Then–and now–there was a rash of fresh intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda was planning a new series of attacks. Most of the information pointed to targets overseas. But there were also elusive but tantalizing hints–including some plucked from Al Qaeda-linked Internet Web sites–suggesting that those attacks might actually be diversions for an even more deadlier operation into the United States.
“This looked eerily similar to right before September 11,” says one top U.S. counterterrorism official. “Everybody thought then that it was going to be overseas.” As a result, the official said, nobody put together the disparate clues that might have led law-enforcement officials to the plots against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
But even so, this week’s decision by the Homeland Security Council–the senior White House committee of Cabinet members that determines the threat level–was not unanimous, sources told NEWSWEEK. Some officials thought some of the intelligence pointing to domestic attacks was “entirely uncorroborated” and did not justify the costly increases in security that federal and local agencies are now bound to impose as a response to the higher threat level.
But in the end, the haunting fears of another pre-9-11 miscalculation, combined with what one official called “media pressure,” prompted the White House to take the drastic step of raising the threat level–a move that imposes major burdens on federal and local agencies to dramatically step up security patrols at airports, harbors, government buildings and sensitive installations like dams and power plants.
Top U.S. counterterrorism officials provided this account to NEWSWEEK about how the decision to move to Code Orange was made:
Over the weekend, sources say, the U.S. intelligence community started picking up an alarming increase in telephone “chatter” that suggested a series of new Al Qaeda attacks might be imminent. The “chatter” is gleaned from electronic intercepts of known Al Qaeda operatives. But in this case, and others, it can be maddeningly cryptic: while the talk seemed to indicate that new operations were underway, they were infuriatingly vague about where and when.
Last Friday’s bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, coming on top of the Al Qaeda attacks on residential compounds in Saudi Arabia, seemed to fit into this scenario. But then other worrisome information started coming in. Among the most significant was the discovery of a handful of Internet postings on Al Qaeda Web sites mentioning the possibility of attacks inside the United States, NEWSWEEK has learned. The postings were on obscure but publicly accessible sites that U.S. analysts have concluded in the past were used by Al Qaeda to exchange messages. The new postings, sources say, made references to attacks in the next few days.
But the postings also provided no hints as to where in the United States. Other “highly classified” intelligence–believed to have been gleaned from interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees–suggested the terrorist group was planning attacks in the major Northeast corridor cities of Boston, New York and Washington. But again, the information was frustratingly vague and uncorroborated. There were no details on any specific targets. Nevertheless, the FBI scrambled over the weekend to increase surveillance of suspected operatives in those regions.
The move to Code Orange was taken reluctantly. Some top U.S. counterterrorism officials have become increasingly wary about such steps–and not just because of the cost. They fear that repeated moves to an Orange alert will make the public jaded and less likely to take them seriously over time-especially if no attacks actually occur. There is also the perennial problem of how to “back down.” Because sustaining Code Orange indefinitely imposes too costly a burden, officials worry about how to find new intelligence that will justify lowering the threat level. Still, one official said, “in this case it was warranted.”
FBI VICTORY
Score a big one for the FBI. According to Bush administration sources, the FBI, backed up by senior officials at the Justice Department, have won a nasty interagency turf fight over who is to control investigations into terrorists’ financial networks. Sources tell NEWSWEEK that after weeks of lobbying, Justice finally convinced senior White House officials that it should be given complete control over terrorism finance investigations.
Until now, these inquiries were also being pursued by Operation Greenquest, a task force set up after 9-11 by U.S. Customs–which is now part of the Homeland Security Department. The Greenquest probes had provoked repeated feuds between FBI agents and Customs agents, with both sides complaining that the other wasn’t sharing information and working cooperatively.
But now, officials say, while Customs investigators (now working for Homeland’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) will continue to work on terrorism-finance cases, they will be subordinate to the FBI, which apparently will have to reorganize its own terrorism-finance investigations to give the issue a higher profile. Some kind of public announcement on the resolution of the dispute may be made in the near future.
The White House decision is a major coup for Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who aggressively pushed the issue, and FBI director Robert Mueller. It is a big disappointment to former Customs chief Robert Bonner (now in charge of the Homeland Security division that runs U.S. border and Customs posts), for whom Greenquest was a pet project. Greenquest investigators are said to have spent a lot of time and effort fighting the turf battle with the FBI over the last several weeks and the dispute has sapped their morale.
Terror Watch, written by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball appears online weekly
