- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.
intelligence intercepted two messages the day before the Sept. 11 attacks
that indicated an event was planned the following day, but the communications
were not translated until Sept. 12, government sources said on Wednesday.
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- The National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on communications
worldwide, intercepted messages that said "tomorrow is zero hour"
and "the match begins tomorrow," sources said on condition of
anonymity.
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- The agency did not translate the messages, which were
in Arabic, until Sept. 12 -- the day after hijacked airliners smashed into
New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon killing about 3,000 people.
The United States has blamed Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network for the
attack.
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- The intercepted messages gave no details of the time,
location or nature of the event that was to take place.
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- The NSA handles a huge volume of intercepted communications
traffic from around the world in many different languages.
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- One U.S. intelligence source said no action could have
been taken on the basis of such vague messages.
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- "Sometimes we get the ambient noise and background
chatter. You don't know who is talking," the source said.
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- "Is there actionable intelligence in this? Absolutely
not. This is not a smoking gun."
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- A U.S. official said the two messages were so non-specific
that even had they been translated the same day they were intercepted,
they would not have rung any alarm bells.
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- "You know how many times we hear things much more
serious than that? Lots of times," the official said on condition
of anonymity. The messages only took on potential significance in hindsight,
the official said.
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- NSA Director Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden was among the intelligence
officials who testified this week at closed-door hearings of the House
of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees conducting a joint
investigation of intelligence failures surrounding Sept. 11.
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- The FBI and the CIA have been strongly criticized by
Congress for failing to pick up on a number of clues before the attacks
and for poorly sharing information with each other.
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- Some lawmakers made the point at the hearings that NSA
was only translating, analyzing and disseminating a portion of the huge
volume of communications it collected, and that it needed to improve.
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- The FBI is undergoing fundamental reforms, and President
Bush has proposed creating a new Homeland Security Department to better
coordinate intelligence and formulate responses to any future terrorist
attack.
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- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, on Wednesday
introduced legislation that would create the post of Director of National
Intelligence to oversee all the intelligence agencies and have a separate
CIA director.
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- Currently the CIA director wears two hats -- in charge
of the Central Intelligence Agency as well as overseeing the whole intelligence
community which has segments in the Defense Department and the State Department.
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- The House and Senate intelligence committees had planned
to hold public hearings about Sept. 11 next week, but some lawmakers said
those were likely to be delayed.
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- Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, a
Florida Democrat, said the final decision on when the open hearings would
be held was to be made on Thursday.
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