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Terrorists Noted Flaws in Security, Report Says
Friday, February 1, 2002
By Eric Lichtblau
Times Staff Writer

With the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City fast approaching, law enforcement officials have ratcheted up security to guard against possible attacks.

WASHINGTON -- LA Times
A confidential intelligence report issued Thursday indicates that Osama bin Laden's operatives displayed a keen interest in exploiting vulnerabilities in security at sensitive U.S. facilities, and FBI Director Robert Mueller said he believes that Al Qaeda-trained agents are still at large in the United States.

The intelligence report, reviewed by The Times, revealed that U.S. personnel in Afghanistan have discovered an Al Qaeda-linked computer hard drive containing a congressional study that exposed startling shortcomings in security at U.S. government facilities.

Also found by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan were news accounts about the congressional study that had been translated into Arabic, according to the intelligence report distributed Thursday to U.S. authorities through the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center.

The intelligence report apparently refers to a study that the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, released publicly in May 2000 showing how easily infiltrators could get into sensitive U.S. facilities. Undercover GAO investigators, using bogus police credentials and fake IDs, managed to gain access to 19 of the nation's most tightly secured buildings, including the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and the Justice Department.

The GAO study sparked outrage in Congress, and federal officials say it prompted them to tighten security substantially at their buildings even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
(More: LA Times News Source)
2002 © Los Angeles Times.

Dan