White House: Bush Was Warned of Hijack Threat-Lawmakers Seek Hijack Report Probe (AOL SCREEN)

AOL ^ | 05.16.02 | AP-via AOL FRONT PAGE

[Registered]

---

White House: Bush Was Warned of Hijack Threat
Lawmakers Seek Hijack Report Probe

By RON FOURNIER
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (May 16) - Top lawmakers on Thursday pushed for tough inquiries after the White House revealed President Bush was told a month before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American airplanes.

''Was there a failure of intelligence?'' asked House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. ''Did the right officials not act on the intelligence in the proper way? These are things we need to find out.''

Some law enforcement agencies were quietly put on alert last summer based on the information given to Bush during a regular intelligence briefing while he was on vacation at his Texas ranch the first week of August, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

But the president and U.S. intelligence did not know that suicide hijackers were plotting to use planes as missiles, as they did against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Fleischer said.

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta was told of ''long-standing concerns about possible hijackings'' during his regular intelligence briefings before Sept. 11, but ''there was never a scenario put forward that was anything like the events of 9/11,'' said department spokesman Chet Lunner. ''There was no specific, credible warning to disseminate,'' Lunner said.

Fleischer said general information about the threats, which mentioned hijacking, was passed on to air carriers. He said it did not include specific and detailed warnings.

A spokesman for the trade group that represents the country's major airlines, Michael Wascom of the Air Transport Association, said: ''I am not aware of any warnings or notifications in advance of Sept. 11 concerning specific security threats to any of our airlines.''

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., called on Bush to release to congressional investigators ''the entire briefing that he was given'' by intelligence officials, and to release a recently revealed FBI memo from its Arizona office that warned of suspicious activity by Arabs at U.S. flight schools.

''We need to get the facts,'' Daschle said.

Gephardt said Congress needs to find out - in hearings open to the public - what Bush and other officials knew, when they knew it and what they did with the information. He hinted he might push for additional inquiries, and said they ''cannot be top secret.''

''Right now we have an inquiry that's going on in the intelligence committees,'' Gephardt said. ''It may or may not be sufficient to get all this done.''

Peppered with questions about the presidential heads-up, Fleischer sought to play down the development. He said there were long-standing concerns that Muslim extremists might carry out traditional hijackings, and that bin Laden had been a major worry for years.

''I don't think this should come as any surprise to anybody,'' he said of the warning given to Bush. ''But the president did not - not - receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new type of attack that was not foreseen.''

The development, the first direct link between Bush and intelligence gathered before Sept. 11 about the attacks, drew criticism from congressional investigators already looking into whether the government failed to adequately respond to evidence of potential attacks.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on NBC's ''Today'': ''There was a lot of information, I believe and others believe, if it had been acted on properly we may have had a different situation on Sept. 11.''

On CNN, Shelby also questioned why the White House waited so long to acknowledge Bush's knowledge of the hijacking threat. He said of the warning: ''I think it should have been acted on, but it wasn't.''

Shelby also suggested he may demand that the White House release the top-secret CIA briefing received by Bush, and the FBI memo.

A former FAA security chief, Billie Vincent, asked why, if law-enforcement agencies had been notified of a possible hijacking threat, they didn't do more to increase security.

''With that threat escalating, why was it permissible to continue to take cutting tools on airplanes?'' Vincent asked, referring to the box-cutters the Sept. 11 hijackers used.

The revelation instantly created a politically charged atmosphere in which every White House statement about pre-Sept. 11 threats was subjected to new scrutiny. Fleischer, for example, was asked by reporters hours after the attacks whether ''there had been any warnings that the president knew of.''

He replied, ''No warnings.''

Fleischer stood by the comment Thursday, saying there indeed was no warning of suicide hijackings against American landmarks.

Bush himself said in January, ''Never did we realize that the enemy was so well organized.''

White House officials said Bush was steadfast in private that CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller have done a good job overhauling their agencies to close the gaps exposed by the Sept. 11 attacks. Their jobs are not in jeopardy, officials said.

