I am publishing below the account of Peter Ahearn, former Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Buffalo Field Office, describing what happened in his division while the attacks were underway. It is an invaluable account for understanding the chaos, confusion, and courage of those who found themselves, entirely unexpectedly, having to defend their nation against the most devastating terrorist attack in history.
Arriving at the Buffalo FBI office in May of 2001 as a newly appointed FBI Special Agent in Charge (SAC), I could not believe how fortunate I was. I arrived to an FBI field division that was extremely busy with some incredible case work, minimal administrative issues and a very positive and talented workforce which continues today. Buffalo FBI was not a “sleepy hollow”, ranked 34 out of 56 in relative size of FBI field divisions, with 86 Agents, 7 Analysts and 130 or so support personnel spread out in four satellite offices with responsibility for all 17 counties of Western New York. When I left in 2006 the complement had gone to 119 Agents, 14 Analysts and 175 support personnel, with 5 active task forces combining federal, State and Local law enforcement around Western New York. These task forces were the Joint Terrorism task force, Cyber crime/intelligence Task Force, Crimes Against Children Task Force, the Health Care Fraud Task Force and the Safe Streets/Violent Crime Gang task force.
The investigative priorities of the division were set by a combination of techniques. Crime surveys, past investigative activity and intelligence analyzed by investigative and intelligence programs. White Collar Crime, Organized Crime and Drugs, Violent Crime, Counterintelligence and yes, Terrorism was the key programs. Of the 86 FBI Agents assigned in May of 2001, I was allocated by FBI Headquarters a total of 4 Agents to be assigned Terrorism Program matters: one for International Terrorism matters and 3 for Domestic Terrorism. Why so many for Domestic Terrorism? The FBI defines domestic terrorism as groups that are spawned within the U.S. and no international ties. The KKK, PETA/ELF, Aryan Nation, Militia groups, Anti-Abortion violent organizations, are examples of the domestic groups. Buffalo FBI had dealt with its share of domestic terror. Timothy McVeigh was from the WNY region. Barnett Slepian was an American physician and OB/GYN who was murdered in his Amherst home by anti-abortion militant James Charles Kopp, captured in France a month before my arrival. Allocations of resources by the FBI are in line with the amount of documented work in FBI field offices back then. Very little international terrorism was found in the domain of WNY at the time or shall I say at the time we knew then. Today the ten priorities of the FBI are set and do not change with resources allocated directly to the top three: preventing terrorist attacks, the counterintelligence threat posed by hostile intelligence services and cybercrime.
As the SAC, I was responsible for ensuring my priorities were correct and allocate resources effectively and efficiently to address them. The FBI Inspection Division spent two weeks in June of 2001 looking at the past three years of FBI Buffalo operations, intelligence base, administration and priorities, issuing findings that all were effective and efficient. From that point on, my job was to ensure the “ship stayed on course” and as our division mantra noted, we just wanted to “raise the bar” on what we were doing and how we accomplished executing our mission.
In July 2001 as my personal review of FBI program operations for Buffalo FBI was in its final stages, I attended my first FBI-sponsored terrorism working group for Western New York. This group, coordinated by the Buffalo FBI, met monthly to discuss terrorism issues and concerns and was attended by our federal law enforcement partners and some local police departments. The working group was somewhat informal and similar to several other working groups we had such as the Bank Robbery working group, financial fraud working group among others. At the conclusion of the meeting, I was driving my Immigration and Naturalization SAC counterpart (remember this was INS, pre-ICE) back to his office. We discussed the idea of formalizing the working group into an FBI-sponsored Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) like those only found in larger offices. JTTFs began in 1979 with the first formed in the FBI New York Office to deal with a domestic terrorism case called NYROB, the armored car robbery in Nyack, NY by members of the Black Panther/Weatherman where two Nyack police officers were killed. With WNY's proximity to the border and a more structured need to look at terrorism, the JTTF would give INS, Customs, Border Patrol, NY State Police and the FBI a way to formalize relationships, combine scarce resources and better coordinate initiatives. I realized, as he did, we were severely understaffed and this would be a way to alleviate our problems. With a JTTF hopefully came resources or, as we say in the FBI, more cars and more bodies.
