Return-Path: <sentto-279987-4830-1024085303-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Fri, 14 Jun 2002 13:10:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 9425 invoked by uid 510); 14 Jun 2002 20:08:35 -0000 Received: from n7.grp.scd.yahoo.com (66.218.66.91) by all.net with SMTP; 14 Jun 2002 20:08:35 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-4830-1024085303-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.200] by n7.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 14 Jun 2002 20:08:24 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_3_2); 14 Jun 2002 20:08:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 65328 invoked from network); 14 Jun 2002 20:08:22 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m8.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 14 Jun 2002 20:08:22 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.72.152) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 14 Jun 2002 20:08:22 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g5EK8bd27442 for iwar@onelist.com; Fri, 14 Jun 2002 13:08:37 -0700 Message-Id: <200206142008.g5EK8bd27442@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 13:08:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iwar] t Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=5.0 tests=DIFFERENT_REPLY_TO version=2.20 X-Spam-Level: New York Times June 14, 2002 C.I.A. And F.B.I. Agree To Truce In War Of Leaks Vs. Counterleaks By James Risen WASHINGTON, June 13 - Top officials of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. have quietly negotiated a cease-fire between the two agencies, which have been in a war of news leaks and finger-pointing about the intelligence failures leading to the Sept. 11 attacks, officials familiar with the talks said today. After a briefing of President Bush last week, Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and John E. McLaughlin, the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, met outside the Oval Office, where Mr. Mueller asked for a truce and Mr. McLaughlin agreed, the officials said. "The leadership of the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. came together and realized that people, most likely buried deep in their bureaucracies, were engaging in mutually assured destruction," a senior White House official said. "They recognized that it was hurting the C.I.A., hurting the F.B.I., and it had reached the point where they were making themselves look bad." The White House did not broker the talks, officials said. But it is clear that President Bush, who puts a premium on running a tight, leak-free operation, was not happy about the battle between the agencies. "Leaks are never a helpful way to end up on the good side of this president," the White House official said. The episode is the latest chapter in the decades-old culture gap between the agency and the bureau - the nation's foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement bureaucracies - which have battled over status and turf since the days of J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles. For now, the truce seems to be holding. When Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Monday that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. worked together to catch Jose Padilla, who is accused of taking part in a plot to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States, it was a sign the agencies wanted to put a fresh face on their relationship. After the arrest was announced, the C.I.A. gave information to reporters about its role, the first time since the leaks that there seemed to be coordination between the agencies. Officials at the two agencies were reluctant to discuss the truce, apparently out of concern that the other side might accuse them of violating it. "If I talked about a truce, there wouldn't be a truce, now would there?" asked one official. The feud erupted in recent weeks as the Congressional investigation into the government's performance before and after Sept. 11 began. Both the C.I.A. and F.B.I. have scoured their files to answer questions from Congressional investigators, and officials at both agencies knew that they had made mistakes that would become public. The officials also knew a thing or two about errors made by the other agency. According to the C.I.A., the bureau was responsible for the first leak, about the C.I.A.'s poor handling of information it had collected about two hijackers months before the Sept. 11 attacks. Bureau officials vehemently deny the allegation, but agency officials are convinced that the F.B.I. leaked the information to draw attention from Coleen Rowley, a senior F.B.I. agent in Minneapolis who wrote a scathing letter about the bureau's handling of Zacarias Moussaoui, whom federal prosecutors now call the 20th hijacker. In a letter to Mr. Mueller, Ms. Rowley wrote that intervention from officials at F.B.I. headquarters prevented agents in Minneapolis from obtaining a crucial search warrant in the Moussaoui case before Sept. 11. She also accused Mr. Mueller and other senior officials of covering up the bureau's mistakes. Ms. Rowley sent copies of the letter to important lawmakers in Congress. Parts of the letter were quickly leaked, and an edited version appeared in Time magazine in an issue first released on May 27. A week later, a Newsweek cover article reported that the C.I.A. had identified two men as Al Qaeda members possibly as early as December 2000, yet did not warn the F.B.I. or the Immigration and Naturalization Service to place the men on watch lists until the next August. The C.I.A. had earlier said that in late August 2001, it asked the I.N.S. to put the men, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, on its watch list to prevent their entry into the United States. The I.N.S. responded that the men were already in the country. The C.I.A. subsequently asked the F.B.I. to find the two, but by then it was too late to prevent their participation in the Sept. 11 hijackings. Agency officials were furious with the Newsweek account, which they said provided a partial and misleading chronology of the case, and accused the bureau of leaking the story. The day after the Newsweek article appeared, the agency told reporters from several publications, including The New York Times, about e-mail messages sent between C.I.A. and F.B.I. officials showing that the agency had shared its concerns about Mr. Midhar as soon as it began to track him. Mr. Mueller was outraged by the disclosures, officials said, and called the agency to complain. C.I.A. officials, in turn, were dismayed by Mr. Mueller, officials said, arguing that they had simply responded to criticism prompted by leaking from the bureau. "It wasn't a leak, it was a clarification," one intelligence official said. The leaks were soon the talk of Washington. Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is co-chairman of the Sept. 11 committee, called it a "schoolyard fight," while Representative Porter J. Goss, the Florida Republican who is the other co-chairman, made it clear he thought the leaks were demeaning. The ceasefire came after Mr. Mueller and Mr. McLaughlin gave a joint briefing on terrorism to President Bush. George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, was in the Middle East, so Mr. McLaughlin handled the agency's part. After leaving the Oval Office, Mr. McLaughlin showed Mr. Mueller an agency cable that referred to the fact that it had given the bureau information about Mr. Midhar as early as January 2000. At that point, Mr. Mueller pressed for a truce. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Will You Find True Love? Will You Meet the One? Free Love Reading by phone! http://us.click.yahoo.com/Deo18C/zDLEAA/Ey.GAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2003-08-24 02:46:32 PDT