Freeh Testimony to 9/11 Commission

I know, you know, by that time there were air defense systems with respect to the White House. There were air defense systems that the military command in the Washington, D.C., area, you know, had incorporated.

I don't think there were probably -- at least I never was aware of a plan that contemplated commercial airliners being used as weapons after a hijacking. I don't think that was integrated in any plan.

But with respect to air defense issues and that threat, it was clearly known and it was incorporated, as I mentioned, into standard special events planning.

BEN-VENISTE: Into special events, but never into the actual defense posture for the homeland protection of the United States.

Let me ask you a final question with respect to the millennium threat. The FBI and the CIA have been criticized for being unwilling to work cooperatively together, yet it appears during the period of heightened alert prior to the millennium, the FBI and CIA worked closely together and had several notable successes as the result thereof.

Could you explain how that operation worked and whether you reported to the National Security Council of the United States?

FREEH: Well with respect to the millennium planning, I reported of course to the attorney general. The attorney general and I worked very closely in concert with the National Security Council, with the director of central intelligence, the CIA, military components, civilian components.

This was an integrated and long-term planning operation with respect to millennium threats, which were not only issues concerning technology exploitation, but also the occasion of the millennium as a terrorism attack.

But your more important question, I think, is the CIA-FBI cooperation. I don't think it was unique to the millennium planning. My experience in eight years there is that there was extremely good cooperation between the FBI and the CIA. And that goes back to matters such as the Cole bombing, the East African embassy bombings cases.

The Alex (ph) station -- which you know from your staff was set up in 1997 -- the CIA and the FBI together and a station dedicated to Al Qaida investigations and disruption activities overseas. FBI agents would regularly accompany CIA officers overseas to exploit Al Qaida cells and disrupt them.

I think that cooperation, in my view, was a very outstanding one for many years.

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, sir.

KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick?

COMMISSIONER JAMIE GORELICK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I've asked for the microphone only to say that I will not be questioning Director Freeh or Attorney General Reno. Under our commission policies, several commissioners have recused themselves from considering various issues that they worked on or elements of the government that they've worked with at one time or another.

While I'm recused only from review of actions during my tenure at the Department of Justice, which ended in March of 1997, because I worked closely with Director Freeh and with Attorney General Reno, I've decided not to participate in this questioning at all.

As my colleagues know, the vast preponderance of our work, including with regard to the Department of Justice, focuses on the period of 1998 forward, and I have been and will continue to be a full participant in that work.

So all I will say today is thank you for your testimony today, Director Freeh.

FREEH: Thank you.

KEAN: Thank you.

I've got a couple of questions.

First, I'm interested in your communications with the White House. When you had a serious problem, where you thought there were threats, did you go directly to the president or was there another mechanism you used to communicate with the White House, either in the Clinton administration or the Bush administration or both, I guess?

FREEH: Well, I mean, my procedures would normally be to communicate first with the attorney general on many occasions. After that communication we would go to the White House. If it was a national security issue, we would certainly see the national security adviser.

In the last year that Janet Reno and I served together, we actually had a routine meeting with the national security adviser I'd say probably every two or three weeks. We had another one with Secretary Albright probably once a month, and the purpose of those meetings was to discuss not just counterintelligence and counterterrorism matters, but even other Department of Justice issues that had national security implications.

On some occasions I would go directly to the national security adviser. I did not have an experience in either administration of going directly to the president on a matter.

KEAN: One of the questions that -- maybe one of the most important that our commission is charged with, is looking at the intelligence agencies and seeing whether any changes ought to be made.

Now, I read our staff statement as an indictment of the FBI for over a long period of time.

You know, when I read things like that 66 percent of your analysts weren't qualified, that you didn't have the translators necessary to do the job, that you had FISA difficulties, that you had all the information on the fund-raising but you couldn't find a way to use it properly to stop terrorism.

And that's without counting, of course, the things that were going on at the same time: Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Wen Ho Lee case, the Hanssen case, the lost laptops and firearms and all of the rest.