That afternoon, I met with my Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC), the terrorism program coordinator/supervisor and my one international terrorism Agent, Ed Needham, to discuss the idea. SA Needham was a former FBI supervisor who stepped out of the FBI Career Development Program to return home to Buffalo, NY. At the time, I did not realize how fortunate I was to have a talent like SA Needham who had such deep experience in terrorism matters. At the end of the meeting, it was agreed that our JTTF request would be formalized and sent to the FBI Terrorism Division at FBIHQ. I signed out the request paperwork to FBIHQ the second week or so of August, now a month before 9/11. We were very timely I realized later. Within 3 weeks of 9/11, FBI Buffalo became the first FBI Division authorized to create a JTTF post 9/11. Today they are in every one of the FBI’s 58 field offices nationwide. In actuality, the morning of 9/11 I only had one agent dedicated to international terrorism. By 9:10 of 9/11, the whole FBI was working terrorism.
At the time, the most notable issue our one International Terrorism Agent, Ed Needham, was an anonymous letter from a U.S. citizen of Muslim faith describing in detail several individuals who had traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to train in Bin Laden’s terror camps. This later became known as the Lackawanna Six.
During one of my visits to FBIHQ in August of 2001, I ran into Tom Picard, FBI Deputy Director. We had a brief hallway discussion about how things were going in Buffalo. I told him I was lucky to have a great division, some great work and great people and law enforcement relationships with minimal issues. I noted the border issues, and I mentioned trying to get JTTF authorization. Right away his demeanor changed, concern was all over his face. He mentioned discussions with the intelligence community, telling me there was belief that some type of attack was coming, but the belief was it was focused overseas. He also mentioned we, the FBI, were looking for unknown individuals in the U.S. that could be part of a plot. He was frustrated at the lack of information available from the intelligence community. There were no names or anything of detail to go on. I sensed deep concern and fear of the unknown. As I have always said, it is not what I know that keeps me up at night as an SAC; it is what I do not know. I had also heard on that trip, the FBI’s budget, especially the terrorism budget, was going to be cut by 40% for Fiscal Year 2002. This was, we were told, to tighten government spending to help with a ten year tax cut initiative proposed by the new Bush administration.
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| The FBI Buffalo Field Office |
The morning of 9/11 started off as a beautiful WNY summer morning. I arrived in the office around 7:30 am for final discussions and briefings for a scheduled 9 a.m. meeting with Buffalo Police Commissioner Rocco Diina and his commanding officers. There had been tension between the FBI and the Buffalo Police Department for the past two years over corruption investigations. Six weeks before, in July 2001, the investigations culminated with the arrest of six BPD officers on drug and racketeering charges. The covert investigation was over but there were remaining perceptions that Commissioner Diina and I had discussed in our one-on-one meetings. As a result I had agreed to meet with any and all of his executives to go over specifics of the investigation and tell them the case was over and no more covert FBI operations were ongoing. Our investigation had shown there was no systemic corruption in the BPD rank and file, but rumors abounded that, for example, the FBI had 40 FBI undercover operatives throughout the city targeting corruption in the BPD. Totally false, there never had been, just one FBI source that successfully helped the FBI uncover the drug trafficking protection ring.
