Anthony Summers - The Eleventh Day

32 “Some countries”:Staff Statement 11, CO;

33 intermittent friction:Executive Summary, “Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks,” Office of the Inspector General, 06/05, Report, JI, 186–, 274–;

34 Polt:MFR 04016468, 10/9/03;

35 “They lied”:int. Dirk Laabs.

36 coded conversation:MFR 04019350, 3/18/04 (re Moussaoui team briefing), CF, corr. Kristen Wilhelm, 2011, CR, 245–530n151–152, Staff Statement 16, CO. The exchange was referred to earlier on pp. 323–24.

37 intercept by Germans?:At one stage, in 2000, the Germans had repeatedly discussed applying for clearance to wiretap the Marienstrasse apartment, but at that point decided there was insufficient evidence to justify the request. The 9/11 Commission Report states: “Only after 9/11 would it be discovered that [KSM] had communicated with a phone that was used by Binalshibh … the links to Binalshibh might not have been an easy trail to find and would have required substantial cooperation from the German government” (discussed: Vanity Fair , 11/04, NYT , 6/20/02; “Only after”: CR, 277, & see 245).

38 Berlin visit:The German officials known to have spoken with the U.S. congressional delegation were Ronald Schill, minister of the interior for Hamburg, Deputy Minister Walter Wellinghausen, Reinhard Wagner, chief of the Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz Hamburg, his deputy Manfred Murck, and Bruno Franz of the Hamburg police. (Contemporary information provided to the authors)

CHAPTER 31

1

Soon after 1:00 P.M./“Oh, Jesus”:

Suskind,

One Percent Doctrine

, 3–, & see Tenet, 167. Tenet’s aide Michael Morell, the president’s CIA briefer, remembered of the videoconference on the afternoon of 9/11, “They had done name traces on the flight manifests. And when we got to Omaha, and we got to the briefing area, George Tenet briefed the President on the fact that we already knew three of these guys were al Qaeda.” Tenet has recalled that, when he told Bush the CIA had been aware of information about Mihdhar and Hazmi he “shot Mike Morell one of those, ‘I thought I was supposed to be the first to know’ looks.” The reference to three, as distinct from two, of the men on the planes being associated with al Qaeda presumably includes Nawaf al-Hazmi’s brother Salem (Suskind, 9; Tenet, 169).

2

manifest:

Exhibit P200054,

U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui,;

Tenet claimed/“CIA had multiple”:

Tenet, 195–, 205;

3

Tenet on oath/“like a grand”:

Shenon, 256–;

4

“We just didn’t believe”/outraged:

New Yorker

, 11/8/04.

5

NSA identified/​Hada/​“hub”:

Bamford,

Shadow Factory

, 7–, FBI report, “PENTTBOM, Summary of Captioned Investigation,” 11/5/01, authors’ collection, transcript,

Nova: The Spy Factory

, 2/3/09,

www.pbs.org

, Wright, 275–;

6

NSA did not share:

Report, JI, 145,

Atlantic

, 12/04, Bamford,

Shadow Factory

, 16, 26–, & see Scheuer,

Marching Toward Hell

, 91–.

7

Hada phone/FBI/1998 attack/OBL phone/link:

Report, JI, 129, 145, Wright, 277–, 343, Testimony of [unnamed] CIA Officer [accepted as Wilshire], 9/20/02, JI. Bin Laden stopped using his satellite phone in September 1998, apparently because he knew or guessed it was being intercepted (WP, 12/22/05, Report, JI, 69).

8

1999 intercept/​“Khalid”/​“Nawaf”/​Malaysia:

The intercepted conversation also included

a reference to “Salem” as making the trip, too—evidently Hazmi’s brother Salem, who was also to be one of the hijackers. Although the NSA had access to information indicating that the three first names were all linked to the surnames Hazmi and Mihdhar, they did not pass those names to the CIA and FBI—thus making the CIA’s task more difficult than it need have been (CR, 181, JI Report, 145–, 155–, Staff Statement 2, CO, Bamford,

Shadow Factory

, 16–).

9

“something more”:

CR, 181;

10 “operational”/“operatives”:ibid., Report, JI, 144;

11 passport photographed:The Dubai stopover and the copying of Mihdhar’s passport was briefly mentioned earlier in Ch. 27, p. 319. “This is as good”:Mayer, 18;

12 Mihdhar tracked/​photographed/​pay phones/computers:CR, 181–, Staff Statement 2, CO, Die Zeit , 10/2/02, FBI IG;

13 directors/​Berger/​Clarke:Staff Statement 2, CO, CR, 181.

14 Bangkok:Staff Statement 2, CO. It would later be established that two suspects who had already, on January 6, made short trips out of Malaysia—for only a matter of hours—had also been Attash and Hazmi (Staff Statement 2, CO, CR, 159).

15 according CIA trail lost/Thai authorities responded/Jan. 15 to LA/cables:CR, 181–, FBI IG, Staff Statement 2, CO, Tenet, 196–. The two terrorists flew in aboard UA 002, arriving at 1:27 P.M.Bin Laden aide Attash had reportedly headed back to Afghanistan via Karachi to report to bin Laden (UA 002: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE; Attash: CR, 159);

16 “OBL associates”:Executive Summary, Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks, Office of the Inspector General, CIA, 6/05;

17 “Action Required”:Report, JI, 147;

18 “The threat”:CR, 176, 501n17;

19 “It is important”:ibid., CTC Watchlisting Guidance, cited at Report, JI, 1;

20 CIA did not alert State/FBI:Report, JI, 40–, 144–, Executive Summary, Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks, Office of the Inspector General, CIA, 6/05, FBI IG, Graham with Nussbaum, 7–, CR, 355;

21 “promised to let”:Staff Statement 2, CO;

22 “Michelle”/“to the FBI”:FBI IG, & see Executive Summary, Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks, Office of the Inspector General, CIA, 6/05;

23 “James”/“as soon as”/“in the event”: Statement of Eleanor Hill, 9/20/02, JI, Report, JI, 81, FBI IG;

24 refused interview:FBI IG;

25 “Michelle” prevaricated:FBI IG;

26 Wilshire/“did not know”:ibid. In the transcript of a hearing before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, the former deputy chief’s name is rendered not as “Wilshire” but as “Wilshere.” The authors have used “Wilshire,” the spelling most commonly used. (“The Global Reach of al Qaeda,” Hearings, Subcommittee on International Operations & Terrorism, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 107th Cong., 1st Sess., 12/18/01, 7–);

27 Wilshire deliberately/draft cable/Miller CIR/“pls hold”:FBI IG, & see Executive Summary, Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks, Office of the Inspector General, CIA, 6/05.

28 “Doug came”/“Is this a no go”:Bamford, Shadow Factory , 18–. In a detailed note for his book Disconnecting the Dots , due for publication in 2011, author Kevin Fenton would note that Rossini was to resign from the FBI in 2008 after breaching regulations. He had, according to an FBI press release, used Bureau computers to find out information for personal purposes. Fenton argues cogently, however, that the lapse does not detract from Rossini’s credibility on the matter of the blocked CIR. The fact of its blocking, and that the agent saw relevant cables in 2000, is well documented (Fenton, proof copy kindly shared with the authors, 2011, 44n26).