Bogus analysis led to terror alert in Dec.  2003

Critics question evaluation of the evidence
"I'm astonished," says author and intelligence expert Jim Bamford, "that they would put so much credibility in such a weak source of intelligence."

Bamford says the CIA shouldn't be criticized for considering the theory, but that analysts should have weighed how implausible it was.

"What you have to do is judge the intelligence versus what your actions are going to be. And this is the equivalent, basically, of looking at tea leaves," Bamford says.

Intelligence sources say that even within the CIA, the analysis was a closely guarded secret. Still, they say, some top CIA officials who learned about it were skeptical. Top officials at the Directorate of Operations, which conducts clandestine operations, and others who worked at the CIA Counterterrorism Center, felt that the whole theory was implausible and was being taken far too seriously.

As discredited as the CIA's interpretation now is, experts say steganography is a valid subject for CIA analysis, and could be used by terrorists to hide data in files on the Web, in still photographs or in broadcast television images.

"Steganography," says professor Nasir Memon of Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, N.Y., "is the art, if you will, of secret writing. And when two parties want to talk to each other and not let anybody know they are indeed communicating, they would use steganography."

Memon is an expert in "steganalysis" — using sophisticated software to locate hidden messages. He says such analysis is valuable but not always reliable, because there are many "false positives." In general, he says, "it's not something I would bet the farm on because there is a significant chance that it could be wrong."

TV networks commonly hide digital "watermarks" in their video broadcasts, a legitimate use of video encoding to pass along innocuous digital information. The CIA's Al-Jazeera analysis is classified, and it is still unclear exactly what the CIA technicians were looking for in the network's "crawl."

Ridge stands by alert
Regardless, Ridge told NBC News that the CIA analysis certainly did turn out to be wrong. He confirms there were no secret terror messages. He also says there was no evidence that terrorists were actively plotting against aviation at the time.

But Ridge insisted it was not a mistake to raise the alert level or to cancel the flights.

"I think it was the right thing to do," he said.

Even if raising the alert level frightened a lot of people?

"We acted accordingly based on our best information and best conclusions and the information that we had at the time," Ridge said.

Ridge added that the faulty CIA analysis was a significant factor in raising the alert level, but not the only factor.

As for the CIA, a spokeswoman would not confirm or deny this report, but said it's the "agency's job to run all plausible theories to the ground, especially when American lives could be at risk."

MORE FROM INVESTIGATIVE UNIT

Investigative Unit Section Front

Spies like us      New rules prohibit credit card fraud   Financial meltdown puts SEC in hot seat   Palin’s record in Alaska   U.S. soldier electrocutions in Iraq under scrutiny   Report: Not all big rig and bus drivers fit to drive   Offshore banks accused of aiding tax evasion   Feds prohibit predatory lending practices Countrywide whistleblower reports 'liar loans' Investigative Unit Section Front   Add Investigative Unit headlines to your news reader: