Possibility of Terrorism Is Ruled Out Quickly

WASHINGTON —  In the first, uncertain moments after the shuttle Columbia broke apart, the nation’s intelligence and homeland security network feared that terrorists had struck again.

Authorities quickly determined that this was not the attack they have been braced for ever since Sept. 11. Their fears had been fueled by reports that Al Qaeda was planning additional “catastrophic” attacks, including some against high-profile aviation targets.

And counterterrorism officials were particularly on edge, given the presence of a much-publicized Israeli war hero on board the space shuttle. But there had been no specific intelligence indicating that astronaut Ilan Ramon or the spacecraft was being targeted, according to federal law enforcement officials.

“We were checking with the military to see if there were any indications of a missile or a rogue pilot in a fighter jet, anything,” said one federal law enforcement official speaking on the condition of anonymity. “With all that is going on in these times, who knows?”

A command post was set up within minutes at the FBI’s Dallas field office because debris from Columbia had begun to rain down on its jurisdiction.

“We all responded to the office. It was instantaneous,” said Special Agent Lori Bailey, the FBI spokeswoman in Dallas. “We reached out for everybody, all the logical sources of intelligence and information in an event such as this, to see how we could help and what our orders were.”

Phone calls, Nextel walkie-talkie dispatches, pages and e-mails rocketed up and down the chain of command, from the Dallas office to the FBI’s strategic information operations center in Washington.

Within minutes, counterterrorism officials at the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department were talking with one another -- and with NASA and the White House -- weighing all of the available information. They wanted to determine whether there was any chance that Columbia and the seven astronauts aboard were victims of an attack.

And if not, those officials wanted to pass the news along to the American people as soon as possible.

White House officials were among the first notified, along with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Also notified: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Vice President Dick Cheney, who was vacationing in Texas, according to Bush administration officials.

Authorities stressed that Washington’s response was not prompted by any particular bit of intelligence or information about the tragedy itself. But several noted that Al Qaeda, in addition to being interested in U.S. aviation targets, had been linked to a terrorist attack in November in Africa in which someone launched a shoulder-fired missile at an Israeli commercial jetliner and just missed it.

The U.S. standoff with Iraq also has “ratcheted things up,” said one FBI official -- particularly because Ramon was well known for his role as a fighter pilot who helped take out an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

One senior federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities had received intelligence that raised concerns about a previously scheduled Columbia flight that was to have carried the same crew. But officials concluded that the information, related to Ramon, was not credible. The flight was postponed for unrelated reasons, officials said. They also noted that though security surrounding all shuttle missions had increased after Sept. 11, there was nothing about this particular flight that had raised special concerns.

As information streamed in to intelligence officials Saturday, all of it pointed to a shuttle malfunction. “We received no information to indicate that it was an act of terrorism,” Bailey said.

FBI officials would not comment on why they were so certain, but other U.S. officials said it was because the shuttle started breaking up more than 200,000 feet over Texas during its descent.

At that point, the FBI mobilized in another way: It sent agents out to the sites where debris had landed to help secure the locations until recovery teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency could arrive, Bailey said.

One FBI agent said that counterterrorism officials, though saddened by the loss of the shuttle and its crew, breathed a collective sigh of relief when terrorism was ruled out.

That was particularly the case at the FBI, the agent said. “Obviously, this is just a horrible, horrible tragedy,” said the agent. “But after what happened on 9/11, we just thank God it wasn’t an act of terrorism.”