FBI Nixed Al Qaeda Mole / Mag: Had chance to infiltrate training camp before 9/11

New York Daily News ^ | 6/01/02 | LEO STANDORA

[kattracks]

The FBI had a chance to infiltrate an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan months before Sept. 11, but top agents responsible for tracking terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden rejected the plan, according to a report published yesterday.

The decision by leaders of the Bin Laden unit at FBI headquarters may have wasted a golden opportunity to learn about plans for the strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The news magazine said an informant told a bureau field agent months before the Sept. 11 attacks that he was invited to attend a commando training course at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.

The information was relayed to a supervisor, who passed it on to FBI headquarters, where it hit a brick wall in the Bin Laden unit of the bureau's counterterrorism division.

A field office communiqué asked the Justice Department to authorize what it described as "otherwise illegal activity" — the informant's participation in terrorist training — sources told the magazine.

But the Bin Laden unit flatly rejected the request without even doing an "asset validation" to see whether the informant's information was on target, the sources said.

The FBI declined to comment.

It was unclear which of the bureau's 56 offices made the request or exactly when it was made.

The FBI has come under fire for ignoring warnings from field offices in Phoenix and Minneapolis about terrorist activity.

In New Jersey yesterday, the Bush administration's top prosecutor for anti-terrorism said the U.S. had plenty of evidence before Sept. 11 that a devastating terrorist attack on American soil was likely.

Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, cited nearly a decade's worth of hints that foreign terrorists were targeting Americans.

But he didn't say there was specific information that could have prevented the Sept. 11 airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In a speech to Seton Hall Law School graduates at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J., Chertoff cited warning signs including the bombing of the Trade Center in 1993; a mid-1990s plan in which an Islamic radical was convicted of plotting to blow up jetliners and New York landmarks and assassinate the Pope; a death sentence pronounced on Americans by Bin Laden in the late 1990s, and the failed millennium bomb plot at Los Angeles International Airport.

[Nita Nupress]

A field office communiqué asked the Justice Department to authorize what it described as "otherwise illegal activity" — the informant's participation in terrorist training — sources told the magazine.

But the Bin Laden unit flatly rejected the request without even doing an "asset validation" to see whether the informant's information was on target, the sources said.

It would be nice to have some names here. The New York Times seems hell-bent on blaming Judge Lamberth & the FISA court for creating an atmosphere of political correctness for their investigation of Michael Resnick.

What do we know about James Risen & David Johnston, the authors of the 9/19/01 NYT piece in #8 on this thread? ("Who were the FBI bosses stonewalling agent Coleen Crowley's requests?") The fact that they erroneously blamed the Michael Resnick case on AG Ashcroft & the Bush Administrations raises a huge red flag and makes their finger-pointing at Judge Lamberth highly suspicious.

As for the FBI's counterterrorism division's radical fundamentalist unit, we already have the names of Michael Maltbie (a supervisory special agent) & his boss, David Frasca, (Chief of the unit). But as VaBthang4 said on the other thread, it would be nice to know the name of Frasca's boss. The fact that Frasca was reassigned to Cleveland after 911 may be significant.

BTW, if any of you missed this Peggy Noonan article yesterday, it's a must-read: Weenies or Moles? Did the FBI bungle the Moussaoui investigation--or worse?

[BlackbirdSST]

Does anyone now doubt that a missle brought down flight 800. On fox news yesterday former director of the cia Woolsey said it. I'll go back through the post here, but I'd like to hear some of the NTSB Hack's chime in, you know the one's that insist that perfectly good aircraft suddenly turn to rubble while in flight all the time. Center fuel tanks, tail's, engines and wings are all very fragile and can't withstand things like air turbulants and sparks and stuff. What they can't withstand are HE detonation's, missles, shoebomb's etc...They froget sometimes, they are talking to current and former aviator's. Blackbird.

[Betty Jo]

I'm not sure what you mean about channel.

If you dont think that the Bush fanily and many in both of the Bush Administrations were and are in business with Saudis, I cant make you understand it.

Have you bothered to google "Bin Mafouz","Al-Amoudi","BCCI-Bush" "Carlyle"?

Have you seen the oil companies websites?

