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Report of the 9/11 Commission

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Drifter
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« Reply #1425 on: September 08, 2009, 12:37:29 am »

63. John interview (Apr. 2, 2004). See also CIA email, Dave to John, "Re: Liaison Response," May 18, 2001. The old reporting from early 2000 that was reexamined included CIA cable, "Transit of UBL Associate Khalid Through Dubai," Jan. 4, 2000; CIA cable,"Recent Influx of Suspected UBL Associates to Malaysia," Jan. 5, 2000; CIA cable,"UBL Associates: Flight Manifest for MH072," Jan. 9, 2000; CIA cable,"UBL Associates: Identification of Possible UBL Associates," Mar. 5, 2000. For cable information, see CIA records, audit of cable databases.

64. For a record of the exchange between John and Dave, see CIA emails, Dave to John, May 17, 18, 24, 2001; CIA email, Richard to Alan, identification of Khallad, July 13, 2001. For the account of John's FBI counterpart, see Michael Rolince interview (Apr. 12, 2004). For John's focus on Malaysia, see DOJ Inspector General interview of John, Nov. 1, 2002.

65. DOJ Inspector General interview of John, Nov. 1, 2002.

66. For the account of the desk officer, see DOJ Inspector General interview of Michael D., Oct. 31, 2002. For cable information, see CIA records, audit of cable databases.

67. DOJ Inspector General interviews of Jane, Nov. 4, 2002; July 16, 2003.

68. DOJ Inspector General interview of Jane, Nov. 4, 2002; DOJ Inspector General interview of Dave, Oct. 31, 2002.

69. DOJ Inspector General interviews of Jane, Nov. 4, 2002; July 16, 2003.

70. DOJ Inspector General interview of Jane, Nov. 4, 2002; DOJ Inspector General interview of Dave, Oct. 31, 2002; DOJ Inspector General interview of Russ F., Sept. 17, 2002; DOJ Inspector General interview of Steve B., Sept. 16, 2002.

71."Jane" did not seek OIPR's permission to share this information at the meeting."Jane" also apparently did not realize that one of the agents in attendance was a designated intelligence agent, so she could have shared all of the information with that agent regardless of the caveats. No one who was at the meeting suggested that option, however. DOJ Inspector General interview of Steve B., Sept. 16, 2002; DOJ Inspector General interview of Jane, July 16, 2003.These caveats were different from the legal limits we discussed in section 3.2.The Attorney General's July 1995 procedures concerned FISA information developed in an FBI intelligence investigation.This, however, was NSA information.These particular caveats were the result of the Justice Department's and NSA's overabundance of caution in December 1999. During the millennium crisis,Attorney General Reno authorized electronic surveillance of three U.S. persons overseas. Because the searches were not within the United States, no FISA warrant was needed. Reno approved the surveillances pursuant to section 2.5 of Executive Order 12333 with the proviso that the results of these particular surveillances not be shared with criminal investigators or prosecutors without the approval of the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. Because of the complexity of determining whether particular reporting was the fruit of particular surveillances, NSA decided to place these caveats on all its Bin Ladin-related reporting, not just reporting on the surveillances authorized by Reno.As a result, these caveats were placed on the reports relating to Mihdhar even though they were not covered by Reno's December 1999 order. See DOJ memo, Reno to Freeh, FISA surveillance of a suspected al Qaeda operative, Dec. 24, 1999; NSA email, William L. to Karen C.,"distribution restrictions," Dec. 10, 1999; NSA email,William L. to Anthony L.,"doj restric-tions,"Dec. 20, 1999; NSA email,William L. to Brian C.,"dissemination of terrorism reporting,"Dec. 29, 1999. See also NSA memo,Ann D. to others,"Reporting Guidance," Dec. 30, 1999.

