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--> --> Lawmakers want Sept. 11 inquiry: Who knew what? WASHINGTON (AP) - Top lawmakers today pushed for tough inquiries after the White House revealed President Bush was told a month before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American airplanes. "Was there a failure of intelligence?" asked House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. "Did the right officials not act on the intelligence in the proper way? These are things we need to find out." Some law enforcement agencies were quietly put on alert last summer based on the information given to Bush during a regular intelligence briefing, the White House said. But officials said the president and U.S. intelligence did not know that suicide hijackers were plotting to use planes as missiles, as they did against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta was told of "long-standing concerns about possible hijackings" during his regular intelligence briefings, but "there was never a scenario put forward that was anything like the events of 9/11," said department spokesman Chet Lunner. "There was no specific credible warning to disseminate," Lunner said. "It was more of a general global concern that something might happen." Gephardt said Congress needs to find out - in hearings open to the public - what Bush and other officials knew, when they knew it and what they did with the information. He hinted he might push for additional inquiries, and said they "cannot be top secret." "Right now we have an inquiry that's going on in the intelligence committees," Gephardt said. "It may or may not be sufficient to get all this done. We'll talk with the other leaders about ways to do this." Peppered with questions about the presidential heads-up, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer sought to play down the development. He said there were long-standing concerns that Muslim extremists might carry out traditional hijackings, and that bin Laden had been a major worry for years. "I don't think this should come as any surprise to anybody," he said of the warning given to Bush. "But the president did not - not - receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new type of attack that was not foreseen." The development, the first direct link between Bush and intelligence gathered before Sept. 11 about the attacks, drew criticism from congressional investigators already looking into whether the government failed to adequately respond to evidence of potential attacks. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the panel had received the same general warning that "was not specific in its content." However, he said on NBC's "Today": "There was a lot of information, I believe and others believe, if it had been acted on properly we may have had a different situation on Sept. 11." On CNN, Shelby also questioned why the White House waited so long to acknowledge Bush's knowledge of the hijacking threat. He said of the warning: "I think it should have been acted on, but it wasn't." Shelby suggested he may demand that the White House release the top-secret CIA briefing received by Bush. He also said lawmakers will want to see a recently revealed FBI memo from its Arizona office that warned of suspicious activity by Arabs at U.S. flight schools and said bin Laden's al-Qaida network could organize such flight training. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing