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Congress Seeks F.B.I. Data on Informer; F.B.I. Resists October 6, 2002 By JAMES RISEN WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation had a confidential informer who rented rooms in California to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, but the bureau is resisting a request from the Congressional committee investigating the attacks to interview the informer and his F.B.I. handler, government officials said. The joint Sept. 11 Congressional committee plans to hold a closed hearing on Wednesday focusing on the F.B.I.'s handling of its San Diego informer, who was the landlord of the hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi a year before the attacks. Several officials said the F.B.I. had rebuffed requests to make the informer available to the committee and would not authorize the agent who was his contact to testify. The F.B.I.'s resistance has led Congressional officials to become more aggressive in trying to find out whether the informer provided clues about the hijackers that the bureau ignored or failed to act on before Sept. 11. An F.B.I. official said the bureau had provided the committee with all the agent's reports on the informer's activities. The official said the F.B.I. was unwilling to allow the informer to testify on principle, fearing it could damage efforts to recruit sources from Arab-American communities. The official said the F.B.I. had not learned the identity of Mr. Midhar or Mr. Alhazmi from the informer, who was known as a "passive source," meaning he was not assigned to obtain specific intelligence but routinely passed on information. The official said the F.B.I. did not have any information indicating that the informer knew anything about the plot or had passed on any details that should have caused his F.B.I. contact to focus more closely on Mr. Midhar or Mr. Alhazmi. But Congressional investigators say the F.B.I.'s efforts to block their inquiry makes them skeptical of the bureau's assertions about the informer. They also say the Justice Department has joined the F.B.I. in fighting the Congressional requests for information related to the matter, escalating tensions. The fight over access to the informer is the latest bitter dispute between the committee and the Bush administration and the intelligence and law enforcement agencies that are the subject of the committee's investigation. Antagonism between the Central Intelligence Agency and the committee became public a week ago after the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, wrote a letter to the committee's leaders, protesting the treatment of a senior C.I.A. officer who had testified about the agency's record on fighting terrorism. Mr. Tenet's letter was in response to a disclosure that the committee's staff had written briefing papers predicting to committee members that Cofer Black, who was until recently the chief of the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism center, would "dissemble" in his testimony. Separately, documents made public in federal court in Alexandria, Va., late last month showed that the Justice Department sought unsuccessfully to prevent F.B.I. agents, and the bureau's director, Robert S. Mueller III, from testifying publicly before the joint inquiry. Justice Department lawyers asked the judge presiding in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, who faces a trial on conspiracy charges related to the Sept. 11 attacks, to rule that Congressional testimony from agents and Mr. Mueller to the committee would imperil Mr. Moussaoui's trial. Lawyers for the Congressional committee responded in court filings of their own, saying that the Justice Department was seeking an order that they could use to tell F.B.I. witnesses not to respond to questions about the bureau's handling of the Moussaoui case. The role of the F.B.I.'s San Diego informer has become important to the Congressional committee because he is linked to the two hijackers who have come under the most intense scrutiny in the joint inquiry. Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi, who were among the hijackers on the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Pentagon, were identified as Qaeda operatives by the C.I.A. in January 2001. But the C.I.A. did not ask the State Department to place their names on a watch list intended to prevent entry into the United States until late August. By then, they were both in the country. The C.I.A. passed on information about the two men to the F.B.I. in late August, but by then the bureau had little time to track them down. Mr. Midhar is believed to have played a central role in the attacks, and some Congressional officials say they believe the plot might have been disrupted if he had been caught. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/politics/06INTE.html?ex=1034874245&ei=1&en=02348a94899e473d HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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