Terrorism Warnings
With Mike Allen
Washington Post White House Correspondent
Friday, May 17 2002; 11 a.m. EDT

"The Bush administration learned in May about an increased danger of hijackings by followers of Osama bin Laden, and President Bush was told in early August, the White House said Thursday.

"The revelation came as the White House fended off questions from congressional leaders of both parties about how vigorously the administration reacted to warnings received before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon." Read the full story Questions Swirl Around Bush Over 9-11 Attacks (Post, May 16).

Mike Allen, Washington Post White House correspondent, was online Thursday, May 17 at 11 a.m. EDT, to take questions and comments on the CIA's early warnings to the administration and the political fallout.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Mike Allen: Good morning. Thanks for joining this chat. Washingtonpost.com users always have questions that make me think. I'm at my, uh, messy desk in The Washington Post newsroom, where it's still pretty quiet -- the crescendo comes around 4 or so -- but the National Desk editors have already given us our marching orders for today on this big story. (Check the site tonight or the paper tomorrow to see -- hopefully -- what they told us to do.) Above me is silent CNN and across from me is not-so-silent Dana Milbank, my fellow White House reporter. Handy -- he can help me with the hard ones.

Austin, Tex.: What effect is this having on his poll numbers, and could you speculate about how this will affect mid-term elections?

Mike Allen: It's too early to see what impact this will have on his poll numbers. An overnight poll by CNN/USA Today indicates the public won't hold it against him but is not pleased that the information was kept secret for eight months. Still unclear if or how it affects midterm elections

Arlington, Va.: Isn't the problem for Bush not so much that they knew anything specific, but that they sat on what they did know and didn't disclose it until now? Looks like a big cover-up when it's probably just mainly their mania at the White House for secrecy. Just like the secrecy surrounding the whole energy policy thing makes it look like they're more corrupt than they probably really are. Will they ever learn the lesson of what being too secretive gets them?

Mike Allen: That is a shrewd analysis. In both cases, the secrecy suggests there is more "there" there when in fact it may be nothing at all. It happens in every administration, and each eventually concludes that it is necessary to put out more information sooner, even if it's not all good news.

Charleston, S.C.: What do you know about the general nature and content of security briefings given to Congress compared to briefings received by the president and his key people?

I've been hearing that the senate and the house intelligence committees gets the same briefings as the president. I don't believe that. Surely the Congressional briefings are more general in nature and the presidential security briefings are much more specific. The statements from Sen. Lott that the briefings are the same just don't make sense to me.

Mike Allen: This varies from administration to administration. In the Clinton administration the intelligence committees received more or less the same information. The current matter indicates the Congress does not get the same specificity of information that the president gets. After leaks of information several months ago, the administration sought to limit the number of lawmakers who could receive intelligence briefings.

Baltimore, Md.: Why has the media given the Bush administration a free ride on its handling of the terrorist threat?

Mike Allen: I doubt that Ari Fleischer shares your view that the administration is getting a free ride -- certainly not in the last 48 hours. Howard Kurtz has a story on the site now about the overnight change in the tone of the White House press corps. Yesterday, for instance, Fleischer was asked a dozen variations of why the administration had never mentioned this briefing over the past eight months. Of course that decision was made by the few people who knew about it, but he had to go out there and answer questions like, "Even in hindsight, why didn't somebody come
forward and say, by the way, we had information about a hijack?"

Mt. Lebanon, Pa.: What's the story behind the story? Why are we just now learning this week that Bush fiddled while New York was being setup for the big burn? How could this story be hidden for so long and just as importantly, how did it get leaked? Thanks much.

Mike Allen: I don't know how it was leaked. David Martin at CBS News could answer that. But Dr. Rice mentioned in her briefing yesterday that the information emerged as the White House was preparing to cooperate with the joint investigation of the House and Senate intelligence committees. People at the White House strongly believe the information came from the Hill, based on the timing. One possible agenda for the leak was to suggest there was NOT an intelligence failure -- that whatever failure there may have been occurred elsewhere in the government.

Harrisburg, Pa.: Prior to this recent revelation, the perception was this was an intelligence failure that was beyond the capability of the intelligence community to have predicted as it had never happened on our soil before. Now we learn the failure was not with the intelligence community but with the command structure to properly decipher this information and act. Shouldn't the White House have acted in some stronger capacity, such as increasing surveillance or taking other steps to prevent what appeared to be a real and devastating threat?

Mike Allen: Harrisburg has put his/her finger on a central question for the investigation(s) in coming weeks. News reports about an FBI agent in Phoenix who was concerned about flight training by possible terrorists, combined with the suspicions about the so-called 20th hijacker in custody in Minneapolis, combined with the President's intelligence information might have tripped an alarm. But Dr. Rice said yesterday that as best as has been determined so far, those first two pieces of the puzzle did not reach the President.

