Freeh Testimony to 9/11 Commission

I mean, the cases had to be worked where they were worked. We had a body of expertise with respect to Al Qaida, and bin Laden's residence in New York. We had an equal and ample, in my view, body of expertise at our headquarters, with Dale Watson and Debbie Stafford and Mike Rollins, all the people that your staff has spent many, many hours with over the last few months.

So, you know, we didn't only have the expertise in New York. And Dale's job and Mike Rollins' job and the Counterterrorism Section, before it was the Counterterrorism Division's, job was to ensure that, first of all, expertise was available to support cases in smaller offices that perhaps didn't have that kind of experience, would not have had that kind of experience.

The purpose of, you know, MAXCAP 05, the purpose of seminars, the purpose of SAC conferences was to disseminate all of that information and make sure that the field not only was aware of those investigations, but if they had matters in their own division -- and there were 70 cases around the FBI in the summer of 2001 -- not on Al Qaida members or bin Laden supporters, but on fundamentalists, jihadists who were of great interest to the bureau because of their potential, as we saw in East Africa and other cases, to be co-opted and enlisted into operations.

So the decentralization, I don't think, is something that I would characterize it as.

With respect to the Phoenix memo, which is your second question, you know, my understanding of that memo, mostly what I've read in the newspapers, is that it was sent to headquarters. It was not decentralized in the sense that it never made it to headquarters.

It was looked at there. It was analyzed. People took what they thought was the appropriate action at the time.

I know as an aftermath of the information contained in that memo, everyone was interviewed -- the people who were identified in the memo. All the leads were run out after the fact, and there was nothing about the information contained in that memo, as far I've read or as I understand it, that would have lead you to September 11th.

FIELDING: Well, then, do you disagree -- well, let me ask it another way. The Pentbomb investigation is now being run out of headquarters. Would you disagree with the way that Director Mueller is running that?

FREEH: No. Again, I think after September 11th, there had to be a completely new restructuring of how counterterrorism cases and operations were going to be conducted. So I would not have any disagreement with that.

And, by the way, if you were going to do a criminal prosecution there, not that that would be appropriate, you would do it in the Eastern District of Virginia. So it wouldn't make any sense for agents in New York City to be working on it if you were to do a criminal case.

FIELDING: So you think that, post-9/11, that's the better way to run counterterrorism cases?

FREEH: I don't think you can run counterterrorism cases out of headquarters. That's not my experience or my view. I think you have to coordinate them out of headquarters.

The liaison throughout the government, the ability to share intelligence, the overseas connections that are necessary, you can't run it without headquarters. But you can prepare a criminal case for a field presentation in a U.S. district court in headquarters. That's just my own view.

FIELDING: Let me switch gears for a second.

In September of 1999, the GAO issued a report that recommended that the FBI develop a national-level terrorist threat and risk assessment so it could be used to determine how to allocate resources and budget and dealing with domestic threats, plus analyzing the likelihood of such a threat and to identify any potential intelligence gaps -- I believe was part of the charter.

And it was my understanding that the department and you agreed to do that. And that's September -- the end of '99. And that wasn't completed until January of 2003.

And when we were talking to people that were involved in that, a senior CIA official that was detailed to the FBI after 9/11 told the commission that the assessment was completed actually by CIA analysts that had in detail to the FBI, since the FBI analysts were not capable of producing such a product.

Now, I'd like your comment on that. And even the deeper question of was the FBI unwilling to do an analysis, or was it unable to do an analysis from '99 at least until you left?

FREEH: Well, I don't think it was incapable of doing that. In fact, there were analyses that were made with respect to assessments, which were done in the context of the Counterterrorism Division, which was set up at about the same time.

Did we have a deficiency with respect to analytical capability? Absolutely.

I talked about that at appropriation hearings over many years. Most of the nonagent resources in our three-year request for 1,895 people were analysts. They were people who could perform strategic, as opposed to tactical, analysis for us and give us the type of strategy plans and disruption plans that we began to see actually in the spring and summer of 2001 in the FBI with respect to Al Qaida.

But that capability was not there when I was director. You know, we're in the process now of hiring 900 analysts, but that's 2004. It doesn't cover the gaps over many, many years, particularly the years that you cite.

FIELDING: But you would agree that counterterrorism needs that as a component of its total effort, would you not?

