A Career Fighting Terrorism

By Jo Craven McGinty | STAFF WRITER

September 14, 2001

An expert in counterterrorism known for his aggressive tactics is among those missing in the collapse of the World Trade Center following Tuesday's terrorist attacks. After first escaping the Twin Towers, John O'Neill reportedly reentered the building to assist others. He has not been seen since.

"If that story's true, I'm not surprised," said Jim Bucknam, who has known O'Neill professionally for about eight years. "That's the way the guy was. That's him."

O'Neill, 49, became chief of security at the World Trade Center last month following a 25-year career with the FBI. While with the FBI, O'Neill was in charge of national security in New York, and he may have died at the hands of terrorists he had trailed in the role.

"That's the irony here, that he would perish in this way," said Bucknam, who was an adviser to former FBI director Louis Freeh and now is managing director of the Kroll Associates security consultants. "He ate, drank and slept fighting terrorists. Apart from the human loss, it's a real loss of talent."

While with the FBI, O'Neill led major investigations of Osama bin Laden, a suspect in this week's attacks, which also targeted the Pentagon. In 1997, he forecast the possibility of an organized attack and said that terrorists were already operating in this country.

"A lot of these groups now have the capability and the support infrastructure in the United States to attack us here if they choose to," O'Neill said in reports published in 1997. He also said that his appointment to the New York FBI office as a counterterrorism expert did not signal that the government expected more attacks here.

Among the terrorist investigations that O'Neill led or participated in were: the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer USS Cole in Yemen, the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1995, FBI agents working under O'Neill captured Ramzi Yousef, a suspected lieutenant of bin Laden, who later was among those convicted for the World Trade Center bombing.

O'Neill was considered a top-notch investigator and was known for his pugnacity. The aggressive tactics he and his team employed in Yemen following the USS Cole bombing, along with death threats against the team, prompted U.S. Ambassador Barbara Bodine to bar O'Neill from that country. That dispute involved a turf fight between the State Department, which sought to preserve relations with Yemen, and the FBI, represented by O'Neill, who wanted to confront the Yemenis for limiting access to suspects in the case.

Although most descriptions of O'Neill are positive, he left the FBI under fire: He was being investigated for losing a briefcase of classified information while at a meeting in a Tampa, Fla., hotel. The briefcase - apparently stolen by thieves suspected in a series of hotel robberies - was retrieved intact within hours. However, O'Neill's handling of classified material was in question.