20 charged with fraudulently trying to get licenses

More than 20 people who hold licenses to transport hazardous materials are in federal custody and have become a new focus in the ever-broadening investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

“Our investigation has uncovered several individuals, including individuals who may have links to the hijackers, who fraudulently have obtained, or attempted to obtain, hazardous material transportation licenses,” Attorney General John Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Given the current threat environment, the FBI has advised all law enforcement agencies to remain alert to this threat.”

Word of those detentions followed an FBI directive on Sunday that grounded the nation’s crop-dusting planes because of concerns that terrorists might use them to spread deadly chemical or biological agents over population centers. On Tuesday, the FBI lifted the order grounding the crop dusters.

At least one of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks had earlier inquired into the purchase and use of crop-dusting planes in Florida, according to aviation businesses there.

Mohammed Atta was identified by employees of a Belle Glade, Fla., crop-dusting business. They said Atta and several other men had asked about the flying and load-carrying characteristics of the one-seater crop dusters.

Atta, the FBI says, was one of 19 men who took over four airliners on Sept. 11. Two planes left Boston and struck the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center. A third left Washington’s Dulles International Airport and slammed into the Pentagon. A fourth left Newark, N.J., and crashed in a Pennsylvania field. Its intended target, the FBI says, was Washington.

In all, nearly 7,000 people died in the attacks.

Zacarious Moussaoui, who is being held in connection with the hijacking scheme, was in possession of a crop-dusting manual when he was detained in Minnesota in August. Moussaoui has since been flown to New York for questioning.

So far, there is no evidence that the hijackers possessed chemical or biological materials, or that they bought or even flew a crop-dusting plane.

A senior Justice Department official who briefed reporters on the detentions refused to elaborate on any specific connection between those detained and those who seized the four airliners.

“We’ve only found that these charges involved the use of false documents to get licenses,” said the official, who asked not to be named. “Now, why people did it is not something I’m going to speculate about.”

The prospect of hazardous chemicals and their possible use by terrorists was first raised last week, when agents arrested a man in Chicago whom they suspect has links to a bin Laden operative.

Nabil Al-Marabh, a former taxi driver who was arrested near Chicago last week in the hijacking investigation, obtained a Michigan license last year to transport chemicals and other regulated goods, according to Michigan state officials.

But one federal transportation official questioned why any potential terrorist would go to the trouble of getting a license to transport deadly chemicals.

“You didn’t see Timothy McVeigh making sure he had his hazardous materials license,” the official said, referring to the man convicted of the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Security and Intelligence issued a nationwide security advisory in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. The department has reported “numerous terrorist threats” since Sept. 11, “including unconfirmed reporting regarding potential use of chemical, biological and/or radiological/nuclear WMD (weapons of mass destruction).”

The FBI likewise has issued an alert, recommending that “representatives of recipient facilities, particularly those that manufacture, distribute, transport or store hazardous chemicals, should be especially vigilant.”

The American Trucking Associations has told its members to drive in tandem, vary their routes and not discuss what they are hauling.

“We are tripling our safety efforts,” said Michael Russell, a spokesman for the group. “This is the real deal, given the events of Sept. 11.”

On Monday, Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee about a potential threat from terrorist using crop dusters to spread chemical or biological poisons. Tuesday he told the Senate Judiciary Committee about the threat from trucks.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned whether the Sept. 11 attacks could have been prevented. A frequent critic of the FBI, Grassley told Ashcroft that the bureau had received earlier information about terrorist activity and the use of flight schools.

“It seems to me that the FBI needs to be doing a better job internally of disseminating critical information,” Grassley said. “Key information gathered by investigators isn’t being passed on to top officials, who then are in a position of giving an inaccurate statement about facts.”

Ashcroft acknowledged that the sharing of information on a massive investigation can pose challenges “not to lose information and yet not to be swamped by it.” But he defended the FBI, saying that more than 10,000 investigators were working on the case.

While Ashcroft’s testimony was an effort to convince Congress that the investigation is making progress, the FBI has yet to arrest anyone it can say was directly involved in the attacks.

On Tuesday, the bureau released a San Antonio, texas, doctor who it once believed was a key financial link to the 19 hijackers.

Dr. Al-Badr Al-Hazmi was set free after what one law enforcement official said was “a case of mistaken identity.”

Back in San Antonio, Al-Hazmi proclaimed his innocence. “Hatred is evil and love is good,” he told reporters. “What happened on Sept. 11 doesn’t have anything to do with any religion and nothing to with Islam.”

In all, the Justice Department says 352 people are being detained as part of its investigation, and it is seeking another 392 for questioning. Both figures are dramatically more than the department was confirming as recently as late last week.

About 100 of the 352 people being detained are being held on immigration charges by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The remainder are either being held as material witnesses in the hijacking case or have committed other, unrelated crimes that are allowing officials to detain them until they can determine their role in the plot, if any.

Meanwhile, President Bush visited the Strategic Information and Operations Center in the FBI’s headquarters building, which serves as the investigation’s nerve center, to give a pep talk to the investigators working around the clock.

Speaking in front of an illuminated FBI seal, his words piped throughout the FBI building, Bush thanked agents for their work as part of the “army” fighting terrorism and urged Congress to approve the counter-terrorism legislation his administration has proposed.

Chicago Tribune correspondents Jeff Zeleny and Todd Lighty contributed to this report.