One Bush associate quoted the president as saying ''no one knew'' that bin Laden was plotting to make the leap from traditional hijackings to the highly sophisticated suicide attacks on U.S. landmarks. ''No one passed (that type of information) to me,'' Bush was quoted as saying.

Fleischer said that starting in May 2001, there had been increased threats of terrorism strikes against U.S. targets - primarily abroad - and that security was tightened at U.S. embassies and military installations.

With the threat of hijackings, there was ''a pulling together of domestic agencies to make certain that they were aware of this information.''

At least some agency officials, including Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, said Thursday that they had received no specific information about possible terrorist hijackings of airplanes before Sept. 11.

The Associated Press reported earlier this month that FBI headquarters did not act on a memo last July from its Arizona office warning there were a large number of Arabs seeking pilot, security and airport operations training at at least one U.S. flight school and which urged a check of all flight schools to identify more possible Middle Eastern students.

A section of that classified memo also makes a passing reference to bin Laden, speculating that al-Qaida and other such groups could organize such flight training, officials said.

AP-NY-05-16-02 1232EDT

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

[roadcat]

Conveniently forgotten is that our Transportation Secretary is a Democrat! Norm Mineta. He was not doing his job! He was fully informed of the threat last summer, and did nothing to increase security and prevent any hijackings! Bush may be the President, but his Transportation Secretary had marching orders to beef up security and Mineta was asleep at his post!

Mineta ought to be fired, and that's the last Democrat that should be brought into a high-level position. Shame on the Demos!

[McGavin999]

Yep, and people who move to New York are warned about being mugged, and people who live in Phoenix are warned about car theft.

Before 9-11 a plane being hijacked meant the people were taken hostage, if they stayed quietly in their seats they would live. Of course, NOW we know that's not true, but even on 9-11 the passengers were thinking of hijacks in the same old way or they never would have sat quietly as they flew into the towers.

[aShepard]

Good time line. Connect the dots!

[dead]

Woods report to the flight attendents was basically "Those four middle-eastern guys acted funny on my flight."

I don't think the fact that his admittedly keen observation didn't make it from the stewardess to the upper echelons of our admittedly inept intelligence services is particularly relevant.

It's sorta like when you know a guy in high school and you say "He's like a serial killer." After he becomes one, the person you made the observation to isn't exactly morally culpable for ignoring you.

[RedWhiteBlue]

IIRC, Woods alerted the flight attendant who had also noticed the 4 characters. She alerted the captain, and she and the captain made a report to the FAA. After 9/11, he was questioned by the FBI.

FROM THE ROANOAKE JOURNAL:

Actor Woods Fingered 9-11 Kamikaze Terrorists on Previous Flight

Actor James Woods revealed Thursday night that at least two of the al-Qaeda kamikaze terrorists who slammed commercial jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon five months ago were on a flight he took to California a month earlier.

"The flight I took was actually on August 1," said Woods, who spoke publicly about the encounter for the first time on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor."

After spotting four Arab-looking men with no carry-on luggage who seemed to be behaving suspiciously, he took action.

"I took it upon myself to go to the flight attendant and asked to speak to the pilot of the plane," Woods said. "The first officer came out. I reported to him that I felt that these four men ... I said, 'I think they're going to hijack this plane.'

"I found out later that not only did he make a report but the flight attendant also made a report of my suspicions to the FAA," he added.

Woods said that when he got home that night friends asked how his flight went. He replied jokingly, "Well, aside from the terrorists and the turbulence, it was fine."

Though nothing came of his vigilance for the next 40 days, Woods said that on the morning after the attacks, the FBI was outside his house waiting to talk to him at 7:15 a.m.

"Since then I have identified for sure two of them [on my flight] as two of the terrorists who actually were not on Flight 11, but one was on Flight 175 and one was on Flight 77."

