With key Republicans admitting FBI powers must be curbed, activist Robert Starks Sunday said agents failed to detect terrorists because they were too busy racially profiling Blacks and Africans.
Starks agreed with U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) who on ABC's "This Week" and NBC's "Meet the Press," said if FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, 57, wasn't briefed by his staff as to the CIA's knowledge that at least two of the terrorists were in the U.S. "heads should roll."
However, a closed-door congressional Intelligence Committee hearing will begin today to find out how both the FBI and the CIA missed so many clues some feel could have prevented the 9-11 attacks.
FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted: "We have got to do a better job of putting the pieces together.
During an interview on ABC's "This Week," U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft said: "The information we now have does not indicate that there was a substantial likelihood of detecting this."
However, Starks said the revelations published in Times and Newsweek magazines that the FBI dropped the ball and that a top secret report warning the FBI months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks had been ignored doesn't surprise him.
"It points out the fact that Sen. Cynthia McKinney was right in what she said a month ago."
Starks said these reports only "vindicates her." He added: "There is no doubt that the FBI, the CIA, the president, and congress dropped the ball because neither one connected the dots" that led to the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
"The CIA, congress and the president have been so busy watching African Americans especially Africans thinking they were the terrorists, they missed the real terrorists.
"Hey they were looking at us and missed the right-wing white folks. They missed the boat on the European and Asian terrorists," said Starks.
"They are so obsessed with watching Black people that they let the real terrorist go free which only points up their white supremacy," charged Starks.
Time and Newsweek connected those dots they say were missed by both the FBI and the CIA.
The heads of these agencies will have to answer to a congressional hearing with Grassley calling for oversight authority over the FBI.
In listing the activities of suspected al-Qaeda operatives, Time Magazine reported that in Phoenix: "Hijacker Hani Hanjour lived in Arizona for years (in February 2001, the FAA questioned him).
"On July 10, 2001, FBI agent Ken Williams sent HQ his now famous memo proposing a sweep of other Middle East students at flight school."
Along the border of the U.S., Time reported in Canada, Algerian Ahmed Ressam "hatched his plot to blow up LAX Airport, but he was foiled by alerted officials when he tried to cross into the U.S. in December 1999."
In San Diego: Time reported hijackers Nawaq Alhamzi and Khalid Al-Midhar lived in California in 1999 and 2000, receiving visitors and taking flying lessons.
In Phoenix: hijacker Hani Hanjour lived in Arizona for years (in February 2001, FBI agent Ken Williams sent headquarter's his now famous memo proposing a sweep of other Middle East students at flight schools).
In Minnesota: Zacarias Moussaoui was detained in August 2001 after arousing suspicion at a flight school.
A local FBI agent says a HQ `roadblock' thwarted a pre-Sept. 11 investigation.
In Oklahoma: In 1993, years before suspected "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui flunked out of flight school in Norman, alleged al-Qaeda affiliate Ihab Mohamed Ali got his pilot's license here.
In Forth Worth: Essam al Ridi testified in the embassy-bombing trial that in 1993 he bought a $210,000 plane for Osama bin Laden and flew it from Dallas-Fort Worth to Khartoum, Sudan.
In Minnesota: Zacarias Moussaoui was detained in August 2001 after arousing suspicion at a flight school. A local FBI agent says an HQ `roadblock' thwarted a pre-Sept. 11 investigation.
In Toronto: An Ontario official last week admitted that authorities discovered an al-Qaeda sleeper cell, thought to have been based around Toronto, some months ago.
Its members have since left Canada. Nabil Al-Marabh, arrested in Chicago after Sept. 11, lived in Toronto for six-years.
In Pennsylvania: Passengers' heroic efforts sent Flight 93 into the ground near rural Shanksville. The intended target was the White House.
In Maryland: Flight 77 hijackers arrived in the Washington suburb of Laurel in the final month before the attacks.
In Washington: American Airlines Flight 77 smashes into the Pentagon, killing 189 people.
New Bern, N.C.: Abdul Hakim Murad, who authorities said trained at flight schools here and in three other states, confessed in 1996 that he was part of an elaborate plot that included bombing U.S. jetliners in midair and flying a small craft loaded with explosives into CIA headquarters.
In New Jersey: Hijackers Nawaq and Salem Alhamzi lived in Fort Lee and Wayne; all Flight 93 terrorists gathered in Newark before the attacks.
In New York: The World Trade Center's Twin Towers are leveled in the Sept. 11th attacks. Recent threats targeted the Statute of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.
In Boston: American Airlines Flight 63, heading from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22, was diverted and alleged show bomber Richard Reid arrested.
Time Magazine reported on July 5, 2001 Bush asked Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to find out what agencies are doing with al-Qaeda threat intelligence.
On July 6, a National Security Council group, led by Richard Clarke, met to talk about intelligence and potential attacks overseas. Nonessential travel by counter-terror staff is suspended.
In mid-July, Bush reportedly was warned by the CIA about a possible al-Qaeda attack at the G-8 summit.
On Aug. 6, Bush hears the CIA's report on this terrorist group. It is based largely on past intelligence and raises hijackings as a possible threat but also cites other methods, including truck bombs, boat bombs and bio-weapons.
Sept. 11th--"Too late: Bush gets the news of the World Trade Center attacks."
Time Magazine reports that the FBI failed to pass key memoirs and data to the White House.
Photograph (Robert Starks)
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