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9/11: FBI, CIA to testify
12/04/2004 10:55 - (SA)
Washington - The official inquiry into the September 11 attacks will this week turn to the crucial role of the US intelligence services which have already borne much criticism.
Past and present heads of the FBI and CIA will appear before the commission on Tuesday and Wednesday - only days after the White House released a memorandum which showed the FBI knew al-Qaeda was operating in the United States before the 2001 terrorist strikes.
The hearings could take some of the pressure off President George W Bush.
The US leader has been accused by a former White House counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, of not paying enough attention to the al-Qaeda threat after he took office in January 2001.
Bush and his national security advisor Condoleezza Rice have insisted, however, there was no evidence that pointed to a time and place of the strikes.
Commission leaders have said before they even present their report they believe the bin Laden fanatics could have been prevented from slamming hijacked US airliners into the World Trade Center towers in New York and Defence Department in Washington had the intelligence agencies been working together.
Some have indicated they are not convinced the Bush administration is entirely blameless.
John Ashcroft, the attorney general, his predecessor Janet Reno, and former FBI directors Louis Freeh and Thomas Pickard will be the star witnesses on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, CIA director George Tenet and FBI counterpart Robert Mueller will give sworn testimony to the 10-member panel.
What went wrong?
Commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton said: "We want to understand what went wrong, and what steps have been taken to make the American people safer and more secure.
"These hearings will help us clarify issues and choices as we move toward recommendations and our final report in July."
The memo released on Saturday was sent to Bush on August 6, 2001.
Entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US", it said that in mid-2001 FBI agents suspected al-Qaeda was preparing air hijackings and had been studying federal buildings in New York.
Bob Kerrey, a former senator and leading Democratic member of the September 11 commission, wrote in the New York Times on Sunday that the terrorist strikes could have been avoided and that US "strategy against terrorism is deeply flawed."
Kerrey highlighted one July 5, 2001 incident when Rice asked Clarke to help domestic agencies prepare against an attack.
"Five days later an FBI field agent in Phoenix recommended that the agency investigate whether Qaeda operatives were training at American flight schools. He speculated that bin Laden's followers might be trying to infiltrate the civil aviation system as pilots, security guards or other personnel," Kerrey wrote.
"Ms. Rice did not receive this information, a failure for which she blames the structure of government.
"While I am not blaming her, I have not seen the kind of urgent follow-up after this July 5 meeting that anyone who has worked in government knows is needed to make things happen," Kerrey added.
"I have not found evidence that federal agencies were directed clearly, forcefully and unambiguously to tell the president everything they were doing to eliminate Qaeda cells in the United States."
Bush again pleaded his innocence on Sunday when questioned about the memo by reporters.
"Had I known there was going to be an attack on America, I would have moved mountains to stop the attack," he said.
"Of course we knew that America was hated by Osama bin Laden," Bush said.
"I'm satisfied that I never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America at a time and a place of an attack."
- AFP
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