The FBI missed at least five opportunities before the Sept. 11 attacks to uncover vital intelligence information about the terrorists, and the bureau didn't aggressively pursue the information it did have, the Justice Department's inspector general says in a newly released critique of government missteps.
The IG faulted the FBI for not knowing about the presence of two of the Sept. 11 terrorists in the United States and for not following up on an agent's theory that Osama bin Laden was sending students to U.S. flight training schools. The agent's theory turned out to be precisely what bin Laden did. "The way the FBI handled these matters was a significant failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks," Inspector General Glenn Fine said.
When the bureau did discover the presence of hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar in the United States shortly before the attacks, "the FBI's investigation then was conducted without much urgency or priority," the report concluded.
The five missed opportunities in regard to the two hijackers stemmed from information sharing problems between the FBI and CIA and problems inside the FBI's counterterrorism program.
The report, a year old, is only now being released because of a court fight with lawyers for imprisoned terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui over how much of it should be disclosed. The report's findings mirror other investigations by Congress and an independent commission into why the U.S. government failed to thwart the attacks.
Without elaboration, the report faults the bureau for a lack of public candor.
"Shortly after the attacks, the FBI indicated that it did not have any information warning of the attacks," the report said. "However, information was soon discovered that had been in the possession of the FBI and the intelligence community before Sept. 11 that related to the hijacking of airplanes by extremists or that involved the terrorists who committed the Sept. 11 attacks."
The bureau said it has taken substantial steps to deal with the issues the IG raised.
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