Sept. 11 commission raps law enforcement, immigration agencies

Federal immigration and law enforcement agencies failed to adequately share information and detect fraudulent documents in the months leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, former government officials and staff members with the federal commission investigating the attacks said Monday.

The FBI collected information on two of the 19 terrorists before the attacks but failed to share that information with consular officials in Saudi Arabia, who ultimately issued the attackers visas, according to staff members with the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. Additionally, the commission has uncovered evidence that two to six other Sept. 11 terrorists manipulated their passports to get past immigration enforcement agencies and gain entry into the country.

The commission held a hearing Monday on how border security was compromised by the terrorists. On Tuesday, the commission will hold a hearing on how aviation security was compromised. For the first time, the commission required witnesses to testify under oath during a public hearing.

Mary Ryan, who was the U.S. assistant secretary of state for consular affairs when the attacks happened, testified that she now believes the terrorist attacks were the result of a colossal intelligence failure within the U.S. government and the failure of federal agencies to share information.

She said terrorists like those in al Qaeda know how to exploit weaknesses of federal immigration and law enforcement agencies. Despite the programs and actions put into place since the attacks, she believes that little has changed.

"Even under the best immigration controls, most of the Sept. 11 terrorists would still be admitted to the United States today…because they had no criminal records, or known terrorist connections, and had not been identified by intelligence methods for special scrutiny," she said.

Ryan said she learned after Sept. 11 that the FBI had collected information on two of the attackers but never put that information into the TIPOFF database, which is used by consular officials to screen people before issuing visas. TIPOFF was created in 1987 and had about 60,000 records in 2001. Since then, the number of records has doubled because other federal agencies have added their information.

Ryan said she was "outraged" when she discovered the FBI withheld information on two of the attackers. Fifteen of the terrorist were issued U.S. visas by the consular office in Saudi Arabia.

Ryan said immigration agencies and officials do not have the ability to detect terrorists alone, and are therefore dependent on law enforcement agencies for critical information.

"Immigration measures are an important tool in the war against terrorism, but they are not effective by themselves in identifying terrorists of this new type," she said. "The immigration and the intelligence systems must work together for either to be effective."

Staff members with the commission also have discovered that at least two of the terrorists-and possibly six-forged their passports to get around immigration enforcement. Passports for Satam al Suqami and Abdul Aziz al Omari were "manipulated in a fraudulent manner," staff members said. They declined to reveal exactly how the passports were doctored. The passports were recovered from plane wreckage.

Two other terrorists, Khalid al Mihdhar and Salem al Hazmi, presented immigration officials with passports that had "suspicious indicators," the staffers said. The commission also has evidence that three other hijackers, Nawaf al Hazmi, Ahmed al Nami and Ahmad al Haznawi, may have presented passports containing suspicious indicators, but their passports have not been recovered.

The staffers said they are not yet sure whether the intelligence community knew about the forged passports prior to the attacks.

Regardless, former Rep. Timothy Roemer, R-Ind., who serves on the commission, said the passport manipulations should have been detected by immigration and customs agencies.

Roemer said that information now surfacing proves the commission needs a deadline extension to finish its work. The commission is supposed to issue a definitive account of government actions leading up to the attacks, along with recommendations on how future attacks can be prevented, by May 27, 2004. Several members of the commission say they need a deadline extension to finish their work, but President Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., oppose granting more time.

"When we see these kinds of failures and these kinds of problems, we certainly need the time on this commission to do the job right, and I'm hopeful that we will get an extension," Roemer said.

He said a decision on whether the commission will ask for more time should be made this week, and possibly late Monday.