In article <bfq32e$le1$1@pencil.math.missouri.edu>, MichaelP says...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,1005413,00.html

The Guardian  Friday July 25, 2003
	Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor

The US national security agency picked up "communications that indicated 
possible impending terrorist activity" between September 8 and September 
10 2001 but failed to act on them, according to a congressional 
investigation into the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington.

The long-awaited 900-page report, which was released late yesterday, 
criticised the NSA, the CIA and the FBI for a series of intelligence 
failures that could have prevented the September 11 attacks.

The report also confirms there was no link between al-Qaida and the Iraqi 
regime led by Saddam Hussein, despite claims to the contrary by President 
George Bush in the runup to war with Iraq.

The investigation into intelligence failures began in February 2002 and 
was completed in December. Publication has been delayed until now because 
of internal rows over how much of it could be declassified. All but 28 
pages are being released to the public.

Excerpts from the report, released in advance, said the NSA, which is 
responsible for covert intercepts, had failed to translate the 
conversations in the run-up to the attacks so was not in a position to 
disseminate the information.

The report says: "Prior to Sept 11, the intelligence community was not 
prepared to handle the challenge it faced in translating the volumes of 
foreign language counterterrorism intelligence it collected ... The 
intelligence community's ability to produce significant and timely signals 
intelligence on counterterrorism was limited by the [NSA's] failure to 
address modern communications technology aggressively ... and insufficient 
collaboration between NSA and FBI regarding the potential for terrorist 
attacks in the United States."

The NSA intercepted conversations in early 1999 linking two of the 
hijackers - Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazm, who were on the plane 
that crashed into the Pentagon - to al-Qaida but failed to pass that 
information to other intelligence agencies, including the FBI, which had 
an agent with access to them in San Diego who might have been able to 
learn more.

"As a result, the FBI missed the opportunity to task a uniquely 
well-positioned informant - who denies having any advance knowledge of the 
plot - to collect information about the hijackers and their plans," the 
report says.

The report also criticises the CIA, which expected attacks by al-Qaida on 
US embassies and interests abroad but not on America itself. In the 10 
years leading up to the attacks, the CIA had been relying too much on 
communication intercepts rather than placing agents on the ground.

"The intelligence community did not effectively develop and use human 
sources to penetrate al-Qaida's inner circle," the report says. "This lack 
of reliable and knowledgeable human sources significantly limited the 
community's ability to acquire intelligence that could be acted upon 
before the Sept 11 attacks."

The report notes that while information had been available since 1994 that 
terrorists might use planes, "none the less, testimony and interviews 
confirm that it was the general view of the intelligence community ... 
that the threatened Bin Laden attacks would most likely occur against US 
interests overseas".

It adds: "The CIA's failure to watchlist suspected terrorists aggressively 
reflected a lack of emphasis on a process designed to protect the 
homeland."

The Pentagon cited this lack of intelligence as a reason for not mounting 
substantial attacks on al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Under President Clinton 
the US launched cruise missiles against suspected al-Qaida camps: while 
safe for the US military, the strikes proved ineffective against al-Qaida.

The report is also critical of the failures of the FBI, which "was unable 
to identify and monitor effectively the extent of activity by al-Qaida and 
other international terrorist groups operating in the United States."