Search And Disrupt

Monday, Oct. 22, 2001 By JOHN CLOUD

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Since Sept. 11, the President and other U.S. leaders have urged Americans not to act as though the sky is falling. They have said we should be alert, but they have also told us to get out and see a movie, order a steak, maybe fly to see Aunt Lisa in Palm Springs. Behind the mixed message is a question: How can we strike a balance between watching for future attacks and getting on with normal life?

Those investigating Sept. 11 have been asking themselves that same question: Should they do what American law enforcers have been trained to do--work methodically to build airtight cases against the perpetrators of crimes--or shift their efforts instead to preventing future terrorist plots? It is a difficult question--quickly snaring a suspect means you can't watch him conspire and may not uncover all his confederates--but any debate over it within federal law-enforcement agencies ended Thursday. That evening the President told a prime-time TV audience that "the FBI must think differently." Attorney General John Ashcroft told ABC that if the FBI had to choose between prosecuting a case against terrorist suspects and moving quickly to stop them, he would sacrifice prosecutions in the interest of public safety.

That same day the bureau acted as both constable and town crier, warning that "there may be additional terrorist attacks within the United States...over the next several days." Bush Administration officials had been telling members of Congress, police chiefs and reporters for weeks that further attacks by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network were virtually certain. But now the government was telling the people directly: We're in danger. As if to underscore the point, the Web address for the warning included the code "skyfall," before the bureau changed it. A young aide had chosen the blunt word only so she could find the statement easily on her computer, but there was no doubt that her fears were also ours.

Ashcroft and his aides would not reveal precisely what information prompted their extraordinary alert. But senior officials say the raw data underlying the warning came from an overseas source developed by the CIA and buttressed by snippets of information gleaned through other intelligence efforts around the world. Without offering any specifics, the source--whose reliability is still uncertain--warned that al-Qaeda will strike at any moment. As an official puts it, the information may or may not be credible, "but nobody's going to take a chance."

Though some suggested that the anthrax scare of last week in fact constituted the second wave of attacks that authorities had been expecting, most investigators doubted it. Round 2, they fear, is yet to come. "My opinion, shaped on years of experience, is that it's coming," says an Administration counterterrorism official. The CIA actually quantifies such probabilities, the official says. The agency tabulates what it calls "Indications and Warnings" (I+Ws, in government-speak), and when the I+Ws reach a certain number, the alarms sound. That's what happened prior to the FBI's public warning last week.