Some Question Motives Behind Series of Alerts

Some Question Motives Behind Series of Alerts

by Toni Locy
USA Today
May 24, 2002
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020524/4139663s.htm

The White House and the FBI are the focus of questions about whether they could have done more to prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Suddenly, federal authorities once again are issuing a barrage of terrorism warnings, this time naming banks, apartments buildings and New York City landmarks as potential targets.

Are the warnings just politics, issued to protect the FBI and President Bush from future criticism if there is another attack? Or are the FBI and new Office of Homeland Security doing what officials said they would under the government's new color-coded terror alert system?

Maybe a little of both, law enforcement analysts say. However the politics and investigations play out on Capitol Hill, local officials who were critical of the government last fall for issuing a series of non-specific alerts seem more satisfied. At least now, they say, the feds are telling local authorities what they know about potential terrorism -- even if it is only an uncorroborated tip.

''There is always the fear that you are going to cry wolf too much,'' Minneapolis Police Chief Robert Olson says. ''But (the FBI) is talking to us. That's a plus. . . . It's not a night and day difference. It's more like an almost-twilight to full-light difference. What's important is that they are being upfront about what they know, and . . . what they don't know.''

John Timoney, a former Philadelphia police commissioner and one of the loudest critics of the FBI's communication problems, agrees the bureau is talking more to local police.

Federal authorities ''have got to be really sensitive to the beating they are taking in the press and how they're being whipsawed by politicians on Capitol Hill,'' he says. ''Some of it may be (an effort by officials to cover themselves). But I don't think it's all of it.''

In recent days, authorities have issued warnings that al-Qaeda terrorists might target apartment buildings nationwide and the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Transportation warned of possible attacks on rail and transit systems. Administration officials say the alerts aren't new; they say the news media are covering them more.

But they acknowledge that the alert system might need some fine-tuning. A public comment period has just ended, and the White House plans to recommend a final version by the end of July. Under the system, the USA is on Code Yellow, meaning there is an ''elevated'' chance of a terrorist attack.

Officials say the alerts stem from information provided by detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and from Abu Zubaydah, the most senior al-Qaeda member in U.S. custody.

Timoney says the government's recently expanded authority to use secret wiretaps could also be a factor in the increase of alerts. The United States has listened in on al-Qaeda since the early 1990s, according to testimony at last year's trial in New York of those accused of bombing U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.

Al-Qaeda, Timoney says, is not that different from a drug gang, nor is the pattern of ''chatter'' that authorities pick up in monitoring such groups. Criminals usually talk in code, but Timoney says police can tell if they are preparing for something big by the increase in calls and apparent planning. U.S. officials have said agents monitoring al-Qaeda operatives have picked up increased ''chatter'' recently.

One of the main sources of the intelligence, government sources say, is Zubaydah. Officials acknowledge that Zubaydah and the Cuba detainees could be concocting stories to try to throw off U.S. authorities and to create fear.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., says the United States needs a better alert system. Harman, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, says the public needs to be told what to do during alerts. ''Just telling people to be more scared,'' she says, ''is not the answer.''

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