That morning, I drove to the meeting with my ASAC Stan Borgia and Chief Division Counsel Paul Moskal. As we were parking by the BPD, a radio report came across the radio show saying that a plane may have crashed into the World Trade Center. Noting the clear skies, I was surprised and the initial report I heard said it was a small plane. I recalled immediately a history note of a B-25 bomber flying into the Empire State Building in 1945 on a foggy morning, nothing at all like weather-wise I was seeing that morning. We thought nothing special at that point. We arrived at the meeting, I sat down, began introductions as my pager and phone were going off, which I silenced. I noted ASAC Borgia took a call and then walked to the Commissioner's TV to turn it on. At that moment in time, I realized things as we knew it would change forever. I immediately ended the meeting and directly returned to my office. The ten minute drive seemed like hours, listening to the car radio the confusion was obvious and heard another plane had gone into the WTC.
Arriving at the Buffalo FBI office, I went directly to my office. The staff were moving quickly, a lot of activity going on, and it was obvious they had already initiated our crisis management plan. Way ahead of me for sure and that is always a good thing for a leader. Managed chaos everywhere, but calm, collected and all business every place I turned. I was directed to an area of the office that was our crisis command center. It is the large training area of the office that turns into the center when needed. The center was already organized according to the crisis management plan every FBI office is familiar with and drills once a year in addition to actual crisis events. Charts, timelines, active leads assigned, liaison section for calls from our law enforcement partners and information we were gathering on events occurring. First directives I issued related to my immediate concerns. I needed an immediate accounting for all FBI employees of the division. Where were they, if on vacation contact had to be made, if at FBI training somewhere outside the division find them and assure me all were accounted for and safe. My SWAT team had been on training in Ohio and was already en route back to Buffalo. Anyone out “on the street” conducting FBI business was immediately recalled to the office. I ordered, according to our crisis plan, deployment of our forward command center to our emergency relocation area and prepare in event of need to evacuate our building. We did not know if there would be other attacks and our building was on a list of sites that would possibly be attacked. By whom we did not know, but we were not waiting to find out. Employees with no direct assignments were streaming into the crisis area to watch and look for answers. It was clear I needed to address the office. Fifteen minutes later, all hands in the building met. They were expecting leadership, answers and direction. I did not know what to say, how to say it, emotions were running deep. But, as the room quieted, I did what needed to be done. In the crowd I could read the emotions. Fear, anger, confusion, worry and shock. I know they saw all of that in me. I addressed the group, short and sweet. Did they see that in me? I told them I did not have facts at this time, FBIHQ was having an All-SAC conference call at 10 a.m. with the new FBI Director, Robert Mueller and the Counter Terrorism leadership. After the initial call with them, we were told conference calls would continue hourly until further notice. It was clear we needed to be ready for anything, and we needed to be up to the task. We should expect long hours, and security was the number one priority for the moment. It was clear we had been attacked and we should be ready for anything, even deployment to other areas of the state and country if needed. I told them to make sure their families were ok, reassure them if you can and be ready to respond if needed.
One of the first of many issues came to my attention. We had received information that a plane had crashed in the Southern Tier of WNY. We had no reliable information but just that a plane of some type may be down. I directed my evidence response team (ERT) to activate as we tried to determine validity. After about 15 minutes, we found out it was Flight 93 that flew into the ground at Shanksville, PA. I then contacted SAC Ken McCabe, FBI Pittsburgh who verified the incident and I offered FBI Buffalo ERT teams to assist if needed. Eventually, Buffalo ERT would respond to NY City. Our ERT team was one of the best, having experience as first responders to the USS Cole bombing and played a major role later in the Buffalo crash of Colgen Air Flight 3407.
