Moussaoui Trial Reveals Pre-9/11 FBI Bungling

Posted on March 24, 2006

Testimony by two FBI agents in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial was supposed to prove to the jury that if Moussaoui had not lied to the FBI, the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented. But the prosecution's case was dealt a blow when the agents' testimony showed nothing of the kind. Instead, the testimony revealed how missteps by the FBI allowed 9/11 to happen.

The first witness, Harry Samit, an F.B.I. agent in Minnesota who questioned Mr. Moussaoui at his arrest, firmly asserted that had he been given the truth "we would have several new leads to investigate," and the plot might have been thwarted. Instead, he said, Mr. Moussaoui's answers sent investigators on "wild goose chases."
Under cross-examination by Edward B. MacMahon Jr., a court-appointed lawyer for Mr. Moussaoui, Mr. Samit acknowledged that after the attacks he had written strongly worded reports saying his superiors had improperly blocked his efforts to investigate Mr. Moussaoui. He added that he was convinced that Mr. Moussaoui was a terrorist involved in an imminent hijacking plot.
That senior bureau officials dragged their feet on investigating Mr. Moussaoui by seeking search warrants from a special intelligence court or a more routine criminal search warrant was not new. But it had never been presented so vividly as a reluctant Mr. Samit was obliged to do under cross-examination.
He offered a devastating comment from a supervisor who said pressing too hard to obtain a warrant for Mr. Moussaoui would hurt his career. Mr. Samit also wrote that his superiors did not act because they were guilty of "criminal negligence" and they were gambling that Mr. Moussaoui had little to offer. The lost wager, Mr. Samit said, was paid in many lives. Mr. Samit was followed to the witness stand by Michael Rolince, a retired F.B.I. counterterrorism supervisor who similarly recited a list of actions that the bureau could have taken if Mr. Moussaoui had told them about Qaeda plans to take over planes with knives and fly into buildings.
But when Mr. MacMahon began reading from a document detailing many suspicions about Mr. Moussaoui's intentions, Mr. Rolince interrupted, "Can I ask what document that's coming from?" Mr. MacMahon obliged, noting that it was an urgent memorandum written by Mr. Samit on Aug. 18, 2001, hoping to attract the attention of headquarters. Mr. Rolince had inadvertently underlined that the agent's suspicions had never risen to his attention.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the 9/11 investigation is the revelation that numerous FBI agents in the field had clues about the 9/11 hijackers which were routinely reported to their superiors. These superiors, for whatever reason, refused to take action on the agents' reports. Journalist Peter Lance (who testified during the 9/11 Commission hearings) outlined the actions of these brave FBI agents in his book 1000 Years For Revenge in which he discussed other clues that were missed by the FBI.

The field agents who pushed their superiors to investigate these potential terrorists were either transferred to remote FBI offices or threatened with their jobs if they didn't back off the case. FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley testified about the attitude and institutional malaise which pervaded the agency during this time period. But the 9/11 Commission Report never satisfactorily explained why these lapses occurred, nor has anyone at the FBI ever been held accountable for dismissing the reports of seasoned, reliable agents: reports that could perhaps have prevented 9/11. And that is very strange indeed.