Learning from our intelligence failures

As the national terror alert level was raised to orange -- the second highest of five levels -- last week, the nation also learned that the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had information regarding Timothy McVeigh and a possible attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City prior to the April 19,1995, bombing.

Thousands of pages of federal investigative memos obtained by The Associated Press regarding the Oklahoma City bombing portray government miscommunications that mirror the intelligence failures prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Even though in 1995 the FBI and ATF were aware of plots being hatched by a white supremacist group near Oklahoma City -- including an unrealized 1993 plan to attack the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building with plastic explosives and rocket launchers -- that information was never passed along to the General Services Administration, the federal agency that manages U.S.-owned properties.

In addition to a failure to exchange information or to pass their concerns on to the GSA, the FBI and ATF may have had another concern that prevented issuing any alerts about what might happen in Oklahoma City. Both agencies were still stinging from the aftermath of the 1993 raid by ATF agents on David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas. As a result, the ATF did not pursue, two months before the bombing in Oklahoma City, a raid on the Elohim City compound of white supremacists in Muldrow, Okla., near Oklahoma City.

There are comparisons that can be made between what we now know were serious communications failures before two tragic days that left thousands of Americans dead and injured. One, in Oklahoma City, was perpetrated by a deranged Army veteran who served in the Gulf War and was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge and Bronze Star. The other involved al-Qaida terrorists who turned jetliners into guided missiles.

Surely there are lessons that have been learned about the need for good intelligence and good analysis of such information.

It's hard to say what the GSA would have done had it known, before the Oklahoma City bombing, that the Murrah federal building was a likely target. Extraordinary measures have been taken across the country to protect government buildings, although no-parking signs around the Federal Courthouse here in Cape Girardeau raises questions about how effective some of these precautions really are.

But FBI director Robert Mueller and CIA director George Tenet contended last week that the upgrading of the terror alert level -- plus additional security measures at government buildings -- makes it more difficult for terrorists to carry out an attack.

Let's hope Mueller and Tenet are right. Let's hope that good information indeed allows those responsible for our protection to do a better job. And let's hope that the nation weathers yet another week of threats from those who see America's strength and success as a reason for terror.