Wednesday October 03 02:57 PM EDT - Powell Says U.S. Had
Signs, but Not Clear Ones, of a Plot
By JANE PERLEZ and DAVID E. SANGER The New York Times
Despite extensive efforts, intelligence agencies failed to pick up enough
information to stop the Sept. 11 attacks, the secretary of state said.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today that the
Bush administration had received a "lot of signs" that terrorists
were planning attacks against the United States but extensive efforts by
intelligence agencies failed to pick up enough information to stop the Sept.
11 attacks on New York and Washington. Early this summer "there were
a lot of signs that there was something going on," Secretary Powell
said. "But we never got the fidelity and the information that we would
have liked to, some warning of what did actually happen."
In looking back today in an interview in his State Department
suite, Secretary Powell expressed frustration that, despite a summer of
warnings of possible terrorist actions against American civilian and military
sites around the world, the information was not sufficient to identify the
specific targets that were struck last month. "The intelligence agencies
were trying," he said. "We were watchful throughout all of our
embassy systems."
Mr. Powell praised George Tenet, the director of central
intelligence, a holdover from the Clinton administration. The House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence is urging far-reaching changes in intelligence
operations and an independent investigation into why the government did
not foresee or prevent the Sept. 11 attacks. While he was generally upbeat
in his accounting of the progress so far in the global campaign against
terror, he made it clear that the administration was still at the early
stages of winning full cooperation from allied and other nations.
For example, despite pledges of cooperation, Saudi Arabia
has not yet said publicly that the United States would be able to use air
bases there for offensive operations against targets in Afghanistan. Secretary
Powell insisted that the administration is demonstrating to allies and moderate
Arab governments that the case against Osama bin Laden and his network is
convincing. He asserted that "all paths" lead to Mr. bin Laden
and his Al Qaeda network, although he cautioned not to see it in terms of
a case "that's going to trial in a court."
Instead, administration officials have been briefing allies
on what he called "pretty good information" establishing the link
between the airplane hijackers and Mr. bin Laden. "It's a campaign
in many parts and pieces all working to go after a common enemy," Secretary
Powell said. "That enemy's name is terrorism. And in its most ambitious
manifestation it goes by the name Al Qaeda and the head of that awful holding
company is bin Laden and he is responsible for tragedy against humanity,
crime against the American people, crime against the civilized world and
he must be held accountable."
Secretary Powell described in general terms the cable that
has been sent to American embassies around the world outlining the case
against Mr. bin Laden. He said it describes the history of the terrorist
network, and recites existing indictments filed against Mr. bin Laden for
his alleged involvement in the 1998 bombings of two American Embassies in
East Africa. It also describes evidence of Mr. bin Laden's responsibility
"for past crimes against the U.S. and against civilization," presumably
including the attack last year on the American destroyer Cole in Yemen.
While the administration has not made any documents public,
as General Powell suggested that it might 10 days ago, he said today that
"over time enough information would surface" to convince the American
people. "The case will never be able to be described as circumstantial,"
he said. "It's not circumstantial now." Secretary Powell also
touched, gingerly, on the political future of Afghanistan. Despite a policy
statement from the Bush administration last week stating that the Taliban
does not represent the Afghan people, General Powell stopped well short
of saying that the overthrow of the hard-line Islamic government is an explicit
goal.
"Our goal in the first instance as the president has
laid out is to go after Al Qaeda and its leader bin Laden and its camps
in Afghanistan," he said. "And the Taliban regime will pay a price."
Addressing the possibilty that the Taliban might not survive the coming
confrontation, Secretary Powell said he hoped for the emergence of a new
government that would be "representative" of the many ethnic groups
that make up the Afghan people. "Hopefully, the Afghan people can find
themselves under the leadership of a government that is representative of
all the Afghan people and is a less repressive government than the kind
that is there now." He held out the possibility of substantial economic
assistance once the Taliban is out of the way.
Already the Bush administration has made available $170
million in relief aid, and officials suggested this weekend that another
$100 million would be on the way by the end of the year. Secretary Powell
said that figure would rise, and the United States would try to bring "some
level of stability in their society." "We would see what we could
do to put the country on a more secure footing," he said. "You're
not doing your job if you are not thinking of future opportunities and possibilities."
Asked how he would define victory in the long campaign
ahead, Secretary Powell gave a broad and ambitious definition one that centered
more on how Americans felt than any specific military victory. "I see
the success of this campaign being measured in the restoration of a degree
of security in society, where people are not as frightened as they are now,"
he said.
He added that another measure of success would come "when
there is less terrorism, far less, preferably zero terrorism with a global
reach of the world." President Bush has often said many victories would
arise from covert operations, never seen by the American people. But Secretary
Powell said: "Even covert activities eventually produce visible results."
Asked about his newly disclosed plans to declare that the administration
supports the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a settlement in
the Middle East, Secretary Powell said he had not decided when or where
to outline his views.
After staying aloof from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
for most of the year, the administration was about to dive in when the Sept.
11 attacks occurred. Those attacks delayed the opening of the United Nations
General Assembly in New York, where Mr. Bush had been planning to meet the
Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, and Mr. Powell had been planning to deliver
a speech outlining the administration's ideas for resolving the conflict.
Today, Secretary Powell suggested that when that initiative resumed would
depend on events in Afghanistan.
The intelligence warnings about terrorist attacks that
Secretary Powell discussed today were received during the spring and summer,
particularly before the Fourth of July and the summit meeting of industrialized
nations in Genoa, Italy, that month. Vice President Dick Cheney referred
to those reports in an hourlong interview on "Meet the Press"
on Sept. 16 when he said that the government had information that a "big
operation" was planned. But, like Secretary Powell today, Mr. Cheney
said there was "no specific threat involving really a domestic operation."
Secretary Powell suggested that the State Department and
the intelligence agencies had been on high alert against terrorism, and
had been trying, though its embassies abroad, to home in on Mr. bin Laden's
plans. But twice he said that the American intelligence gathering effort
never came up with enough "fidelity" a word that seemed to suggest
that they either misunderstood the signals they were receiving, or simply
did not have enough specific data.
"There were a number of reports that we were worried
about but that never crystallized," he said. "There were a lot
of signs that there was something going on nobody could ever get the fidelity
in those reports." In June and early July, United States intelligence
officials warned that Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda appeared to be planning
terrorist attacks against American interests. Those warnings prompted public
alerts by the administration of possible terrorist attacks timed for the
Fourth of July holidays.
When no attacks occurred around July 4, American intelligence
officials began to assume that the immediate threat had passed. In retrospect,
some American officials say that their focus on that holiday may have been
a misreading of the information they had received. All through June and
July, the State Department released reports warning that terrorist attacks
were imminent in locations from the Mideast to East Asia. In July, for example,
the department warned about possible attacks against installations in Japan
and South Korea, as well as against American interests in the Arabian Peninsula. | 
