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by David Johnston
and Elizabeth Becker
June 3, 2002, The New
York Times
WASHINGTON, June 2 -
The Central Intelligence Agency says in a classified chronology submitted
to Congress recently that it picked up the trail of a Qaeda operative who
turned out to be a Sept. 11 hijacker months earlier than was previously
known, government officials said today.
The officials said the
C.I.A. learned in early 2001 that Khalid al-Midhar, who died in the attack
on the Pentagon, was linked to a suspect in the bombing of the Navy
destroyer Cole in October 2000. The agency had said previously that it did
not learn of Mr. Midhar's connections to Al Qaeda or his multiple visits
to the United States until the month before the hijackings, when an
increase in "chatter" about terrorist threats prompted a review of the
C.I.A.'s terrorism files.
C.I.A. officials also
neglected to advise the F.B.I. and other agencies when it learned of Mr.
Midhar's connections to the terrorist group, the officials said. As a
result, he was not put on any government watch list until after the August
review, enabling him to enter the country unhindered. The State Department
routinely renewed his expired visa in June 2001.
The performance of
agencies like the F.B.I. and C.I.A. is under intense scrutiny as the House
and Senate intelligence committees prepare for hearings, starting Tuesday,
into the lapses that became known only after the Sept. 11 attacks. Much of
the criticism to date has focused on the F.B.I.; today's disclosures about
the C.I.A.'s knowledge, reported in this week's issue of Newsweek, are the
first to draw questions about the C.I.A.'s actions.
In separate
appearances on television news programs today, Attorney General John
Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, defended their
handling of their own investigations and said they were cooperating fully
with Congress, passing tens of thousands of documents to the committees.
But Mr. Mueller
acknowledged on the CBS program "Face the Nation" that "we have to do a
better job pulling these pieces together, analyzing them and disseminating
them."
The C.I.A.'s finding
that Mr. Midhar could be tied to Al Qaeda terrorism was an important one,
the government officials said. If other agencies had known it, the
information might have led to the discovery that Mr. Midhar and an
associate he lived with in California, Nawaq Alhazmi, another hijacker,
had attended flight schools in the United States.
As a result, when an
F.B.I. agent in Phoenix warned his headquarters in July 2001 that Osama
bin Laden's followers might be studying at flight schools in this country
in preparation for terrorist attacks, the agency did not realize that Mr.
Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi had taken such flight training.
One intelligence
official said the C.I.A.'s sharing its information would most likely not
have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The notion that this
would have changed history or rolled up the hijacking plot is highly
speculative," the official said.
But such
communications breakdowns in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks have
led some officials, including Mr. Mueller, to say that a better sharing of
information might have led the authorities to thwart the attacks.
The C.I.A. first
learned of Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi in 2000, after the men were
identified as participants in a January meeting of terrorist suspects in
Malaysia. Sometime in 2000 the agency also learned that both men had
visited the United States, Mr. Midhar on several occasions. But it did not
understand the men's significance until after the Cole bombing in October
2000. By late that year or early the next, it had connected Mr. Midhar
with a Qaeda suspect in that attack. The C.I.A. then learned that Mr.
Midhar had entered the country multiple times before the Cole incident.
Yet it was not until
Aug. 23, 2001, after the C.I.A.'s review of its terrorism files, that the
names of the two men were passed on to the Immigration and Naturalization
Service. By then, the immigration agency found, they had already entered
the country. The F.B.I. began an investigation and was still searching for
the two men when the hijackings occurred.
With Congressional
hearings beginning this week, the intelligence agencies are preparing
their cases to show why they failed to detect the Sept. 11 plot.
Mr. Ashcroft said that
officials who missed or discounted clues would be held accountable.
"Yes, I believe they
will be, if in fact it's merited and appropriate," Mr. Ashcroft said on
the CNN program "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."
Members of Congress
have criticized the F.B.I. for failing to understand or follow up on
warnings from the Phoenix agent about Middle Eastern men taking flying
lessons and for blocking an investigation by its Minneapolis office of
Zacarias Moussaoui, who was later indicted on charges that he conspired in
the Sept. 11 attacks.
"They don't have any
excuse because the information was in their lap and they didn't do
anything to prevent it," Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking
Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on the NBC program
"Meet the Press."
In their hearings,
which are expected to last through the summer, Congressional leaders said
they would press for a full documentation of intelligence failures and for
finding out who was responsible for those failures.
Senator Charles E.
Grassley, Republican of Iowa, discounted recent calls for the resignation
of Mr. Mueller, who took office only a week before Sept. 11. Instead, Mr.
Grassley said on the ABC program "This Week," the actions of the senior
members of the F.B.I. should be examined, and if those senior members had
failed to warn Mr. Mueller properly of the threat, then "their heads
should roll."
Congressional leaders
also warned today that there should be no retaliation against Coleen
Rowley, the Minneapolis agent who wrote Mr. Mueller complaining that F.B.I.
officials in Washington had rebuffed agents in Minneapolis who sought
greater authority to investigate Mr. Moussaoui before Sept. 11. She also
wrote that Mr. Mueller had misrepresented the Minneapolis complaints.
Senator Patrick J.
Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said
on "Face the Nation," "I will watch very carefully to make sure she is
given all the whistle-blower protection."
"I don't want, because
she raised problems, that she then be made a scapegoat herself," Mr. Leahy
said.
While Mr. Mueller said
last week that Ms. Rowley would suffer no reprisals for her criticism, the
attorney general promised only that she would not lose her job.
When pressed to give
his personal assurance that there would be no retaliation against Ms.
Rowley, Mr. Ashcroft said: "She will not be fired for doing this. It's
just that simple."
Later, Mr. Ashcroft's
spokeswoman said that his answer had been incomplete.
"The attorney general
has made it clear that there will be no retaliation against Ms. Rowley,"
said Barbara Comstock, the spokeswoman. "Both he and Mr. Mueller welcomed
Ms. Rowley's letter."
Mr. Leahy said his
committee would call Ms. Rowley to testify this week.
Mr. Mueller also said
that since Sept. 11 the F.B.I. has prevented terrorist attacks overseas
and in the United States, but he only discussed those foiled attacks that
have already been made public.
For his part, Mr.
Ashcroft defended himself against charges by Representative F. James
Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, that he had gone too far in
changing rules on domestic spying.
Last week the Justice
Department and the F.B.I. announced an expansion of the agency's authority
to track potential terrorists by monitoring the Internet, political
groups, libraries and religious organizations, including places of worship
like mosques. The attorney general said he was only giving the F.B.I.
permission to visit places and attend events open to the public and to use
the Internet.
"A 12-year-old,
13-year-old kid can go anywhere he wants to on the Internet looking for
things like bomb-making sites," Mr. Ashcroft said. "Shouldn't the F.B.I.
be able to go to those public places in the same way?"
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