The first FBIHQ conference call was now pushed off to 1030. As I was connected to the call the tone was somber. A roll call began of offices and SACs. Each and every SAC responded and you could hear the sadness. Then, for the first time, Director Robert Mueller spoke. I had met Director Mueller a few times at FBIHQ when he was the Deputy AG and chaired 2 FBI Criminal Division meetings I attended as a Senior Executive. As you recall, he had just become the FBI Director in the first week of September 2001. As he spoke, you could hear his leadership in crisis. The briefings began. Atta, Hanjour, Jarrah, Mihdar, Hazmi. Sitting there it was clear that issues I had to deal with were minor compared to the SACs of NY City, Boston, Washington Field Office, Baltimore, Miami, San Diego, Pittsburgh and FBIHQ. Within two hours of the attack, we identified most of the hijackers, where they came from, where they lived and on and on. What was clear was the FBI, intelligence community and other government agencies involved in international terrorism had not prevented the attack. It was immediately clear from the first call and subsequent calls, the FBI had pulled in incredible information and the investigation was underway and would continue for many years to come. How did the FBI, the intelligence community and others miss the signals, intelligence and eventually “connect the dots.” That would be debated for years to come and is still to this day. That in and of itself led to arguably the biggest transformation of the priority mission of any government agency: prevent another terrorist attack. PENTTBOMB (Pentagon/Twin Tower Bombing) became the official code name for the investigation. All in all the Buffalo Division over the next 60 days would cover over 4,000 investigative leads, operate a command center for 24/7, deal with the realization one of our Agents lost an immediate relative in the WTC, deal with a second threat from Anthrax, snipers carrying out an extortion attack for weeks and six months later an FBI analyst assigned to the CIA would discover one of the names key to our Lackawanna Six case was a card-carrying member of al-Qaeda. This would put Buffalo right in the center of the war on terror.
The day never ended. Leads were already coming in and we were responding. I had our SWAT team deploy to our building perimeter and had our surveillance team start to conduct counter-surveillance around the radius of our building looking for any signs we were being watched, photographed or anything suspicious. Calls were coming in from many law enforcement agencies, concerned public officials and even retired FBI Agents asking to help. We actually had two FBI Agents on vacation visiting in Buffalo come down to the office to help. Calls from the public flooded our switchboard and command post. As an afterthought, I was asked by Erie County Commissioner Joel Giambra to attend his security and law enforcement meeting. Initially we were not invited but BPD Commissioner Diina insisted Giambra ask me to attend. I did, provided a detailed briefing of what I knew, reassured that we had no direct information Buffalo or anywhere else in WNY was a target. He then had a press conference attended by his personnel, BPD Commissioner Diina and other politicians. I was asked to address the media. As I took to the podium, I saw the same look on the faces of the masses of reporters, county employees and the public that I saw in the faces of my FBI Buffalo personnel when I addressed them.
I felt helpless for most of the rest of the day. The work that needed to be done was being done flawlessly by the FBI Buffalo employees. I took hourly briefings on operations, had at least three more FBIHQ conference calls that day. I started to send employees home to rest since many would start shifts at midnight. We would go around the clock for the next three months. I left the office around 1:30 a.m. of now 9/12, got to bed around 2:30 and was up at 5:00 a.m. ready to begin another day of what I had no idea. In the shower that morning it was the first time to really reflect on the events of the day. It was very difficult to put up a strong front. The loss of life, the anger, the fear, the emotions, yes the emotions. I was overcome with emotion and not ashamed to admit I shed more than a few tears in the solace of my condo. But, like we are expected to do, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go back for more. I needed coffee and to make matters worse, the coffee shop at my favorite Wegmans, where I was a regular customer at the coffee shop had no coffee made yet. I felt I was going to lose it again if it were not for the wonderful employee there at 5:45 a.m. who looked at me, saw the look in my eyes and came up and just hugged me. Some people just know and nothing had to be said. She made me my own cup of coffee. For the first time in the last 24 hours I felt we would get through this tragedy and be better for it.
25 years have passed and the FBI is a different organization, much for the better. Through all the controversy of not preventing 9/11, changing how the FBI focuses on terrorism and the collection, use of and sharing intelligence has been extremely positive. It launched a new generation of FBI. The oversight of the FBI since then has been controversial, demanding, misunderstood and far from over. But what is needed is the oversight, the questioning of tactics, the need to make sure the FBI remains focused on its mission and priorities while respecting the rights of every person in the U.S. I have always said the FBI is not a perfect organization, no organization is, but it is pretty damn close.
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