Senators warned on terror threats
Lawmakers squabble on homeland bill
From Steve Turnham and Kevin Bohn
CNN Washington Bureau
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The chiefs of the CIA and FBI told senators Thursday that the current terror threat against the United States is at its highest level since the attacks of September 11, 2001, according to senators and congressional staff who were present at the closed-door meeting.
According to one Democratic source, the briefers warned that the threat of attack is more acute than at any time since al Qaeda operatives struck the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington with hijacked airliners. A fourth commandeered plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
The source spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity because the briefing with CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller was classified.
Separately, a Democratic senator told CNN, "It is the most worrisome situation since 9/11."
A Republican, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said he didn't hear a specific reference to 9/11, but said that was the clear impression left by the briefers.
"That was the gist of it," he said.
The briefing was one of several this week given to lawmakers about terrorist threats.(Full story)
In a conference call with South Dakota reporters, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle said that while he received no information about specific targets, there is "information that would lead anyone to believe that there is a higher threat level today than there has been for some time."
Daschle, D-South Dakota, told CNN the presentation was "elaborate" and said the concern over a possible attack is great.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a news conference Thursday that the al Qaeda terrorist network plans a large-scale attack on the United States "in an effort to disrupt the democratic process" before November's elections, but he offered few details.(Full story)
Ridge said he had no specific or credible information about threats to either the Democratic National Convention in late July in Boston, Massachusetts, or the GOP convention, which starts in late August in New York.
Senior intelligence officials told CNN that recent intelligence shows that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain at the helm of the terror network, continuing to direct attack plans from their remote hideouts somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
After the briefing from Mueller and Tenet, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, said there is no reason for "panic or no reason for paralysis."
"This is not a major announcement, it's just a fact," Frist told reporters. "The reality is of increased risk here in the homeland over the next several weeks, the next several months."
But Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, called the information "troubling" and "worrisome."
In late May, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Mueller announced there was "credible intelligence from multiple sources" indicating al Qaeda planned attacks against the United States "in the next few months." But the intelligence did not point to a specific attack plan, U.S. officials said.
The color-coded alert level has been raised five times to orange, or high, since the system's inception after the 9/11 attacks. The last time the alert level was raised was in December, after a taped threat from Zawahiri. The alert level was dropped the following month.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats, led by the New York delegation, seized on the latest warnings to to condemn Senate Republicans for focusing on two bills that are not expected to pass -- one to limit class-action lawsuits and another to amend the Constitution and ban same-sex marriages.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and other Democrats said the Senate should immediately move to consider a series of security-related bills.
"It is extraordinarily disheartening that on a day when the Senate was briefed behind closed doors on the threats and the secretary of Homeland Security briefed the world on the threats that we can't get a debate on the appropriation for the Department of Homeland Security," said Clinton. "How pathetic is that? What does that say about the values of our nation?"
"I hope and I pray that nothing happens in this country between now and the time we take these bills up," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois.
But Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Democrats were to blame for any delay.
He said he was prepared to take up the $33 billion Homeland Security appropriations bill under rules that would sharply limit amendments and pass it by next Monday.
"Start today, start today, we'll finish it by 5 o'clock Monday," said Stevens.
Daschle rejected Stevens' offer, saying Democrats were happy to take up the bill, but not under the restricted rules for debate that Stevens attempted to lay down.
"I hope he's not going to suggest that we finish this bill over two travel days and a weekend," said Daschle, who accused Stevens of "showcasing and posturing."
