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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (260443)	6/2/2002 6:40:03 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

NEWSWEEK: The Hijackers We Let Escape msnbc.com The Hijackers We Let Escape The CIA tracked two suspected terrorists to a Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January 2000, then looked on as they re-entered America and began preparations for September 11. Inside what may be the worst intelligence failure of all. A NEWSWEEK exclusive By Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman NEWSWEEK June 10 — Kuala Lumpur is an easy choice if you’re looking to lie low. Clean and modern, with reliable telephones, banks and Internet service, the Malaysian city is a painless flight from most world capitals—and Muslim visitors don’t need visas to enter the Islamic country. THAT MAY EXPLAIN WHY Al Qaeda chose the sprawling metropolis for a secret planning summit in early January 2000. Tucked away in a posh suburban condominium overlooking a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, nearly a dozen of Osama bin Laden’s trusted followers, posing as tourists, plotted future terrorist strikes against the United States. At the time, the men had no idea that they were being closely watched—or that the CIA already knew some of their names. A few days earlier, U.S. intelligence had gotten wind of the Qaeda gathering. Special Branch, Malaysia’s security service, agreed to follow and photograph the suspected terrorists. They snapped pictures of the men sightseeing and ducking into cybercafes to check Arabic Web sites. What happened next, some U.S. counterterrorism officials say, may be the most puzzling, and devastating, intelligence failure in the critical months before September 11. <<Article continues online.....>>

To: TigerPaw who wrote (260443)	6/2/2002 6:47:08 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

FBI SUPERVISORY AGENT DAVE FRASCA EXPOSED AS ROWLEY'S "BRAKEMAN" msnbc.com TigerPaw, About halfway through this article, the supervisor who the FBI's Coleen Rowley said stifled her investigation is mentioned. Mr. Frasca, he's got some 'splainin' to do! ******************************************* Who’s to blame? Ask Dilbert The greatest crime in our history is also the story of a bureaucratic snafu FBI Director Robert Mueller (second right in red tie) walks into a Senate intelligence briefing May 22 on Capitol Hill. By Jonathan Alter SPECIAL TO MSNBC.COM May 28 — Who was asleep at the switch before September 11th? We now have the answer. It was not just the FBI or the CIA or the INS, though those agencies and several others must be remade if we’re to have real security. It was not just senior administration officials, though I wish they’d quit dodging the much-needed and highly patriotic accountability that the nation deserves. The main culprit was someone else, someone much more familiar. IT WAS that guy on the 17th floor, or downtown, or back in the home office — you know, one of the “suits.” It was every foot-dragging, fanny-covering bureaucrat in every company or government home office, each just “doing my job” by-the-book. It was Mr. Mooney from “I Love Lucy,” or the Dabney Coleman character in “Nine to Five.” Who let the terrorists get away with it? Ask Dilbert. Better yet, subpoena him. The greatest crime in our history is also the story of a bureaucratic SNAFU (“Situation Normal, All F—-ed Up,”), a word — and experience — that dates at least to World War II. The SNAFU must be unraveled and inspected. Careers will be ruined. Some people will be unfairly scapegoated. But it must be done, no matter what Dick Cheney says in that sonorous they-know-best tone. The fact is, “they” (the authorities) didn’t know best. If they did, we wouldn’t be in this pickle. POINTING FINGERS At least that’s what I took from the now-famous memo Minneapolis agent Coleen Rowley recently sent to Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, now widely known as the Federal Bureau of Incompetence. The May 21 memo, obtained by Time Magazine, is one scary document. It suggests that we have a bunch of time-servers protecting our security, that no one is in charge of anything. If any of this changed after September 11, Rowley, a highly regarded veteran of the bureau, does not say so. Without mentioning names, Rowley basically fingers a mid-level FBI supervisory agent in the Hoover Building (in Washington) named Dave Frasca, head of the task force on religious fanatics. After the Minneapolis office took flight student and hijacker-wannabe Zacarias Moussaoui into custody and obtained intelligence from the French indicating that he had terrorist ties, alert Minnesota agents didn’t just passively push the case up the chain of command. They became, in Rowley’s words, “desperate to search his computer laptop.” So desperate that they risked the wrath of higher-ups by committing a real pre-9/11 no-no — contacting the CIA. FBI headquarters personnel didn’t just deny the request to probe Moussaoui further. Even though they were “privy to many more sources of intelligence information than field agents,” as Rowley plaintively put it, they “continued to, almost inexplicably, throw up roadblocks and undermine Minneapolis’ by-now desperate attempts to obtain a search warrant.” Because Frasca’s not commenting publicly, we haven’t heard the other side of the story <<Continues Online.....>>