I dont know why facts that are 20 years old are some plot of mine.

Have you searched the Free Republic Archives for nfo on Bush-BCC-Saudi ?

I hate the Clintons,I hate the Bushs.

I hate allmost every politician I can think of.

I love the truth.

I love less government,and less taxes.

Long Live Freedom of Speech!

Long Live Frredom of the Press!

[equus]

This is ridiculous. I fear it goes to the top, too. And the implications of the complicity are extremely upsetting.

[equus]

Sorry, but both administrations are implicated. BOTH. And Bush administration probably even more so.

[Nita Nupress]

I meant to flag you to my #41.

[Nita Nupress]

Why, oh why can't you guys follow a line of inquiry without automatically assuming that THE BUSH FAMILY is behind anything and everything?

Sheesh. Count me off this thread if it turns into a preconceived Bush witch hunt.

Believe it or not, everything in life is not some Grand Conspiracy involving every B-U-S-H in the entire world.

[Nita Nupress]

Does anyone now doubt that a missle brought down flight 800. On fox news yesterday former director of the cia Woolsey said it.

I heard that and almost fell out of my chair. Interesting.

[Nita Nupress]

The Republicans do have the Majority, if they would only get up enough guts to remove the corruption from our government.....Where are the Republicans, hiding as usual.

Clinton's eight-year politicalization of the FBI has ensured the total compromise of Trent Lott and most of the rest.  As usual, their typical, spineless behavior can be traced back to Louis Freeh's handing over of those FBI files to Hillary.

The only way that situation will ever change is if they are voted out of office or if we "out them" ourselves.  < /cynicism >

[rdavis84]

Yep, it's all Clinton's fault.

[NetValue]

"A field office communiqué asked the Justice Department to authorize what it described as 'otherwise illegal activity' — the informant's participation in terrorist training — sources told the magazine.

"But the Bin Laden unit flatly rejected the request without even doing an 'asset validation' to see whether the informant's information was on target, the sources said."

Sorry but I agree with Justice Department's call on this one. It looks like a terrible decision in hindsight, but prior to 9/11 we were not at war and under our rules at that time this would have been illegal.....even if we disagree with the law as written.

[Mitchell]

The big question is how far up does it go? I think there's a very good chance it goes all the way to the top. You don't screw up this bad and this long unless it is sanctioned from the top.

The situation with the FBI reminds me of what one reads about the ISI in Pakistan. It may simply be its own center of power, essentially separate from the regular government, accountable to no one.

[Nita Nupress]

Read my #49. It's not all Clinton's fault. Both parties are to blame.

All I'm saying is, when law enforcement conducts an investigation, the proper way to do it is not to start at their favorite suspect and build a case around him. Instead, they start at the bottom and follow the evidence up the ladder to see where it takes them.

This thread should start at the bottom: Who in the FBI HQ nixed the Al Qaeda mole? Instead, you guys start at your preconceived "Bush/BCCI/Bin Ladin/Saudi Connections" rung of the ladder.

If that's where the line of inquiry goes, then fine, that's where it goes. But to start out there is bad research, IMHO.

(I have to get offline anyway. Feel free to continue on without me nitpicking at your heels. ;-)

[DallasMike]

The FBI had a chance to infiltrate an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan months before Sept. 11...

How many months? 2, 8 or 11? It makes a difference.

[piasa]

Anyone who had just entered al-Qeada's organization mere months before 9/11 still wouldn't have known any more about what was going to happen than we already knew. Al-Qeada doesn't just call all of the guys together to let everyone know what exactly they were doing.

Bin Laden in his first post-9/11 video bragged that the majority of the hijackers didn't even know it was a suicide mission and that only the guys doing the piloting knew the details.

The infiltrator would have no more knowledge about specific events than Johhnie Taliban... who likewise attended such a camp.

And with the legal restrictions on the US agencies at the time, they probably couldn't send anyone into such a situation because in order to 'graduate' from these camps you have to commit an act sufficient to satisfy the leaders that you were sincere. Clinton had ordered that no 'unsavory types' be hired. Who else is going to fit in except some unsavory type willing to commit at least one act of terrorism?

[NetValue]

"Does anyone now doubt that a missle brought down flight 800."

