Agent Alleges Moussaoui Roadblocks -- AP

[buddy28]

Agent Alleges Moussaoui Roadblocks
Fri May 24, 7:59 AM ET
By JOHN SOLOMON and LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writers
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../20020524/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/attacks_moussaoui


WASHINGTON (AP) - Concerned that Washington headquarters was hindering their pre-Sept. 11 probe of terrorism defendant Zacarias Moussaoui, FBI agents in Minnesota took the radical step of contacting the CIA for help, an FBI whistleblower says.

Agent Coleen Rowley took the rare course this week of sending her allegations directly to the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller. Copies were sent to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Mueller on Thursday ordered an internal inspector general's investigation of Rowley's allegations. A House-Senate committee added her charges to its investigation of intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Rowley's 13-page letter, which accused FBI headquarters of erecting a "roadblock" to the Moussaoui investigation, was delivered Tuesday. A Senate source, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said she was interviewed by congressional investigators Wednesday.

The Associated Press on Thursday obtained excerpts from the letter.

After the Minnesota agents violated agency protocol by going to the CIA, they were reprimanded, Rowley said.

"When, in a desperate 11th-hour measure to bypass the FBI HQ roadblock, the Minneapolis division undertook to directly notify the CIA's counterterrorist center, FBI HQ personnel chastised the Minneapolis agents for making the direct notification without their approval," she wrote.

The allegations surfaced hours after President Bush said he wanted congressional intelligence committees, not a special commission, to investigate how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11.

In the post-Sept. 11 world, Americans remain worried about new attacks, a CNN-USA Today poll shows. About two-thirds of Americans think an attack is likely in the United States in the next few weeks, an increase from March when half felt that way, the poll revealed.

Congress acted on other terrorism fronts Thursday. While the House worked into the night on a $29 billion anti-terrorism bill, the Senate, a target of an anthrax attack last year, sent Bush a broad bioterrorism measure. It would provide $4.6 billion to stockpile vaccines, improve food inspections and boost security for water systems.

After receiving Rowley's letter, Mueller acknowledged his agency needed a "different approach" to fighting terrorism.

In November, the FBI director wrote a memo to all employees that promised protection for whistleblowers.

"I will not tolerate reprisals or intimidation by any bureau employee against those who make protected disclosures, nor will I tolerate attempts to prevent employees from making such disclosures," he wrote.

Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, is the only person charged as an accomplice with Osama bin Laden and the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings. He was arrested a month before the attacks after arousing suspicions with his flight training.

Government officials confirmed Thursday night that the CIA received at least two pre-Sept. 11 contacts from the FBI concerning Moussaoui.

In mid-August, the FBI told the CIA of concerns Moussaoui might be a terrorist, and the CIA checked its own files and found nothing on him. The CIA also made a routine request from foreign governments that yielded intelligence from France that Moussaoui was a known Islamic extremist, the officials said.

The second contact came in late August when FBI agents in Minnesota told CIA officers they were seeking a warrant on Moussaoui, the official said.

Government officials familiar with Rowley's letter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agent asserted that FBI headquarters did not fully appreciate the terrorist threat Moussaoui posed and hindered local agent's efforts to get warrants to gather more evidence.

"The agents in Minneapolis who were closest to the action, and in the best position to gauge the situation locally, did fully appreciate the terrorist risk/danger posed by Moussaoui and the possible co-conspirators even prior to Sept. 11," Rowley wrote.

Mueller said in his statement, "I am convinced that a different approach is required. New strategies, new technologies, new analytical capacities and a different culture makes us an agency that is changing post-Sept. 11.

"There is no room after the attacks for the types of problems and attitudes that could inhibit our efforts."

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a critic of the FBI and a strong defender of whistleblowers, said he was shocked but not surprised by Rowley's allegations.

"The FBI for too long has discouraged agents from using anything besides outdated tactics from the era of chasing Bonnie and Clyde," he said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., co-sponsor of legislation for an independent investigation, said the problems the Minnesota office experienced were "not an intelligence failure per se. It's the way the FBI works."

Officials familiar with Rowley's allegations said the agent claimed the bureau made a series of mistakes last summer when agents became suspicious of Moussaoui and arrested him after he wanted training on a 747 simulator at a Minnesota flight school.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some of the allegations involve how the bureau handled efforts to get a special national security warrant and a regular search warrant to gather evidence against Moussaoui.

Law enforcement officials have said previously that information that came into law enforcement before Sept. 11 included intelligence from France suggesting Moussaoui had terrorist ties and had been placed on a watch list in 1999.

But the information was insufficient to show he was an agent of a foreign power and eligible to be monitored under a national security warrant, officials have said.

After Sept. 11, FBI agents found evidence on Moussaoui's computer and elsewhere that linked him to the hijacking plot, according to court documents.


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[Frackal]

^

 

[gymnpoppa]

I don't think you, Frack, or myself are surprised......

