is that this would have been a major piece of the jigsaw puzzle that could have been put together along with other information. This document was not shared with the CIA. This memo went to about a dozen FBI officials.

But according to the FBI director and according to the attorney general, they didn't see it until after September 11. And President Bush and the CIA apparently didn't see it until a few weeks ago. So you have to wonder...

ZAHN: Let me come back to this Osama bin Laden reference that was made in the part of the document you just read. Was there any indication to the kind of mission that these pilots would potentially carry out? Any specific reference to using commercial airliners as missiles?

BEHAR: Use them as missiles, no. No, I don't recall seeing that in the document.

ZAHN: Now, you no doubt had heard some of what is coming out of the FBI today and the analysis of why this was put in a closed file saying the FBI simply didn't have the resources to go around the country and interview all these Arab pilots that were known be training in the United States. Or the other aspect of it is that this memo was just largely speculative.

BEHAR: I think if that memo was read by people who have read it in the way that I read it, people would disagree. That's a chilling document. And I think that it's time for the FBI and time for the government to release it to the public and let Americans decide whether that was just a purely speculative document or whether work can and should have been done on it.

ZAHN: When it comes to the debate -- go ahead, Richard.

BEHAR: I'm sorry. And clearly work was not done on it. I mean, when you follow the course of events as to what happened after that memo was written, it's kind of like a bad Marks Brothers movie, only it's not funny because thousands of Americans have been killed. And if our government is not able to follow up on these leads properly and protect us, at least release the memos to us and let us try. Let the press try.

ZAHN: Yes, that's where the debate sticking point is, though. Because according to "TIME" magazine, also owned by our company, the FBI actually doesn't want to release the document because it's a live investigation of two guys apparently who are tied to some Islamic radical regime and they're still at large in the United States. Have you heard anything more about that?

BEHAR: I heard that. And there's also one particular student who is named in the title of the document who is still enrolled, I believe, in a university in this country and has not been charged. Well, the FBI could release the document and white out a couple of names.

ZAHN: Well, you make a point there. We're going to follow the congressional debate.

BEHAR: We'll accept that as well.

ZAHN: And people like Arlen Specter, you know, continue to put pressure on FBI Director Mueller to release these documents. Richard Behar, thank you so much for your insights this morning -- good to see you.

BEHAR: Thank you, Paula -- nice being here.

ZAHN: Thanks.

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