FBI Assailed for Handling Terror Risks (Ashcroft/Pickard/Bush)

New York Times, page one:

F.B.I. Is Assailed for Its Handling of Terror Risks
By PHILIP SHENON and ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: April 14, 2004


WASHINGTON, April 13 — The F.B.I. came under withering criticism on Tuesday from the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, with its chairman describing new staff reports on the bureau's performance before and after the attacks as an "indictment of the F.B.I....

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There were sharp contradictions between the sworn testimony of (Acting FBI Director Thomas J.) Pickard and (Attorney General John)Ashcroft, with Mr. Pickard testifying that Mr. Ashcroft had not made a high priority of counterterrorism issues before Sept. 11 and had told Mr. Pickard that summer that he no longer wished to discuss terrorist threats during regular F.B.I. briefings....

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Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Pickard agreed, however, that neither of them had been informed by the White House during the summer of 2001 that President Bush had taken an interest in the question of domestic threats posed by Al Qaeda and had received a special C.I.A. briefing on the issue on Aug. 6, after months of dire intelligence warnings that suggested an imminent, possibly catastrophic attack.

They also testified that the White House had not provided them the written intelligence report that accompanied the briefing, even though the so-called Presidential Daily Brief outlined investigations by the F.B.I. that summer into the possibility that Qaeda terrorist cells were present in the United States....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/14/politics/14PANE.html