What The Spies Know

By Massimo Calabresi/Washington

When CIA chief George Tenet made his first public testimony since Sept. 11 last Wednesday, it was in front of a pretty tough crowd. Delivering his annual "threat assessment" to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Tenet faced a longtime critic, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, who asked him, "Why were we utterly unaware of planning and execution of the Sept. 11 attacks?" Tenet bristled and tried to rebut, but his answers raised new questions in three crucial areas.

PENETRATING AL-QAEDA: Tenet's toughest moment came when Senator John Roberts said his constituents at a Dodge City, Kans., coffee shop wanted to know why John Walker Lindh could get into al-Qaeda but the CIA couldn't. Tenet, visibly upset, replied, "You better tell everybody at the cafe it's not true." Did he mean his agents had infiltrated al-Qaeda? A U.S. official told TIME that Tenet meant just that; the CIA does have a spy inside al-Qaeda--the first time the agency has ever acknowledged this. "We have our own unilateral sources," the official says. Al-Qaeda operates in dozens of countries, though, and having an asset in, say, the Philippines is a long way from knowing what bin Laden plans next.

BIOTERRORISM: "Documents recovered from al-Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan," Tenet testified, "show that bin Laden was pursuing a sophisticated biological-weapons research program." A U.S. intelligence official told TIME the CIA and its allies, through interviews and documents, have discovered that bin Laden is "further along than we had believed." This information builds on earlier reports of al-Qaeda camps in eastern Afghanistan that were used for developing and testing chemical and biological weapons, and supports President Bush's planned $11 billion increase in bioterror funding.

FUTURE THREATS: "The terrorists have considered attacks in the U.S. against high-profile government or private facilities," Tenet said, "famous landmarks and U.S. infrastructure nodes, such as airports, bridges, harbors and dams, [and] high-profile events, such as the Olympics." A chilling list--yet the official says there's "nothing specific" to worry about, no apparent active plan. Tenet makes such warnings annually, in part so he's on the record in case something dreadful does happen.

Tenet will soon have more chances to parry and thrust; the House and Senate plan a joint investigation into why the U.S. didn't get wind of the attacks.

--By Massimo Calabresi/Washington