Fighting terror notebook

Exclusion of FBI, CIA questioned

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers questioned the exclusion of the FBI and CIA from direct lines of authority under a new Homeland Security Department as the House opened hearings into President Bush's antiterrorism reorganization plan.

At Tuesday's hearing and elsewhere on Capitol Hill, members of Congress grew more openly critical of the plan, while agreeing on a need for quick action.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said many lawmakers are concerned that the president's plan does not envision the "full participation" of the FBI and CIA, which have been the subjects of heavy criticism for their pre-Sept. 11 intelligence performance.

"Many of us feel we can maybe, perhaps, more completely do that job than what was outlined" by the president, Armey said. "We may have to pull these agencies more fully into the structure than was recommended."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., told the House Government Reform national security subcommittee that the FBI's domestic intelligence arm might work best as part of the new department -- but he added that such a move should wait until after the new agency is created.

Also left out of the new department is the agency primarily responsible for tracking guns and bombs -- the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Even though ATF, a Treasury Department agency, has participated in several high-profile terror investigations, White House officials say its primary mission didn't fit the definition of homeland security.

Bush sought to reinforce support for the homeland security plan, meeting at the White House with a bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders and endorsing the call by House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., to pass the legislation by Sept. 11.

"What I've heard is there's a commitment to get this done in a way that takes any partisanship out of the issue, and at the same time strives for a date certain," Bush said.

COUNTERTERRORISM TESTIMONY: White House counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke underwent almost five hours of questioning Tuesday as the leadoff witness in the secret congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks.

Lawmakers said Clarke, whose experience fighting terror dates to the Reagan administration, offered a broad, frank review of intelligence efforts and shortcomings leading to the attacks.

FBI says nerve gas attack on U.S. subway possible

WASHINGTON -- The FBI warned U.S. transit operators that al-Qaida could launch a nerve gas attack in a subway around July 4 after analysts pieced together information from Afghanistan and a captured senior al-Qaida leader, U.S. officials told Knight Ridder.

The alert went out Friday and Saturday to major U.S. cities, including Washington and New York, they said.

Authorities decided to issue the alert after Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaida leader arrested in Pakistan in March, told U.S. investigators that operatives of Osama bin Laden's network had considered a terrorist attack on a major U.S. subway system, said two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Elsewhere ...

PENTAGON FACADE FINISHED: Workers on Tuesday fitted the final piece of limestone facade into the rebuilt section of the Pentagon. The blackened stone was part of the original facade damaged during the Sept. 11 attack on the military headquarters that killed 189 people. It was engraved with the date, and behind it officials placed a bronze "dedication capsule" containing the names of the victims and other mementos. Work still remains inside the building.

SHOE BOMB CASE: A judge Tuesday threw out one of nine charges against a man accused of trying to blow up a jetliner with explosives in his shoes, ruling that an airplane is not technically a vehicle under the new USA Patriot Act. The charge was attempting to wreck a mass transportation vehicle. Richard C. Reid still faces eight charges.

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