U.S. Intercepting Messages Hinting at a New Attack

The New York Times ^ | 5/18/02 (for editions of 5/19/02) | James Risen and David Johnston

[GeneD]

WASHINGTON, May 18 — American intelligence agencies have intercepted a vague yet troubling series of communications among Al Qaeda operatives over the last few months indicating that the terrorist organization is trying to carry out an operation as big as or bigger than the Sept. 11 attacks, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.

But just as last summer's threats left counterterrorism analysts guessing about Al Qaeda's intentions, and believing that the attack might be carried out overseas, the new interceptions are so general that they have left President Bush and his counterterrorism team in the dark about the time, place or method of what some officials refer to as a second-wave attack. As a result, the government is essentially limited to taking broad defensive measures.

"It's again not specific — not specific as to time, not specific as to place," one senior administration official said.

The officials compared the intercepted messages, which they described as cryptic and ambiguous, to the pattern of those picked up last spring and early summer, when Qaeda operatives were also overheard talking about a big operation. Those signals were among the evidence that intelligence agencies presented to President Bush in August about the possibility of an imminent attack against the United States.

The senior official said Friday that the amount of intelligence relating to another possible attack, in Europe, the Arabian Peninsula or the United States, had increased in the last month. Some of it comes from interviews with fighters captured in Afghanistan.

But despite the disruption of Al Qaeda's operations around the world since Sept. 11, and despite major spending increases and shifts of resources to counterterrorism operations, American officials say they have not been able to fully piece together the clues about Al Qaeda's plans.

"There's just a lot of chatter in the system again," the official said. "We are actively pursuing it and trying to see what's going on here."

The government's frustration underscores the problem in fighting an unconventional foe like Al Qaeda.

Interviews with law enforcement and intelligence officials suggest that in the eight months since Sept. 11 the government has made only limited progress in its ability to predict Al Qaeda's next move, and that many proposed improvements in counterterrorism operations have yet to be put into effect.

This is despite considerable advantages that the United States lacked a year ago. The war in Afghanistan has provided a wealth of new information about Al Qaeda's structure and organization, for example.

In addition, the United States is also interrogating captured Qaeda fighters about the organization's plans. Officials say that debriefings of detainees have in some instances provided general warnings of another major attack that dovetail with the threats picked up in the intercepted communication traffic.

Facing intense criticism in recent days over disclosures that a series of possible clues about Al Qaeda's plans fell through the cracks in the months leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, officials say that some significant changes have been made in the way threat information is studied and circulated within the upper reaches of the Bush administration.

For the first time, the C.I.A. and F.B.I. now compare notes on all terrorist threat information that comes in each day, filtering the intelligence through what they call an analytical "matrix" to determine which threats are the most credible and deserve the most attention. Their daily threat report is distributed to senior policy makers, including the White House director of homeland security, Tom Ridge. It provides a structure for debates among senior officials about whether to issue public threat warnings.

President Bush also now receives daily briefings from both the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, are frequently present during those White House sessions. That way, each agency is able to hear the other's latest advice to the president. Before Sept. 11, he received a daily briefing only from the C.I.A.

Although officials say some potential attacks have been foiled, that has been largely credited to the arrest of terrorist operatives overseas by foreign governments rather than to intelligence gleaned from intercepted communications.

United States intelligence officials said that they began to intercept communications among Qaeda operatives discussing a second major attack in October, and that they have detected recurring talk among them about another attack ever since. Some of the intercepted communications have included frightening references to attacks that the Qaeda operatives say would cause vast numbers of American casualties.

The intercepted communications don't point to any detailed plans for an attack, and even the messages mentioning mass casualties don't refer specifically to the use of weapons of mass destruction like chemical, biological or nuclear devices.

Still, American officials say they believe the intercepts represent some of the most credible intelligence they have received since Sept. 11 about Al Qaeda's intentions. They have provided a troubling undercurrent for the Bush administration as it tries to sort through the hundreds of other terrorist threat warnings it has received over the past few months.

The pattern of intercepted communications that began last October has helped prompt at least five public threat alerts issued by the F.B.I. since last fall.

By contrast, federal law enforcement and intelligence officials say they have been skeptical of many of the far more specific threats they have received from individual informants over the past few months. One of the problems now facing American counterterrorism experts is that they say communications intercepts, while vaguely worded, are often highly credible threat warnings, while the very detailed and specific threats passed on by individual informants are often far less reliable.

Individual informants who approach American investigators in the United States or overseas often know what kind of story will get the biggest reaction. They also often come forward because of hidden motives, perhaps hoping for money or entrance into the United States. The C.I.A. routinely gives its informants polygraph tests in an effort to validate their stories.

But officials say that in some cases they have been forced to take tales told by informants more seriously than they otherwise might, at least in part because officials suspect from the intercepted communications that Al Qaeda is planning something big.

In recent months, officials have issued threat alerts regarding nuclear plants, financial institutions and even specific structures like the Seattle Space Needle and the Golden Gate Bridge, even as some counterterrorism experts privately regarded those threats as not based on solid intelligence.