United Airlines Flight 77 slammed into Tower Two of the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m. on 9-11. American Airlines Flight 175 hit the Pentagon some 45 minutes later.

Woods said that someone "in a higher level of government" has told him that all four of the Middle Eastern men he observed in August participated in the 9-11 attacks in some way.

The politically conservative actor said that earlier accounts suggesting he reported the suspected terrorists to the FBI before 9-11 - and that the bureau failed to take his report seriously - were erroneous. Woods said instead that the flight crew may have made an FBI report.

A secondhand account of Woods' encounter with the 9-11 terrorists first surfaced in Cindy Adams' New York Post column just days after the attacks. (See: Twin Towers Terrorists May Have Made Dry Run)

But Woods himself has never publicly described the chilling encounter before.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Be easy on him. Some of us subscribe to AOL for the benefit of less computer-adept spouses.

[JayNorth]

So you are now going to accept evidence from Hollywood actors and call it golden?

James Woods is one of the good guys not some flaky Hollywood type.

[toupsie]

PS Please NEVER take a job with the FBI - we need people who act on reports.

According to your perception, I couldn't work for the FBI, I am competent.

[linn37]

Bush in a interview with the Washington Post told about the alert he had put out in late summer,this article is not accurate.

[Rome2000]

Sheesh the scandal here is that you waste $23.95 a month.

Is that how much those AOL retards are charging these days?

The good news is AOL stock is tanking.

Most people with a brain can see this is trumped up partisan BS.

The rats can't do anything beyond asking for an investigation, and that will be the end of it.

It's not like they can all pull a McKinney and accuse W of deliberate inaction to line his pockets.

The rats are gonna get spanked worse than in 1994, people are tired of their hysterical un-American nonsense.

[Rome2000]

Remember that some of the terrorists on the plane didn't even know what was going on according to videotaped statements of Usama.

Good one!

[Lucas1]

WTF this story just PISSES me off...this entire thing on CNN is pathetic. The Bush Adminstration DID WARN THE AMERICAN PUBLIC ON THAT FRIDAY...THERE WAS A TRAVEL WARNING PUT OUT...I KNOW...I LIVE ABROAD...IT WAS CARRIED ON CNN...IT WA S A WARNING OF POSSIBLE TERRORIST ATTACKS.....

Give me a break...there WAS a warning. The media is LYING. Why is Bush not FIGHTING back FULL FORCE

[ahmedtousay1]

Grab/download these links before they vanish!

What the Clinton adminstration did do according to the reports was extensive.. Following the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the new president sent stringent anti-terrorism legislation to Congress as part of his first crime bill, including new deportation powers and a federal death penalty for terrorists.

In 1996, Mr. Clinton once again sent anti-terror legislation to the Republican-controlled congress yet key parts were not passed by Congress. Their reasons were that they felt the parts infringed on civil liberties. Interestingly, those parts not passed in 1996 were passed after 9/11. (http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/30/clinton.terrorism/) (http://www.cdt.org/policy/terrorism/cnss_habeas.html)

Also in 1996, President Clinton signed Airport Security measures into law (http://www.cnn.com/US/9610/09/faa/) based upon wide-ranging security measures recommended by Vice President Al Gore's aviation security commission (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17818-2001Dec9?language=printer). Interestingly, key senators on the Senate Aviation Subcommittee shot down mandated changes recommended by Gore and the White House and instead urged "further study." (Eight of the nine Republicans on the subcommittee had received contributions from the major airlines.)

"Among those attacking the Gore Commission recommendations, incidentally, was the New Republic, which noted that "two billion dollars a year to guard against terrorism and sabotage" would amount to "a cost per life saved of well over $300 million." The cost of such libertarian dogma must now be measured in thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars." (salon.com)

On 20 August 1998, President Clinton amended Executive Order 12947 to add Usama Bin Laden and his key associates to the list of terrorists, thus blocking their US assets--including property and bank accounts--and prohibiting all US financial transactions with them. The Washington Post, among others, reported. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/eafricabombing/stories/strikes082398.htm)

The United States conducted a bombing run -- Operation Infinite Reach -- against bin Laden's facilities there on 20 August 1998.

