Intelligence

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Probe Spawns Unparalleled Intelligence-Sharing


By Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 12, 2002; Page A09


For a glimpse into the new world of U.S. intelligence gathering since Sept. 11, consider the meandering path of a simple telephone number.

Retrieved from the rubble of Afghanistan -- whether from an address book, a computer hard drive or a scribbled note -- this hypothetical telephone number is first reviewed by Defense Intelligence Agency analysts at Bagram air base, north of Kabul.

From there, the number is sent to the U.S. air base in Khanabad, Uzbekistan, where it is entered into a computerized database and compared with other numbers found in Afghanistan, Europe and elsewhere as part of the U.S. government's anti-terror investigation.

Perhaps the number will lead to a prisoner being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who used the number himself or knew those who did. Or perhaps, in one real example from recent months, the number is identified as an al Qaeda "switchboard" used by one of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Telephone numbers are only part of the mountain of evidence that U.S. officials are struggling to analyze from thousands of pages of computerized and paper documents, hundreds of computer hard drives, scores of videotapes and millions of voice and data communications scooped up since U.S. forces entered Afghanistan. Added to the hours of interrogations of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, it amounts to what is likely the largest and most complex intelligence operation ever mounted by the United States.

Hastily assembled after Sept. 11, the methods for analyzing this information have become a linchpin in U.S. efforts to thwart future attacks and track down al Qaeda members who may be planning other operations. By bringing together analysts from the military, the CIA and the FBI, the new system also reflects an unprecedented level of cooperation among agencies that historically have had a difficult time sharing even crucial information. Many U.S. officials hope the system will serve as a blueprint for the future.

Intelligence officials, while hesitant to supply detailed examples, say the system has been vital to deterring other terrorist plots since Sept. 11 and to dramatically improving U.S. understanding of the al Qaeda network and its leader, Osama bin Laden, blamed for the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Numerous officials familiar with the new system acknowledge that it still faces significant problems, hobbled by its crazy-quilt structure and slowed by a dearth of linguists to translate and interpret the data. The agencies also do not have all the equipment or analysts they need overseas to crack scores of encrypted hard drives, which must often be sent back to the United States for decoding.

"Is there a danger that something could slip through? Sure there is," said one senior U.S. official. "But a lot of the information has been useful. . . . We've been very surprised at the volume and value of the documents. Relatively speaking, they kept good records."

All the materials coming in from Afghanistan and increasingly, neighboring Pakistan, are passed through a rapid sifting process, according to administration and intelligence officials.

The first priority is to identify any information that qualifies as tactical intelligence, which either could help U.S. forces find al Qaeda or Taliban hideouts or alert them to imminent threats. In such cases, the Defense Intelligence Agency handles the documents, while the CIA processes the computer files, one source said. Officers of the DIA, CIA and the U.S. Central Command, which runs the war, forward information deemed most crucial to ongoing military operations to officers in Afghanistan almost immediately, sources said.

The remaining material is then divided into intelligence information, which receives special scrutiny from the CIA, and law enforcement information, which is handled by the FBI. Although the FBI is more involved in overseas operations than ever before, it has generally had no more than a dozen agents in Afghanistan and Pakistan at any one time, and conducts most of its analysis in the United States.

One of the persistent problems during the initial screening of documents and other written materials at Bagram is language. DIA and CIA officers have specific sets of tactical and strategic questions to answer -- where Taliban or al Qaeda military units may be hiding, for example -- but there are gaps at the first level in translation. Materials are written in Arabic, Pashto, Urdu, Chinese and Russian, one official said.

At Bagram, located 35 miles north of Kabul, the capital, materials that may have immediate value go to the handful of local staff for quick translation. The remainder goes to the base in Uzbekistan, where there are more translators and analysts and where computers can transmit copies to allied intelligence services.

There are also officials from the FBI, Treasury and other agencies at Bagram andKhanabad, a former Soviet air base, to supervise distribution of materials involving terrorist-related financing and criminal cases, officials said.

The agencies are receiving an increasing volume of information in Pakistan as well, with the help of local police and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, one U.S. official said. U.S. investigators are focusing particular attention on visa applications and other legal documents to help them identify suspects who passed through Pakistan in recent years on the way to al Qaeda training camps in neighboring Afghanistan.

For now, much of the information is being put to use as fodder for ongoing interrogations of alleged al Qaeda and Taliban members held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In both places, the questioning is done under the control of the U.S. military, with significant input from the FBI and CIA, sources said.

The interrogators in Afghanistan work at two levels, sources said. The initial screening is conducted of prisoners being held by Afghan forces. The interrogators are trying to determine who the individuals are and what they know, questions that often take repeated sessions since many suspected al Qaeda fighters give pseudonyms and some had training in what to say and do when captured.

"If they say, 'I'm a humanitarian aid worker caught up in the fighting,' " one Defense official said, "they likely have been through training. That's the answer they were told to give." Those individuals are taken aside for continued questioning, with a few sent to Bagram or Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan.

The individuals sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where 300 are being held, are those who interrogators believe have more to say and who, with time, would cooperate.

In Guantanamo, as at Bagram, intelligence reports are generated from the questioning and the results are entered into databases. All detainees are asked a predetermined list of questions at the outset, followed by repeated questioning on more specific topics.

U.S. officials also have taken blood samples from all 300 Guantanamo detainees as part of a Justice Department plan to set up a DNA database of suspected terrorists.

In the end, much of the information is merged in suburban Washington, where the FBI, CIA and other agencies have set up a joint computer center that serves as a final clearinghouse for the data.

Special paths within the computerized intelligence network allow analysts with the proper clearance to access the data, which is organized in the style of Web pages, several sources said.

"This is the wave of the future," said one U.S. official. "If it's stuff coming out of Bosnia, that's going in; if it's coming out of the Philippines or Indonesia or wherever, it's all going to go into a central place. . . . This is how we're going to proceed from now on."


© 2002 The Washington Post Company