In May 2000, it was brought to the Attorney General's attention that these caveats prevented certain attorneys in the Terrorism and Violent Crime Section (TVCS) from reading the reporting. After discussions with NSA, the caveats were changed to specifically permit dissemination of these reports to designated attorneys in the TVCS and two attorneys in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. See NSA memo, Joan R. to Townsend and Reynolds,"Resumed Delivery of Classified Intelligence to TVCS,"June 9, 2000; NSA memo, Hayden to Asst.Attorney General,"Proposal to Provide UBL-related Product to U.S.Attorney's Office/Southern District of New York," Aug. 30, 2000.

72. For the facts known by Dave at this time, see CIA records, audit of cable databases; see also CIA email, Dave to John, timeline entries, May 15, 2001. For CIA analyst's role, see DOJ Inspector General interview of Dave, Oct. 31, 2002. For Jane's account, see DOJ Inspector General interview of Jane, July 16, 2003.

73. DOJ Inspector General interview of Mary, Oct. 29, 2002.

74. For Mary's account, see DOJ Inspector General interview of Mary, Oct. 29, 2002. For the reporting regarding Mihdhar and Hazmi, see CIA cable, Khalid's passport, Jan. 4, 2000; CIA cable, Mihdhar's visa application, Jan. 5, 2000; CIA cable, Hazmi entered U.S., Mar. 6, 2000. For Mary's cable access information, see CIA records, audit of cable databases.

75. DOJ Inspector General interview of Mary, Oct. 29, 2002; DOJ Inspector General interview of Jane, Nov. 4, 2002.

76. DOJ Inspector General interview of Mary, Oct. 29, 2002; Intelligence report, Watchlisting of Bin Ladin-related individuals,Aug. 23, 2001; Joint Inquiry testimony of Christopher Kojm, Sept. 19, 2002.The watch-list request included Mihdhar, Nawaf al Hazmi, Salah Saeed Mohammed Bin Yousaf (they did not yet realize this was an alias for Tawfiq bin Attash, a.k.a. Khallad), and Ahmad Hikmat Shakir (who assisted Mihdhar in Kuala Lumpur).

77. Jane told investigators that she viewed this matter as just another lead and so assigned no particular urgency to the matter. DOJ Inspector General interviews of Jane, July 16, 2003; Nov. 4, 2002. For the draft lead, see attachment to FBI email, Jane to Craig D., "Re: FFI Request,"Aug. 28, 2001. For the final version, see FBI electronic communication,"Request to Open a Full Field Investigation," Aug. 28, 2001.

78. FBI email, Craig D. to John L., "Fwd: Re: FFI Request,"Aug. 28, 2001; FBI email, John L. to Steve and others,"Fwd: Re: FFI Request,"Aug. 28, 2001. For an introduction to these legal limits and "the wall," see section

3.2. In December 2000, pursuant to concerns of the FISA Court, the New York Field Office began designating certain agents as either intelligence or criminal agents. Intelligence agents could see FISA materials and any other information that bore cautions about sharing without obtaining the FISA Court's permission or permission from the Justice Department's OIPR. FBI electronic communication,"Instructions re FBI FISA Policy," Dec. 7, 2000.

79.While one witness recalls a discussion with a senior FBI official, that official denies that such a discussion took place. The other alleged participant does not recall such a meeting. John interview (Apr. 2, 2004); Michael Rolince interview (Apr. 12, 2004); Jane interview (July 13, 2004); DOJ Inspector General interview of Rodney M., Nov. 5, 2002. For investigation's goal, see FBI electronic communication,"Request to Open a Full Field Investigation," Aug. 28, 2001.

80. DOJ Inspector General interviews of Jane, July 16, 2003; Nov. 4, 2002; DOJ Inspector General interviews of Steve B., Sept. 16, 2002; Nov. 14, 2002; Jane interview ( July 13, 2004). FBI email, Jane to John L.,"Fwd: Re: FFI Request," Aug. 29, 2001.

The analyst's email, however, reflects that she was confusing a broad array of caveats and legal barriers to information sharing and rules governing criminal agents' use of information gathered through intelligence channels. There was no broad prohibition against sharing information gathered through intelligence channels with criminal agents.This type of sharing occurred on a regular basis in the field.The court's procedures did not apply to all intelligence gathered regardless of collection method or source. Moreover, once information was properly shared, the criminal agent could use it for further investigation.

