Post by Mech on Apr 11, 2004 18:24:20 GMT -5
FBI Must Explain 70 Probes Before 9/11-Panelists
Sun Apr 11, 2:25 PM ET
By Lori Santos
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI this week will be pressed to explain why 70 separate investigations did not uncover the Sept. 11 hijacked airliner plot, members of the commission investigating the attacks said on Sunday.
Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, seizing on the revelation that so many probes were under way weeks before the deadly attacks, also said former President Bill Clinton told the panel he was frustrated by his inability to give the FBI direct orders.
"The greatest surprise to me was that President Clinton said how limited the White House is in dealing with the FBI," Gorton, a Republican member of the bipartisan commission, told "Fox News Sunday."
"You know, after all of the scandals of J. Edgar Hoover and some in the Nixon years, the White House has felt that it couldn't give direct directions to the FBI and I think that was a great inhibiting factor."
The secretive and autocratic Hoover ran the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972, during which time agents routinely spied on political protesters and others. Nixon resigned from the U.S. presidency in 1974 after the Watergate break-in.
Clinton testified behind closed doors to the national commission on Thursday, following public testimony from Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.
After Rice's testimony, the White House released a secret briefing for Bush in which he was told a month before Sept. 11, 2001, that al Qaeda members were in the United States and the FBI had detected suspicious activity "consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." The briefing was given Bush on Aug. 6, 2001, at his central Texas ranch.
On Sunday, Bush said he believed federal agents were on top of the terrorist threat at the time but looked forward to the panel's conclusions on whether each agency had done all it was supposed to.
Insisting he was given "nothing about an attack on America," Bush said he was "satisfied that some of the matters were being looked into ... Had they found something, they would have reported to me."
The bureau has been criticized for failing to heed terrorism warnings from agents in Phoenix and Minneapolis in the weeks before the attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.
FLIGHT SCHOOLS
Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste said the information, including reports of Arab men training at U.S. flight schools,(Pensacola Naval Air Staation) "might have led to unraveling the plot."
"Perhaps if it had been utilized effectively," the former Watergate prosecutor told Fox.
Information in the page-and-a-half President's Daily Brief, entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike Inside the U.S.," was as recent as May 2001, Ben-Veniste said. "So we ask, what did the FBI do in this interim?"
Gorton added: "It's the reason I am so interested in these so-called 70 field investigations. I don't know what they were. I don't know what they did. I don't think they got to a point where anyone could take action on them."
"It seems to me the FBI has more questions to answer than Condoleezza Rice or ... anyone who has testified before us so far."
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who left the bureau a few months before the attacks, comes before the commission on Tuesday. Although appointed by Clinton in 1993, the two maintained an uneasy relationship.
Attorney General John Ashcroft will also testify that day as will his Democratic predecessor, Janet Reno. On Wednesday the panel will hear from CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Sun Apr 11, 2:25 PM ET
By Lori Santos
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI this week will be pressed to explain why 70 separate investigations did not uncover the Sept. 11 hijacked airliner plot, members of the commission investigating the attacks said on Sunday.
Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, seizing on the revelation that so many probes were under way weeks before the deadly attacks, also said former President Bill Clinton told the panel he was frustrated by his inability to give the FBI direct orders.
"The greatest surprise to me was that President Clinton said how limited the White House is in dealing with the FBI," Gorton, a Republican member of the bipartisan commission, told "Fox News Sunday."
"You know, after all of the scandals of J. Edgar Hoover and some in the Nixon years, the White House has felt that it couldn't give direct directions to the FBI and I think that was a great inhibiting factor."
The secretive and autocratic Hoover ran the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972, during which time agents routinely spied on political protesters and others. Nixon resigned from the U.S. presidency in 1974 after the Watergate break-in.
Clinton testified behind closed doors to the national commission on Thursday, following public testimony from Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.
After Rice's testimony, the White House released a secret briefing for Bush in which he was told a month before Sept. 11, 2001, that al Qaeda members were in the United States and the FBI had detected suspicious activity "consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." The briefing was given Bush on Aug. 6, 2001, at his central Texas ranch.
On Sunday, Bush said he believed federal agents were on top of the terrorist threat at the time but looked forward to the panel's conclusions on whether each agency had done all it was supposed to.
Insisting he was given "nothing about an attack on America," Bush said he was "satisfied that some of the matters were being looked into ... Had they found something, they would have reported to me."
The bureau has been criticized for failing to heed terrorism warnings from agents in Phoenix and Minneapolis in the weeks before the attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.
FLIGHT SCHOOLS
Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste said the information, including reports of Arab men training at U.S. flight schools,(Pensacola Naval Air Staation) "might have led to unraveling the plot."
"Perhaps if it had been utilized effectively," the former Watergate prosecutor told Fox.
Information in the page-and-a-half President's Daily Brief, entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike Inside the U.S.," was as recent as May 2001, Ben-Veniste said. "So we ask, what did the FBI do in this interim?"
Gorton added: "It's the reason I am so interested in these so-called 70 field investigations. I don't know what they were. I don't know what they did. I don't think they got to a point where anyone could take action on them."
"It seems to me the FBI has more questions to answer than Condoleezza Rice or ... anyone who has testified before us so far."
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who left the bureau a few months before the attacks, comes before the commission on Tuesday. Although appointed by Clinton in 1993, the two maintained an uneasy relationship.
Attorney General John Ashcroft will also testify that day as will his Democratic predecessor, Janet Reno. On Wednesday the panel will hear from CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller.