Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, FBI
Commonwealth Club of California

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/speech041902.htm

(Gold9472: April 19, 2002... you would think he would have heard of the "Rosetta Stone Of 9/11" by that time.)

San Francisco, CA
April 19, 2002

Thank you, Roy (Eisenhardt) and good afternoon everyone. It's good to be back home. It brings back a lot of wonderful memories. My years in San Francisco were among the most satisfying and enjoyable of my career. It gave me the opportunity to work with some of the finest criminal justice and law enforcement professionals in the country. They taught me a great deal, and it was an honor to serve along side them.

As much as I miss San Francisco, I am grateful to have the opportunity to serve in what I believe to be the world's finest law enforcement agency -- the FBI. It is particularly rewarding to serve at this unparalleled moment in history, when America is depending on the FBI more than ever, when protecting the homeland from terrorist attacks has taken on new meaning and new urgency.

Like most Americans, I'll never forget the day it all began. I had been on the job exactly one week when word came that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. We rushed down to the FBI's command center, hoping it had been a terrible accident but fearing the worst. Minutes later, we watched in horror as a plane hit the second tower. Then, reality hit even closer to home, when across the Potomac, another plane rammed into the Pentagon.

Not long after learning that the third hijacked airliner had gone down, a controller from the Federal Aviation Administration, who was on the phone with his agency, told us more shocking news. A fourth plane had been hijacked. It was heading straight towards the nation's capitol. And it was just 15 minutes away.

It was a surreal moment for us all, realizing this plane – this flying bomb – was headed our way, yet not knowing where it might hit: the White House, the Capitol, a school yard, or FBI Headquarters.

As we all know, Flight 93 never made it to Washington. The brave passengers on board – including many from the San Francisco Bay area – were determined that this flying missile would not reach its target, and they sacrificed their lives to save our city. They are among the true heroes of that day.

From those first moments, we in the FBI, like the rest of the nation, knew that the world had changed. And we knew that our institution would never be the same.

Our first thought was to do what we'd always done after a terrorist attack: set up command centers and start managing the crisis from a law enforcement perspective; get control of the crime scenes and begin gathering evidence; and deploy our vast investigative force to find out everything we could about the attacks.

At the same time, we realized that we had to conduct this investigation somewhat differently. These attacks were not just an act of terror. They were an act of war. The most pressing issue for the FBI and for the nation was to find out who we were at war with, and more importantly, to make sure we were not attacked again.

To do that, the FBI began working in concert with its many partners to find out everything we could about the hijackers and how they pulled off their attacks. We ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads and checked every record we could get our hands on, from flight reservations to car rentals to bank accounts.

What emerged from our massive investigation was a sobering portrait of 19 hijackers who carried out their attacks with meticulous planning, extraordinary secrecy, and extensive knowledge of how America works.

The plans were hatched and financed overseas, beginning as long as five years ago. Each of the hijackers came from abroad: fifteen from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, and one each from Lebanon and Egypt. All 19 entered our country legally, and only three had overstayed the legal limits of their visas on the day of the attacks.

While here, the hijackers did all they could to stay below our radar. They contacted no known terrorist sympathizers. They committed no egregious crimes. They dressed and acted like Americans, shopping and eating at places like Wal-Mart and Pizza Hut, blending into the woodwork all the while. When four got speeding tickets in the days leading up to September 11th, they remained calm and aroused no suspicion. Since none were known terrorists, law enforcement had no reason to question or detain them.

The hijackers also left no paper trail. In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper – either here in the U.S. or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere – that mentioned any aspect of the September 11th plot. The hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind. They used hundreds of different pay phones and cell phones, often with prepaid calling cards that are extremely difficult to trace. And they made sure that all the money sent to them to fund their attacks was wired in small amounts to avoid detection.

In short, the terrorists had managed to exploit loopholes and vulnerabilities in our systems, to stay out of sight, and to not let anyone know what they were up to beyond a very closed circle.

