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©Associated Press
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 18, 2001
TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday the state needs to be careful not to overreact to reports linking several suspected terrorists to Florida.
Bush said the state will look into providing greater oversight for the flight schools that helped train the suspected hijackers involved in the destruction of the World Trade Center and laws allowing authorities to use wiretapping devices.
"If it's necessary for us to take action, we would consider it, but I think it ought to be done in a thoughtful way," Bush said. "This clearly is a tragedy but before we start changing significant laws like that, I'd like to understand the full consequences."
The FBI continued to track a Florida connection into last week's suicide hijackings against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. At least 15 of the 19 hijackers listed by the FBI have Florida ties, and seven were believed to be pilots. Investigators have tracked the suspected terrorists to at least five Florida flight schools.
The FBI searched an apartment and a condominium in Delray Beach on Sunday where hijackers were believed to have stayed.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said Monday he has asked the FBI and staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate whether some of the hijackers received flight training at the Pensacola Naval Air Station.
"There is evidence that some of the hijackers had lived in Pensacola but I had not heard until today any suggestion that they had trained at the Naval Air Station," said Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine reported that as many as four of 19 suspected hijackers may have participated in the base's flight training program for foreign military trainees during the 1990s.
Bush said Florida's strong aviation industry, diversity and sheer number of residents -- 16-million people -- made it difficult to detect the suspected hijackers.
"You have this constant shifting of the population and it's easier for people to come and go and be unnoticed," he said.
Bush said that the state had been looking into anti-terrorism plans and security measures before last Tuesday but that those efforts would be enhanced. On Friday, Bush directed his staff and agencies to review the state's plans to fight terrorism and to recommend how to strengthen them within 10 days.
Bush planned to meet with leaders of the tourism industry Thursday to discuss how the state might help reassure visitors to come to Florida. He said he wasn't worried that the terrorists links to the state would give it a black eye.
"A handful of sick people committed atrocious acts of terrorism; I don't think that people are going to automatically then equate Florida with this," Bush said.
The governor said he was "very worried" about the economic fallout from the attacks.
"That is going to be my first responsibility over the next few months," he said.
The governor said he didn't yet know about Floridians being called into military service.
"There is an expectation, though, that both the reserves and the National Guard will be called up," he said.