The present director, your successor, has a whole series of reforms that he is trying to put to make the agency work better. You tried reforms. You tried very hard to reform the agency. According to our staff report, those reforms failed.

I guess my question to you is, looking at this director's efforts to reform the agency, can those reforms work or should there be some more fundamental changes to the agency and the way we get our intelligence?

FREEH: Well, first of all, I take exception to your comment that your staff report is an indictment of the FBI. I think your staff report evidences some very good work and some very diligent interviews and a very technical, almost auditing, analysis of some of the programs.

I think the centerpiece of your executive director's report, as I heard it, came down to resources and legal authorities.

So I would ask that you balance what you call an indictment, and which I don't agree with at all, with the two primary findings of your staff. One is that there was a lack of resources; and two, there were legal impediments.

With respect to your question, I certainly support and applaud the director's efforts. The Patriot Act, the court of review, a couple of billion dollars is certainly a big help when we're talking about changes.

With respect to the jurisdiction of the FBI, I do not believe that we should establish a separate domestic intelligence agency with respect to counterterrorism. I think that would be a huge mistake for the country for a number of reasons.

One, I don't think in the United States we will tolerate very well what, in effect, is a state secret police even with all of the protections and the constitutional entitlements that we would subscribe it with. Americans, I don't think, like secret police. And you would, in effect, be establishing a secret police.

Secondly, if you look at the models around the world where this has been tried, it hasn't worked very well, in my opinion.

The other thing, it would take a long time to integrate. If the Homeland Security Department and 170,000 people to be integrated is going to take a couple of years; standing up a brand new domestic intelligence agency would take a decade and we would lose very precious time at a very dangerous time for the United States.

If you look at some the analyses of MI-5 operations, and you can look at the Bishop Gate bombing, you can look at the Dockland's bombing -- the Matroyan (ph) case -- I'm sure your staff has looked at that -- it's been found to be not very effective.

In fact, one of the studies that I know your staff has looked at in the United Kingdom that looked at this actually said the FBI was a preferred model because it breaks down the barriers between enforcement and intelligence. A lot of the good work of this commission has been to identify the barriers that existed -- and still exist -- between intelligence and law enforcement.

Standing up a separate intelligence agency will just increase those barriers. And if you thought the wall was a big one, that's a fortress in my view and will make for a very ineffective counterterrorism program and, I think, expose the country to dangers.

So I think we ought to have the Department of Justice, supervised by the attorney general, FBI agents who are schooled in the Constitution, who have a transparent operation with respect to oversight by courts, as well as by Congress. Give them the tools, give them the legal authority, give them the budget, and they'll do this job very well.

It's not very different from looking at organized crime, from looking at counterintelligence, which, in my view, the bureau has done exceptionally well for decades.

The difficulty with the wall was that the wall that was set up in Janet Reno's guidelines of July 19th were completely appropriate with respect to counterintelligence cases because counterintelligence cases happen in two dynamics. One, there is an investigation, and then there is either an indictment or an expulsion.

Counterterrorism cases are completely different. Because of the threat, there is always an ongoing need to act and to use the intelligence to prevent attacks from taking place.

So the wall is not an appropriate one with respect to counterterrorism, and that's been repaired both by the Patriot Act and the court of review.

KEAN: Thank you.

Senator Kerrey.

COMMISSIONER BOB KERREY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Director Freeh, I'll do whatever I can here to make sure I don't call you Director Clarke as I ask you these questions.

(LAUGHTER)

First of all, do you think it was a mistake not to -- talking about Khobar now, starting in Khobar in '96 -- not to have you report directly to the National Security Council and the president on what was going on in that investigation?

FREEH: Well, I did report through the attorney general and directly to the national security adviser.

Are you talking about Khobar?

KERREY: Right.

I mean, Dick Clarke and Mr. Steinberg (ph), the deputy at National Security Council, said that there was never any written reports sent by the FBI to the NSC. Is that not true?

