Wednesday September 26 7:38 PM ET

At CIA, Anti-Terror Team Works on 'Bin Laden Lane'

By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Directions to work cubicles in the CIA (news - web sites)'s Counterterrorist Center are given by referring to small overhead signs: ``Bin Laden Lane,'' ``Qadhafi Qourt,'' and ``Saddam Street.''

A snack bar and conference rooms have been converted into work stations and coffee pots are everywhere. Mattresses have been plunked down for quick naps, and take-out pizza boxes are strewn about the site of one of the CIA's key anti-terrorism operations.

Since four planes were hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon (news - web sites) near Washington and a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, the 15-year-old center has gone into overdrive.

Its new informal slogan is ``let's roll,'' which was what Todd Beamer apparently said before he and other passengers scuffled with hijackers and took down one of the planes in Pennsylvania before it reached its target.

President Bush (news - web sites) toured the center on Wednesday during a visit to CIA headquarters where he gave a pep talk amid criticism from some lawmakers that this month's attacks showed a huge intelligence failure to uncover the plot.

``It's important for America to realize that there are men and women who are spending hours on the task of making sure our country remains free,'' Bush said in a speech inside the CIA's auditorium nicknamed ``the bubble'' for its igloo shape.

``Men and women of the CIA, who are sleeping on the floor, eating cold pizza, calling their kids on the phone saying, 'Well, I won't be able to tuck you in tonight,' because they love America,'' Bush said.

The center gives visitors a tiny counterterrorism pin of a masked man dressed in black with a red circle and line drawn through it in the international symbol for stop.

It also issues a calendar with pictures of extremists that marks dates of violent international events or when attackers were captured -- blank days are few.

In the 2001 calendar, December is the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), shown as a caricature holding a globe with a lit fuse like a bomb.

The Counterterrorist Center, which is referred to as ``the CTC,'' is a multi-agency effort with employees pulled from the CIA, FBI (news - web sites), State Department, military and elsewhere.

Its mission is to ``preempt, disrupt, and defeat'' terrorist activities around the world.

HIGH-PRIORITY TARGETS

Its high priority targets are countries believed to sponsor terrorism, extremist groups and international networks. Some of them apparent in the center's street-like signs: ``Tamil Tiger Terrace,'' ``Abu Nidal Avenue,'' and ``Basque Boulevard.''

But since Sept. 11, its primary focus has been on finding those behind the devastating attacks on America.

U.S. officials have said the prime suspect is bin Laden and his organization al Qaeda or ``the Base.''

The center has had an operation solely focused on bin Laden and his group since 1996, which was two years before the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa, which the United States has accused bin Laden of masterminding.

``We knew he was a bad guy from way back then, and we've been on his case ever since,'' one U.S. intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.

The center was established in 1986 after a series of high-profile attacks including the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and as a result of findings by a task force chaired by then-Vice President George Bush, the current president's father. The TWA flight was hijacked in 1985 from Athens and diverted to Beirut where a passenger was killed during a two-week standoff.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

Answers

Some .mil units are using it too. Some don't like the new name of the operation, and would prefer it to be called Operation Smackdown.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

Sweetie rather likes "Proportional Retaliation." I prefer "Serious Whupass," but then I'm much cruder than Sweetie.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001