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Associated Press FBI personnel patrol near the front of the Pentagon, which was hit by a hijacked airliner Tuesday. The FBI is being blamed, in part, for an intelligence breakdown that led to the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York.

Anti-terrorism
Assault found U.S. experts off guard
Plotters learned from errors of past

By Peter Slevin, and Walter Pincus / Washington Post

Reuters Federal investigators search for clues near the damaged area of the Pentagon following Tuesday's terrorist attack. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

   WASHINGTON -- Plotters of the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon learned from the mistakes of their terrorist predecessors, reducing the chances of early detection and increasing the deadly effectiveness of their attack, intelligence experts said Wednesday.
   Unlike earlier conspiracies foiled by an indiscreet comment or an intercepted conversation, the hijackers and their superiors launched Tuesday's coordinated attack with what appeared to be total surprise. Significant players in the intelligence community learned about the assault from television.
   U.S. intelligence agencies find themselves defending their abilities in the aftermath of the deadliest terrorist assault in the country's history. Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said the incident demonstrates the need for a broader array of recruits familiar with other cultures and languages.
   "If we had a warning and missed it, that is a failure of intelligence, big time," Shelby said after being briefed by Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller. "If we didn't have any inkling of this event, as well-planned and well-executed as it became, that's a failure, too."
   Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., intelligence committee chairman, said it was "premature" to say whether the failure was a result of the limitations of intelligence gathering or from people not doing their jobs. He suspects authorities did not have sources capable of penetrating the terrorist organization in the United States or abroad. He also said the group likely communicated by computer, taking advantage of "shortfalls" in the ability to intercept electronic traffic.
   Early evidence of who might have pulled off such a spectacular attack suggests the participation of disciplined warriors operating in small cells -- likely communicating face-to-face and leaving few written records.
   "This is the hardest target there is," said Daniel Benjamin, a former National Security Committee counter-terrorism specialist. "There's going to be an awful lot of witch-hunting in the weeks ahead ... ."
   An examination of the World Trade Center assault and plots from the early 1990s suggests that the perpetrators of Tuesday's terror studied the flaws of 1990s conspiracies that were designed to destroy the twin towers.
   The February 1993 bombing in a World Trade Center basement, which killed six people, was designed to topple the 110-story buildings, the orchestrator of the operation told a Secret Service agent. Indeed, the operation was intended to include attacks on the United Nations headquarters, the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel and the New York building that housed the FBI.
   "And he said that Americans would realize, if they suffered those type of casualties, that they were at war," Secret Service agent Brian Parr testified at the 1997 trial of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef.
   The terrorists discovered that a single van full of explosives would not bring down the skyscraper and vowed to try again. Just four days after the 1993 bombing, a group calling itself the Liberation Army Fifth Battalion warned of additional attacks against American civilian and military targets.
   Investigators found a letter on a suspect's computer that warned of violence against the World Trade Center. It read, "we promise you that the next time it will be very precise and WTC will continue to be one (of) our targets in the U.S."
   In testimony at the Yousef trial, potential terrorists learned the twin towers could withstand being hit by a Boeing 707, so they used two heavier planes Tuesday. The two hijacked planes also hit between the 40th and 70th floors, sites calculated to produce the greatest damage.
   "For some time," said Sandy Berger, national security adviser to former President Clinton, "we have known we could be vulnerable to multiple attacks."
   The U.S. intelligence community is concerned that terrorists are plotting a fresh attack away from Washington and New York that does not involve a hijacked airplane.
   "They are not convinced it is over," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.