The August 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa was a wake up call, the first major al-Qaeda operation to follow a February 1998 fatwa, or religious decree, issued by bin Laden in which he called for attacks on U.S. military and civilian targets anywhere in the world. In May 1998, bin Laden publicly discussed "bringing the war home to America."
The intelligence reports indicating al-Qaeda's desire to launch a major attack inside the United States appear to have been widely discounted, as analysts focused their attention on more specific intelligence threats overseas, the joint committee found. The response of intelligence agencies to the al-Qaeda threat varied widely.
On Dec. 4 1998, Tenet issued his declaration of war. "I want no resource or people spared."
Yet the joint committee found that few of the FBI agents interviewed by it had ever heard of Tenet's declaration.
The panel also concluded that prior to Sept. 11, only one FBI analyst was assigned full time to al-Qaeda, although others were working on individual terrorist cases related to bin Laden's network.
The joint committee report also said that in 1999, the CIA's counter-terrorism center had only three analysts assigned full time to al-Qaeda.
Both the CIA and the FBI disputed those figures Wednesday. Law enforcement officials said the committee's numbers were misleading, because at the time of last year's attacks, a total of about 30 people were assigned to the two units.
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