- WASHINGTON (AFP) - Tuesday's
crippling terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and Pentagon represent
a colossal failure for the vaunted US intelligence system, prompting an
avalanche of criticism in Congress and elsewhere.
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- "This is the second Pearl Harbor. I don't think
that I overstate that," said Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican.
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- Although members of Congress closed ranks around the
president, there was also deep disappointment over the failure to detect
and thwart the worst terrorist attack ever on US soil.
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- "There was no intelligence," said Representative
Curt Weldon, a senior Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee.
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- "This was a massive operation and it's a failure
that was caused by a lack of resources. Our government failed the American
people."
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- Critics wondered whether the advanced US ability in electronic
eavesdropping may have backfired on the country by a cunning terrorist
who used the system to throw US spies off track.
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- Some officials have already named fugitive Saudi billionaire
Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect.
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- One theory is that bin Laden killed a key US ally, Afghan
opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood, who may have been helping American
intelligence, in preparation for the US attacks.
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- If that were indeed the case, bin Laden may have used
the US eavesdropping system to throw US intelligence off his trail. Sources
indicated that US officials had been awaiting a campaign for months, but
not on US soil.
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- "There was a ton of stuff, but it all pointed to
an attack abroad," one official told Knight Ridder News.
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- The report said US officials had no hints of attacks
in the United States, orders to subordinates, no electronic fund transfers
or other clues about the plans.
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- The United States spends at least 10 billion dollars
on intelligence and anti-terrorism activities, including what is often
described as a sophisticated electronic eavesdropping system, but yet was
caught completely by surprise on Tuesday.
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- "This obviously was a failure of great dimension,"
said Senator Richard Shelby, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
who was briefed by CIA director George Tenet.
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- "We had no specific warning of the United States
being attacked. We've got to do better."
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- But John Pike of the research group GlobalSecurity.org
said airport security was the primary failure.
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- "The notion that if we had just spent more on intelligence
this would not have happened is absolutely unfair," Pike said.
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- "We can see why intelligence -- good intelligence,
is important to protect this country, and why a vibrant intelligence budget
is needed out there to further protect the integrity of the homeland in
this country," said Representative Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat
and member of the House Intelligence Committee.
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- "We will be assessing what went wrong, what we need
to do in the future from this committee, in the days and the hours and
the weeks ahead."
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- "Our focus is determining who is responsible, we
are not looking at other issues," CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher said.
"We have been working over the past years at bolstering our human
capabilities."
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