 

[buddy28]

Apparently US Attorney David Schippers, the well respected criminal lawyer who headed up the public impeachment process of Bill Clinton, claims to represent 'several' FBI agents who claim were pulled off investigating terrorists affliated with the sept 11th attacks, prior to sept 11th.....


Ill keep you posted when things are reported.

 

[buddy28]

Agent: FBI Rewrote Moussaoui Request --- AP

Agent: FBI Rewrote Moussaoui Request
Fri May 24,10:29 PM ET
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...020525/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/attacks_moussaoui_23


WASHINGTON (AP) - An FBI whistle-blower alleges FBI headquarters rewrote Minnesota agents' pre-Sept. 11 request for surveillance and search warrants for terrorism defendant Zacarias Moussaoui and removed important information before rejecting them, government officials said Friday.

Agent Coleen Rowley wrote that the Minnesota agents became so frustrated by roadblocks erected by terrorism supervisors in Washington that they began to joke that FBI headquarters was becoming an "unwitting accomplice" to Osama bin Laden's efforts to attack the United States, the officials said.

As new details emerged about the letter Rowley wrote to FBI Director Robert Mueller, key members of Congress sought to extend her whistle-blower protections and encouraged more agents to come forward.

And a joint panel of House and Senate members set the first hearings to examine what the government knew before Sept. 11 about terrorist threats and what mistakes it made.

"This (Rowley) letter documents exactly what headquarters knew and when, and how midlevel officials sabotaged the Moussaoui case before the attacks," Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), R-Iowa, said Friday.

Officials familiar with Rowley's memo said she alleged FBI headquarters terrorism supervisors rewrote the Minnesota office's warrant applications and affidavit and removed intelligence about Moussaoui before sending them to a legal office that then rejected them as insufficient.

She alleged that some of the revisions "downplayed" the significance of some intelligence linking Moussaoui to Islamic extremists, and blamed the changes on a flawed communication process.

"Obviously, verbal presentations are far more susceptible to mischaracterization or error," Rowley wrote in her 13-page letter, excerpts of which were obtained by The Associated Press.

The Minnesota office was concerned after arresting Moussaoui at a Minnesota flight school in August 2001 that he was seeking to hurt Americans and wanted to gather more information through national security and search warrants, including getting information off his computer.

Some of that information came from an associate of Moussaoui who told the FBI the flight student held extreme anti-American views. Other intelligence came from France linking Moussaoui to radical Islamic extremists in the region although not directly to al-Qaida, officials said.

The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Rowley identified the warrant revision process as flawed, particularly complaining that Minnesota was never consulted about the changes that were made before the warrant applications were forwarded to the offices that rejected them.

Officials said Rowley in other parts of the memo attacked the public explanations that Mueller and other FBI senior officials have offered about why the FBI failed to connect the dots before Sept. 11.

Rowley wrote she had come to the "sad realization" that officials had skewed facts in the post-Sept. 11 accounts and were trying to "circle the wagons" to protect FBI headquarters from embarrassing disclosures.

She also criticized the culture of Washington headquarters, saying FBI higher-ups were too concerned with "petty politics" and too afraid to make tough decisions that could affect their career ascensions, the officials said.

Several times, Rowley complained in the letter that Minnesota had never been told of a separate memo written in July by a Phoenix FBI agent warning that Arab pilots in Arizona with ties to radical Muslims were training at flight schools.

FBI officials have repeatedly said the agency failed to connect the two matters before Sept. 11.

But on Friday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and fellow committee members Arlen Specter and Grassley questioned whether the head of the FBI's radical fundamentalist anti-terrorism unit in Washington may have handled both matters and been in a position to make the connection.

Officials said the unit chief was directly involved in the Moussaoui deliberations in August and was one of the first names copied on the Phoenix memo a month earlier.

But one government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the unit chief contends he never saw or was aware of the Phoenix memo being handled by his unit before Sept. 11 even though he was copied in on it.

"Please explain his role ... (and) what connection, if any, he or others drew between the two ongoing investigations; and whether he or others brought such a connection to the attention of higher level FBI officials," the senators wrote.

Separately, Grassley disclosed he has given Rowley "written assurance that she will be protected for her cooperation with the Judiciary Committee's investigation" and urged Mueller "to ensure there is no retaliation against Ms. Rowley."

And Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said there were protections that could be extended to Rowley and others who brought potential wrongdoing to the attention of the intelligence committees.

"We encourage more of the same," he said.

Rowley emerged as a central figure this week after authoring a letter Tuesday to Mueller and senators alleging FBI headquarters erected a "roadblock" to the efforts to prove before Sept. 11 that Moussaoui was a terrorist.

After the attacks, Moussaoui was charged as the lone accomplice so far to bin Laden and the hijackers.

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Goss, R-Fla., who are heading Congress' inquiry into U.S. intelligence and the attacks, said their first hearing will take place June 4 but will be closed to the public so they can discuss classified intelligence sources.

The committees' investigation is examining the U.S. intelligence response to terrorism since 1985, as well as looking into specific information that might have pointed to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The first hearings open to the public will be in late June, and CIA Director George J. Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller are expected to testify, Graham said.

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