Breitwieser + Co.- "Jersey Girls" get in Muellers face (Isikoff)

MSNBC

Terror Watch

Michael Isikoff & Mark Hosenball

Lingering Questions

The families of 9-11 victims are still raising pertinent issues about the intelligence failures that led to the attack. Plus, Is Washington hyping the Qaeda threat?

NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

June 11 - In a long-awaited, closed-door meeting, FBI director Robert Mueller ran into a buzz saw of criticism this week from irate family members of September 11 victims over the bureau's handling of a range of matters relating to the terror attacks.

THE FBI PUT OUT A bland press release about the meeting on Tuesday, stating that Mueller sought to "personally answer questions" from the family members and "help them understand the FBI's ongoing role in preventing and investigating acts of terrorism."

But family members who attended the meeting at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington told NEWSWEEK the meeting quickly grew contentious as soon as bureau officials finished the inevitable PowerPoint presentation on the status of the 9-11 probe. Many of those present were visibly annoyed with Mueller's responses-especially over his refusal to commit to holding any bureau officials accountable for intelligence failures that preceded the attacks.

"A lot of family members were angry, and there was a lot of shouting out of turn," said Steve Push, the leader of one of the 9-11 victims'-family groups. "There was a lot of unhappiness with quite a few of the responses." Much of the stiffest criticism came from "the Jersey Girls"-a group of feisty young widows from northern New Jersey whose husbands died in the World Trade Center and who have become increasingly radicalized by what they view as the U.S. government's failure to provide them with answers to many key questions about the attacks.

The women from New Jersey got especially frustrated when Mueller and other top bureau officials at the meeting repeatedly brushed aside their questions, saying they couldn't respond because the answers might jeopardize the Justice Department's pending case against Zacarias Moussaoui, the accused Al Qaeda terrorist who is facing charges that he was a co-conspirator in the 9-11 attacks.

"I don't give a rat's a- about Moussaoui!" said Patty Casazza, a 38-year-old New Jersey resident whose husband, John, died in the World Trade Center's north tower. "Send him to Guantanamo Bay and get what you can from him there."

Another key issue for the Jersey widows-who peppered Mueller with questions throughout the session and sometimes interrupted his responses-is accountability. Kristin Breitweiser, 32, pressed to know why bureau officials had not put together information from the so-called Phoenix memo-a July 2001 communique from a Phoenix-based FBI agent reporting that a suspiciously large number of Middle Eastern men were enrolling in U.S. flight schools-with information from the FBI's Minneapolis office the following month about the detention of one flight-school student in particular, Moussaoui.

When Mueller responded that, because of past problems with the FBI's computer system, only one junior analyst had access to reports on both matters in the summer of 2001, Breitweiser demanded to know whether she was disciplined for her failure to realize the significance of the intelligence and call the matter to the attention of higher ups.

Mueller grew indignant, according to some of those present. "If you want me to fire some 24-year-old woman who didn't have tools to know what to do … I will not do it," he told the group.

"Fire her! Fire her!" some of those present shouted out. Breitweiser said the family members didn't mean to be insensitive. But many did feel that the bureau should at least reassign the analyst. More broadly, family members say they are sickened by the fact that nearly two years after the attacks, no one in the U.S. government-neither at the FBI, CIA nor anywhere else-has been dismissed or otherwise disciplined for the multiple mistakes and intelligence foul-ups that preceded the attacks.

"I don't think he understands we're done with there being no accountability for what happened to our loved ones," said Lorie Van Auken, 48, another one of the Jersey group, whose husband, Kenneth, died in the attacks.

Mueller largely "kept his cool" throughout the meeting, according to Push. And in meeting with the family members, the FBI director has gone further than many others in the U.S. government in reaching out to the victims. ("In any meeting, you're going to have some people who are happy and some people who aren't," said FBI spokesman Bill Carter.) But the questions the family members are raising-about what the U.S. government knew prior to the attacks and what it has learned since-are not likely to go away.

A national commission investigating 9-11 is beset with tension, according to knowledgeable sources, and there is considerable debate as to whether the panel will ever get access to key White House documents in time to prepare its report due out next year. In the meantime, the Jersey widows say they have no intention of letting the matter rest.

"We're anxious," said Casazza. "And we want answers."

ANOTHER HYPED WMD REPORT?

Even as the debate intensifies over whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, new questions are being raised about whether the Bush administration is hyping intelligence about the threat of an Al Qaeda attack using chemical, biological or radiological weapons.

A U.S. report submitted to the United Nations Security Council and released over the weekend made a brief splash because it appeared to contain ominous new warnings about Al Qaeda's efforts to develop biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear (that's CBRN in governmentspeak) weapons.

"Al Qaeda will continue its efforts to acquire and develop" such weapons, the report said. "We judge that there is a high probability that Al Qaeda will attempt an attack using a CBRN weapon within the next two years," the report added.

Where "the two years" estimate came from was unclear; the report was prepared by the State Department's counterterrorism office and submitted to the Security Council under a resolution requiring member countries to give periodic updates on steps they are taking to dismantle the Al Qaeda network.

A spokesman for U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte today played down the significance of the report, insisting it was "consistent with what we've said before"-although he was unable to point to any previous occasion where U.S. officials had said quite the same thing about the likelihood of an Al Qaeda attack using such weapons in the next two years.

In any case, that alarmist conclusion is not quite consistent with a new CIA report on the same subject. The CIA report-prepared for domestic law-enforcement agencies and posted on the CIA's Web site-takes a somewhat more measured view. While the ultimate goal of Osama bin Laden's terror network goal may be to use WMD to "cause mass casualties," the agency concludes that Al Qaeda's actual capabilities to use such weapons are primitive to nonexistent at best. "Most attacks by the group-and especially associated extremists-probably will be small scale, incorporating relatively crude delivery means and easily produced or obtained chemicals, toxins, or radiological substances," it says.

Given the attention now being focused on whether the Bush administration had overstated the intelligence on Iraqi WMD, now is probably not the best time for senior officials to be speaking with two voices on a quite similar subject.

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