- WASHINGTON - A veteran FBI
agent Thursday charged that corruption inside the bureau derailed investigations
that could have averted the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11.
His lawyers said the FBI had evidence that the World Trade Center was
a possible terrorist target.
-
- In a memo written 91 days before Sept. 11, the man, Special
Agent Robert G. Wright Jr., warned that Americans would die as a result
of the FBI's failure to investigate terrorists living in this country.
-
- Wright went public at a press conference even though
FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered him to stay in Chicago and threatened
him with criminal prosecution if he spoke publicly about the agency's wrongdoing.
-
- "The FBI is not protecting the American people,
declared Wright at a conference sponsored by his attorneys at the public
interest law firm Judicial Watch.
-
- Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman
termed Mueller s comments Wednesday, that open criticism of him and other
top FBI brass was welcome, were nothing more than "politically convenient
statements.
-
- 'They Got Caught'
-
- "They said that because they got caught with their
hands in the cookie jar, declared Klayman, referring to a memo written
by FBI legal counsel Coleen Rowley. She alleged in a memo that the FBI
could have prevented the 9-11 attacks and that Mueller, though new to
the job, has covered up for senior FBI officials.
-
- Klayman said Mueller s reorganization plan announced
this week was noting more than "icing over a stale cake."
-
- Wright produced a sworn statement relating to an FBI
agent who refused to record a telephone conversation during the meeting
with a suspect in an FBI criminal investigation related to terrorism.
-
- Muslim Agent 'Does Not Record Another Muslim'!
-
- The agent in question is quoted in two sworn statements,
one by Wright and the other by retired agent Barry Carmody, as refusing
to record the conversation because "a Muslim does not record another
Muslim.
-
- Carmody s statement said that refusal "may have
negatively impacted the conduct of the FBI s investigation. I informed
FBI headquarters twice about this incident in 1998 and again in 2000,
but I am aware of no disciplinary action being taken against him in this
matter.
-
- Wright, whose whistle-blowing was first reported by NewsMax.com
weeks ago, urged the Bush administration and Congress to "consider
removing terrorism investigative matters from the hands of the FBI. For
reasons of consistency, reliability and national security, these responsibilities
should be assigned to a new federal Anti-Terrorism Agency.
-
- The assets of the Drug Enforcement Agency could be used
to fund an anti-terrorism agency, he said. "Simply switch the terrorism
responsibilities of the FBI with the nation s illegal drug responsibilities.
-
- FBI's Gross Incompetence
-
- "Knowing what I know, Wright continued, "I
can confidently say that until the investigative responsibilities for
terrorism are transferred from the FBI, I will not feel safe.
-
- The agent, stationed in Chicago and now demoted to "meaningless
paper-pushing work, according to Klayman, charged the FBI "cannot
identify and prevent acts of terrorism against the United States and its
citizens at home and abroad.
-
- Even worse, he said, there is "virtually no effort
on the part of the FBI s International Terrorism Unit to neutralize known
and suspected terrorists residing in the United States. Unfortunately,
more terrorist attacks against the American interests, coupled with the
loss of American lives, will have to occur before those in power give
this matter the urgent attention it deserves.
-
- By phone from his law office in Chicago, Wright s lead
attorney, David Schippers, who represented the House Judiciary Committee
in its impeachment of Bill Clinton, chided the FBI for dropping the ball
in dealing with domestic and international radical Islamic "charities"
that were laundering money on American soil through U.S. financial institutions
and other channels.
-
- Stopping Muslim Terrorism Isn't P.C.
-
- Had the bureau not been cowed by "political correctness,
Schippers said, the money for much terrorist activity "would have
been cut off.
-
- In his opening statement, Judicial Watch s Klayman said
the FBI had threatened Wright with his job if he were to go ahead and tell
his story either in media statements or in a book he has been writing.
-
- When Wright attempted to travel to Washington on his
own time to meet with members of Congress about the FBI s incompetence
and dereliction of duty regarding terrorism during the week after Sept.
11, his attorneys were threatened by the Justice Department, which oversees
the bureau.
-
- Klayman says Attorney General John Ashcroft should be
required to answer for that interference. Moreover, the FBI informed Wright
he could not travel outside of the Chicago division without the express
permission of the bureau.
-
- The Judicial Watch counsel said the FBI did have intelligence
about terrorist activity planned against the World Trade Center and "other
monuments.
-
- Wright listed several major failures of the FBI. They
included lack of high-quality managers and modern computer technology,
failure to modernize investigative objectives to deal with the new terrorist
threat, too many investigative violations, incompetent managers not held
accountable for their mistakes, an internal affairs unit that was "bias[ed]
and unfair to whistle-blowers and others, criminal conflicts that have
"contributed to the preventable deaths of American citizens,"
and FBI duplication of the investigative jurisdictions of other federal
law enforcement agencies such as the DEA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms.
-
- "I love America, and likewise I love the FBI, particularly
its purpose and mission Wright told reporters at the National Press Club,
"However, the mission has been seriously jeopardized to the point
where American lives have been needlessly lost.
-
- At the news conference, in answer to questions from NewsMax.com,
Klayman said he hoped Congress would use its subpoena powers to require
Wright and responsible officials to testify.
-
- He also told NewsMax that if the FBI tries to drive Wright
out of the bureau by isolating him and passing him up for promotions,
"he will be a rich man, because Judicial Watch would take necessary
legal action to see that the powers that be do not get away with this
familiar bureaucratic tactic of retaliation.
-
-
- http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/30/161204.shtml
|