Some officials say the government's new color-coded threat alert system is less useful than the system it replaced, because it is subject to political influences from appointees who are fearful of being criticized if they fail to pass on every possible threat, no matter how remote.

Yet even as the less credible threats have been widely publicized, the more worrisome and credible undercurrent of intercepted communications has not been made public.

In hindsight, analysts now view the pattern of intercepted communications they saw last May, June and July as a sign of the impending attacks. Those intercepts, coming after embassy bombings in Africa and the suicidal bombing of a Navy ship in an Arabian port, were sometimes alarming.

Their references to mass attacks against American interests prompted a series of public alerts against possible terrorist attacks last summer, including one concerning a possible strike over the Fourth of July holiday. Officials said that they never had any evidence that an attack would occur inside the United States, and instead focused most of their attention on possible strikes against American facilities in the Middle East, Europe or Asia.

After the summer holiday passed quietly without any attacks, American analysts were relieved, but still believed that an attack might be coming. However, they lacked any further details of where or when the strike might come, and some officials began to think that the immediate danger might have passed. Now that analysts are seeing a similar pattern of communications intercepts, they say they are determined to avoid a repeat of that mistake.

[FreeTheHostages]

You're wrong about law and order. Law and order is for everyone's benefit. And in a democracy, we should right the laws. This us v. the government stuff is for kids. I'm not big on arguing through quotes. So here's one I made up: "We'll make ourselves the government, and the first civil liberty we establish is our liberty, thus achieved by discriminating/profiling very much against the British." Join the American experiment: democracy, we the people.

[KirkandBurke]

Did they teach you that in Beijing?

[Kerberos]

" It's really too bad, because, even without details, this will obviously further alert Al Qaeda that their messages are being overheard, and even how much they are being overheard."

Exactly, this latest attack by the press corp. on the Bush Administration is putting the administration in the position of getting to much information out to keep the liberal\socialists from being able to make a political issue out of their handling of intelligence.

IMHO this latest attack by the press is putting our national security at risk.

[WVNan]

Remember all the bomb and airline terrorist attacks that we had or thwarted? Remember WTC #1? Now go read all the cyanide threads and connect the dots. There are too many cyanide incidents to be coincidental. They are planning something with the cyanide. Of course they killed six of their own in the process as usual.

[Kerberos]

"How about send all Moslems back to their country of origin, and don't let them out until they can abide by the rules of civilized societies? "

So, in other words, in a couple of hundred years?

[Kerberos]

"I wanted to start my own airline that didn't allow Muslims."

DELTA (Don't Even Let Them Aboard)

[ET(end tyranny)]

Already been hundreds of years.

[Kerberos]

"Already been hundreds of years."

Ah darn, well guess that plan didn't work. Time to move on to something more permanent

[Washington_minuteman]

So I misunderstood you and you failed to clarify until now. It's kinda difficult to decern your perspective from your one-liner. Virtulally every post I've read, on every thread, where that word rears it's ugly head, eventually, what it boils down to is that profiling by Bush administration officials is okay because Bush can do no wrong. My response to your one-liner was based on your sweeping generalization and failure to define the "who" that should be doing all this profiling.

Instead of name-calling like this:

"What the hell are you talking about? If you think government brnigs safety, you ARE an idiot. If you prefer security over freedom, you deserve neither. I suggest you take your hot-shot ass back up and read a little, smart-ass.";

Granted, this could imply that you don't like the government profiling, but, I found it a bit difficult to take seriously, considering the vernacular you used. Reads to me more like: 'I don't know you. You're trying to contridict me. Go eat sh*t and die'. Instead, all you had to do was just clairified your statement. Something along the lines of: 'Oh no, not that; not them, us, we should do it ...', would have done the trick, with a lot less irritation on both sides. Look at the posts from many of those who responded to you in agreement. Quite a few sure read like an affirmation for government profiling. The poster who called you a racist, post #3, didn't rate such a response. Maybe he'll try harder, next time. Besides, you were reply #2. No way to go "up" from there, except back to the article. My response was #42. Your response was #91. Not much from you between #2 and #91 that I see as clarification. Many people make the mistake of sometimes responding to an initial post, without reading the entire thread first. I think it's natural. That's one of the reasons the system shows you which post in the thread is being replied to. The idea is to avoid misunderstandings.

Nevertheless, what does anything but government profiling do for you? The last time I recall an airline pilot, for example, "profiling" anyone, everybody from the President on down wanted to crucify him for being "anti-Arab". I think that effectively squelched "profiling" by private individuals, your grocer and neighbors included.

Still, I don't care for profiling even by private individuals. The ka-ka will hit the proverbial fan the first time some patriotic citizen profiler murders a Christian Arab, thinking he's eliminating just another terrorist. You think I'm what's wrong with FR, eh? Some might consider you to be a hothead; prone to jump the gun and take things out of context. What about the guys in another related thread who want to profile the Arabs and then shoot them? They are not all Islamics (that's the real danger, not being Arab). Being careful with what you write will avoid finding yourself lumped in with that crowd; unintentionally, of course, I would hope.

