From: To: Undisclosed Recipients Return-Path: Received: from saturn-int.capwiz.com ([64.14.114.206]) by matuta.host4u.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA27036 for ; Wed, 10 Oct 2001 13:28:06 -0500 Message-Id: <200110101828.NAA27036@matuta.host4u.net> Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 13:02:19 -0400 X-Mailer: SMTP-Mailer X-Account: My Account Status: U X-Poco-Annotation: Subject: Learning to play well with others at the FBI Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The Hill October 10, 2001 Learning to play well with others at the FBI By David A. Keene Last week the House and Senate were on the verge of agreeing on= the anti-terrorist measures requested by Attorney General John= Ashcroft to combat terrorism within the United States. Thanks to= real scrutiny in the House, the package that will finally be= approved will give law enforcement agencies somewhat less than= they sought - but more than civil libertarians of the left and= right think they need. The bill that finally came out of the House Judiciary Committee= differs markedly from what the Justice Department originally= requested. The original bill looked like it was stitched= together from wish lists that had been sitting in file drawers.= Many of its component parts had, in fact, been requested= previously as weapons that might be used to fight crime and= drugs but rejected as more dangerous to the rights of a free= citizenry than to the crime bosses, drug lords and terrorists= they are designed to get. It is a tribute to the Congress and= specifically to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner= (R-Wis.) and its members that they resisted the temptation to= simply rubber stamp what they were given and send it to the= House floor. In today's atmosphere, it took courage to resist= demands to simply give government everything it says it needs to= protect us all from the next terrorist assault. But they did just that and, while some at the Justice Department= think the bill should have been passed as submitted, the= committee produced a far better bill by at least considering the= constitutional costs of some of what was being sought. It= remains troublesome in many respects, but reflects the work of= serious men and women who care both about our security and the= core values of our Constitution. What is perhaps more troubling than any of the specifics of the= legislation, however, is the underlying assumption that the= attack on September 11 might have been prevented had the FBI or= the CIA or someone else had such powers at their disposal at the= time. The fact is, of course, that the FBI had the information needed= to conclude that the bin Laden organization was preparing to do= just what his operatives did on Sept. 11. They just didn't= connect the dots. The FBI knew that Algerian associates of bin Laden had hijacked a= plane in Marseilles back in 1994 with the intention of crashing= it into the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The effort failed but might= reasonably have been taken as a warning sign by those trying to= figure out what might be coming. The next year, Filipino security forces grabbed one of the= planners of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He was turned= over to U.S. authorities, tried, convicted and sentenced. He= sits today in a U.S. prison. When he was captured, he was= carrying a laptop computer like any competent, modern day= terrorist. The FBI got that, too, and discovered that it= contained a plan that called for the hijacking of as many as 11= U.S. civilian airliners, which suicide pilots would crash into= targets like the Pentagon and major U.S. commercial towers,= including the World Trade Center in New York. When the World Trade Center collapsed last month, that plan was= languishing in the FBI's files. There is no evidence that the= chilling warning it represented was ever shared with anyone= outside the FBI itself - not with the Federal Aviation= Association, which might have sought sky marshals to prevent= such an eventuality or demanded tighter security earlier at our= airports; nor with the pilots themselves, who might have taken= steps to protect themselves and the security of the cockpit; and= certainly not the flight schools around the country that bin= Laden's pilots might attend to learn how to fly the jumbo jets= they planned to commandeer. Indeed, there is no reason to believe the FBI told anyone about= the plan they held so close for six years. Congress should be= asking why an agency seeking new powers to gather information= did so little with the information it already had in its files.= It is easy to suggest that such questions are easy to ask in= hindsight, and that is true. But the information the FBI= possessed should have stimulated some action. Why it didn't is a= fair and pressing question, given the fact that this agency will= presumably play the lead role in protecting the nation against= future terrorist attacks. The fact is, of course, that the FBI has a reputation of never= sharing anything with anyone. It is an agency more interested in= protecting its "turf" than in cooperating with others. This time= the consequences were tragic. It will be up to the president and Tom Ridge's Office of Homeland= Security to make certain that the folks at the FBI learn to work= and play well with others so that it doesn't happen again. *David Keene is a D.C.-based governmental affairs consultant and= Chairman of the American Conservative Union. ---------------------------------------- *Do you know a good conservative who would like to receive the= ACU-INFONET Updates? If so, why not forward the attached message= to them and encourage them to sign up at= http://www.conservative.org *If you wish to unsubscribe to the ACU-INFONET please reply to= acu_members@mailmanager.net and type 'unsubscribe' in the= subject line.