Only a nation at war can properly confront terrorism; Louis Freeh Op-Ed

Before 9/11--and After
Only a nation at war can properly confront terrorism.

BY LOUIS J. FREEH
Monday, April 12, 2004 12:01 a.m.

Al Qaeda was at war with the U.S. even before Sept. 11, 2001. In August 1998, it attacked our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In December 1999, one of al Qaeda's soldiers, Ahmed Ressam, entered the U.S. to bomb Los Angeles airport. In October 2000, al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in the port of Aden.

The question before the 9/11 Commission is why our political leadership declared war back on al Qaeda only after Sept. 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden had been indicted years before for blowing up American soldiers and embassies and was known as a clear and present danger to the U.S. So what would have happened had the U.S. declared war on al Qaeda before Sept. 11? Endless and ultimately useless speculation about "various threads and pieces of information," which are certainly "relevant and significant," at least in retrospect, will not take us very far in answering this central question.

On Jan. 26, 2001, at 8:45 a.m., I had my first meeting with President Bush and Vice President Cheney. They had been in office four days. We discussed terrorism, and in particular al Qaeda, the African embassy bombings, the Cole attack and the June 1996 Khobar bombing in Saudi Arabia. When I advised the president that Hezbollah and Iran were responsible for Khobar, he directed me to follow-up with Condoleezza Rice. I did so at 2:30 p.m. that day and she told me to pursue our investigation with the attorney general and to bring whatever charges possible. Within weeks, a new prosecutor was put in charge of the case and on June 21 an indictment was returned against 13 Hezbollah men who had been directed to bomb Khobar by senior officials of the Iranian government. I know that the families of the 19 murdered airmen were deeply grateful to President Bush and Ms. Rice for their prompt response and focus on terrorism.

I believe that any president and Congress faced with the reality of Sept. 11 would have acted swiftly and overwhelmingly as did President Bush and the 107th Congress. They are to be commended. However, those who came before President Bush can only be faulted if they had had the political means and the will of the nation to declare a war back then, but failed to do so. The fact that terrorism and the war being waged by al Qaeda was not even an issue in the 2000 presidential campaign strongly suggests that the political will to declare and fight this war didn't exist before Sept. 11.

All of this is not to say that the intelligence and law enforcement communities couldn't have done more to protect the nation from a Sept. 11. As FBI director I share in that responsibility. And I don't know of any FBI agents who would not have given their lives--two did--to prevent Sept. 11 from happening. The Joint Intelligence Committee and now the 9/11 Commission are properly seeking to understand how Sept. 11 was able to happen. But the grand failure to comprehend the contrast between the pre-9/11 fight against terrorism with the total war being waged since Sept. 11 blinds us to an immensely significant historical and political dialectic.

The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center by foreign-trained terrorists focused the FBI on homeland security and prevention as its counterterrorism priority. Excellent investigation and skillful prosecution effectively identified the terrorists involved. Those who were quickly captured were tried and convicted. Ramzi Yousef, a terrorist mastermind, fled to Pakistan along with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, now believed to be one of the architects of Sept. 11. The FBI's 1993 criminal investigation identified and stopped another plan by Sheik Rahman to blow up New York City tunnels, bridges and buildings (dubbed "Terrstop"). Important lesson learned: Good investigation is also good prevention. Two years later, FBI agents surprised Yousef at a guest house in Pakistan and brought him back to Foley Square, where he was convicted for two terrorist attacks. Besides the 1993 WTC murders, he was also convicted for his plot to blow up 11 U.S. airliners. His arrest and return to face justice was the result of long and painstaking investigation. Important lesson repeated: Investigation is prevention, and it also saves lives.

Yousef's arrest taught another valuable lesson. His apprehension was enabled by the fact that an FBI legal attaché, or "legat," was assigned to Islamabad in 1996. A legat is a "declared" FBI agent who serves as our liaison with the host country's law enforcement services. The expansion of our Legat Offices from 19 to 44 (from 1993-2001) was an integral part of the FBI's counterterrorism strategy. We determined in 1993 that the FBI needed legats in Tel Aviv, Cairo, Ankara, Riyadh, Amman, Tashkent and Almaty--to deter terrorists from murdering Americans. We later proposed legats in Tunis, Kuala Lampur, Jakarta, Rabat, Sana, Tbilisi and Abu Dhabi. The FBI and CIA narrowly missed grabbing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in 1996 as he was about to travel from Doha to the UAE. Only because we had an arrest warrant was capture an option. Legats in those countries would have improved our chances of success.

