Moussaoui Arrest No Cause for Alarm at FBI

A former senior FBI counter-terrorism official testified Tuesday that Zacarias Moussaoui’s arrest was not cause for alarm in Washington in August 2001 because federal law enforcement had been besieged by threats to the U.S. and it was unclear what Moussaoui was doing in the country.

Michael Rolince appeared as a prosecution witness at Moussaoui’s sentencing trial as the government tried to deflect the damage done to its case a day earlier. A Minnesota FBI agent had told the jury Monday that bureau headquarters repeatedly snubbed his efforts to obtain search warrants to learn more about the Al Qaeda-linked terrorist training on jumbo jet simulators.

Rolince said as many as 70 threats were under investigation by the FBI about potential attacks in America that August. He said at least 100 buildings and structures in New York and Washington were viewed as “logical targets” for terrorists.

“There was concern throughout the law enforcement community, and we certainly anticipated an attack,” Rolince said.

He characterized Moussaoui’s arrest in Minneapolis as one of those investigations, but suggested that it never produced enough details for the FBI to request search warrants to open his belongings. It would have been easier to have him deported, Rolince said.

In hindsight, Rolince said, had Moussaoui’s possessions been searched, the FBI might have turned up enough leads to identify some of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers and perhaps marshal airport security officials to prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But with so much going on that summer, Rolince said, the Moussaoui matter was not deemed a priority.

He said he had only two brief conversations about the Moussaoui case with an FBI supervisor and was not given a copy of a lengthy memo from the Minneapolis field office outlining the arrest and highlighting the need for search warrants.

“The case was nowhere near fully developed,” Rolince said.

He downplayed testimony Monday from FBI Special Agent Harry Samit, who arrested Moussaoui and who testified that FBI headquarters had repeatedly blocked his attempts to obtain search warrants for Moussaoui’s home, car, duffel bag and laptop computer.

Rolince said there was not enough evidence in the three weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks to believe that Moussaoui was part of any large suicide hijacking mission.

“Agent Samit’s hunches and suspicions were one thing,” Rolince said. “What we knew was something else.”

Testimony about infighting within the FBI is crucial to both sides in the case.

The government, which is seeking the death penalty, is trying to show that had Moussaoui cooperated, the FBI could have prevented the attacks.

The defense hopes to persuade the jury that the agency was in such bureaucratic disarray that it was responsible for never fully investigating Moussaoui.

The defense wants Moussaoui sentenced to life in prison.

The trial, which began March 6, nearly collapsed last week over allegations that government attorney Carla J. Martin had improperly tampered with some witnesses.

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema has yet to announce when Martin will be called into the courtroom.

Rolince, a 31-year FBI veteran who retired in October, was chief of the agency’s terrorist operations center in the summer of 2001. He testified for much of the day Tuesday, wearing a red, white and blue tie patterned after the American flag.

Rolince said he approved a request from Samit to accompany Moussaoui on a planned deportation flight to Europe, where his belongings could be opened and inspected at the airport there. That request was granted Sept. 10.

The former top FBI official described a wide range of international and domestic threats the bureau was investigating that summer, and said only about 3% of them dealt with airplane hijackings or sabotage. That made the Moussaoui investigation seem all the less important, Rolince said.

Further complicating the case was the fact that Moussaoui lied to Samit, and “the answers he gave just didn’t add up” to connect him with a wide conspiracy plot, Rolince said.

The jury also heard Tuesday from several employees at Florida flight schools that trained some of the Sept. 11 attackers, including Mohamed Atta, leader of the hijack teams in the U.S. who flew the first plane into the World Trade Center.

Prosecutors are trying to compare Moussaoui’s enrollment at various U.S. flight schools to those of the hijackers.

Susan Hall, officer manager of the Huffman Aviation school in Venice, Fla., said she was often put off by Atta.

“I observed Mohamed Atta to be very cold and steely in his demeanor,” she told the jurors. “Not friendly, and pretty hateful acting.

“I just didn’t like the aura he gave off.” Hall said she had given Atta a nickname: “the little terrorist.”