Let's see, are they telling us that the same people who brought us Waco brought us 9-11? How could that be?
Posted on 04/15/2004 8:54:32 PM PDT by MamaLucci
CIA Warned of Attacks As Early As '95
WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA warned as early as 1995 that Islamic extremists were likely to attack U.S. aviation, Washington landmarks or Wall Street and by 1997 had identified Osama bin Laden as an emerging threat on U.S. soil, a senior intelligence official said Thursday.
The official took the rare step of disclosing information in the closely held National Intelligence Estimate for those two years to counter criticisms in a staff report released Wednesday by the independent commission examining pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures.
That staff report accused the CIA of failing to recognize al-Qaida as a formal terrorist organization until 1999 and mostly regarding bin Laden as a financier instead of a terrorist leader during much of the 1990s.
But the U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the 1997 National Intelligence Estimate produced by the CIA mentioned bin Laden by name as an emerging terrorist threat on its first page. The National Intelligence Estimate is distributed to the president and senior executive branch and congressional intelligence officials.
The 1997 assessment, which remains classified, "identified bin Laden and his followers and threats they were making and said it might portend attacks inside the United States," the official said.
Philip Zelikow, executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, confirmed the 1997 warning about bin Laden but said it was only two sentences long and lacked any strategic analysis on how to address the threat. "We were well aware of the information and the staff stands by exactly what it says," he said.
The intelligence official also said that while the 1995 intelligence assessment did not mention bin Laden or al-Qaida by name, it clearly warned that Islamic terrorists were intent on striking specific targets inside the United States like those hit on Sept. 11, 2001.
The report specifically warned that civil aviation, Washington landmarks such as the White House and Capitol and buildings on Wall Street were at the greatest risk of a domestic terror attack by Muslim extremists, the official said.
Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin testified Wednesday that by early 1996 his agency had developed enough concern about bin Laden to create a special unit to focus on his threat. "We were very focused on this issue," McLaughlin told the commission.
The commission's report did credit the CIA after 1997 with collecting vast amounts of intelligence on bin Laden and al-Qaida, which resulted in thousands of individual reports circulated at the highest levels of government. These carried titles such as "Bin Laden Threatening to Attack U.S. Aircraft" in June 1998 and "Bin Laden's Interest in Biological and Radiological Weapons" in February 2001.
Despite this intelligence, the CIA never produced an authoritative summary of al-Qaida's involvement in past terrorist attacks, didn't formally recognize al-Qaida as a group until 1999 and did not fully appreciate bin Laden's role as the leader of a growing extremist movement, the commission said.
"There was no comprehensive estimate of the enemy," the commission report alleged.
But the senior intelligence official said the commission report failed to mention that CIA had produced large numbers of analytical reports on the growth, capabilities, structure and threats posed by al-Qaida throughout the late 1990s and those detailed reports were distributed to the front lines of terror-fighting agencies.
The CIA most frequently provided these individual and highly detailed analyses to the White House Counterterrorism Security Group charged with formulating anti-terrorism policies and responses, the official said.
The real address is info@9-11Commission.gov
Let's see, are they telling us that the same people who brought us Waco brought us 9-11? How could that be?
Dear Governor Kean:
I understand the need to be collegial and maintain a working relationship among the Committee members. However, it was apparent to some of us at the beginning (I suspet that includes you) that Commisioner Jamie Gorelick had such a major role in the executive branch, dealing with the very issues that may be factors in our vulnerability to terrorism and making crucial decisions regarding our intelligence defenses, that she is conflicted to the point that her input to the Commission's judgement cannot be trusted as balanced, non-partisan, and unbiased.
I know that your insistence on her recusal on a majority of issues or her resignation from the Commission would carry significant personal, political, and procedural risks. However, it seems to me that you, as the Chair, have a responsibility to make the tough decisions necessary to protect the integrity of the Commission and the process by which it investigates the events leading up to the 9-11 attacks. Learning meaningful, rather than politically correct and press-friendly lessons is key to taking corrective actions that will be able to reduce risk of similar attacks in the future. If "politically correct" procedural barriers and machinations contributed to a lack of awareness of the risks and specific precursors to the attacks, this would be a critical lesson for the nation to learn. Learning it would be impossible if we coddle the perpetrators of the philosophies that established the barriers in the first place.
I don't want to judge Commissioner Gorelick based on press reports and web discussion group chatter. But if the prevailing observations have a chance of being correct, you as the Chair should act immediately to suspend her participation until such time as her apparent conflict of interest has been resolved and she has had an opportunity to satisfactorily explain her past actions under oath as a witness before the Commission.
Thank you for your important work and protecting the 9-11 Commission's integrity.
[real name, address & phone number]
SUMMARY STATEMENT OF FACTS
THE SEPTEMBER 12, 1994 PLANE CRASH
On Sunday, September 11, 1994, after spending an evening with his brother consuming alcohol and smoking crack cocaine, Frank Eugene Corder asked his brother to drop him off in the vicinity of Aldino Airport in Churchville, Maryland. Corder walked to the airport and found the keys to a Cessna P150 airplane that had been returned to the airport earlier that day after having been rented by another individual. Although Corder was not a licensed pilot, he had taken several lessons in the aircraft and had flown it several times during the summer of 1993.
Gee, that sounds a whole lot more specific than "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."
That's why this Commission should be disbanded. GWB is hard at work making sure another 9/11 never happens again. This commission is good for nothing and their little plot to blame the Bush Administration is backfiring in a big way.
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