'9/11 was unpreventable'

2004-03-24 11:28

Washington - President George W Bush's administration on Tuesday told an official inquiry that the September 11 attacks by al-Qaeda could not have been stopped.

Bush played defence after a former counter-terrorism advisor accused him of sweeping aside the threat from Osama bin Laden's group upon taking office in January 2001.

"Had my administration had any information that the terrorists were going to attack New York City on September 11, we would have acted," Bush told White House reporters.

And he highlighted the US record since 2001, when hijackers crashed airliners in New York and Washington, killing about 3 000.

"We have chased down al-Qaeda ever since the attacks. We have captured or killed two-thirds of their own leaders. We are still pursuing them and we will continue pursuing them so long as I am the president of the United States," Bush said.

No military means

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States there was no military means to prevent the airliners from hitting the World Trade Centre towers in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington.

"First, I know of no actionable intelligence since January 20, 2001 that would have allowed the US to attack and capture or kill Osama bin Laden," Rumsfeld said.

"Second, even if bin Laden had been captured or killed in the weeks before 9/11, no one I know believes it would have prevented 9/11," he said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell told the commission that fighting terrorism was a priority for Bush as soon as he took office in January 2001.

''I'm tired of swatting flies.''

"He said in early spring, 'I'm tired of swatting flies.' He wanted a thorough, comprehensive, diplomatic, military, intelligence, law enforcement and financial strategy to go after al-Qaeda," Powell said.

Powell's predecessor as secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, defended the previous administration under Bill Clinton, which struck al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan in 1998.

To protect our people

"We did everything we could, everything we could think of, based on the knowledge we had, to protect our people and disrupt and defeat al-Qaeda," Albright said.

But the commission's chairman said the attacks could have been prevented with tighter border and intelligence checks. And the commission's preliminary report said the Clinton and Bush administrations had been passive against the growing threat.

"My feeling is a whole number of circumstances, had they been different, might have prevented 9/11," Thomas Kean, chairman of the commission told CBS television.

The panel's interim report said successive governments failed to properly gauge the threat al-Qaeda presented.

"By early 1997, intelligence and law enforcement officials in the US government had finally received reliable information disclosing the existence of al-Qaeda as a worldwide terrorist organisation," the report said.

The report said the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Centre in New York had "called attention to a new kind of terrorist danger".

Bin Laden in sights

The United States had bin Laden in its sights at least three times after the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa, but decided each time not to move in for the kill. Testimony revealed doubts about the veracity of the intelligence, fears of killing civilians, of destroying mosques and of alienating allies in the region were all reasons for holding fire.

"Each time the munitions and the people were spun up, they were called off because the word came back: We're not sure - we're not quite sure," Cohen told the commission.

"In one instance, there was an identification that somehow we had bin Laden in our sights. Turned out it was a sheikh from UAE," he said.

The commission, however, reported that a CIA field officer believes that the episode involving the UAE sheikh was a lost opportunity to kill bin Laden before September 11.

One strike that was carried out, on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, became controversial later. Albright and Cohen defended the strike because the factory was suspected of producing chemical or biological weapons.

"On actionable intelligence, I believed, and continue to believe, that the plant in Sudan was connected to this network that Osama bin Laden had had in Sudan and that it was an appropriate strike," Albright told the commission.

The Clinton administration was roundly criticised for destroying the factory without proof that it was producing weapons.

The commission is to produce a final report by the end of July. Its work is sensitive, as Bush made his "war on terror" the cornerstone of his re-election campaign this year.

Bush has agreed to speak to commission members in private.

- AFP