WASHINGTON - The dozen or
so Islamic terrorists who pulled off the plot to strike at America's nerve
centers in New York and Washington spent months, if not years, researching,
planning and coordinating the surprise attacks, U.S. security officials
say. And they did it completely in secret, using the world's most sophisticated
telecommunications equipment, some secured by advanced encryption technology
that most armies don't have.
Finally, in executing their murderous missions, the 12 or so terrorists had to coordinate their activities, flawlessly, within a roughly two-hour stretch. And, for the most part, they did. They all got to the airport on time, they all got through security, they all boarded their flights, they all hijacked their flights and, with the exception of one group, they all hit their targets.
Pulling off such a complex plot would have generated an inordinate volume of communications -- whether by radio, cell phone, land line, fax or modem -- among the terrorists, among their Middle-Eastern sponsors and among commercial contacts here and abroad.
But somehow eavesdroppers at the super-secret National Security Agency -- with their billion-dollar satellite "birds" and other surveillance technology -- were deaf, dumb and blind to the wicked plot.
"The real issue in this tragedy is how the hell were these people able to plan and coordinate such a strike over a period of months without the NSA intercepting their signals?" demanded Peter M. Leitner, a senior strategic trade adviser at the Defense Department.
Leitner, who reviews commercial license applications for exports of some of the most sophisticated military-related technology, thinks he knows the answer.
"The technology that would allow these terrorists to mask their communications was given away, hand over fist, by the Clinton administration," he said in an interview with WorldNetDaily.
Leitner says the previous administration rubber-stamped the shipment of top-end military-related telecommunications equipment to Syria, which is on the FBI's list of sensitive countries that pose a threat to U.S. security.
"Syria is a terrorist-supporting nation," he said. "They provide infrastructure to bastards like [Osama] bin Laden. They provide backup and support and communications abilities to these terrorist cells."
So what kind of gear has Syria -- and likely bin Laden, by way of Syria -- gotten from America?
Spread-spectrum radios
"We're giving them spread-spectrum radios, which are almost impossible to break into. We're giving them fiber optics. We're giving them a high level of encryption. We're giving them computer networks that can't be tapped," Leitner said.
Spread-spectrum radios, originally designed for military use only, change their frequency constantly.
"Bin Laden's cells aren't having any trouble communicating anymore," Leitner said.
Bin Laden, the world's No. 1 terrorist and the Pentagon's chief suspect in Tuesday's attacks, is known to use portable satellite telephones, advanced encryption cell phones and other encrypted telephony equipment, as well as secure computer networks -- all compliments of U.S. technology, Leitner says.
"If people are worried about how these people were able to coordinate and communicate something like this -- which had to be pretty extensively coordinated -- without it being intercepted, it's because of the crap we've been selling these people," he said.
"How can you penetrate their networks when you can't even eavesdrop on their conversations?" he said.
"You can't stop them when they're coming right at your building," he said. "But, damn it, you should be able to stop them months in advance by breaking up their networks."
Leitner posits that the NSA wasn't able to detect the Islamic terrorists' plot because of the "high quality of the communications gear that they've been acquiring over the last couple of years, thanks to the Clinton administration's decontrols on advanced telecommunications equipment."
Terrorists' secured telecom gear "makes it infinitely more difficult to get even early warning signs" about their activities, he said.
Tuesday's attacks took the entire U.S. government, including the intelligence community, by surprise.
"We had no specific warning of the U.S. attacks," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., ranking minority member of the Intelligence Committee.
Complete surprise
The Pentagon issued an alert of "Threat Con Alpha" the day before the attack, which meant that no threats were on the horizon. The same alert was issued the morning of the attack.
"We got no word of anything," Leitner said.
"We weren't warned of anything," another Pentagon official told WorldNetDaily.
Asked Tuesday if he had any inkling of the plot, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dodged the question: "We don't discuss intelligence matters."
Three weeks ago, some overseas papers quoted bin Laden saying that a major strike against the U.S. was coming soon. But there were no specifics. And bin Laden reportedly sent an e-mail to unknown government sources three days ago warning holy hell would break out. But again, he didn't say how, when or where.
Still, it's baffling that the U.S. intelligence community didn't pick up, early on, any specifics of the complex and long-planned plot through electronic intercepts and signals intelligence.
But it's actually not that baffling, Leitner asserts, against the backdrop of loose government controls on dual-use telecom exports.
"I've testified to Congress that it will take serious numbers of body bags before we wake up to the need to tighten dual-use export controls," he said. "Unfortunately, we've got them now."
"This is so tragic and yet so preventable," he said. "Now we're going to have to knock out their [terrorist] camps, just like we had to bomb the Iraqis several times now to try to take out the fiber-optics network that the Chinese are installing in Iraq's air-defense systems."
"Yet, it was the Clinton administration that gave the Chinese the technology to give to Iraq," he noted.
The Bush administration apparently hasn't woken up, either.
Wake-up call
In June, Leitner was asked by the Commerce Department to OK a new round of exports of dual-use telecom equipment to Syria. He denied the request, and was asked to reconsider. He denied it again, arguing in a letter to Karen Vogel, the Commerce export licensing officer who requested the approval, that:
"Doing so vastly upgrades the C3 and C41 systems of the Syrian military and Intelligence Services. My concerns are also obviously compounded by the fact that Syria is one of the foremost state sponsors of terrorism."
Leitner continued: "Since an 'upgraded telecom infrastructure' will also greatly facilitate Syrian planning, coordination, secrecy and execution of terrorist acts, as well as direct military communications, I see absolutely no basis for any position other than a denial."
Vogel argued in an earlier letter that her request came on the heels of eight previous approvals of licenses for similar exports to Syria.
"There's still a lot of things inside the government involving national security that have just got to be changed," Leitner said.
Another senior Pentagon official who specializes in counterterrorism says his own faith in the U.S. intelligence community has been shattered.
"This full-court press by terrorists blows the hell out of the line that we've been hearing for years from the intelligence community that if they try anything big, we'll know about it and warn you. Anything bigger than a couple of people, don't worry, we'll know about it," he said. "Well, I guess they didn't."
Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.
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