Tenet offers lawmakers a defense of pre-9/11 counterterrorism efforts

<br>WASHINGTON (AP) _ CIA Director George Tenet defended his agency's counterterrorism efforts Thursday, detailing its secret successes against al-Qaida while acknowledging that it could have better

Thursday, October 17th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ CIA Director George Tenet defended his agency's counterterrorism efforts Thursday, detailing its secret successes against al-Qaida while acknowledging that it could have better handled some information on two future Sept. 11 hijackers.

Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared before the House and Senate intelligence committees, culminating five weeks of public hearings on intelligence failures leading up to the attacks.

Before Sept. 11, he said, the CIA had a large number of reports that a large al-Qaida operation was in the offing, but didn't know where Osama bin Laden's operatives would strike.

``In the months leading up to 9/11, we were convinced bin Laden meant to attack Americans, meant to kill large numbers and that the attack could be at home, abroad and both. And we reported these threats urgently,'' he said in prepared testimony.

``But the reporting was maddeningly short on actionable details,'' Tenet conceded. ``The most ominous reporting hinting at something large was also the most vague.''

However, the CIA director also said the agency should have had two future Sept. 11 hijackers put on watchlists preventing their entry into the United States after they were first associated with al-Qaida, in early 2000, instead of August 2001.

``The error exposed weaknesses in our internal handling of watchlisting which have been addressed,'' Tenet said. ``Corrective steps have been taken.''

The committees also released testimony Tenet gave them behind closed doors in June in which he warned that it is impossible to guarantee that terrorists won't enter the country. He also said that ``an attempt to conduct another attack on U.S. soil is certain.''

Tenet also said then that there were reports that bin Laden himself had suggested crashing large planes into the World Trade Center after an associate proposed using small aircraft packed with explosives.

In his appearance Thursday, Tenet offered a somewhat defiant tone. Asked to limit his remarks to 10 minutes, he spoke for 50 minutes. When Sen. Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, urged him to abbreviate his remarks, Tenet refused. ``I just have to say I've been waiting a year,'' he said.

Regarding criticism that the CIA should have given more warning that terrorists intended to use planes as weapons, Tenet said in seven years the agency received, and passed on, all 12 reports of such terrorist planning, even those from dubious sources. In comparison, counterterrorism officials received 20 times as many reports of potential car bombings, he said.

Tenet also said the CIA lost about 18 percent of its budget and 16 percent of its personnel in the post Cold War budget cutbacks. Training new intelligence officers to replace them will take time, he said.

He also described some previously secret successes against al-Qaida, including the thwarting of planned attacks in Yemen, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The CIA record ``will show a keen awareness of the threat, a disciplined focus and persistent efforts to track, disrupt, apprehend and ultimately bring to justice bin Laden and his lieutenants,'' Tenet said.

Responding to criticism that the CIA and FBI have not shared information with each other, Tenet said the agency's alliance with the bureau ``has produced achievements that simply would not have been possible if some of the recent media stories of all-out feuding were true.''

The director of the National Security Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, and other intelligence officials, also were scheduled to appear.

The committees' joint inquiry has not uncovered any evidence that by itself could have prevented the attacks. But lawmakers have criticized agencies for not sharing information about potential threats that, if linked, might have uncovered the plot.

``It is at least a possibility that increased analysis, sharing and focus would have drawn greater attention to the growing potential for a major terrorist attack in the United States involving the aviation industry,'' said Eleanor Hill, the inquiry's staff director.