81. FBI email, Jane to Steve, NSLU Response,Aug. 29, 2001."Jane" says she only asked whether there was sufficient probable cause to open the matter as a criminal case and whether the criminal agent could attend any interview if Mihdhar was found. She said the answer she received to both questions was no. She did not ask whether the underlying information could have been shared. Jane interview ( July 13, 2004). The NSLU attorney denies advising that the agent could not participate in an interview and notes that she would not have given such inaccurate advice.The attorney told investigators that the NSA caveats would not have precluded criminal agents from joining in any search for Mihdhar or from participating in any interview. Moreover, she said that she could have gone to the NSA and obtained a waiver of any such caveat because there was no FISA information involved in this case.There are no records of the conversation between "Jane" and the attorney. "Jane" did not copy the attorney on her email to the agent, so the attorney did not have an opportunity to confirm or reject the advice "Jane" was giving to the agent. DOJ Inspector General interview of Sherry S., Nov. 7, 2002.

"Jane" asked the New York agent assigned to the Mihdhar search to sign a FISA acknowledgment form indicating the agent understood how he had to treat FISA information. Because no FISA information was involved, she should not have required him to sign such a form. To the extent she believed, incorrectly, that the Attorney General's 1995 procedures applied to this situation, there was in fact an exception in place for New York. DOJ Inspector General interview of Sherry S., Nov. 7, 2002. More fundamentally,"Jane" apparently understood the welter of restrictions to mean, in workday shorthand, that any information gathered by intelligence agencies should not be shared with criminal agents.This was incorrect. DOJ Inspector General interviews of Jane, July 16, 2003; Nov. 4, 2002.

82. FBI emails between Steve B. and Jane, re: NSLU Response, Aug. 29, 2001.While the agent expressed his frustration with the situation to "Jane," he made no effort to press the matter further by discussing his concerns with either his supervisor or the chief division counsel in New York.

83.Attorney General Ashcroft testified to us that this and similar information-sharing issues arose from Attorney General Reno's 1995 guidelines, discussed in chapter 3, and specifically from a March 1995 memorandum of then Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. John Ashcroft testimony, Apr. 13, 2004; DOJ memo, Gorelick to White, "Instructions on Separation of Certain Foreign Counterintelligence and Criminal Investigations," Mar. 4, 1995.

We believe the Attorney General's testimony does not fairly or accurately reflect the significance of the 1995 documents and their relevance to the 2001 discussions.Whatever the merits of the March 1995 Gorelick memorandum and the subsequent July 1995 Attorney General procedures on information sharing, they did not apply to the information the analyst decided she could not share with the criminal agent. As discussed earlier, the reason "Jane" decided she could not share information was because the initial information on Mihdhar had been analyzed by the NSA.This reason was unrelated to either of the 1995 documents.The Gorelick memorandum applied to two particular criminal cases, neither of which was involved in the summer 2001 information-sharing discussions. As the FBI agent observed in his email, Part A of the 1995 procedures applied only to information obtained pursuant to a FISA warrant. None of the Mihdhar material was FISA information.There was an exemption for the Southern District of New York from Part B of the 1995 procedures, so they did not apply. Also, the 1995 procedures did not govern whether information could be shared between intelligence and criminal agents within the FBI, a separation that the Bureau did not begin making formally until long after the procedures were in place.The 1995 procedures governed only the sharing of information with criminal prosecutors. Even in that situation, the restriction obliged running the information through the OIPR screen.