FBI terrorist "cases" are designed to collect maximum information, evidence and intelligence in order to prosecute and pre-empt such activities. U.S. v. bin Laden, et al., tried successfully in New York from January through May 2001, was just one byproduct of an international program that targeted bin Laden/al Qaeda, ongoing since the 1993 WTC bombing when his name first surfaced as an organizer and financier of military training camps in Afghanistan.

FBI investigators seek to pursue all leads to their logical end, and follow those leads wherever they take us. Leads are unfortunately developed in the wake of terrorist attacks; but more often they are developed proactively, through sources and cooperators. In multiple instances, FBI investigations have disrupted planned attacks in the U.S. Moreover, FBI investigation has significantly contributed to the identification of al Qaeda's leadership, organization, methods, training, finances, geographical reach and intent. Through the pursuit of leads, the FBI's investigation of bin Laden and al Qaeda can be credited with having "jump-started" investigations in other parts of the world, Europe in particular. The FBI is extremely effective in conducting interviews, and putting together both criminal and intelligence cases. Information obtained through law-enforcement channels--whether testimony, documents, records, photographs, forensic evidence or the results of interviews--provides the purest form of intelligence.

Short of total war, the FBI relentlessly did its job of pursuing terrorists, always with the goal of preventing their attacks. But the FBI's pre-9/11 Counter-Terrorism (CT) resources were finite and insufficient--3.5% of the entire government's CT budget. In 1993, we had fewer than 600 special agents and 500 support positions funded for CT. By 1999, we'd more than doubled our personnel and trebled the FBI's CT budget to $301 million. We knew it wasn't enough. For Fiscal Years 2000, 2001 and 2002 the FBI asked for 1,895 special agents, analysts and linguists to enhance our CT program. We got 76 people for those three critical years. FY 2000 was typical: 864 CT positions at a cost of $380.8 million requested--five people funded for $7.4 million. This isn't a criticism of the DoJ, White House or Congress--that's how Washington makes its budgets, balancing competing needs against limited resources. The point is: The FBI was intensely focused on its CT needs but antebellum politics was not yet there. By contrast, after Sept. 11, the FBI's FY 2002 Emergency Supplemental CT budget was increased overnight by 823 positions for $745 million. The al Qaeda threat was the same on Sept. 10 and Sept. 12. Nothing focuses a government quicker than a war.

Before Sept. 11, the FBI relentlessly pursued criminal investigations, renditions and prosecutions of terrorists, particularly bin Laden and al Qaeda. This was an integral part of two administrations' CT strategy. This course wasn't pursued because we believed indicting bin Laden and issuing warrants for al Qaeda leaders would stop their war against us. In fact, we always viewed this law-enforcement action as limited in scope and completely secondary in terms of national security. Yet aside from cruise missiles, armed Predators and invading countries which harbored terrorists, this was our chosen path.

Sometimes it worked. Yousef's arrest didn't happen without an active warrant. After Mir Aimal Kansi's murders of CIA personnel in Langley, Va., it was his indictment that led to his arrest by FBI agents in Pakistan and murder convictions back in Fairfax County. We continue to pursue the arrest of Hezbollah's military commander for the murders of our Marines in Lebanon and Navy diver Robert Stethem. His capture may rest on an FBI arrest warrant. The al Qaeda terrorists who destroyed our African embassies and almost sunk the Cole have all been indicted and are now hounded by FBI agents as well as by CIA officers and our armed services. Even the administrators in Iraq have gone after Muqtada al-Sadr with an arrest warrant.