Chicago, Ill.: Mr. Allen,

Is this turning into a blame game between Democrats & Republicans? And should an independent investigation take place?

Mike Allen: Some Republicans wouldn't mind it as a blame game, because they believe if it's an R v. D clash, people will tune it out. And they would be tuning out at a time when the President has strong, though slightly contracted, popularity.

Washington, D.C.: The Administration has taken great pains to differentiate between "pre-9/11 hijackings" and "post-9/11 hijackings."
But if they had not failed to prevent the hijackings on September 11th, then those hijackers couldn't have flown the planes into buildings. Do you buy the Administration's explanation?

Mike Allen: This administration is very disciplined about picking a message and sticking with it, and from the very first night they have emphasized this point about how hijacking threats were viewed in a different context before Sept. 11 and the use of planes as missiles. Their emphasis of this point mystifies many reporters. Here is a question from yesterday's briefing with Ari Fleischer: "Let me try this one more time. So if the hijackers on September 11th
had hijacked those planes and shot the passengers, somebody after the fact might have said, damn, you know, we had this generalized briefing, I wish we knew more. But because they flew them into buildings and killed the people, nobody
said, damn, we had this generalized information, I wish we knew more?"

Alexandria, Va.: A lot of conspiracy theorists have been circulating claims that either the U.S. or Israel or both knew that bin Laden was going to crash planes into buildings.

Are you worried that the news that there was some vague warning about hijackings will help take these conspiracy theories mainstream? As a reporter do you have a responsibility to avoid inflaming those who are not too tightly wrapped on this subject to begin with?

Mike Allen: We hope that our news stories will dispel these crazy theories, which flood my e-mail box along with Viagra offers.

Indianapolis, Ind.: Condoleeza Rice stated that "had the President known that airplanes were going to be used as missiles... he would have done something to stop it."

Then why, after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center Tower, did the President not realize the threat? As we all know, he went on to make his appearance before some grade-schoolers, and did not leave that function until the second plane had crashed.

Given that the administration was aware that something big was going to happen, involving hijacking aircrafts why didn't they recognize the first crash as an attack? In the light of the knowledge the President had, shouldn't he have been able to secure the skies and consequently keep the second, third, and fourth crashes from happening?

Mike Allen: No, no, no. I was in Sarasota, Fla., with the President and he made very brief remarks AFTER the second crash. He and his aides have since said they realized quite quickly that the nation was under attack. Here is what the President said to the stunned pupils and their teachers at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, before rushing off to Air Force One: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for America. I, unfortunately, will be going back to Washington after my
remarks. Secretary Rod Paige and the Lt. Governor will take the podium and discuss education. I do want to thank the folks here at Booker Elementary School for their hospitality.
"Today we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI, and have ordered that the full resources of the
federal government go to help the victims and their families, and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act.
Terrorism against our nation will not stand.
And now if you would join me in a moment of silence. May God bless the victims, their families, and America. Thank you very much."

Southern California: I'm not sure what the mood in Washington is, but in light of the revelations about our nations intelligence failures which led to Sept. 11, most people out here firmly believe that fingers do need to be pointed and heads should roll.

Our government's incompetence in intelligence, defense, and immigration created the environment that allowed Sept. 11 to happen in the first place. What will it take for real reform? Another terrorist attack. A nuclear weapon detonated in an American city? Smallpox? What? Maybe we're 2,800 miles away but from here you just don't see a sense that Washington is serious about protecting our nation.

Mike Allen: I'm from Orange County and am happy to pass along an outside-the-Beltway view -- one of the beauties of washingtonpost.com.

Washington, D.C.: In all fairness to the White House from this Democrat, 9/11 was way too large of an intelligence failure to lay squarely on the shoulders of any one man or section of the government. The current session of the Blame Game now underway is a result of the fact that nearly everyone concerned dropped the ball somewhere. It's not a question of who's to blame but rather of who isn't.

My real complaint (and where the ire of the families of the victims should be) is that years and years of warnings that airport security was too lax resulted in no one in a position to do anything taking initiative to tighten things up until it was too late. Alas.

Mike Allen: Don't see a question, but I'm sure others share your view(s).

Mike Allen: Thank you for joining my chat. I'm going to run off to Ari's 12:15 briefing. If you're watching on MSNBC or one of the other cable news channels, I'm in the second row, second from the left as you look at the screen. The handsome one. Good weekend, everyon and I appreciate your insightful and thought-provoking questions. And please click on my stories on washingtonpost.com

washingtonpost.com:

That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.

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