Anthony Summers - The Eleventh Day

69 Aug. 6 PDB:released 4/10/04, “Withdrawal Notice re 4–12–04 memo re Aug. 6 PDB, Withdrawal Notice re 5–16–01 Daily UBL Threat,” B6, Dan Marcus files, CF. The PDB also referred to the fact that, as indicated by the attacks on the American embassies in Africa in 1998, bin Laden prepared operations “years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks.” The PDB also stated that the FBI was currently “conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the U.S.” that it considered bin Laden–related. This last assertion turned out to be a CIA misunderstanding of a liaison call to the FBI. Some seventy individuals were apparently being investigated by the FBI (Testimony of Thomas Pickard, 4/13/04, CO, Zegart, 109).

70 redacted:Fact Sheet on Aug. 6, 2001, PDB, Office of the Press Secretary, 4/10/04, www.gwu.gov;

71 “said nothing”/at own request:remarks by the President to the Travel Pool [Fort Hood, TX], 4/11/04, www.whitehouse.gov;

72 Bush/Commission meeting/Ben-Veniste account:Ben-Veniste, 293– & see Shenon, 291–, 340–, CR, 260–, Kean & Hamilton, 206–;

73 Clarke “in writing”:see CR, 255, 263, 535n5;

74 “I really don’t”:Testimony of Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04, CO.

75 nobody could have foreseen:Rice acknowledged in her 2004 Commission testimony that she had misspoken in her comment to the press in 2002 that “no one” could have predicted hijackers using planes as missiles. Given the Genoa situation, she said—and given that others had indeed foreseen the possibility—Rice said she ought to have said only that she could not have imagined an attack using planes in that way. By contrast, Louis Freeh—FBI director until June 2001—told the Commission that the possible use of planes in suicide missions had in his experience been part of the planning for potential terrorist events (misspoken/she could not: Testimony of Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04, CO, Ben-Veniste, 251, Press Briefing by Condoleezza Rice, 5/16/02, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov; Freeh: Testimony of Louis Freeh, 4/13/04, CO).

76 follow up/discussed with Ashcroft?:The job of making contact with domestic agencies, Bush told Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, was not Rice’s but that of White House chief of staff Andy Card. This assertion was impossible to check because the commission was bound by yet another condition, not to raise questions arising from the Rice or Bush-Cheney interviews with other White House officials. (Ben-Veniste, 303).

77 Rice in Texas?:A contemporary Washington Post report of the President’s activity on August 6 stated that he “held a 45-minute meeting with four senior officials here and talked by telephone with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice about Macedonia.” (authors’ italics) (WP, 8/7/01, USA Today , 8/6/01, 10:24 P.M.update);

78 doubt/“asked for it”:Ben-Veniste, 300, remarks by the President to the Travel Pool, [Fort Hood, TX], 4/11/04, www.whitehouse.gov;

79 “All right”:Suskind, One Percent Doctrine , 1–, Ben-Veniste, 300, additional information gathered by authors, not for attribution;

80 “no formal”:Tenet to Kean & Hamilton, 3/26/04, “PDB—letter from Tenet re Aug. 6 PDB,” B6, Dan Marcus files, CF;

81 “none”:Ben-Veniste, 391.

82 “current”/“pay more”:Shenon, 379, 437n. This account of the August 6 PDB episode is intended by the authors to be not an assessment of the document’s quality but a summary of its content—in the context of the way President Bush, National Security Adviser Rice, and press secretary Fleischer described its contents. Author Amy Zegart severely criticized the quality of the PDB in her book Spying Blind , on the CIA and the FBI and their role prior to 9/11. She judged it a “tragically shoddy piece of intelligence.” Former CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black, however, characterized it as a “place-marker” or “reminder” that bin Laden’s ultimate objective was “to strike hard against the United States” (Zegart, 108, Testimony of Cofer Black, 4/13/04, CO).

83 “had written”:Ben-Veniste, 301–.

84 manager alerted/​Moussaoui/​“goal”/​“I am sure”/$6,800:Stipulation, 3/1/06, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui , 3/1/06;

85 “joy ride”:“Moussaoui, Zacarias, IT—Other,” 8/19/01, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui , Exhibit 692;

86 string of questions/​detained/​“martyrs”/​“unambiguous”/​“convinced”/:CR, 273–, FBI IG, MFR 04019350, 3/18/04, CF, Report, JI, 22–;

87 KSM would tell/​“problematic personality”:KSM SUBST, CR, 247, 531n162;

88 met Binalshibh/​$14,000/​telephone number:Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO, MFR, 04019350, 3/18/04, Indictment & Exhibits MN00601, MN00601.1, MN00601.2, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui , CR, 225, 520n54.

89 agents knew nothing:Had agents been cleared to examine Moussaoui’s possessions, they would have discovered letters purporting to show that Moussaoui was acting as consultant in the States for a company called “InFocus Tech.” The signature on the letters was that of Yazid Sufaat, the owner of the Kuala Lumpur condominium in which the terrorist meeting—attended by Mihdhar and Hazmi—had been held in January 2000. The FBI had been aware of that meeting at the time, so—had the Bureau’s system been adequately coordinated—discovery of the letters in timely fashion would immediately have linked Moussaoui to al Qaeda. (Report, JI, 26, Exhibit OK01043, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui ).

90 appeals/70 messages:Statement of Eleanor Hill re “The FBI’s Handling of the Phoenix Electronic Communication and Investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui Prior to Sept. 11, 2001,” 9/24/02 [as updated 10/17/02], JI, USA Today , 3/2/06, Newsday , 3/21/06, LAT , 3/21/06;

91 “spun up”/“take control”:FBI IG.

92 “That’s not”:Statement of Eleanor Hill. The headquarters failure to respond positively on Moussaoui was to lead to protracted outrage and regret. The wrangle had centered on the complex matter of how legally to get access to Moussaoui’s possessions. The options available were either a criminal search warrant or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) warrant—permitted, in this context, if it can be shown that the subject is an agent of an international terrorist group and is engaged in terrorism on behalf of that group. The case agent in Minneapolis, concerned that there was insufficient probable cause for a criminal warrant, favored the FISA option—only to be confronted by legalistic hurdles thrown up by headquarters. The go-ahead was given only on September 11, after the two strikes on the World Trade Center. Evidence and detainee statements were eventually to link Moussaoui to KSM and Binalshibh, and he is now serving a life sentence for conspiracy to commit acts of terror and air piracy. As of this writing, the only other person convicted—of being an accessory to the murder of the people aboard the planes on 9/11—is Mounir Motassadeq, who is serving fifteen years in Germany. Motassadeq, an associate of the Hamburg-based hijackers, was accused of helping the hijackers prepare for the 9/11 operation. In a lengthy prison interview, Motassadeq told the authors that—while he had certainly been an associate and friend of the future hijackers in Hamburg—he had had no knowledge whatsoever of what they were plotting. The authors came away from the interview doubting that he was guilty as charged (warrant options: e.g., Graham with Nussbaum, 51; go-ahead: FBI IG; evidence/sentence: Indictment, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui , 12/01, AP, 5/4/06, CNN, 4/23/05; Motassadeq: NYT , 1/9/07, Der Spiegel , 1/12/07, Economist , 9/3/02, CBS News, 10/22/02, ints. Motassadeq, Udo Jacob, 2009).