What had happened, as we discussed in chapter 3, was a growing battle within the Justice Department during the 1990s, and between parts of Justice and the FISA Court, over the scope of OIPR's screening function and the propriety of using FISA-derived information in criminal matters.The FISA Court's concern with FBI sloppiness in its FISA applications also began to take a toll: the court began designating itself as the gatekeeper for the sharing of intelligence information; the FBI was required to separately designate criminal and intelligence agents; and the court banned one supervisory FBI agent from appearing before it. By late 2000, these factors had culminated in a set of complex rules and a widening set of beliefs-a bureaucratic culture-that discouraged FBI agents from even seeking to share intelligence information. Neither Attorney General acted to resolve the conflicting views within the Justice Department. Nor did they challenge the strict interpretation of the FISA statute set forth by the FISA Court and OIPR. Indeed, this strict interpretation remained in effect until the USA PATRIOT Act was passed after 9/11.

Simply put, there was no legal reason why the information the analyst possessed could not have been shared with the criminal agent. On August 27,"Jane" requested the NSA's permission to share the information with the criminal agents, but she intended for the information only to help the criminal agents in their ongoing Cole investigation. She still did not believe they could be involved in the intelligence investigation even if the NSA permitted the information to be shared. DOJ IG 9/11 Report, July 2, 2004, p. 339. The next day the NSA notified its representative at FBI headquarters that it had approved the passage of the information to the criminal agents. NSC email, Carlene C. to Richard K.,"Response to FBI Sanitization Request,"Aug. 28, 2001.Thus,"Jane" had permission to share the information with the criminal agent prior to their August 29 emails.

84. DOJ Inspector General interview of Robert F., Dec. 18, 2002; FBI electronic communication, Los Angeles lead, Sept. 10, 2001.

85. Hazmi and Mihdhar used their true names to obtain California driver's licenses and open New Jersey bank accounts. Hazmi also had a car registered and had been listed in the San Diego telephone book. Searches of readily available databases could have unearthed the driver's licenses, the car registration, and the telephone listing. A search on the car registration would have unearthed a license check by the South Hackensack Police Department that would have led to information placing Hazmi in the area and placing Mihdhar at a local hotel for a week in early July 2001.The hijackers actively used the New Jersey bank accounts, through ATM, debit card, and cash transactions, until September 10. Among other things, they used their debit cards to pay for hotel rooms; and Hazmi used his card on August 27 to purchase tickets on Flight 77 for himself and his brother (and fellow hijacker), Salem al Hazmi.These transactions could have helped locate them if the FBI had obtained the bank records in time.There would have been no easy means, however, to determine the existence of these accounts, and obtaining bank cooperation pre-9/11 might have been problematic.The most likely means of successfully finding the men in the short time available was one not often used pre-9/11 for suspected terrorists: an FBI BOLO (be on the lookout) combined with a media campaign.This alone might have delayed or disrupted the plot, even if the men had not been physically located before September 11. But this would have been considered only if the FBI believed that they were about to carry out an imminent attack. No one at the FBI-or any other agency-believed that at the time.

See FBI report, financial spreadsheet re: 9/11 hijackers, undated; South Hackensack, N.J., Police Department report, Detective Bureau Report, Oct. 17, 2001 (case no. 20018437). According to Ramzi Binalshibh, had KSM known that Moussaoui had been arrested, he would have canceled the 9/11 attacks. Intelligence report, interrogation of Ramzi Binalshibh, Feb. 14, 2003. The publicity regarding Mihdhar and Hazmi might have had a similar effect because they could have been identified by the airlines and might have jeopardized the operation.

86. Joint Inquiry report, pp. xiii, 325-335; DOJ IG 9/11 Report, July 2, 2004, pp. 59-106.

87. FBI electronic communication, Phoenix memo, July 10, 2001.

88. Ibid.; Joint Inquiry report, pp. 325-335; DOJ IG 9/11 Report, July 2, 2004, pp. 59-106.

89. DOJ Inspector General interview of Kenneth Williams, July 22, 2003.

90. Unlike Moussaoui, the typical student at Pan Am Flight Academy holds an FAA Airline Transport Pilot rating or the foreign equivalent, is employed by an airline, and has several thousand flight hours. Moussaoui also stood out for several other reasons. He had paid nearly $9,000 in cash for the training, yet had no explanation for the source of these funds; he had asked to fly a simulated flight from London's Heathrow Airport to New York's John

F. Kennedy Airport; and he was also particularly interested in the operation of the aircraft doors. FBI electronic communication, Request OIPR permission to contact U.S.Attorney's Office regarding Zacarias Moussaoui,Aug. 18, 2001. For a detailed, step-by-step chronology of activities taken regarding Moussaoui prior to September 11, see DOJ IG 9/11 Report, July 2, 2004, pp. 109-197.

