Bush Supports Independent Investigation of Sept. 11 Attacks

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, September 21, 2002

Bush Supports Independent Investigation of Sept. 11 Attacks

US President George W. Bush said Friday that he now supports the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, reversing his opposition on this issue.

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US President George W. Bush said Friday that he now supports the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, reversing his opposition on this issue.

In a letter to Congress, Bush's congressional liaison said the president focused on preventing further attacks immediately after Sept. 11. With that effort now underway, and congressional hearings into the attacks well along, the administration thought it was time to support the creation of an independent commission.

"Now that the work of the intelligence committees is nearing its end, we must take the appropriate next steps," the letter said.

With just weeks left in the congressional year, momentum has grown in Congress for a separate, independent commission to look into the attacks. The House of Representatives has already approved a commission.

But the White House has opposed an independent commission, saying it could lead to more leaks and tie up personnel needed to fight terrorism.

Local media reports quoted White House officials as saying thatBush decided to reverse course in response to pressure from victims' family members who had lobbied for a review that went beyond potential intelligence lapses and also examined aviation and other issues.

Rep. Tim Roemer, Democratic from Indiana, who led House effortsto form a commission, welcomed the Bush decision and stressed thatthe commission should look into everything including intelligence.

Bush's decision came as the House and Senate Intelligence Committees held its third day of open hearings on intelligence failure associated with the Sept. 11 attacks.

A congressional investigator said Friday in a report that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had information about three of the Sept. 11 hijackers at least 20 months before the attacks occurred but failed to pass it on to other agencies.

Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi came to the attention of intelligence agencies in January 2000 when they attended a meetingof suspected associates of Osama bin Laden's network in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, said Eleanor Hill, staff director of the joint inquiry.

By the time they entered Malaysia, the CIA had information about al-Mihdhar and the National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on global communications, had information associating al-Hazmi with the al-Qaida network.

But the two agencies did not share information or pass them to the State Department, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and US Customs. CIA said it sent the travel documents about al-Mihdharto the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but no one at the FBI recalls receiving them, Hill said.

In March 2000, CIA headquarters received information that al-Hazmi entered the United States on Jan. 15, 2000, but the CIA did not act on the information. Al-Mihdhar entered the country with al-Hazmi.

Although the two had already entered the United States, sharinginformation with the FBI or other agencies could have prompted an investigation to find them, Hill said. "Unfortunately, none of these things happened."

Hill's report also revealed that a New York-based FBI agent asked headquarters on Aug. 29, 2001, to allow his office to use its "full criminal investigative resources" to find al-Mihdhar, but his request was blocked because al-Mihdhar was not under criminal investigation.

Al-Mihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi and his brother Salim al-Hazmi were aboard American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11 last year.

Hill told lawmakers that her investigation has found nothing to indicate that the CIA and FBI had information linking the other 16 hijackers to terrorism or terrorist groups before the Sept. 11 attacks.

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