| For Immediate Release Feb 12, 2003 |
Contact: Press Office 202-646-5188 |
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, is not surprised that the country is on its second highest alert for a terrorist attack. In fact, much of what FBI Director Robert S. Mueller and CIA Director George Tenet said before the Senate Intelligence committee was detailed in Judicial Watch’s book, FATAL NEGLECT: The U.S. Government’s Continuing Failure to Protect American Citizens from Terrorists. The book accurately forecasted not only the “whitewashed” investigation conducted by the Congressional Joint Intelligence Panel, but the continuing failure of numerous government agencies, including the FBI and the CIA, to prepare for the next round of terrorist attacks. FBI Director Mueller told the congressional panel “The challenge of finding and rooting out al Qaeda members once they have entered the U.S. and have had time to establish themselves is our most serious intelligence and law enforcement challenge.” Indeed, the challenges facing the FBI are great, as detailed in Fatal Neglect. Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent-turned spy for the Soviets and Russians, passed secret software to the KGB that Russian intelligence service passed along to al Qaeda, potentially enabling Osama bin Laden to detect and monitor U.S. efforts to keep track of him. For years, “counterterrorism,” for the FBI and other agencies, meant issuing “strongly worded” press releases, accepting enormous emergency appropriations from Congress and, unfortunately, doing very little to help investigating agents in offices around the country. One such agent, FBI Special Agent and Judicial Watch client Robert G. Wright, repeatedly pressed FBI leadership within the Chicago Division and at FBI headquarters to pursue leads and open additional cases against terrorists operating within the United States. Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that a tape that was to be broadcast by the Arab network, al-Jazeera, shows that bin Laden “is in partnership with Iraq.” Judicial Watch has known this information for over a year, stating in Fatal Neglect that “it is Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that has been bin Laden’s active political, military and intelligence sponsor for just over three years…bin Laden had dealings with Iraqi intelligence as early as 1993 in Somalia.” Of grave concern to Judicial Watch is whether there are al Qaeda “sleeper cells” in the United States that remain undiscovered by the FBI, as well as the fatalistic tone by government officials. What will it take before the government stands up and takes notice? A biological attack on a subway, as depicted in Fatal Neglect, or a deadly radiological bomb detonated in the center of one of America’s cities? Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman said that “because of years of inattention and recklessness, we must live with the consequences of likely even more severe and perhaps fatally catastrophic terrorist acts on American soil, where millions could be killed and maimed.” Click here to order Fatal Neglect | |