10 July 2001, FBI: Phoenix AZ Special Agent Kenneth Williams to HQ re. Aviation Schools (Phoenix Memo) (PDF)
Anti-U.S. Views at Pilot Schools Prompted Agent's Alert
By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and DAVID JOHNSTON
May 22, 2002
At a closed-door Congressional hearing, an F.B.I. agent from Phoenix said today that he wrote a memorandum last July about a potential terrorist plot after conducting several interviews with Arab flight school students who expressed extreme animosity toward the United States, lawmakers said today.
But the agent, Kenneth Williams, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he believed that if the bureau had implemented his recommendation to interview hundreds, if not thousands, of Middle Eastern students at American flight schools, the effort would not have thwarted the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, said lawmakers who attended the session.
Mr. Williams, who was accompanied to Capitol Hill by Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, provided a copy of his memorandum to committee members. The memo, written on July 10 in the course of terror investigations, warned that Osama bin Laden's followers could be training at American flight schools for an attack inside the United States.
''The catalyst for his memo were very specific statements by the students that he had interviewed at the flight schools,'' said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who attended the closed-door session late this afternoon. ''What they had to say about the United States was chilling and frightening.''
Mr. Durbin said that Mr. Williams's five-page memorandum did not suggest that there were terrorists at Arizona flight schools who would try to fly commercial jets into buildings. But he said the agent's memorandum stated that students at flight schools might try to use their training to endanger the nation's civil aviation system. Mr. Williams told lawmakers that his suspicion of some of the students was based on a hunch.
Also today, President Bush warned that Al Qaeda terrorists still ''want to hurt us,'' and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned that terrorists would acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Williams's appearance on Capitol Hill came a day after a report that Mr. Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft were told a few days after the Sept. 11 attacks that the F.B.I. had received the memorandum written by Mr. Williams.
Neither Mr. Ashcroft nor Mr. Mueller briefed President Bush and his national security staff until recently about the Phoenix memorandum, government officials said. Nor did they inform Congressional leaders.
Lawmakers also asked Mr. Mueller about his handling of Mr. Williams's memorandum. Mr. Mueller told senators that he reviewed it shortly after Sept. 11 but said he ''didn't really focus on its importance,'' Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview tonight.
''I find that aspect very, very unsatisfactory,'' Mr. Specter said. Mr. Mueller has acknowledged that the failure of his agency to fully evaluate the Phoenix memorandum was a significant lapse.
Mr. Mueller briefed lawmakers on his plans to reorganize the agency to vastly expand its analytical units to prevent such lapses.
Earlier today, several Congressional leaders reacted with anger that Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Mueller failed to tell Mr. Bush about the memorandum last September, and they called again for an independent commission to investigate the government's response to terror threats before and after the Sept. 11 attacks.
''This is a very disconcerting new report, and I think it's all the more reason why we have to get to the bottom of what it was we knew and when we knew it,'' said Senator Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, the Senate majority leader. ''This isn't a question of why didn't the president act. This is a question of why didn't the agencies work? Why didn't the information get to the appropriate officials: the president, members of Congress? And I think it all the more requires the Congress and others to begin looking more carefully at all of these facts.''
Senator Durbin said he was astonished that Mr. Williams's memorandum did not go up the chain of command and end up on the president's desk. ''He sent this memo into an abyss,'' Senator Durbin said. ''It all but disappeared. It was never treated seriously within the F.B.I., never circulated, never analyzed, nor was it referred to the C.I.A.''
Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, was asked at his daily briefing about the president's reaction to the news that Mr. Mueller and Mr. Ashcroft did not inform the White House about the memorandum.
Mr. Fleischer said the president was not concerned about being told recently about the memorandum. ''No, the president's focus is on, one, winning the war and making sure we can prevent the next attack,'' Mr. Fleischer said, ''and two, that this is why it's important that we continue to work with Congress, so that all information about what existed prior to 9/11 can be looked at in full context.''
Mr. Fleischer said Mr. Bush was briefed in the past two weeks by Mr. Mueller and Mr. Ashcroft about the Phoenix memorandum, but he did not ask to see a copy. ''He was briefed on it,'' Mr. Fleischer said, ''and that sufficed.''
Also today, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Powell became the latest senior Bush administration officials to warn the public about the increased danger of another terror attack.
Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Powell said it was inevitable that terrorists would acquire weapons of mass destruction from countries like Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Mr. Powell said ''terrorists are trying every way they can'' to get nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
The secretaries became the third and fourth senior officials in three days to warn the public about the government's deep concerns that members of Al Qaeda, and possibly other terrorists, intended to strike again in the United States.
''We do face additional terrorist threats,'' Mr. Rumsfeld told a Senate committee. ''The question is not if, but when, and where and how.''
Mr. Rumsfeld said it was almost a certainty that terrorists would obtain biological, chemical or nuclear weapons through their connections to countries that have tried for years to develop them. Mr. Rumsfeld identified Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea as possible sources.
''Just facing the facts, we have to recognize that terrorist networks have relationships with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction and that they inevitably are going to get their hands on them, and they would not hesitate one minute in using them,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Despite the increased concerns, Mr. Fleischer said the White House had no plans to raise the color-coded terrorism alert status because intelligence on possible attacks is too vague.
The current level is at yellow, meaning there is a significant risk of a terror attack. On a five-level scale, the yellow level is the mid-point. The next two levels of increased risk are orange and then red, which is the most severe.
A senior administration official said tonight that taking the next step to the orange level would involve closing public facilities and canceling public events.