The classified memorandum written by an F.B.I. agent in Phoenix last summer urging bureau headquarters to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in American flight schools also cited Osama bin Laden by name and suggested that his followers could use the schools to train for terror operations, government officials said for the first time today. The memorandum's existence has been known for months, but few details were available until recent weeks, when some lawmakers and Congressional staff members were allowed to read it. Before today government officials had not revealed that the memorandum included direct references to Mr. bin Laden.
Robert S. Mueller III, who did not become director until two weeks before the attacks, has acknowledged that the bureau gave the memo too little attention. Mr. Mueller has said the bureau lacked adequate analytical capabilities to evaluate it, a failing that he has tried to correct by establishing new analytical units within the F.B.I. and staffing them with new personnel.
This is the process known within bureaucratic circles as "shooting the wounded." Since something happened, some sort of blame has to be assigned to somebody. All that's produced is a political or public relations advantage for whoever has an ax to grind.
I saw Michael Isikoff on FoxNews this morning going over what they had, and it wasn't much. In the intel world there are always stray bits of data popping up that may or may not have any significance. They're referred to as "intelligence information," to distinguish them from "finished intelligence." The array of little stray bits is referred to as the "grass." Every once in awhile, like a snake, one will pop its head up above the grass and it can be tied to something else. Unless the bit of information is a conversation that says "we've hijacked the plane and we should hit the World Trade Center in above five minutes" analysts wait until they can connect that bit of information with another bit to build a "who-what-when-where-why" picture.
Conspiracy nits make much of the fact that Roosevelt "knew" the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor, using the grass as though it were finished intel. The brass also "knew" they were going to hit Alaska, that there was going to be no attack, that they were going to take Indonesia first, or Indochina... You get the picture. During the Gulf War, the Iraqis "knew" that Schwartzkopf was going to swing wide and nail their flank. They also "knew" that the Marines were going to stage an amphibious landing and whack the hell out of their 5th Mechanized Division. They probably also "knew" that the 82nd Airborne was going to take Baghdad, too. |