Justice Department, FBI criticised over al Qaeda

The commission on the September 11, 2001, attacks yesterday broadly criticised the Justice Department and the FBI for failing to meet the threat from al Qaeda and said Attorney General John Ashcroft did not see counterterrorism as a top priority before it was too late.

In its latest report detailing security breakdowns throughout the government, the commission issued two lengthy staff reports analysing the failure to prevent the hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.

One report drew attention to a May 10 Justice Department document that set out priorities for 2001. The top priorities cited were reducing gun violence and combating drug trafficking. There was no mention of counterterrorism.

When Dale Watson, the head of the counterterrorism division, saw the report, he "almost fell out of his chair," the report said. "The FBI's new counterterrorism strategy was not a focus of the Justice Department in 2001."

Then-acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard said he appealed to Mr Ashcroft for more money for counterterrorism but on September 10, 2001, one day before the attacks, Mr Ashcroft rejected the appeal.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh testified that he sought permission to hire almost 1,900 counterterror linguists, analysts and agents in the previous three years but was allowed to add just 76.

"That's not to criticise the US Congress. It's not to criticise the Department of Justice. It is to focus on the fact that that was not a national priority," Freeh told the commission.

A second staff report issued before the afternoon session said Mr Ashcroft was briefed on terrorist threats by then-FBI Director Pickard in late June and July 2001.

"After two such briefings, the attorney general told him he did not want to hear this information anymore," the report quoted Mr Pickard as saying.

It added that Mr Ashcroft and two top aides denied the attorney general made any such statement to Packard.

Mr Ashcroft told the panel in a previous private session that he had assumed the FBI was doing what it needed to do to avert any threats. "He (Ashcroft) acknowledged that, in retrospect, this was a dangerous assumption," the report said.