The investigation was enormously helpful in figuring out who and what to look for as we worked to prevent attacks. It allowed us to see where we as a nation needed to close gaps in our security. And it gave us clear and definitive proof that al Qaeda was behind the strikes.

At the same time, we were taking other steps to track down any potential associates who might still be out there. We began to identify individuals whom we needed to question. We went to the flight schools to identify associates of the hijackers. We went to those who run a popular travel website that several of the hijackers used to make their flight reservations. They showed us the patterns the hijackers followed and identified others who fit a similar profile. And we ran down all leads in the hopes that they might turn up associates of the terrorists.

Through this process, and with the help of state and local authorities, we interviewed thousands of persons to develop a full picture of the hijackers and others associated with them. In the United States, a number of suspects were detained on federal, state, or local charges; on immigration violations; or on material witness warrants. Ultimately, these and other actions with our partners around the world have helped prevent more terrorist attacks.

As the days and weeks went by, though, it became clear that the war on terror had only just begun. Our investigation moved from the events of September 11th to the anthrax attacks, to the foiled shoe bombing on the flight from Paris to Miami, to the kidnapping and murder of a Wall Street Journal reporter in Pakistan. Through it all, the FBI had become part and parcel of what is now called "homeland security," a government-wide campaign to protect America from terrorist attacks. And we have been given a critical role to play, one that is redefining much of what we do.

The homeland security effort is being waged on many fronts. The law enforcement component is building cases against terrorists in the court of law. The military component is deploying our armed forces to attack terrorist strongholds overseas. The intelligence component is using information and analysis to anticipate and prevent attacks, and to better understand the enemy. The diplomatic component is building an international coalition against terror. The financial component is drying up the pool of funds used by terrorists. And the public health component is preparing now to save lives and protect our communities.

Today, the FBI is fully integrated into this campaign. We play a leadership role, of course, in the law enforcement arena. At the same time, we are supporting each of the other components of the campaign and each of its players. In this environment, we realize that what we do to help our colleagues is every bit as important as what we do within our own agency.

We are supporting the military, for example, by sharing information and intelligence that we gather in our investigations and in our interviews of prisoners. In some cases, we have also facilitated the capture and arrest of terrorists overseas.

We are supporting the intelligence effort by working more closely than ever with our partners in the intelligence community here and around the world to gather and share information. We are developing new tools to make this process easier and more effective.

To cut off terrorist funding, we've created a financial review group that is working with many other agencies to investigate shady bank accounts and wire transfers and to develop predictive models that can help target suspicious ones in the future. So far, this group has reviewed over 75,000 transactions and helped freeze millions in terrorist funds worldwide.

In the public health area, we continue to investigate any incidents involving biological or chemical agents. Since September 11th, we've not only launched a massive investigation into the anthrax attacks, we've also responded to the 16,000 hoaxes and threats that have followed in their wake. We have also stepped up efforts to work more closely with state and local officials, and we continue to coordinate issues, provide training, and stage exercises.

As I'll discuss later, the FBI also plays a role in the diplomatic component through our overseas offices, which work closely with American Embassies and foreign governments.

Our role in homeland security builds upon what we have been doing for many years. We're still the lead law enforcement agency for counterterrorism. We're still assessing threats and issuing warnings and advisories to our law enforcement partners and to the American people. We're still leading the multi-agency National Infrastructure Protection Center, a key force in protecting our nation's critical physical and electronic infrastructures. And most of all, our top priority is still prevention.

The difference is largely a matter of degree. Terrorists have shown they are willing to go to great lengths to destroy America. We must be willing to go to even greater lengths to stop them. Our worldwide network must be more powerful. Our financial commitment must be stronger. Our techniques and training must be more sophisticated. And our sense of urgency and intensity must be greater.

This reality is driven home to me in a very real way each day. Since the attacks, I have briefed President Bush in the Oval Office each morning. Together with George Tenet, the Director of the CIA, we go over what we call the "threat matrix," a list of every threat directed at the US in the past 24 hours.

End Part I