[Mb-civic] Cheney Cites Justifications For Domestic Eavesdropping - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Cheney Cites Justifications For Domestic Eavesdropping
Secret Monitoring May Have Averted 9/11, He Says

By Jim VandeHei and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 5, 2006; A02

Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist 
attacks might have been prevented if the Bush administration had had the 
power to secretly monitor conversations involving two of the hijackers 
without court orders.

As part of an effort to sell Americans on the administration's recently 
disclosed program to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications 
between the United States and people overseas without a warrant, Cheney 
told a small group of conservatives at the Heritage Foundation that 
instead of being able to "pick up" on the terrorist plot "we didn't know 
they were here plotting until it was too late."

But Cheney did not mention that the government had compiled significant 
information on the two suspects before the attacks and that bureaucratic 
problems -- not a lack of information -- were primary reasons for the 
security breakdown, according to congressional investigators and the 
Sept. 11 commission. Moreover, the administration had the power to 
eavesdrop on their calls and e-mails, as long as it sought permission 
from a secret court that oversees clandestine surveillance in the United 
States.

The bigger problem was that the FBI and other agencies did not know 
where the two suspects -- Cheney's office confirmed that he was 
referring to Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar -- were living in the 
United States and had missed numerous opportunities to track them down 
in the 20 months before the attacks, according to the Sept. 11 
commission and other sources.

In his speech, scheduled as part of a White House offensive to defend 
the recently disclosed surveillance program, Cheney painted an ominous 
portrait of U.S. security without the controversial practice. Critics 
said the surveillance has been unconstitutional, carried out without 
explicit congressional approval or court oversight. The administration 
said it gained broad powers from a congressional resolution after Sept. 11.

Cheney said the National Security Agency program, combined with the 
expanded surveillance powers authorized by the USA Patriot Act, has 
saved lives -- and thwarted terrorist attacks.

"No one can guarantee that we won't be hit again, but neither should 
anyone say that the relative safety of the last four years came as an 
accident," Cheney said. "America has been protected not by luck but by 
sensible policy decisions."

Under a secret order signed by President Bush after Sept. 11, the NSA 
was freed from its normal restraints and allowed to eavesdrop on the 
international communications of U.S. citizens and residents. Bush and 
other administration officials have said the spying has been limited to 
cases involving suspected al Qaeda associates here or overseas. "This 
wartime measure is limited in scope to surveillance associated with 
terrorists," Cheney said.

A few hours earlier, Bush met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld 
and other top officials at the Pentagon and offered an optimistic 
appraisal of progress in Iraq and the broader terrorism fight. Bush 
highlighted the recent decision to slightly reduce troop levels in Iraq 
and suggested that additional withdrawals could come this year.

"Later this year, if Iraqis continue to make progress on the security 
and political sides that we expect, we can discuss further possible 
adjustments with the leaders of a new government in Iraq," Bush said. 
The White House is planning speeches in the next few weeks to highlight 
progress in Iraq and defend the spying program, which has come under 
heavy criticism from Democrats and some Republicans. The program is 
expected to be scrutinized in hearings later this month.

Cheney said if the administration had the power "before 9/11, we might 
have been able to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into 
the Pentagon."

Even without the warrantless domestic spying program, however, the NSA 
and other U.S. intelligence agencies had important clues about the Sept. 
11 plot and the hijackers before the attacks, according to media reports 
and findings by Congress and the commission.

For example, the NSA intercepted two electronic messages on Sept. 10, 
2001, that warned of the attacks -- but the agency failed to translate 
them until Sept. 12. The Arabic-language messages said "The match is 
about to begin" and "Tomorrow is zero hour," intelligence officials said.

U.S. intelligence sources have said that NSA analysts were unsure who 
was speaking on the intercepts but that they were considered a high 
enough priority for translation within two days.

Cheney's apparent reference to Alhazmi and Almihdhar is also incomplete, 
leaving out the fact that several government agencies had compiled 
significant information about the duo but had bungled efforts to track them.

According to the Sept. 11 commission's report, released in 2004, the NSA 
first identified Alhazmi and Almihdhar in December 1999, passing the 
information to the CIA but conducting no further research.

In 2000, the CIA failed to place Alhazmi and Almihdhar on a watch list 
despite their ties to a terrorist summit in Malaysia. The CIA also 
mishandled efforts to follow them after the summit and failed to share 
information about them with the FBI, including the crucial fact that 
both men had U.S. visas, the commission found.

By late August 2001, the FBI finally had information that Almihdhar had 
recently entered the United States. But the search for the suspected al 
Qaeda operative was treated as routine and assigned to a rookie agent, 
according to the commission report.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert who heads Rand Corp.'s Washington 
office, said it is unclear what communications could have been 
intercepted if the FBI and other agencies did not know where Alhazmi and 
Almihdhar were.

Hoffman also said Cheney's comments ignore the breadth of the government 
failures before the attacks, which were due to structural problems 
rather than a single missed lead.

"It's not that legislation was lacking; it was a systemic failure," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/04/AR2006010400973.html
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