Sources say FBI plans antiterror operation
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By Dan Eggen
Washington Post
WASHINGTON — If U.S. forces invade Iraq, the FBI has plans to mobilize as many as 5,000 agents to guard against terrorist attacks, monitor or arrest suspected militants and interview thousands of Iraqis living in the United States, said officials familiar with the effort.
The FBI operation, which would approach the scale of the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks, is a reflection of widespread fears among counterterrorism officials that the risk of attack will increase dramatically in the event of war. While authorities said that most Iraqis living in the United States are not a threat, they are concerned Muslim extremists will retaliate for war with suicide bombings and other attacks, the sources said.
Many of the FBI's criminal surveillance operations would be temporarily suspended to focus on potential terrorism or espionage suspects, a top law enforcement official said. Immigration violators found during interviews and sweeps will be detained, several officials said.
The steps are part of a voluminous and detailed contingency plan developed by the FBI in the past year in preparation for an Iraq invasion. Sources said the plan includes a checklist of more than four dozen steps to be taken by FBI field offices and joint terrorism task forces before and after war begins.
"We're prepared for the worst and hoping for the best," said one senior FBI official. "If there is anything else we can do, I'd like somebody to tell me what it is. ... There is going to be a very large commitment to anything and everything that could possibly happen."
Although Bush administration officials do not emphasize it publicly, U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism experts are in broad agreement that a war in Iraq will dramatically increase the chances of terrorist attacks against U.S. targets. As a result, numerous sources have said the Department of Homeland Security could raise the nation's color-coded threat level from yellow to orange, or "high risk," as early as this week.
Attorney General John Ashcroft told a House subcommittee earlier this month that "the FBI is prepared to act to defend America, including the possibility of a war against Iraq. Thousands of FBI agents, here and abroad, are working day and night." Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned last week that "we have to prepare for the inevitability" of suicide attacks in the United States.
FBI Director Robert Mueller also met last month with leaders of Arab American, Muslim and Sikh groups to ask for their support in identifying terrorists and to assure them of protection against hate crimes.
Working from an initial list of some 50,000 Iraqi nationals living in the United States, the FBI has winnowed that number to about 11,000 who would be targeted for interviews in the event of a war, a senior FBI official said.
Senior FBI officials said the interviews and investigations so far have not changed their general view that most Iraqis in the United States are hostile to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and are unlikely candidates for terrorism.
