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-Qaeda 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-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime led by Saddam Hussein, despite claims to the contrary by President George Bush in the run-up 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 September 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-Qaeda 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-Qaeda 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-Qaeda’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 September 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-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Under President Clinton the US launched cruise missiles against suspected al-Qaeda camps: while safe for the US military, the strikes proved ineffective against al-Qaeda.
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-Qaeda and other international terrorist groups operating in the United States.” – Guardian Unlimited Â