[iwar] [fc:Kill.bin.Laden.or.risk.catastrophe,.says.FBI]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-07 18:23:44
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Following.attacks,.courtrooms.become.secret,.documents.sealed]"
Previous message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] Rumsfeld confirms use of information oeprations"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
Message-Id: <200110080123.SAA03766@big.all.net>
To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List)
Organization: I'm not allowed to say
From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 18:23:44 -0700 (PDT)
Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Kill.bin.Laden.or.risk.catastrophe,.says.FBI]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Kill bin Laden or risk catastrophe, says FBI

War on Terrorism: Observer special
<a href="http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,564735,00.html">http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,564735,00.html>

Ed Vulliamy in New York
Sunday October 7, 2001
The Observer 

Investigators tracking Osama bin Laden have emerged as a cogent voice of
caution over widespread United States military strikes against
Afghanistan. 

There is pressure in America for action to match the rhetoric of
President George Bush and others during the first weeks of the crisis,
but one official from the security services said: 'This is not a war
that will be won by impatience.'

But those charged with the most onerous task of all - killing or
catching the world's most wanted man - acknowledge that widespread
military action might crush the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which
protects their target. 

But, say sources in the intelligence community, the FBI and those
preparing the legal case against bin Laden at the Justice Department, if
such action allowed their target to escape it would prove catastrophic,
igniting his terrorist network with 'more resolve than ever'. 

In briefings with The Observer, sources said an absolute priority had to
be placed on his delivery for trial in the US, or else production of a
forensically verifiable corpse, whatever the ambitions for Afghanistan
or wider aims in the war against terrorism

Officials in the Justice Department and intelligence services believe
that the bin Laden network, still operative in cells across the globe,
would implode if he were beheaded.  Investigators laid out two
scenarios: 'There's a notion that if you behead the snake, another two
crawl out of the swamp,' said one official.  'This situation is the
opposite: cut off the snake's head and the body shrivels up.  The
important thing is to get the man.'

On the other hand, if Afghanistan was bombed into submission and bin
Laden survived, it would be like kicking open a hornet's nest: 'This
would just burnish his image and make the network even more determined. 
The worst thing would be a military operation that caused civilian
casualties, let him escape and steeled the resolve of his operatives.'

'It's a view of history,' said another official.  'It says that, if
Hitler had been assassinated in 1935, the rest would probably not have
happened.'

Hawks in the Pentagon pour scorn on such words of caution: 'They have no
belief in military power or that of the country,' said one. 

The premium on delivering bin Laden or a body bag pitches the Justice
Department and many in the intelligence services against these more
bellicose factions in the Bush administration, which favour not only
early strikes but a wide-ranging war on terrorism that incorporates
Iraq.  The argument is reported to have acted as a brake on military
action last week. 

Investigators acknowledge that bin Laden's presence has emboldened such
organisations as Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank and
Gaza, and fundamentalist movements in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt,
Indonesia and Algeria. 

The premium on getting bin Laden has been illustrated by revelations in
the Washington Post last week, charting a number of abortive CIA-backed
operations to capture or kill him, mounted in conjunction with Pakistani
intelligence.  The Observer has learnt of a further episode that
demonstrates current thinking in intelligence circles.  In 1999, bin
Laden was visiting one of his compounds in a 'large Afghan city'.  US
intelligence selected a short list of buildings where he was thought to
be, and did blast calculations to work out how many civilians would die
if they blew them up.  But the risk assessment analysis deemed the
potential 'collateral damage' too high. 

Meanwhile, investigators concede, the US security services for years
failed to 'look outside the box' of their global inquiries to predict an
attack on US soil.  They also tell The Observer that a counter terrorism
report circulated last April urged security agencies to 'play down' bin
Laden's influence in global terrorism. 

The key problem, say officials, was reliance on wiretaps and
surveillance rather than human Intelligence - i.e.  spies.  Officials
said bin Laden's organisation made it well-nigh impossible to penetrate
or recruit double agents.  A spy would probably have to participate in
terrorist actions to win the confidence of al-Qaeda. 

During the past three years, intelligence monitoring of al-Qaeda had,
said one official, picked up what now appear to have been false trails,
deliberately laid for interception.  Hoax messages and calls pointed to
attacks in Europe and South America, and were closely followed by
distracted US intelligence services. 

Indications of another attack on the US were missed.  Before 11
September, the CIA sent the FBI a list of 100 men known to have
associations with bin Laden and believed to be resident in the US - the
names of two of them resurfaced on the fateful day itself, among the
hijackers. 

Warning phrases had been picked up, such as 'they're going to pay the
price' and 'we're ready to go', but many failed to reach the desks of
the intelligence analysts until at least 48 hours later.  Others went
untranslated from Arabic. 

Jargon and codewords used by the terrorists bypassed the CIA and FBI. 
It was not until they listened to wiretaps in the 1993 World Trade
Centre bomb investigation that the FBI learned that the network uses the
word hadduta - an Arabic term for a child's bedtime story - to mean a
bomb. 

The oversights date back to the 1992 arrest of Sayyid Nosair, assassin
of the Jewish extremist Mehir Kahane, in whose apartment police found
bomb-making instructions, pictures of the World Trade Centre and pages
of handwritten Arabic. 

None of this material was inventoried or translated.  'You are getting
these huge amounts of material and have no way to translate it.  We had
one guy who spoke Arabic,' recalls Michael Cherasky, investigations
chief in the Manhattan District Attorney's office during the Kahane
murder investigation. 

The bomber in 1993 was Ramzi Yousef.  Yousef had also been planning to
hijack a plane and fly it into CIA headquarters or a nuclear power
station,but the FBI thought the idea far-fetched. 

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Pinpoint the right security solution for your company- Learn how to add 128- bit encryption and to authenticate your web site with VeriSign's FREE guide!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/yQix2C/33_CAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

------------------
http://all.net/ 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Following.attacks,.courtrooms.become.secret,.documents.sealed]"
Previous message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] Rumsfeld confirms use of information oeprations"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-12-31 20:59:54 PST