FREEH: If we're talking about the Khobar case, you know...

KERREY: Actually, I'm -- begin with Khobar, but all the way through this time period, it seems to me it was a mistake not to have you report directly on what you were learning to the National Security Council or to the president. Since it was a domestic agency going over to investigate, as I consider it, an act of war against a U.S. military installation in Saudi Arabia, it seemed to me that there should have been a reporting right back to the National Security Council on what was going on.

FREEH: But I guess what I'm saying is, there was. I mean, Janet Reno and myself, together on a very, very regular basis; myself, individually, on numerous occasions directly with Sandy Berger.

KERREY: All we talked about was the Khobar case.

In an otherwise, I thought, exceptional staff report, the staff, I think, miscorrectly describes the seven cases that you were involved with, saying that most of those were overseas. In truth, three of them were domestic, and four of them were overseas. World Trade Center number one landmarks plot number one, the millennium, and indeed if you include the threats against the city of New York during the 2001 trial, there were four domestic attacks and/or efforts.

Did the FBI ever produce an evaluation of the threat to the homeland during this period to the president? Or was there one requested of you?

FREEH: There was none requested, that I'm aware of. I don't think we ever furnished a national threat report to the president with respect to homeland security.

KERREY: I mean, of all the facts that -- in this whole process, that have just caused scales to fall from my eyes was listening to Betty Ong, a flight attendant on flight 11, talk to the ground and hear the ground surprised by a hijacking. I mean, not only were we not at a high state of alert in our airports, we were at ease. We stacked arms. I mean, we weren't prepared at all.

And it's baffling to me why some alert wasn't given to the airlines to alter their preparedness and to go to a much higher state of alert. It seems to me a lot of things would of changed if that would of happened.

And I would respectfully disagree with your assessment of the Williams memo coming out of Phoenix, because I think had it gotten into the works, to the highest possible level, at the very least 19 guys wouldn't have gotten on to these airplanes with room to spare.

FREEH: Well, Senator, I served on the Gore commission, as your staff may know. And, you know, I thought the leadership, first of all, by the vice president there was outstanding. I think the recommendations were outstanding.

We spent many, many months writing detailed recommendations that asked for passenger screening, asked for many, many things which were never implemented. The whole purpose and the conclusions of that report, if you read it, was that the airline industry and operations were vulnerable at multi points with respect to hijackings and terrorist attacks.

So I agree with you, there was no...

KERREY: But I mean, you said that, you know, we couldn't have had a declaration of war because public opinion wasn't there. I probably would disagree with that. Public opinion wasn't on the side of the Bosnian war or the Iraq war in the beginning either, and the president made a determination in both cases to come to the American people and say, There's a crisis.

But even absent a declaration of war, why did we let their soldiers into the United States? Because that's what the Al Qaida men were, they were soldiers. They were part of an Islamic army called the jihad to come into the United States. Why did we let them into the United States? Why didn't President Clinton and/or President Bush issue an order to change the FISA procedures and other orders to INS, et cetera, to make sure that their soldiers couldn't get into America? Why did we let them in?

FREEH: Well, again, I think part of my answer is that we weren't fighting a real war. We hadn't declared war on these enemies in the manner that you suggest that would have prevented entry had we taken war measures and put the country and its intelligence and law enforcement agencies on a war footing.

The Joint Intelligence Committee, in one of their reports -- I think I excerpted the conclusion in my statement -- said that neither administration put its intelligence agencies or law enforcement agencies on a war footing.

A war footing means we seal borders. A war footing means we detain people that we're suspicious of. A war footing means that we have statutes like the Patriot Act, although with time set provisions, give us new powers.

We weren't doing that.

Now, whether there was a political will for it or not, I guess we could debate that. But the fact of the matter is we didn't do it and we were using grand jury subpoenas and arrest warrants to fight an enemy that was using missiles and suicide boats to attack our warships.

KEAN: Commissioner Thompson?