[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Guest Commentary July 3, 2002
Getting Answers
The Honorable Byron Dorgan
During England's darkest hour in 1940, Winston Churchill spoke of an unwavering sense of purpose. "You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror," he told members of Parliament.
Sixty years later, we here in the United States are fighting a different kind of terror, terrorists who hide in caves and plan the murder of thousands of innocent Americans, but our resolve to defeat it matches that of Churchill. Some have expressed concerns that the investigations of how our intelligence and law enforcement authorities handled information prior to 9-11 will weaken our efforts to defeat terrorists.
Free Newsletter
Get the scoop on important legislation, Congressional action, election updates, hard-hitting political commentary, the latest developments in the War on Terror...and more! Just enter your email address below.
Privacy: Your name and email address will be confidential - never rented, never sold.
Frankly, I think the questions that are being raised will strengthen our efforts to defeat terrorism. We have a lot of good men and women working in the CIA, the FBI and other agencies. But evidence, we have learned in recent months, suggests that there is a layer of bureaucracy and resistance in the management of some of these critical agencies that stifles the efforts of good law enforcement and good intelligence when tracking terrorists.
We have to fix that. Our job is to prevent the next act of terror and if the bureaucracy is clogging the arteries of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, then we have to get rid of it.
Consider this: six months after Mohammed Atta and MarwanAl-Shehhi flew huge jets into the World Trade Center, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service inexplicably sent notice their visa status had been changed from travel to student. In recent weeks, reports indicate a Phoenix FBI agent alerted headquarters of his suspicions about Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons. Minneapolis agent Coleen Rowley has complained bitterly that her office's efforts to obtain a search warrant about a suspected highjacker were ignored. Now the CIA says that it was tracking two of those who committed terrorist's acts on 9-11, but there is controversy over whether the FBI was actually notified. As a result the terrorists moved in and out of our country with ease. These and other reports, in recent months, raise real concerns about how these federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies are working to prevent future acts of terrorism.
When people begin to raise questions about these issues, some claim that the intent is to criticize President Bush.
President Bush, indeed any President, would have moved heaven and earth to prevent the catastrophe of 9-11 if he had received any advance warning. These inquiries are not about the President or the White House. They are about the effectiveness of our Federal agencies in the war against terrorism here at home.
The information disclosed in recent months about some of the failures of these agencies has come from people working inside the agencies. These are employees of the FBI and other agencies who are blowing the whistle on agency managers who fail to see the gravity of this situation and refuse to take appropriate actions.
For example, Minneapolis FBI agents were admonished by their superiors for sharing information with the CIA in the case of suspected terrorist, Zacarias Moussaoui, who had links to Osama bin Laden. That is unacceptable. These agencies need to work together. Preventing the next terrorist act is a tough job, and we will succeed only if we have all of the resources working full time and cooperating fully.
In recent months and weeks, the head of Homeland Security has warned our country the terrorist attacks against the Untied States could happen at any time. That's why these agencies and their officials have to be fighting the battle against terrorists, not turf battles between their agencies.
Big, bureaucratic and slow doesn't get it anymore. We deserve better from these agencies. What if there is critical information right now in the possession of one agency that is not sharing it with another? Are those who dropped the ball last year in these agencies. The same ones we now rely on to prevent another terrorist nightmare?
The answer to these questions is why this is such an urgent matter. We, the President, the Congress and the American people, deserve the unvarnished facts so that we can move ahead and protect our country, so I say let's do these investigations. Let's make sure that they don't turn into a circus. As Sergeant Joe Friday used to say, "Just the facts, ma'am." Let's use those facts to make the changes these agencies so that the men and women of the FBI, the CIA and other agencies who are very capable and serve America well, are able to do their jobs successfully.
Only then, as Winston Churchill did, can we finally win the war against terrorism.
Byron Dorgan, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from North Dakota. The above commentary has been adapted from a speech Sen. Dorgan delivered on the floor of the Senate, June 27, 2002. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
