Briefings Reveal Few Facts

Briefings Reveal Few Facts

by Christine Dorsey
The Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 14, 2001

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers emerging from briefings on this week's devastating airplane attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., are grumbling that information they were given was sketchy and inadequate, questioning whether U.S. intelligence agencies were being forthcoming about what they knew before the attacks.

'This was a massive intelligence failure and it hasn't gotten any better,' said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii. Abercrombie expressed dismay at what little information was being given to members of Congress, even ones like him who serve on the Armed Services Committee.

'You can't even begin to call these briefings,' Abercrombie said after a closed-door meeting Wednesday with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency.

He called the speeches given by agency officials to lawmakers in the House chamber 'pitiful attempts to justify' an apparent lapse in intelligence on the plot to demolish the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and possibly other targets in Washington.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., vented.

'We're learning more from CNN,' a visibly frustrated McCain, high ranking on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said while emerging from a Senate session on Wednesday.

Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., House minority whip, said Thursday he is concerned by the quality of the briefings,.

Some Democrats complained they first need better answers to how terrorists managed to outwit every U.S. intelligence agency, and how President Bush plans to spend what some lawmakers have described as a 'blank check.'

But other lawmakers defended the administration's efforts.

Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., was tight-lipped about what was said during a meeting congressional leaders held with Bush and military leaders at the White House on Wednesday.

'It's just not good to talk about what goes on in this meeting,' Reid said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, raised eyebrows this week when he commented that U.S. intelligence had intercepted communications Tuesday suggesting terrorist Osama bin Laden's organization was involved in the attacks. Several years ago, monitoring of bin Laden telephone conversations dried up after the U.S. intelligence effort was leaked and reported.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., sat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the early 1990s. She said she occasionally was privy to classified information, and noted she did not expect that this week's briefings would reveal much information.

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