The FBI was relentless in indicting and pursuing the terrorist agents of Iran who blew up Khobar Towers. Why were we pursuing this case? Certainly not because we thought that arrest warrants for 13 fugitives protected by Iran was the best way to stop that country from sponsoring terrorist attacks. A poll of FBI agents would show a preference for a military operation against Iran as the more effective action. But short of "warring back," there's a fundamental but misunderstood notion about why it's a good thing to at least have an arrest warrant. Experience has taught the FBI that we never know the place and time--it's not of our choosing--when one of these terrorists is suddenly found traversing an airport, or is within-the-grab of a country that will remit him to us or to a "friendly" place only because we have a warrant. Hence the FBI always wanted to be in a position where--as with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed--we could capture a high-value target in a rare chance because we'd taken the trouble to get an indictment and a warrant. We don't think the American judicial process is always the best defense against terrorism--it's not; but it does give terror victims another means for justice.

Pre-9/11, the FBI used all the means at its disposal to capture bin Laden and to prevent future attacks against America. The FBI and CIA actively targeted al Qaeda and bin Laden beginning one year before the East Africa embassy attacks on Aug. 7, 1998. Together, they were able to indict bin Laden prior to Aug. 7 for a plot to murder U.S. soldiers in Yemen. In November 1998, he was indicted a second time for the embassy bombings and put on the FBI's Top 10 list in April 1999. In 1999, a dedicated "bin Laden Unit" was established at FBIHQ and the CIA-FBI "bin Laden station" began to operate covertly on an international basis. Of course, our arrest warrants, by themselves, were pieces of paper. The U.S. armed forces provided a means to execute a warrant to the FBI and DEA in 1988 by invading Panama in order to allow agents to arrest Manuel Noriega. Similar means to capture bin Laden did not become available until October 2001, when Afghanistan was so successfully invaded by our forces.

Before then, diplomacy and other means were tried. The U.S. brought political pressure on the Taliban to turn over bin Laden--but to no avail. The CIA and FBI sorted through a series of proposed, covert actions designed to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan and bring him to justice. None of the plans appeared to have any chance of success and were not approved. Finally, on April 6, 2000, after consultation with the national security adviser and the State Department, I traveled to meet Pervez Musharraf and requested his personal assistance in capturing bin Laden. Gen. Musharraf was polite but unhelpful. He explained that he had personal assurances from Mullah Omar of the Taliban that bin Laden was innocent of the East African bombings and had abandoned terrorism. We gave Gen. Musharraf and his military leaders an extensive briefing of our evidence against bin Laden and al Qaeda and followed up our meeting by sending FBI agents and an assistant U.S. attorney from New York to Pakistan to make the case for arresting bin Laden. It was clear that short of the U.S. declaring war against bin Laden and his Taliban accessories, Pakistan was not going to help us get this terrorist out of Afghanistan.

Protecting our homeland from attacks by foreign terrorists had long been the FBI's priority. Back in September 1994, I recommended to Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick that the DoJ strengthen investigative powers against suspected "undesirable aliens," accelerating deportation appeal proceedings and limiting U.S. participation in a visa waiver pilot program under which 9.5 million foreigners entered the U.S. in 1994. I also recommended that we include provisions for the detention and removal of undesirable aliens, under a special, closed-court procedure. I also criticized alien deportation appeal procedures which often took years to conclude. Finally, I recommended legislation to provide the FBI with roving wiretap authority to investigate terrorist activities in the U.S. President Clinton requested that authority in 1996.

The FBI was also active in focusing on the terrorist threat to Americans overseas, our first line of defense. This was the centerpiece of the dramatic expansion of legat offices. The FBI must have this foreign capability to carry out effective CT, especially prevention. When I left the FBI, I'd proposed that we establish an FBI training facility in Central Asia, as we'd done in Budapest in 1995, and had begun in Dubai, to enhance our ability to establish liaison and critical points of contact in those important regions. There is absolutely no substitute for these liaisons. Without them we risk being blind.

The FBI's expansion overseas paid immense dividends. The U.S.'s rapid response after Sept. 11 was based in part on this infrastructure. And during our examination of the forensic evidence from the Cole case, it was discovered that the explosive used was possibly manufactured in Russia. Because the FBI had been working in Russia since 1994, I was able to call the FSB (Russian intelligence) director and ask for assistance. His response was immediate. Russian experts provided us with all the information requested, helping immensely.

