WASHINGTON, Feb 15: The US Congress on Thursday launched a probe into intelligence failures that led to the Sept 11 terror attacks as allied troops in Afghanistan remained on high alert after an attack on the coalition’s Kandahar base.
The House and Senate intelligence committees will appoint former CIA inspector general Britt Snider to oversee the probe of the intelligence services’ activities before and after September 11.
The investigation seeks to determine why the intelligence community was unable to identify what might be done to have prevented future terrorist attacks, or what US intelligence agencies could have done to learn of the attacks in advance, the committees’ leaders said in a joint statement.
The lawmakers said Vice President Dick Cheney had assured them the Bush administration would “cooperate” with the inquiry, which could cost as much as 2.6 million dollars.
But earlier on Thursday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell lamented that action had not been taken earlier against the Taliban, saying the world had been too slow to recognize the true nature of Afghanistan’s former rulers.
Powell said until the September 11 attacks, the United States and others had not fully realized the extent of the relationship between the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
“We were slow getting off the mark, recognizing the nature of that regime,” Powell told a global youth forum broadcast internationally by MTV.
“The full degree of knowledge with respect to the Taliban regime and what it was doing to its own people perhaps didn’t get the level of consciousness it should have gotten throughout the world,” he said.
But support for the fallen militia’s Al-Qaeda guests appears to continue, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in an interview with National Public Radio, accusing Iran of abetting the flight of Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan.
Tehran, he said further, has failed to give the United States the support it needs in its war on terrorism.
“They have, to our knowledge, been quite accommodating to Al-Qaeda people transiting from Afghanistan through Iran towards the Middle East. It (Iran) has been notably unhelpful to the war on terrorism and our efforts to stop it,” the defense secretary said.
“We have not seen much that would indicate that they are changing and want to be part of the civilized world,” he added.
US President George W. Bush recently designated Iran as part of an “axis of evil” that also includes Iraq and North Korea.
Earlier Thursday, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman called US claims Iran is aiding Al-Qaeda members “erroneous” adding Tehran was preparing a report on its anti-terrorism efforts to give to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Meanwhile, US and Canadian troops spent a second night on high alert, 24 hours after an attack on the base in Kandahar on Wednesday night that left two US soldiers wounded.
Unknown assailants fired small arms at US positions on the perimeter of the base, where more than 4,000 US, Canadian, Norwegian, Jordanian and other troops are based.
From Tampa, Florida, a US Central Command spokesman said three people were seen leaving the scene of Wednesday’s attack in a vehicle.
Thousands of people turned out in Gardez on Thursday to welcome the newly appointed governor of eastern Paktia province amid threats of war from an Afghan warlord who was passed over for the job.
Taj Mohammad Wardak, named by Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai as governor despite threats of violence from tribal warlord Padsha Khan, originally appointed to the post, urged local people to bury their differences and work together to rebuild Paktia.
Without mentioning Khan by name, Wardak warned: “If anyone does anything illegal against us we will respond.”
Meanwhile the commander of Khan’s forces, Gellani Khan Zadran, declared they were ready for battle as soon as Khan gives the order.
“We have brought in machine guns and rockets and heavy weaponry,” Zadran said.—AFP