Legal red tape tied up agency ahead of 9/11, panel told
US Attorney-General John Ashcroft has publicly testified to the September 11 investigating commission that the FBI could not do an effective job in preventing terrorism in the lead-up to the 2001 attacks because the agency had been tied up in legal red tape during the Clinton years.
Mr Ashcroft's testimony had been the most anticipated after the testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice last week.
Ms Rice did not place blame on the FBI specifically, but said the Justice Department could not have been reconfigured to ease restrictions during the amount of time the Bush Administration had been in office.
While Ms Rice focused on a broader picture, saying there was 'no silver bullet' that could have prevented the September 11 attacks, Mr Ashcroft quickly went on the offensive, explaining in his opening statement that he had argued for changing the rules for FBI covert operations to allow for the assassination of persons deemed a threat to the country rather than only their capture.
'My formal review found no covert action programme to kill [Osama] bin Laden, only a covert action programme to capture bin Laden,' Mr Ashcroft said. 'Our agents were given only the language of lawyers.'