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American Morning
New Revelations CIA Dropped Ball Leading Up to 09-11 Attacks
Aired June 03, 2002 - 09:01 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: Up front this morning, new revelations that CIA dropped the ball leading up to the September 11th attacks. The White House urging Americans not to rush to judgment. This as Congress gets ready to start hearings on intelligence failures by the FBI tomorrow.
CNN's Patty Davis has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The CIA knew two terrorists who commandeered the American Airlines' plane that crashed into the Pentagon were in the United States for 18 months before telling any other agencies, according to "Newsweek" magazine. But by that time, August of last year, they had slipped out of sight.
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, "NEWSWEEK": They failed to alert the INS, the State Department, the Customs Service, agencies that could have kept them out of the country. And, perhaps more importantly, they failed to alert the FBI.
DAVIS: That disclosure as congressional hearings about intelligence failures connected to the September 11th terror attacks get underway this week.
SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D) FLORIDA, CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: I think it's just another example of a missed opportunity.
SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R) VICE CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: It has not been full of information when people needed it between all the agencies. We've got to do better.
DAVIS: Both the FBI and CIA will have tough questions to answer: Why didn't they share information? Why didn't they connect the dots leading up to September 11th?
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D) CALIFORNIA: I don't think this is the only revelation that's going to come forward. I suspect there are numbers of bits and pieces. They weren't put together.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to do a better job pulling these pieces together, analyzing and disseminating them.
DAVIS: Pieces such as the arrest last August of the suspected 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui. He had aroused suspicion while training at a Minnesota flight school. And the July memo by Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams suggesting the FBI look into Middle Eastern men training at U.S. flight schools.
As a result, the FBI has announced a massive reorganization plan and new rules, allowing agents to monitor Web site, mosques, anything open to the public as they look for terrorist activity. The Justice Department has been criticized for opening the door to domestic spying.
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: ... so both the laws passed by the Congress and the regulations that I've recently promulgated reinforce the safeguards. But they do not tie the hands of our agents.
DAVIS (on camera): While Congress considers further reform, FBI Director Mueller says the intelligence community has thwarted new attacks in the U.S. Even so, he and others say, terrorists will strike again.
Patty Davis, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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