Posted on 05/16/2002 12:57:47 PM PDT by Dallas
WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- The most senior Democratic lawmaker said Thursday he was "gravely concerned" that President George W. Bush was warned of possible terrorist airline hijackings before Sept. 11, because the White House had given the impression the attacks that day came as a complete surprise.
"It clearly raises some important questions that have to be asked and have to be answered," said Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
Daschle called on the White House "today" to release documents and a transcript of that briefing as well as the text of a July 2001 memo from the FBI's Phoenix field office recommending an investigation into foreigners training at U.S. flight schools because of links of some such students to indicted terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The United States believes bin Laden ordered the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998 and the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington last September.
Daschle said reports that Bush might have known more than he has indicated until now warranted a broad investigation.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer on Thursday said that "throughout the summer -- beginning in May -- the government received heightened reporting on threats to U.S. interests or territory" and Bush was briefed at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in the first week of August. But the "president did not receive any information about the possibility of use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers."
Fleischer said, "All appropriate action was taken based on the threat of information we had," but he called the intelligence general and not dissimilar to a long history of threats naming bin Laden and his al Qaida network.
Fleischer said U.S. airlines were warned, but could not provide reporters with any details of specific actions taken at U.S. airports. Several media reports said some air carriers denied they had been warned.
Lawmakers, including several Republicans, were critical of the White House for not being forthcoming with this information. On Thursday, the president sent national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to brief members of Congress and Fleischer said that Rice would also be available for a briefing for the news media.
But Daschle said an investigation into the events prior to Sept. 11 should be expanded beyond the House and Senate Intelligence committees, perhaps to an independent commission similar to the one that investigated the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Daschle said he believed the investigation should be broadened despite several requests from Vice President Dick Cheney that Congress not launch any investigation at all.
Last month, Fleischer dismissed a question about what the president might have known about potential terror attacks prior to Sept. 11. In an April 12 briefing, Fleischer responded to a question about Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., who in an interview with a Berkeley, Calif. radio station had called for an investigation into whether President Bush had notice of possible terror attacks before Sept. 11.
"All I can tell you is the congresswoman must be running for the hall of fame of the Grassy Knoll Society," Fleischer told reporters, referring to conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
"I really don't have anything to say that would lend any credibility to what she said."
Three of the men U.S. officials say were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 had studied at aviation schools in the United States.
Zacarias Moussaoui, a 33-year-old French citizen, was arrested by the FBI in August in Minnesota after a flight school became suspicious and reported him to authorities. Moussaoui, originally held on immigration charges, is under indictment in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks and is awaiting trial.
A joint panel of the House and Senate intelligence committees has begun investigating why the United States was caught off guard on Sept. 11 when four jetliners were hijacked. Two of the aircraft were crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York and another into the Pentagon near Washington. Apparently efforts by passengers aboard the fourth jetliner thwarted hijackers' efforts to hit another target -- believed to be either the White House or U.S. Capitol -- but resulted in the plane crashing in rural western Pennsylvania.
Wednesday, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the Justice Department's inspector general to investigate how the FBI handled an internal warning last summer that terrorists might be taking flight lessons in the United States. Grassley wrote Inspector General Glenn Fine that the FBI's "credibility is at risk."
Grassley asked for an investigation into how the FBI handled a July 2001 memo from the FBI's Phoenix field office recommending the bureau keep an eye on flight schools, obtain visa information on enrolled pilots and coordinate a nationwide investigation.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate panel last week that memo likely did not make it to high levels of the FBI or the CIA and that the agency should have made it a higher priority.
"This memo has emerged as one of the most significant and alarming warnings that the FBI had before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001," Grassley wrote to the inspector general. "It is essential that there be an outside review of this matter by your office to answer all outstanding questions, ensure accountability at the FBI and reaffirm the trust of the American people."
In a separate letter Wednesday, Grassley also called on Mueller to make the memo available to the public.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., this week sent 19 pages of questions to Bush administration officials, mostly for Mueller, about U.S. intelligence actions prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The questions posed by Leahy seek facts about:
-- How the FBI handled the July 2001 Phoenix memo.
-- Information on the August 2001 arrest of Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker," particularly FBI efforts to obtain information from Moussaoui, his computer and his apartment.
-- Facts about a warning from French intelligence officials at least 10 days before Sept. 11 that Moussaoui had connections to radical Islamic extremists.
-- News reports that in 1995 Filipino authorities warned the FBI that a Middle Eastern pilot trained at a U.S. flight school had proposed crashing a jet into federal buildings.
-- How the FBI handled information that potential terrorists had taken advantage of U.S. flight schools. The FBI confirmed for United Press International this week that some individuals mentioned in the July 2001 Phoenix memo were not involved in the Sept. 11 attacks and are still under investigation.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, is also seeking a personal meeting with Attorney General John Ashcroft, for this week if possible, to demand "cooperation with enthusiasm" instead of "cooperation out of grudging necessity" on that committee's investigation. Republicans on the committee agree with Graham.
--
(Mark Benjamin is UPI's Congressional Bureau Chief and Nicholas M. Horrock is the Chief White House Correspondent. White House correspondents Richard Tomkins and Kathy Gambrell contributed to this report.)
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
Or, perhaps, the demoIDIOTs are looking for the own "Whitewater"? Of course, they thought Enrongate was it too.
Poor lil' Tommy, he is so pathetic!
The liberal co-worker is sputtering "well, uh, what can you do, nothing specific there in the alert." Ha-ha, love turning the tables on the dems.
It has been mentioned several times....once again today by Dr. Rice, that the Senate and House Intel committes and the Senate and House leadership got pretty much the same briefings the Pres got before 9/11...... ........SO WHY DIDN'T THOSE PUTZES SOUND THE ALARM?????
Stupid is as stupid does.
Stupid is as stupid does.
We can't expect the press to care about "fairness" or truth. They will never give a Republican President fair press...they didn't for Reagan and today's world is far more corrupt, people more cruel and immature.
We can spread the truth and work to inform enough people that, like in the case of Newsweek and Lewinsky/Clinton, the mainstream press can no longer remain silent without appearing the bigger fools...that took a year.
From what I saw today, The Intelligence Committee needs a little name change. Any ideas freep friends? How about the Lack of Brains Committee? The dems are just going to get a backlash from this.
And, Puff has concerned me for a long time. The House does all the work and what for? Why are we paying Congressman to go to Washington if the Senate continues to DO NOTHING? Every time Puff is Puff, we lose out AND PUFF CONCERNS ME EVERY DAY.
Had these same continually elected dems called for investigations for those acts of war or had their potus taken his oath of office seriously, how would things stand today?
Catch Hannity & Colmes Friday night. This guy knows lots of stuff - he was on the radio Hannity this afternoon. FV
Michael Medved just quoted a Rapid City, SD newspaper poll that showed SD residents supported Bush's policies over little homegrown tommy's by 49% to something like 35%.
He's losing support in his own state. If we can post that poll it just might start the ball rolling to defeat Johnson by Thune in this vital Senate 04 election. Then we can go to work and get evil, wicked, mean and Nasty on tommy in 04.
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