Everyone understands why and how some of our basic rules, beginning with provisions of the Patriot Act, changed after Sept. 11. America declared war on al Qaeda and bin Laden, and the Congress and president put the country on a war footing. It's important to remember that war changed these rules and the FBI, CIA and the rest of the government can only be judged prior to Sept. 11 by the pre-existing rules.

The FBI and CIA working together have accomplished much in fighting terrorism, but it is a continuing battle. These agencies should remain the primary counterterrorism agencies. But al Qaeda-type organizations, state sponsors of terrorism like Iran, and the threats they pose to America, are ultimately beyond the competence of the FBI and the CIA to address. America must maintain the will to use its political, military and economic power when acts of war are threatened or committed against our nation by terrorists or their state sponsors. We have now seen how war is declared and waged against terrorists who attack our nation. The painful lesson is that fighting terrorism without such a declaration of war is unlikely to be successful.
Mr. Freeh, a former FBI director, is scheduled to testify before the 9/11 Commission tomorrow.

While I appreciate Freeh's candid and honest comments on this subject, it must be noted that he also dropped the ball on intelligence:

Yousef and Nichols crossed paths in the Phillipines. Mohammed was Yousef's uncle. It is interesting to note that Yousef entered the United States on an Iraqi passport and had been known among the New York fundamentalists as "Rashid, the Iraqi". Another name that could be thrown into the mix is Abdul Rahman Yasin, a U.S. citizen who moved to Iraq in the 1960's and returned to the U.S. in 1992. After the 1993 WTC bombing, Yasin fled to Iraq and was given money and housing by Saddam Hussein's regime.

Specifically mentioning Freeh...the Yasin link states:

There is no doubt about Yasin's whereabouts after the 1993 outrage. The FBI agents who perfunctorily questioned Yasin in New York and were conned by his pleasant manner quickly understood their mistake in letting him go. They got his brother to telephone Yasin in Baghdad repeatedly to ask him to come back for more questioning. Guess what?

Mr. Yasin sent his regrets.

In 1998 then-FBI Director Louis Freeh said publicly that the fugitive was "hiding in his native Iraq." The Iraqi National Congress, the leading anti-Saddam movement, earlier obtained a photograph of Yasin in Baghdad and provided it to Washington. Every indication points to Yasin's not having left Iraq since then, a senior U.S. official tells me.

From Mark Riebling, Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and the CIA, 1994 edition, 434-437:

FBI and CIA had been trying to coordinate in denying visas to some of these would-be terrorists since September 1986, when the agencies joined an Alien Border Control Committee (ABCC). . .But after the Agency tips led the Bureau to arrest eight suspected Palestinian terrorists in Los Angeles in early 1987, civil-liberty activists pressured the ABCC to drop a plan to systematize use of CIA intelligence in processing visa requests. Congressman Barney Frank then led a successful movement to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act, so that membership in terrorist groups would no longer be sufficient grounds for the denial of visas. . .The United States therefore had no obvious grounds for refusing visas to radicals such as. . .Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, leader of the Islamic Jidhad. ..

[SNIP]

Rahman entered the U.S. in May 1990. . .After New York police arrested one of Rahman's followers, El Sayyid Nosair, in connection with the killing of right-wing Israeli leader Rabbi Meir Kahane in November 1990, the FBI was intrigued to learn that Nosair's legal bills were paid and his family supported by Rahman. . .

While the Bureau began investigating Rahman and his followers, Egyptian intelligence repeatedly warned CIA officers about a growing Islamic fundamentalist network in the United States. . .the Agency told them it could not monitor the men, since counterterrorism in the U.S. was the province of the FBI. . .The Bureau did recruit an agent in Rahman's entourage--former Egyptian army officer Emad Salem--but his access was limited. Legally, there was little the FBI could do. . .The Egyptians countered by openly criticizing the U.S. system, which seemed to give suspected terrorists a free hand simply because they crossed from CIA into FBI jurisdiction--a policy which could only encourage such deadly immigration.

