The recent series of terrorist attacks abroad signals a dramatic
escalation of the threat al Qaeda poses to United States, a danger level
similar to the period just before the Sept. 11 attacks, CIA Director
George J. Tenet told Congress yesterday.
"The threat environment we find ourselves in today is as bad as it was
last summer," Tenet told the joint House-Senate panel examining the
performance of U.S. intelligence agencies before the attacks on New York
and Washington. "They are reconstituted. They are coming after us. They
are planning in multi-theaters. They are planning to strike the homeland
again."
Tenet said he had met with Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge
yesterday and will meet with him again today, adding that administration
officials have "taken action in sectors we're most concerned about."
Other intelligence officials said analysts who have followed the string
of terror attacks the past two weeks in Yemen, Kuwait and Bali said they
are particularly concerned about strikes on oil shipments from the Middle
East and on targets in the United States described only as "economic."
The threat information has often proved real, even when details such as
time or location are not known. Earlier this month a French oil tanker was
attacked off the Yemeni coast by terrorists believed to be part of al
Qaeda. U.S. officials learned from interviews with Muhammad Darbi, an al
Qaeda member captured in Yemen in August, that a Yemen cell was planning
an attack on a Western oil tanker, sources said.
Similarly, in late September, U.S. intelligence officials learned of a
communication from leaders of the South Asian terrorist group Jamaat
Islamiyyah directing followers to attack Western targets, including
tourist sites such as Bali, government sources said.
As was the case in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, when Tenet
tried urgently to alert administration officials to an imminent, if
unspecified threat, the director of central intelligence said yesterday
that he did not know the dates, times or places likely to be struck in the
future.
Despite the heightened concern about the threat, the administration has
so far decided that the information is too generalized to raise the
nation's alert status from its current yellow or "elevated" risk level to
orange or "high" risk, officials said last night.
The FBI sent out an alert to law enforcement agencies eight days ago
warning of a heightened risk of attack after the release of separate
communications, purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his
second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri. The warning also followed the shooting
of a Marine in Kuwait and the attack on the oil tanker off Yemen. Since
then, U.S. officials have worked closely with operators of key facilities,
such as nuclear and water treatment plants, and government officials to
arrive at a proper response.
Tenet's assessment came during the last public session of the joint
panel convened to investigate the intelligence community's handling of
information before the Sept. 11 attacks, a 61/2-hour hearing that also
included FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden,
director of the National Security Agency.
All three, responding to what has been a barrage of criticism over
missed clues and poor communication among their agencies, conceded that
mistakes had been made, but praised their employees as hardworking
heroes.
They said they had instituted new information-sharing and warning
systems, and had, in general, increased the number of human intelligence
sources, linguists and covert operations to better handle future threats.
Under questioning, all three said no individual at their agencies had been
punished or fired for any of the missteps surrounding the Sept. 11
attacks.
This did not satisfy several panel members, who argued forcefully that
individuals in the three agencies should be held personally responsible
for what amounts to a huge failure.
"People have to be held accountable," said Sen. Carl M. Levin
(D-Mich.). He was particularly concerned that while the CIA identified two
of the hijackers as suspected terrorists in early 2001, an agency employee
had failed to put the names on a State Department watch list until late
August of that year. By then, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, both of
whom would later take part in the Sept. 11 attacks, were already in the
country.
Tenet faulted "uneven standards, poor training and lack of redundancy"
in the watch-listing system at the time. "The notion that I'm going to
take her out and shoot her is ridiculous," he said of the CIA
employee.
"Accountability is important but we need to be careful. There was no
intent to withhold information . . . if anyone is going to take
responsibility, I take responsibility."
"Good!" came a voice from the side of the witness table, where Sally
Regenhard sat with a photo of her son Christopher, a firefighter who was
killed at the World Trade Center.
Tenet warned the panel that intelligence agencies will never be
infallible and that the nation must bolster homeland security precautions.
Referring to legislation to establish a Homeland Security Department, now
mired in Congress, he said: "You better get it done. Don't wait for us to
tell you [al Qaeda] is on top of us."
Tenet also told the panel in written testimony that the CIA believes
Almihdhar and Alhazmi were actually in the country not for the Sept. 11
strike but for another al Qaeda operation. The pair operated on a
different timetable than the other hijackers and received special training
in Afghanistan in 1999 with operatives who planned and executed the Oct.
12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole, Tenet noted.
"We speculate that this difference may be explained by the possibility
that the two men originally entered the U.S. to carry out a different
terrorist operation prior to being folded into the 9/11 plot," Tenet noted
in written testimony submitted to the panel.
CIA officials said after the hearing that they do not know what other
plot the men might have been trying to complete. In his written testimony,
Tenet said the men may have been inserted as last-minute recruits in the
Sept. 11 plot when two other would-be hijackers were unable to obtain
visas. They are Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni national who was captured in
Pakistan last month, and Moroccan Zakaria Essabar.
Staff writer John Mintz contributed to this report.
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