Given that the evidence was "buried", it's equally probable that there a shoe-bomber on the flight.

I sure would like the NTSB/FBI reopen the TWA-800 investigation and be required to present ANY & ALL evidence found.

I clearly recall FBI's Jim Kalstrom dismissing trace evidence of C-4 they found, by attributing it to a bomb-dog exercise run prior to the flight. Yeah right!!!!

[Nita Nupress]

One more thing...

Here's another name: James T. Caruso.

The Clintonian FBI

But what really appears to have angered Rowley, however, were statements made later by the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, James T. Caruso , who also suggested that the FBI had no clues prior to September 11."When similar comments were made weeks later, in Assistant Director Caruso's congressional testimony in response to the first public leaks about Moussaoui," Rowley writes, "we faced the sad realization that the remarks indicated someone, possibly with your [Mueller's] approval, had decided to circle the wagons at FBI Headquarters in an apparent effort to protect the FBI from embarrassment and the relevant FBI officials from scrutiny."

A look at Caruso's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee's Homeland Defense Subcommittee last October 3 suggests that the FBI's desire to "circle the wagons" included making statements that, if taken on their face, could well have misled Congress about what happened in the Moussaoui case. This is what Caruso said:

The media has focused on an individual in Minneapolis who has been detained since August 17 on Immigration charges. It has been suggested that this individual, Zacarias Moussaoui, was training to be the fifth hijacker on the flight that crashed into Pennsylvania. Media accounts also suggest that the FBI did not actively investigate Moussaoui until after the September 11 attacks. The FBI conducted vigorous investigation of Moussaoui upon learning of his detention in mid-August to include seizing his computer, contacting foreign officials for additional information and seeking a number of authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, to conduct further investigation.

In addition, information about Moussaoui was shared throughout the intelligence community prior to September 11. Although the Department of Justice and the FBI agreed there was insufficient evidence to establish that Moussaoui was an agent of a foreign power or terrorists group as required by the FISA warrant, the FBI pursued all reasonable and lawful investigative steps since mid-August.

Caruso said the FBI did three things: 

1) it seized Moussaoui's computer, 
2) it sought information from foreign officials, and 
3) it sought "a number of authorities" under FISA.  

Two of those claims appear to be seriously misleading. In the first instance, while the FBI did seize Moussaoui's computer, agents were not able to examine its contents without a warrant (in fact, the computer was not examined before September 11). 

On the issue of a warrant, the FBI did not seek either a court warrant or a warrant from the special FISA court to search the computer, as Caruso suggested when he said the FBI sought "a number of authorities" under FISA. Instead, according to Rowley, the Minnesota agents' requests for a FISA warrant were stopped inside the FBI bureaucracy. (One part of Caruso's testimony appears to be accurate: The FBI did seek information from foreign-intelligence sources, although it was the Minnesota agents, not headquarters.) 

Finally, on the question of whether the Moussaoui information was "shared throughout the intelligence community," as Caruso said, Rowley writes that when Minneapolis agents tried to tell the CIA about Moussaoui, they were "chastised" by FBI headquarters.

In an interview with National Review Online, an FBI spokesman defended Caruso's testimony as accurate, saying the FBI did indeed seize Moussaoui's computer (although agents did not examine its contents). As for the FISA warrant, the spokesman said only that "there is a series of approvals" involved before a case is turned over to a FISA court, and that "what happened is all subject to review right now."

[Mitchell]

BTW, if any of you missed this Peggy Noonan article yesterday, it's a must-read: Weenies or Moles? Did the FBI bungle the Moussaoui investigation--or worse?

Indeed it is a must-read. Peggy Noonan is straight-talking and responsible. And she has an insider's knowledge of the U.S. government. That she would write this article is telling.

[wheezer]

How many months? 2, 8 or 11? It makes a difference.

You're right, but infiltration of Al Qaeda should have been an intel imperative for years now....and if some dopey California kid can do it on a whim (and get pretty deep), why on earth couldn't any of our Intel?

Heads should be rolling...figuratively and perhaps in a few cases, literally.

[Seeking the truth]

Not that I don't believe you, but if you can post a link with a proof statement, a lot of us would love to have that!