91. FBI electronic communication, Request OIPR permission to contact U.S. Attorney's Office regarding Zacarias Moussaoui, Aug. 18, 2001.

92. DOJ Inspector General interview of Harry S., June 6, 2002; DOJ Inspector General interview of Greg J., July 9, 2002; FBI letterhead memorandum, Zacarias Moussaoui, Aug. 19, 2001.

93. DOJ IG 9/11 Report, July 2, 2004, p. 128.

94. Criminal search warrants must be approved by Department of Justice attorneys before submission to the court.Therefore, approval from the Minneapolis U.S.Attorney's Office was required before a criminal search warrant could be obtained. DOJ Inspector General interview of Coleen Rowley, July 16, 2002. Another agent, however, said that he spoke to an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Minneapolis office and received advice that the facts were almost sufficient to obtain a criminal warrant. DOJ Inspector General interview of Greg J., July 9, 2002.The Assistant United States Attorney said that if the FBI had asked for a criminal warrant that first night, he would have sought it. He believed that there was sufficient probable cause for a criminal warrant at that time. DOJ Inspector General interview of William K., May 29, 2003. Mary Jo White, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, told us that based on her review of the evidence known pre-9/11, she would have approved a criminal search warrant. Mary Jo White interview (May 17, 2004). Because the agents never presented the information to the Minneapolis U.S.Attorney's Office before 9/11, we cannot know for sure what its judgment would have been or whether a judge would have signed the warrant. In any event, the Minneapolis agents were concerned that if they tried to first obtain a criminal warrant but the U.S. Attorney's Office or the judge refused, the FISA Court might reject an application for a FISA warrant on the grounds that the agents were attempting to make an end run around the criminal process.Therefore, it was judged too risky to seek a criminal warrant unless it was certain that it would be approved. DOJ Inspector General interview of Greg J., July 9, 2002. In addition, FBI headquarters specifically instructed Minneapolis that it could not open a criminal investigation. DOJ IG 9/11 Report, July 2, 2004, p. 138. Finally, the Minneapolis Field Office mistakenly believed that the 1995 Attorney General procedures required OIPR's approval before it could contact the U.S. Attorney's Office about obtaining a criminal warrant.

95.The FISA definition of "foreign power" includes "a group engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor."

96. FBI electronic communication, Request to contact U.S. Attorney's Office regarding Zacarias Moussaoui, Aug. 18, 2001. For CTC contact, see FBI email, Harry S. to Chuck F.,"Please Pass To [desk officer],"Aug. 24, 2001; FBI email, Harry S. to Chuck F.,"Re: Fwd: 199M-MP-60130 (Zacarias Moussaoui)," Aug. 24, 2001.

97. DOJ Inspector General interview of Greg J., July 9, 2002; FBI electronic communication, Moussaoui investigation, Aug. 22, 2002; FBI electronic communication, Moussaoui investigation, Aug. 30, 2002.

98. FBI letterhead memorandum, Zacarias Moussaoui, Aug. 21, 2001; CIA cable, subjects involved in suspicious 747 flight training,Aug. 24, 2001; CIA cable,"Zacarias Moussaoui and Husayn 'Ali Hasan Ali-Attas,"Aug. 28, 2001; Joseph H., interview (May 4, 2004); FBI letterhead memorandum, Zacarias Moussaoui, Sept. 5, 2001.

99. FBI teletype,"Zacarias Moussaoui-International Terrorism," Sept. 4, 2001.

100. DOJ Inspector General interview of Greg J., July 9, 2002.

101. Minneapolis may have been more concerned about Moussaoui's intentions because the case agent and
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