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That is, in essence, how the Bush White House confirmed the
CBS News report that broke this story Wednesday night. The
White House was quick to say the CIA intelligence did not
refer to anything as diabolical as a quadruple-hijacking that
transformed airliners into weapons of mass destruction. That's
probably true. But this latest news follows recent reports
that an FBI agent in Phoenix in July 2001 had written a
classified memo noting a "strong connection" between a group
of Middle Eastern aviation students he was investigating and
bin Laden's al Qaida, and that one of the FBI agents trying to
figure out the intentions of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was
arrested at a flight school in August 2001, had speculated he
might be planning to fly an airliner into the World Trade
Center.
Before conspiracy theorists run away with this latest
revelation, it is important to note its true significance.
 First, the news raises an obvious question, is there
anything else the White House is not telling us? Bush and his
lieutenants kept word of the CIA briefing secret for eight
months. Why did they not disclose this earlier? In January and
February, The Washington Post published an eight-part
series by Bob Woodward and Dan Balz on how the President and
his aides responded to the September 11 attacks. The
articles--a mostly positive account--were largely drawn from
interviews with Bush and senior officials. Funny, none of them
mentioned that a month before the attacks, the CIA had told
the President, via the daily briefing it prepares for him,
there was reason to worry about a bin Laden action. It is a
good bet that at one point on that awful day the President or
the other aides who generally have access to the CIA's daily
briefing--Vice President Dick Cheney, CIA director George
Tenet, national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, and chief of
staff Andrew Card--recalled that warning.
The Post series did report, "Through much of the
summer, Tenet had grown increasingly troubled by the prospect
of a major terrorist attack against the United States. There
was too much chatter in the intelligence system and repeated
reports of threats were costing him sleep....Everywhere he
went, the message was the same: Something big is coming. But
for all his fears, intelligence officials could never pinpoint
when or where an attack might hit." But in this
administration-provided account, there was no sign the CIA had
informed Bush it was on the lookout for a bin Laden hijacking.
Presumably, none of Woodward and Balz's insider-sources felt
that was worth sharing.
Once again, the Bush crowd has demonstrated its fondness
for secrecy. And for spinning. When Bush spokesman Ari
Fleischer, facing a combative press corps, was asked why the
administration had not revealed that Bush received this
warning, he reminded the reporters the real issue was that
"the fault lies with Osama bin Laden and the terrorists."
Later in the day, Rice, up against the White House reporters,
repeatedly depicted the CIA briefing as an unexceptional act
during which Bush was merely told that bin Laden could be
interested in hijacking. Its common sense that a terrorist
might be considering a hijacking, she added. But CIA daily
briefings are supposed to include noteworthy material for the
President, not obvious, generalized information. Let's hope
the CIA is not wasting the President's time by reminding him
terrorists sometimes hijack airplanes.
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Certainly, there was an understandable
reason for the White House to be mum until
now. If the public had learned of the
briefing, questions would be asked. Which
brings us to the other significance of this
disclosure: it provides Congress an
additional--and well-defined--avenue for its
investigation of the national security
community's performance prior to September 11.
Belatedly, Congress in February moved to have the
intelligence committees of the House and Senate conduct a
joint investigation into what went wrong before the attacks.
(The decision came after the Bush White House earlier asked
Congress not to pursue this topic quickly.) In doing so,
Congress eschewed the suggestion made by Senators John McCain
and Joe Lieberman that a blue-ribbon panel outside Congress
conduct the investigation. Instead, the mission was handed to
committees that have traditionally maintained cozy relations
with the intelligence services. And the probe has gotten off
to a slow and bumpy start. The first lead investigator, Britt
Snider, quit the post, after getting into an internal tussle
for not alerting the committees he had hired someone under
investigation for failing a CIA lie-detector exam. (Snider, a
former CIA inspector general, may not have been the right
fellow for the job, since he is a longtime friend and
colleague of Tenet, and Senator Richard Shelby, the ranking
Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, has had Tenet
in the crosshairs since September 11.) Then news leaked that
the Justice Department and the CIA were not fully cooperating
with the investigation.
Assuming the inquiry gets on track, the committee
investigators should thoroughly examine that August
intelligence briefing. They ought to be able to trace it
backward and determine what went into this report. What was
the sourcing? How did the CIA gather this information? How did
it follow up? Did it make a serious effort to learn more about
this hijacking plot? If so, what was done? If not, why not?
This is an important trail for the investigators to follow,
inch by inch. Perhaps the CIA did everything it could and,
still, was unable to unearth a clear tip-off. But maybe
opportunities were missed. The public deserves to know.
 Second-guessing is easy, but it is tragic that the Phoenix
FBI report (suspects in a terrorist investigation linked to al
Qaida are attending flight school), the mysterious Moussaoui
case (a suspicious fellow, enrolled in a flight school, is up
to something, maybe crashing an airliner into the World Trade
Towers), and the CIA warning (bin Laden is planning a
terrorist action) were never placed side-by-side on the same
desk. Had they been, that might not have spelled out what was
coming. But it could have made other information seem more
relevant or helped the CIA and FBI locate additional pieces of
this secret puzzle. The inability of the intelligence
community to coordinate its information streams--not even
within the FBI was the Phoenix report passed to the office
investigating Moussaoui--is troubling. Is there a point to
spending $30 billion-plus dollars a year for a sweeping
intelligence system--and Congress is in the process of
approving a multibillion dollar boost--if that system cannot
discern and efficiently handle the nuggets it does manage to
obtain? 
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By
David Corn |