File Under..............
Something fishy..
this way went
"despite about 70 memos from Special Agent Harry Samit, the young agent's suspicions never made it to the upper reaches of the FBI in the weeks before the attacks."
"but acknowledged learning that then-CIA director George Tenet was briefed about Moussaoui's flight lessons on Aug. 23."
Ex-FBI official never saw Moussaoui memos
startribune.com—Minneapolis, MN
ALEXANDRIA, VA. - A former FBI terrorism official testified Tuesday that he wasn't told before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks of a Minneapolis agent's insistent warnings that jailed suspect Zacarias Moussaoui was planning to hijack a plane.ALEXANDRIA, VA. - A former FBI terrorism official testified Tuesday that he wasn't told before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks of a Minneapolis agent's insistent warnings that jailed suspect Zacarias Moussaoui was planning to hijack a plane.
Testimony by retired supervisor Mike Rolince showed that, despite about 70 memos from Special Agent Harry Samit, the young agent's suspicions never made it to the upper reaches of the FBI in the weeks before the attacks.
Prosecutors called on Rolince, the FBI's international terrorism operations section chief in 2001, to testify so he could describe how a massive deployment of agents might have foiled the nation's deadliest terror attack had Moussaoui admitted upon his arrest that he was part of a suicide hijacking plot.
But under cross-examination, Rolince found himself explaining how little he knew about the Moussaoui investigation and how he never briefed Attorney General John Ashcroft about it because the case "was not of sufficient progress."
On Monday, Samit acknowledged in court that, during an interview with Justice Department investigators, he complained of "criminal negligence" by supervisors at FBI headquarters who stonewalled the pre-Sept. 11 investigation of Moussaoui, now a confessed Al-Qaida conspirator.
"Agent Samit's suppositions, hunches and suspicions were one thing," Rolince told the jury. "What we actually knew was another."
Moussaoui, a 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan origin, pleaded guilty nearly a year ago to a conspiracy indictment charging that he joined the Sept. 11 hijackers in a plot to commandeer and crash U.S. jetliners. He denied knowing specifics of the Sept. 11 plot.
Prosecutors are trying to persuade a jury to sentence him to death, contending that his lies after his arrest in the Twin Cities -- about three weeks before the attacks -- allowed the suicide hijackers to proceed.
Rolince, wearing a tie with a red-white-and-blue American flag motif, described an atmosphere of extraordinary tension in the summer of 2001 as U.S. national security officials received a stream of intelligence reports warning of an impending attack.
But he said most of the intelligence leads related to foreign countries. Had Moussaoui revealed a suicide hijacking plot, he said, it would have provided "specificity and actionability."
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema stopped prosecutors from asking him what would have happened if Moussaoui had cooperated, limiting Rolince to describing how the bureau could have deployed as many as 11,300 agents to hunt for the hijackers.
Weighing dozens of requests
Rolince said that every day that summer he and his aides weighed dozens of requests for national security warrants authorizing searches or wiretaps. He said he learned about Moussaoui during two quick hallway conversations with Dave Frasca, chief of the bureau's Radical Fundamentalist Unit. The first came shortly after Moussaoui's arrest.
He said Frasca told him that Moussaoui's answers "did not add up," that there was "an ongoing debate" as to whether there was enough evidence to support a warrant and that he "should expect a call from Minneapolis." Rolince told the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks that the call never came.
Later, after Samit's strenuous efforts for a warrant were to no avail, the FBI came up with a plan to deport Moussaoui to France, where French authorities said they had legal authority to search his belongings. Rolince said Minneapolis agents wanted authority to travel with Moussaoui, and he gave Frasca the OK.
Questioned by defense lawyer Edward MacMahon, Rolince at one point dismissed it as an immigration case. He acknowledged that the FBI had 70 "full-field" Al-Qaida-related investigations under way at the time, but contended that only a tiny percentage of the threats being received dealt with possible hijackings.
He said he didn't see Samit's lengthy, Aug. 18 request for a national security warrant before Sept. 11, but acknowledged learning that then-CIA director George Tenet was briefed about Moussaoui's flight lessons on Aug. 23.
Greg Gordon is a correspondent in the Star Tribune Washington Bureau. |