FREEH: Absolutely. It needs linguists which were also, you know, requested year after year. We asked for the authority to hire Arabic and Farsi speakers at a higher rate than the GS scale provided for in New York City. You can't hire an Arabic or Farsi speaker for a GS-6 salary, which is what we were relegated to.

We did get a brief experiment with respect to a Title 5 exemption, but not what is now available and funded at least to the point where you can make an issue of it.

FIELDING: OK. Now, the last -- I guess that is my last one. I'm sorry. I see my time is up.

Thank you, Mr. Director.

KEAN: Commissioner Ben-Veniste?

COMMISSIONER RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Good morning, Director Freeh.

FREEH: Good morning.

BEN-VENISTE: As you know, the purpose of this commission may be divided into two broad categories.

BEN-VENISTE: First, we are charged with providing a full accounting of the 9/11 catastrophe, a challenging investigative responsibility.

Second, we're asked to make recommendations in a wide variety of areas, all of which with the common goal of improving the security of our nation.

We should be reminded that the ability to have such a commission to operate in part through public hearings and to ultimately deliver a report to the president of the United States, to the United States Congress and to the American people, a report on our findings and recommendations, is a remarkable testimonial to the strength and durability of our democracy. Few countries in the world would tolerate, much less welcome, such an open and public process.

Director Freeh, you have served in two of the three branches of government. You were an FBI agent, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York; an office for which I have great affection, as you know, and continuing admiration. Indeed, during my service as an assistant United States attorney I worked closely with many FBI agents who I regarded as among the most dedicated and patriotic Americans I've ever met. Indeed some of them are close friends today.

You have served as a federal district court judge in the Southern District of New York, appointed by President Reagan, and then you were appointed by President Clinton to be FBI director. Your experience and observations will be an important source of information for this commission.

You have reemphasized this morning the fact that the New York office of the FBI, which was led by James Calstrom and then Barry Mawn and John O'Neill, particularly focused on the Al Qaida terrorist threat.

In fact, John O'Neill perished in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, at the hands of cowards who murdered civilian men, women and children, people who John O'Neill had hunted with a determination that sometimes bordered on an obsession.

Indeed, in January 2001, O'Neill's concerns stimulated an interagency group white paper urging greater protection of federal buildings in Lower Manhattan.

And that white paper noted that, Osama bin Laden, his Al Qaida organization and affiliated extremists groups currently pose a clear and immediate threat to U.S. interests.

Do you recall discussions with John O'Neill about the threats from Al Qaida or others that might occur within the United States?

FREEH: Yes, I do, and particularly in that time frame.

If you recall, the trial was actually starting in January of 2001. It went through May.

This was the trial of the four subjects in custody for the East African bombing.

So the New York office, as well as headquarters and myself, were intensely concerned about the security for that trial. And if any of you saw the courthouse during the period of that trial, there were cement trucks, streets closed, because we were focused on a domestic attack in the United States by the co-conspirator in that case, indicted but a fugitive, to Osama bin Laden.

BEN-VENISTE: Let me ask you this: You have talked this morning and in your submitted statement and previously about your efforts to increase the counterterrorism budget; efforts that were not accepted by the Congress of the United States in allocating more funds for you.

But can you tell us whether it was possible within the FBI structure to reallocate resources within a particular field office or in general, perhaps using, as an example, James Calstrom, the former head of the New York office of the FBI, who unilaterally shifted resources to counterterrorism from other areas

I believe you have told us in staff meetings that Jim Calstrom had half of his Criminal Division working on counterterrorism, pulling agents away from such traditional investigative efforts as bank robberies, drug investigations: the type of investigations which can overlap with other federal agencies or with state and local operations.

Did Kallstrom's, sort of, entrepreneurial decision on his own, recognizing the terrorist threat to make those reallocations, trouble you?

FREEH: Well, no. Since I concurred in it, I wouldn't call it an entrepreneurial decision at all.

I mean, when we needed to put 400 FBI agents in East Africa in August of 1998, we put them there. Now, they weren't allocated in our congressional funding stream as counterterrorism agents, but we sent them there because we needed them there.

For years, in the New York office, we -- the term is overburned the number of agents working counterterrorism cases.