In fact, two more Rahman followers, Mahmad Muhammad Ajaj and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, had already come to the U.S. from Peshwar in September 1992. . .Following the World Trade Center bombing, for which both men were indicted, the Bureau realized that some important background information on Ajaj, Youssef, and other Rahman followers had been provided by Egypt well beforehand and was simply sitting in CIA databases.

[SNIP]

Fingers were pointed at the FBI for its alleged failure to pursue hints, including a January 1993 warning from German intelligence that a terrorist operation was under way. The Bureau took public umbrage at this. . .insisting that neither Germany nor Egypt had offered names or documents. Any specific warnings had, rather, gone to CIA--which had not only issued Rahman his visa but seemed to have missed a chain of signatures. In January 1993, after Saddam, Qaddafi, et al. declared their new holy war, Egypt had advised CIA that Islamic radicals were not merely blustering, and would soon strike against U.S. interests, both abroad and at home. The Agency took the threat seriously enough to warn all U.S. embassies--but not so seriously, it seemed, as to tip the FBI in New York.

The Agency's defenders meanwhile faulted the Bureau for failing to analyze evidence seized more than two years before the bombing. Former CTC officer Cannistraro pointed out that some of the same cast of characters implicated in the World Trade Center case had initially come to FBI attention in the Kahane murder probe. Indeed, while searching Nosair's apartment in 1990, the FBI had obtained evidence that five of the seven extremists later indicted for the bombing were gathering information on bomb design, plotting terrorist acts, and collecting photographs of the World Trade Center. When FBI agents and linguists finally got around to examining and translating Nosair's papers in March 1993, they were able to thwart a pending plot to blow up New York bridges, bomb the U.N., and assassinate U.S. government leaders. But CIA officials believed the documents also should have helped head off the Trade Center attack.

My question: was this failure to share/apply intelligence caused just by bureaucratic issues, or was there something more involved? For instance, Riebling mentions on 443 that Aldrich Ames was funneling US technological secrets to Russia through Iraq. It's also suspected, as we were discussing the other day, that Robert Hanssen sold classified computer technology to Bin Laden. Were Ames, Hanssen, or someone tied to them whose identity remains unknown, protecting Rahman and Youssef's network?

I'm trying to figure out what politics were involved in Freeh's appointment. I have been told that the Bureau's current problems began after William Webster was transferred from the Bureau to the Agency. My understanding is that Webster's transfer was done to appease critics of Iran-Contra and William Casey. When Webster left, Sessions replaced him at the Bureau, and remained as Director during the Clinton transition until he was told to "resign" by Janet Reno in July 1993. Riebling, 439, lists the following factors that led to calls for Sessions' resignation:

1) Criticism over Sessions reshuffling the Bureau's Intelligence Division in the wake of the Felix Bloch affair. This (according to Riebling--have to wonder if there's more than one side to the story) was an attempt to "reign in" the Bureau's counterspies, who were seen by some as "too aggressive". Sessions had received generally good press up to this point, but now anonymous Bureau sources began leaking derogatory information about him to the press.

2) Iraq-Gate, which Clinton made an emphasis of his 1992 campaign's attack on the Bush administration. (Combined with #1 above, does this imply Sessions' enemies in the Bureau were helping the Clinton campaign?)

3) The World Trade Center attack, which the Agency and Bureau each blamed on the other.

4) Sessions' 1992 move to transfer 1,300 agents out of the Intelligence Division into what Riebeling describes as more "mainstream" work. After Sessions did this, some anonymous FBI counterintelligence officials began leaking derogatory information about Sessions to journalist Ron Kessler, then writing a book on the Bureau.

That's Riebling's analysis of why Sessions was replaced, anyway. I'd be interested to hear others' take on this.

Here's how one article describes Sessions' own perspective on why he was replaced:

The Disintegration of the FBI

Then there is the matter of the death of Vincent Foster on July 20, 1993. His death was quickly ruled a suicide by U.S. Park Police and, later, the FBI and two Special Counsel reports.

But few people remember that the controversy over Foster's death began on July 19, the day before, when President Clinton abruptly fired then-FBI Director William Sessions. Sessions would later say he was fired because he tried to stop the politicization of the FBI.

