Gov't Turf Battle Over Terror?

When Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the latest terror warning, the rest of the government -- including the Department of Homeland Security -- heard the details on television.

So, too, did America's mayors.

"The announcement itself wasn't something that we were given a heads up to,'' says Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley.

Sources tell CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr the Justice Department did nothing to put other agencies in the loop before broadcasting "be-on-the-lookout" pictures of seven suspected terrorists.

The information was not shared with state and local police forces, or even with the FBI's field offices. It wasn't supposed to be this way after 9/11, said one administration official, who noted "the whole warning process was usurped by the Attorney General."

Beyond that, senior counterterrorism officials question the legitimacy of the bulletin, saying there is no new, specific, credible evidence pointing to an imminent attack in the U.S.

Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge, who did not appear with Ashcroft at Wednesday's press conference, seemed to downplay the warning in a series of interviews.

"There's not a consensus within the administration that we need to raise the threat level," said Ridge.

This mixed message caused frustration in the heartland.

"We cannot live in a 24-hour alert, 7 days a week,'' said Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

It also prompted a question at the White House. An administration official told CBS News that at one point, President Bush asked Ashcroft and Ridge: 'Are you guys synched on this plan?'

There is a suspicion inside some agencies, reports Orr that the Attorney General may be "hyping" the threat in a turf battle over controlling domestic security. At a minimum, sources say the administration infighting has done nothing to better inform or reassure the American public.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, however, denied that there is a political aspect to the threat report.

"The president believes it's very important to share information appropriately," McClellan said. "We do that in a number of ways when it comes to looking at the threats we face here in the homeland."

Those on the list of people the FBI wants to talk to include a man who grew up on a goat ranch in California before converting to Islam; a Tunisian who obtained Canadian citizenship; a Tanzanian who goes by the names "Foopie," "Fupi" and "Ahmed the Tanzanian;" a Pakistani woman who received a biology degree in Boston; and a native of the Comoros Republic in the Indian Ocean who is believed to be al Qaeda's point-man in eastern Africa.

Even Panama, a country known more for its canal than terrorism, has been included in the search. Officials said Wednesday they are trying to track down a man identified as Adnan Gulshair El Shukrijumah, of Saudi Arabia.

Panamanian Security Council Chief Ramiro Jarvis said El Shukrijumah arrived in Panama legally from the United States in April 2001 — five months before the Sept. 11 terror attacks — and stayed in Panama for 10 days. He also visited Trinidad and Tobago for six days the next month.

"We don't know exactly what he did during his stay and it is important to find out," Jarvis said.

Migration records show El Shukrijumah returned to the United States, Interior Department spokesman David Salayandia said. The last place he was seen, however, was in Panama.

Two of the suspects were from Canada, according to Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan. One of the men, Abderraouf Jdey, a Tunisian who obtained Canadian citizenship in 1995, was among five people who left suicide messages on videotapes recovered in Afghanistan at the home of Mohammed Atef. Atef, reportedly Osama bin Laden's military chief, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2001.

Pakistani security officials are also looking for information on Aafia Siddiqui, 32, a Pakistani woman who received a biology degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and wrote a doctoral thesis on neurological sciences at Brandeis University, outside Boston, in 2001.

Authorities say she returned to Pakistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks with her husband and three children. Her whereabouts have been a mystery since March 2003, when the FBI issued a global alert for her arrest for possible links to al Qaeda. The FBI also wants to talk to her husband.

Another suspect is Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, under indictment in the United States for the 1998 al Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Tanzanian also goes by the names "Foopie," "Fupi" and "Ahmed the Tanzanian." He is under

A 25-year-old U.S. citizen, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, is also a suspect. He goes by the names Adam Pearlman and Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki. FBI Director Robert Mueller says he attended al Qaeda training camps and has served as an al Qaeda translator.

Gadahn says on an Islamic Internet site that he grew up on a goat ranch in Riverside County, Calif., and converted to Islam in his later teenage years after moving to Garden Grove, Calif.