Now, there were only three squads that were full-time assigned to bin Laden cases and Al Qaida investigations. But when we had a trial or we had an emergency, like we were preparing for the 50th anniversary of the U.N. or the NATO meeting or the pope was coming to New York, we would, of course, allocate hundreds and hundreds of agents who were not authorized budgetarily to perform counterterrorism assignments to that job. So that was something we did continuously.

There was never a case, Mr. Ben-Veniste, anywhere in the bureau that I was aware of where we could not assign agents in an emergency or in the threat of danger to help prevent that. But the reality is in terms of our congressional budget, they were not then authorized to be working the matters they were working.

BEN-VENISTE: Well, given the fact that you concurred and supported Jimmy Kallstrom's efforts in New York City, and given the fact that there has been criticism about the FBI's inability to reallocate resources toward the growing threat of terrorism and reallocate those resources, as I say, away from more traditional FBI jurisdictional areas which could be covered by other federal and state agencies, how do you answer that criticism?

FREEH: Well, I think I would address it by saying two things.

One, you know, the positions that are authorized by the Congress and audited by their committees, as well as GAO, have to be allocated to the program areas where they're funded to. That's number one.

Now, from time to time, as in the New York case, we would ask the congressional committees for temporary reallocations. We would advise them as to what we were doing.

My answer to getting counterterrorism resources to fight terrorism was to ask for them and ask for them in addition to what we already had.

BEN-VENISTE: Were you ever reprimanded for reallocating on your own, either on the basis of emergency or on a more generalized basis, resources to counterterrorism as a result of congressional oversight?

FREEH: No. But I think that's because we were doing it on a emergency basis and on a temporary basis.

If we had taken a thousand agents from our criminal programs and assigned them full-time to counterterrorism matters, I don't believe we could have done that and I don't believe the committees would have permitted it at the time.

BEN-VENISTE: But you did not try that?

FREEH: No, I did not try that because that's not the way resources are allocated.

BEN-VENISTE: Let me turn to the subject of the state of the intelligence community's knowledge regarding the potential for the use of airplanes as weapons, a subject of obvious interest to this commission.

Did the subject of planes as weapons come up in planning for security of the Olympics held in Atlanta in 1996?

FREEH: Yes, I believe it came up in a series of these, as we call them, special events. These were intergovernmental planning strategy sessions and operations. And I think in the years 2000, 2001, even going back maybe to the 2000 Olympics, that was always one of the considerations in the planning. And resources were actually designated to deal with that particular threat.

BEN-VENISTE: So it was well-known in the intelligence community that one of the potential areas or devices to be used by terrorists, which they had discussed, according to our intelligence information, was the use of airplanes, either packed with explosives or otherwise, in suicide missions?

FREEH: That was part of the planning for those events, that's correct.

BEN-VENISTE: Did that come up, the same subject, come up again? I know you carried on from the Clinton administration through six months, more or less, of the Bush administration. Did that subject come up again in the planning for the G-8 summit in Italy?

FREEH: I don't recall that it did, but I would not have been involved in that planning. The FBI would not have been involved in that particular planning.

BEN-VENISTE: We were advised that there was a CAP or no-fly zone imposed over first Naples, in the preplanning session, and then Genoa during the meeting of the eight heads of state.

And that subsequently it was disclosed the President Mubarak of Egypt had warned of a potential suicide flight using explosive-packed airplanes to fly into the summit meeting.

FREEH: I don't dispute that. But that planning would be done by the Secret Service, probably the Department of Defense. We would not have been involved in that event outside the United States in terms of the special planning, although we probably detailed some people there.

BEN-VENISTE: Let me ask you this: To your knowledge, coming back to the United States, was the intelligence information accumulated by the year 2001 regarding various plots, real or otherwise, to crash planes using suicide pilots integrated into any air defense plan for protecting the homeland, and particularly our nation's capital?

FREEH: I'm not aware of such a plan.

BEN-VENISTE: Can you explain why it was, given the fact that we knew this information, and given the fact that, as we know now, our air defense system on 9/11 was looking outward in a Cold War-posture, rather than inward, in a protective posture, that we didn't have such a plan? Was that a failure of the Clinton administration, was that a failure of the Bush administration, given all of the information that we had accumulated at that time?

FREEH: Well, I mean, I don't know that I would characterize it as a failure by either administration.