You asked why I was so insistant? Because you were not clear and specific. I did reread your posts, the first one, which I quoted above, surprized me, quite frankly. Such a venomous response. I didn't call you names, yet you took it so personally.

I have never claimed to "know it all", but unless one makes clear and specific statements, one is almost forced to make some assumptions. I don't claim to be "always right", either. Sometimes, it takes a little while to ferret out all the information necessary to arrive at a correct conclusion. Look how long it's taken in this case, and still you cannot help but resort to name-calling and inuuendo. Is that how you expect people to take you seriously? Anyhow, I think this nonsense has gone on long enough. You and I miscommunicated, period. Now, that has been corrected and that should be enough. If not, click on the "Abuse" button and see if JR will ban me from posting.

[Washington_minuteman]

"Why do you think it is A OR B instead of A AND B?"

It's the way it's worded.

802(5) is the preamble to the section which ends with the expression "that--". This leads into 802(5)(A). Run (A) and (B) together, as an experiment. The grammer does not place (B) after (A), but as a seperate thought, as in "... that-- appear to be intended--".

802(5)(B) is subdivided within itself as (i), (ii), and (iii).

If it was intended to be (A) and/or (B), it should have been written like this (using your text - I trust you copied it correctly):

"...(5) the term `domestic terrorism' means activities that-- `(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, and/or; `(B) appear to be intended-- `(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; `(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or `(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and"

Without that little and/or bit, (A) is a thought, seperate and apart from (B).

[Washington_minuteman]

"Anyway, do you happen to belong to the Constitution Party or the Independent American Party?"

No, sorry, I don't belong to any parties. I thought once, several years ago, that I might to join the Constitution Party, but when I saw stuff on their web site that indicated to me that they were trying to attract the "THIS IS NOT ME", "This is the Real Me" crowd, I shied away from them, and haven't looked since. It's too easy these days to be accused of "Violating Federal [Insert Your Crime Here] Laws". Too many of those folks warming cells in federal prisons. I suppose I should check back with them and see if they have moved away from that stuff.

I usually vote for the candidate with a record that demonstraits support for constitutional values and takes the side of the Constitution in all disputes. Usually, it ends up being the Libertarian candidate, unless that person can't stop talking about making drugs legal (another topic altogether). In that case, Alfred E. Newman gets my vote.

I'm not familiar with the Independent American Party, so I can't say anything about them, except that a party of independents, doesn't sound very independent to me :-)

[Principled]

I have never claimed to "know it all", but unless one makes clear and specific statements, one is almost forced to make some assumptions.

This is the crux of your problem. Rather than ask, "do you mean prolifing by government?", you assumed such. You are never forced to make assumptions when you can ask questions in lieu of assuming. You sound like the guy who's found guilty of a crime and says, "don't ya see, I had to do it!"

You assumed something in my post that wasn't there. You projected your omniscience onto my post to ascertain a meaning other than what is typed. This is why you rate "know it all". The further "always right" derives from the energy you spend trying to prove to yourself that it must be someone else's error, not yours, that creates the misunderstanding. How about, "the post is not clear to me in regards to who would be performing the profiling, could you elaborate?" instead of the condescension in your post #42 that assumes (or invents) something that isn't there.

Bye.

[Don Myers]

"...they have left President Bush and his counterterrorism team in the dark about the time, place or method of what some officials refer to as a second-wave attack. "

Oh, well, pass the gray poupon, please.

[Don Myers]

"Dammit. Protect my family... PROFILE!!"

Now, now. We must not offend our Muslim brothers. We would not want anyone to feel they are not welcome in our glorious, diversified nation. We must understand their feelings and needs. After all, they are just trying to make a better life for their loved ones. They come here to get better jobs, send their kids to school, and just live better. Of course, if they have to kill every one of us to do it, its in their Koran to kill all unbelievers, so it isn't against their religion.

[Don Myers]

"And get rid of ALL illegal students."

I wonder just much rioting there would be on campuses around the nation if we did that. There would be quite a few brainwashed students burning down their campuses.

[Principled]

Of course, if they have to kill every one of us to do it, its in their Koran ...

PEACE: noun; the absence of resistance to Islam.

[Don Myers]

"I say, give'm the Holy War they seek!"

You may see that if there is one more attack. I say, MAY. Of course, you might also see our Prez urging the people to stay calm and not blame the Muslims for what a few radicals are doing. And, then, more Muslim Clerics would be invited to the White House for tea and crumpets. BTW, has anyone seen Christian Clerics invited to the White House?

[Don Myers]

"For me, no thanks. I'll protect my family, myself."

While I agree with you, I don't really believe in this "Army of One" nonsense. It would be nice to have a little help from others. Things like closing the borders and policing the aliens among us do not seem like such a chore if the government really wanted to help protect the citizens.

[Don Myers]

"Lest things get REALLY OUT OF CONTROL after the next major attack on US soil. "

We have a Muslim Cultural Center in Sioux Falls. The Muslims were demonstrating one day not long ago. One sign was about not using helicopters in attacks against Muslims. I wonder what they would do after another attack on US soil, and what Americans might do to them.