Though the high-ranking death should have meant FBI involvement, the White House ordered the FBI out of the death investigation and the inquiry into what happened in Foster's White House office. Later, the FBI was used by the Independent Counsel investigations to rubber-stamp the Park Police inquiry.

I'd be interested to hear others' take on this.
Here is some...
Who really authorized the Davidian assault plan?
Has such articles as this...
FBI Director Freeh Quits
Snip...In 1993, Clinton forced out then-FBI Director William Sessions for alleged ethics lapses and asked Freeh, a former FBI special agent in charge, U.S. attorney and federal judge, to take his place.

And this..."Victimized" FBI Chief Savages Meddling Clinton
Director Sessions was fired on the grounds that he had used official resources for personal benefit _ his wife had carried a bundle of firewood on the Director's small aircraft, and other such absurdities. It was an obvious set-up, although the Washington press corps allowed it to pass unchallenged.
I rather liked this...In a blistering outburst at the end of last week, Louis Freeh, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, accused the Clinton White House of "egregious violations" in seeking 408 secret background files on political opponents. The White House had failed to act on "good faith and honor," he said, adding that "the FBI and I were victimized."

Personally, and purely IMO, he simply didn't want to play ball with the boy Pres. and the sittin' on the Ritz AG after Waco.

Thanks for the links. Didn't realize the chronological relation to Waco. Reminds me of this old thread--see esp. #70:

CLINTON ON SLAIN ATF AGENTS AT WACO: "Three of those four were assigned to my security"

I have started to read the book "No Heroes. Inside the FBI's Secret Counter-Terror Force" by retired FBI official Danny O. Coulson. The following passage (from pp. 431-2) has some interesting information on the failed BATF raid and, by indicating that three of the four BATF people killed were on Buford's team, appears to provide corroboration for the claim that they had been part of Clinton's campaign security. Note that three of the wounded were also on Buford's team. Finally, the passage apparently says that Buford had been leading his whole team up ladders onto the roof.

[The morning of Feb. 28, 1993, just after the failed BATF raid on Mt. Carmel,] I settled into the submarine [SIOC, Strategic Information and Operations Center, the crisis center – or “tank” – inside FBI Headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington] and started reviewing every bit of news footage we could find on the incident. Over and over we watched the amazing film of the gun battle. Sure enough, Bill Buford [an old friend of Coulson’s] had been right in the middle of it. He was badly hurt, but doctors at the local hospital thought he would live. He had been leading a team up ladders and onto the second-floor roof when rounds from an M16 and an AK-47 ripped into his legs and hip. He fell off the roof, breaking several ribs. As he lay bleeding and helpless, the Davidians had strafed the ground around his head with machine-gun fire. An ATF medic had thrown his body across him and protected him for nearly two hours until the cease-fire took effect.

My heart ached for Buford. Not because of his wounds – he would survive those. His body was as tough as an old bobcat’s. What you never get over is losing your men. Three of the young agents killed – [Conway] LeBleu, [Todd] McKeehan, and [Robert J.] Williams – were on Buford’s twelve-man team, and three other members of the same team were wounded.

Wonder if this is part of what led Sessions to quit?

Thanks. No disconnect, though; by "quit" I was referring loosely to the general process by which he and the administration parted ways. I mentioned in my Post #13 that Reno told him to "resign". What I've read is that that conversation included a threat that if he didn't resign, he would be fired; and the pretext for the threat was the alleged ethics violations you mention. The part you mention about Sessions' intent to investigate BCCI is interesting. On a similar note, in 1994 after Sessions had been replaced by Freeh, CIA Directory Woolsey announced his intent to follow up on the Aldrich Ames bust by exposing other spies, and the Bureau reacted angrily to Woolsey's statement. This came in the midst of a conflict between Woolsey on the one hand and Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-Arizona) and Anthony Lake on the other over a bill Concini had proposed which would put the Bureau in charge of all counterintelligence, including CIA internal probes, etc. In light of all this, it looks to me like Clinton's game plan for neutralizing the intelligence community's counterintelligence capability was something to the effect of: 1) Get the Bureau under the administration's control by appointing Reno and replacing Sessions with Freeh; 2) Place the Agency's counterintelligence operations under the supervision of Reno and Freeh's now-gutted Bureau.

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