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WASHINGTON, Jun 03, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- The CIA has created a paramilitary unit to deal specifically with terrorists overseas, U.S. officials said Monday. The unit "is taking the fight to terrorists in sanctuaries such as Afghanistan," one official said, declining to identify what other countries it is operating in. The official said the unit is drawing personnel from the CIA's existing paramilitary force, which is a part of the agency's Special Activities Division, which conducts covert operations. Johnny "Mike" Spann, the CIA officer killed in November in Afghanistan, was a member of that force. The size of...

<p>They might have been surprised by the ferocity of the attacks, but the highest-ranking members of the George W. Bush administration knew before Sept. 11 that something terrible was going to happen soon.</p> <p>Bush knew something was going to happen involving airplanes. He just didn't know what or exactly when. His attorney general, John Ashcroft, knew. His national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, knew. They all knew.</p>

A new problem just discovered post September 11th? No, not at all. A partial list of the charges damning the nation’s premier law enforcement agency goes back two decades, and includes: Misconduct involving lab work and evidence Failing to find traitors within its own ranks Losing 449 guns, and 184 laptop computers with secret information Agents who leave their weapons in bars or on the seats of taxicabs “Errors” at Waco and at Ruby Ridge resulting in the needless deaths of innocents Failure to heed warnings from agents in the field regarding suspicious and potential terrorist activity Permitting technology, like...

The CIA tracked two suspected terrorists to a Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000, then looked on as they re-entered America and began preparations for September 11. Inside what may be the worst intelligence failure of all. A NEWSWEEK exclusiveBy Michael Isikoff and Daniel KlaidmanKuala Lumpur is an easy choice if you’re looking to lie low. Clean and modern, with reliable telephones, banks and Internet service, the Malaysian city is a painless flight from most world capitals—and Muslim visitors don’t need visas to enter the Islamic country. That may explain why Al Qaeda chose the sprawling metropolis for a...

<p>The CIA was tracking two of the September 11 hijackers for nearly two years and knew they had entered the United States, but didn't inform the FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service or the State Department, key federal officials say.</p>

ASHINGTON, 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...

<p>ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - Zacarias Moussaoui seems to grow in importance as he sits in jail, filing court motions that are kept secret by a judge's order.</p> <p>The only man charged as a Sept. 11 conspirator has become a symbol of the government's failure to piece together clues to the attacks.</p>

SINCE THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION is ready to send George Tenet, director of central intelligence, to the Middle East in an effort to rekindle security talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, it's time to ask, Why? Haven't we gone down this road before, and don't we know--even if we understandably choose not to confess--that the CIA unintentionally aided and abetted Palestinian terrorism against Israelis? If Tenet's mission leads to the CIA's helping Yasser Arafat rebuild and improve the Palestinian Authority's intelligence and security apparatus--which is what Langley had been doing, first quietly, then openly, after the Oslo accords--how can the...

DAY OF INFAMY, 2001Agent: FBI could have prevented 9-11Whistleblower claims upper management stymied terror investigations By: Jon Dougherty © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com An FBI special agent says upper managers inside the agency stifled investigations into terrorist organizations that he says could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks. Agent Robert Wright told Fox News in an interview last night that "mismanagement" and "obstruction" at the agency's Chicago field office thwarted his attempts to investigate the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas, as well as Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network, both operating here in the United States. Wright, who is represented by the Washington,...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A key Senate Democrat predicted Sunday that congressional inquiries into intelligence failures before the September 11 attacks would reveal "a pattern" of investigators failing to share key information.</p> <p>"There were a number of bits and pieces, and they weren't put together," Sen. Diane Feinstein said on CNN's "Late Edition." "There were several things that could have been investigated, had investigation been looked at as a way to go, which it wasn't."</p>

The media and the public love a reformer. This may explain the reaction this week to a 13-page letter from FBI agent Coleen Rowley criticizing the investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui. Rowley has been portrayed by national publications such as Time magazine in almost breathless terms as a cross between Martin Luther and Annie Oakley. What is astonishing is how little of her memo actually has been read or quoted beyond its most sensational suggestions, such as the notion that Rowley and her colleagues might have been able to prevent one or more of the Sept. 11 attacks. Rowley's criticism of...

