Worldandnation: Senator says FBI memo 'takes your breath away'

Durbin, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was among a handful of lawmakers to hear closed-door testimony from FBI Agent Kenneth Williams, author of the so-called Phoenix document.

Accompanied by FBI director Robert Mueller, Williams met with the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he met with the intelligence committees in the House and Senate.

After nearly two hours with the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sen. Bob Graham, D-Florida, Williams told a reporter, "Sorry, I can't make any comment."

Two months before the attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Williams had recommended a broader probe of Middle Eastern men enrolled in U.S. aviation schools. But FBI headquarters in Washington never acted on it.

The memo, coupled with the FBI arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker," in Minneapolis in August 2001, has sparked furious debate in Washington about whether the attacks could have been prevented had the FBI been more diligent.

"It's just plain stupid not to correlate that," Sen. Richard Shelby, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said after listening to Williams testify for nearly two hours.

The Alabama Republican suggested that the FBI's handling of Moussaoui's arrest would amount to an even bigger security lapse than the Phoenix memo. The field office in Minneapolis had requested a court order to examine Moussaoui's personal computer but Washington declined.

"The information coming from Phoenix, the information coming from Minneapolis was stifled here at FBI headquarters," Shelby said. "I believe the FBI's got a lot of explaining to do."

Shelby, Durbin and Graham are among several members of Congress to ask that the FBI make the memo public. Mueller, the FBI director, has declined.

At the briefings, Mueller outlined a plan to correct problems highlighted by the Phoenix and Minneapolis cases. The idea, he said, is "to make it a better bureau, and to make it capable of handling the information that comes in, particularly for counterterrorism matters but also for counterintelligence matters."

Wednesday afternoon, Durbin expounded on the Williams memo. He said an interview the agent had with a subject in Phoenix prompted him to write it.

"I don't remember the initial tip, but he spoke to someone in the Phoenix area who said some very frightening things about his view about the United States and the view of the Islamic world to the United States, and that really sparked Williams to dig deeper," Durbin said.

"This man sitting out in Phoenix," Durbin added, "envisioned foreign nationals acting as terrorists, associated with Osama bin Laden, going to aviation training schools, using their ability to disrupt the civil aviation system in America.

"You're saying, 'God! How could he come to all those conclusions two months in advance?' "

Neither Durbin, nor any of the other senators on the Intelligence Committee, would say what led Williams to the subject in the first place.

Citing sources and methods of the investigation, they declined to say, for example, whether the FBI already had been investigating Middle Eastern men enrolled at U.S. aviation schools.

"I will tell you, though," Durbin said, "that although he didn't come up with the exact Sept. 11 scenario, what he presents in that memo was so close to the fact pattern that emerged on Sept. 11 that, as you read it, it just takes your breath away."

Lawmakers described Williams, 41, as very professional and capable, with no hint of frustration that his memo went nowhere. In fact, lawmakers said he defended the FBI, characterings his memo as "routine" and not "urgent."

"As an American citizen, I'm much comforted to know there are people out there like that doing the work they're doing," said Rep. Porter J. Goss, R-Sanibel, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Senator says FBI memo 'takes your breath away'

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