President Clinton took additional steps as outlined in this executive order dated July 1999 (http://www.afghanradio.com/special/us_sanction_july41999.htm) and as announced in the world media - such as Radio Free Europe (http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/07/F.RU.990707135633.html)

This second report, known as the Hart-Rudman report, was completed in late 2000 and submitted to the Bush administration in January, 2001. But the Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh. (http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/)At the same time, he proposed to cut FEMA's budget by $200 million. Bush said that day that Cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and "I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts." Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place.

Remember John O'Neill ... He died for you ... http://www.rememberjohn.com

[Joe Hadenuf]

One Bush associate quoted the president as saying ''no one knew'' that bin Laden was plotting to make the leap from traditional hijackings to the highly sophisticated suicide attacks on U.S. landmarks. ''No one passed (that type of information) to me,'' Bush was quoted as saying.

There is no such thing as a traditional airline hijacking!

Look, our intelligence has known for years that these people are fanatics and are willing to die for their causes. Many planes have been hijacked, many people have died and planes have been blown to f-ing pieces.

We pay the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc, billions every year in taxes. Do you think it crossed the minds of those in our intelligence communites that these hugh, fuel filled, jet aircraft could be used as weapons? OF COURSE IT HAS! Come on people!

The president was advised of this very real threat, and apparently everyone else in DC was advised too.

Why were American pilots not IMMEDIATELY armed or at least given access to weapons in the cockpits? Why where sky marshals not put on as many GD flights as possible?

These would have been very basic, common sense, immediate measures to counter an attack.

This is a total, complete failure of our leadership. The same reason we have millions upon millions of illegal aliens from all over the Earth crawling all over our country. It's a complete failure of American leadership!

[MasonGal]

I PRAY you are correct.

This has been so upsetting to me all day. Those RATS are making me SICK!!!

[jrlc]

The RATS want to open this can of worms -- but they better be careful -- the stink inside comes from Clinton who did nothing to fight terrorism internationally in 8 years -- he was too busy getting BJs in the Oval Office, too busy promoting gays in the military, too busy having his picture taken with the Arab*RAT while his wife kissed Mrs Arab*FAT, too busy assigning Janet Rhino to deport children back to the Cuban dictator and his nondemocratic society. If the DNC really wants an investigation, lets go back to the first attack on the WTC and see who knew what when.

[ottersnot]

Yes, I agree Toups. Anyone who does not see that the Dems have been saving
this one up is Blinder than the CNN executive that thinks CNN is unbiased.
They will have more surprised no doubt. They can't come up with any agenda items to improve our
country, but boy can they throw the unproven manure.

I say make these Hacks pay. Have all the Republican members of congress hold an Impeachment aftermath style group grope on the white house lawn calling
these hacks on their baseless accusation. You all remember Gore saying Clinton is our greatest pres. That's the press meeting I'm referring to.
Put it in the bluntest terms. The dems and Dasshole are accusing Bush of being an accomplice to the 911 tragedy. Thats it in a nutshell. Make them backpeddle, and explain to their constituents that they aren't doing this. They are. I am steamed. Al Gore election Stealing Steamed. AOL needs a good freepin.

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

I could believe this if it were Bill Clinton BUT NOT GEORGE W. BUSH!

[VRWCmember]

He made the report on 9/11, after the attacks.

I believe he said he expressed his concerns at the time to the flight attendant and airport security after he arrived on the left coast. I think both dismissed his concerns as paranoia or possibly bigotry/racial profiling.

[Mo1]

Just look at what the millions of AOL SHEEPLE are seeing as the lead in when they sign in. Bush has got to put a kabosh to this ASAP!!!

Thanks for Posting this Registered .. When I saw that screen this moring I always blew a gasket .. I don't think I have been this ticked off since the election mess in 2000