June 10 — Kuala Lumpur is an easy choice if you’re looking to lie low. Clean and modern, with reliable telephones, banks and Internet service, the Malaysian city is a painless flight from most world capitals—and Muslim visitors don’t need visas to enter the Islamic country. That may explain why Al Qaeda chose the sprawling metropolis for a secret planning summit in early January 2000. Tucked away in a posh suburban condominium overlooking a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, nearly a dozen of Osama bin Laden’s trusted followers, posing as tourists, plotted future terrorist strikes against the United States. AT THE...

<p>June 2, 2002 -- One of the FBI's greatest challenges to reinvent itself will be to hire highly skilled staff away from more lucrative jobs in the private sector, insiders say.</p> <p>FBI Director Robert Mueller last week outlined major changes in the bureau that included a drive for 900 recruits with college degrees and expertise in languages, engineering, chemistry, physics, piloting and computers.</p>

<p>The FBI's shortage of Arabic translators has left thousands of hours of new undercover intelligence tapes collecting dust, The Post has learned.</p> <p>Since Sept. 11, FBI cooperators have taped hundreds of conversations with suspected Muslim fanatics in a variety of locations across the United States as part of the search for hidden terror cells and their secret plans.</p>

<p>"I get very, very queasy when federal law enforcement is effectively going back to the bad old days when the FBI was spying on people like Martin Luther King," Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin said yesterday on CNN's "Novak, Hunt & Shields.</p>

According to the media, it's the biggest makeover at the FBI since J Edgar Hoover swapped his grey suit and snap-brimmed hat for a fluffy black dress with flounces, lace stockings, high heels, false eyelashes and a long curly wig. Allegedly. Just as hard evidence of Hoover's transvestism is non-existent, so the much-ballyhooed "new look" at the Bureau is for the moment just a lot of talk.That the FBI needs to change is not in doubt: throughout the summer of 2001, memos about Arab radicals taking flying lessons were tossed in the deep-freeze at HQ and never seen again until...

Clinton Nixed Plan to Infiltrate al Qaeda, Top FBI Whistle-Blower Says A presidential executive order issued during the Clinton administration hamstrung the FBI so badly that bureau lawyers decided it would be illegal to infiltrate Osama bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, a senior FBI official during the Clinton administration said Saturday. Former Deputy Assistant FBI Director Daniel Coulson fingered the Clinton White House in the decision to pass up what could have been an al Qaeda intelligence bonanza, during an interview on Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" morning show. ALLISON CAMMARATA: This morning we've also been talking...

Wary of Risk, Slow to Adapt, F.B.I. Stumbles in Terror WarSat Jun 1, 2:54 PM ETBy DON VAN NATTA Jr. and DAVID JOHNSTON The New York Times WASHINGTON, June 1 When the director of the F.B.I., Robert S. Mueller III, acknowledged on Wednesday that the agency had missed warning signals on terrorism, he stunned many Americans. But his acknowledgment was not news to some veterans of the agency or lawmakers who now say they treated the F.B.I. with too much deference for too many years. These officials say the F.B.I., despite efforts to strengthen its counterterrorism programs over the last...

Undisputedly, the FBI needs major reorganization and updated ground-rules on initiating investigations. However, in many aspects, some reports are starting to sound like déjà vu all over again. Growing up in a large Polish-Russian neighborhood back in the 1950s, many residents were relatively new arrivals or first generation Americans. They were here because they had fled their homeland from the communists and/or the Nazis. Generally speaking, they were a hard working and happy lot and, even with the economic problems of the time, life was quite pleasant for us back then. The FBI, however, acted like we were a bunch...

When all the second guessing is said and done, the American people will agree on this conclusion: Sept. 11 could have been avoided. We may disagree on who is most to blame and why. We may disagree on how to avoid similar tragedies in the future. But eventually the evidence will lead us to a single proposition: that the federal government failed at the one thing the U.S. Constitution says is its overriding responsibility -- a common defense against foreign enemies. Think about it. What are the issues that have preoccupied our federal leaders in recent decades? Education, crime, welfare...