Anthony Summers - The Eleventh Day

29 “unable to locate”:FBI IG;

30 Wilshire int. redacted:corr. Kristen Wilhelm, 2011.

31 Wilshire proposed:FBI IG. Wilshire’s actions in July 2001 were reportedly spurred by his review of the CIA cable and email traffic recording Mihdhar’s movements in January the previous year—including the information that Mihdhar had a valid U.S. multiple-entry visa. For reasons unknown, but perhaps because he feared discovery of the fact that he had been in the United States the previous year, Mihdhar had meanwhile obtained a new passport and a new visa in June 2001. He used this new visa when he reentered the United States on July 4. There is no evidence that Wilshire or anyone else at CIA was aware of the new passport and visa at the time the search for Mihdhar was renewed in July 2001 (Wilshire spurred: CR, 267–, FBI IG; new passport/visa: Staff Report, 9/11 & Terrorist Travel, CO, 33–.)

32 Following a series:FBI IG, CR, 267–, & re discovered/search see Chs. 27, 28, & 29. Aside from the events described here, the CIA and the FBI disputed each other’s versions of events about the identification of Tawfiq bin Attash (referred to in the Commission Report as “Khallad”) in the Malaysia surveillance photos. The identification was made by a source the FBI and the CIA shared—a circumstance that led to a prolonged tussle between the agencies. This barely penetrable story is detailed in the Justice Department’s inspector general’s report. The bottom line is that FBI agents working the Cole investigation, who knew of Attash’s connection to that attack, would have been far more concerned—and pressed to know all the CIA knew about the Malaysia meeting—had they been told that Attash had been present. As it was, they would learn nothing of Attash’s link to Mihdhar and Hazmi until after 9/11. The CIA’s performance on this matter notwithstanding, it is evident that once the information on Mihdhar’s and Hazmi’s likely presence in the United States was passed to the Bureau in August 2001, the FBI fumbled badly. As described in Chapter 27 of this book, the agent at Bureau headquarters who processed the information misinterpreted regulations, with the result that the assignment of looking for Mihdhar and Hazmi was given to an inexperienced intelligence agent, rather than to the experienced criminal agents working the Cole investigation (FBI IG, Wright, 340–, New Yorker , 7/10 & 17/06).

33 “The weight”:Staff Statment 2, CO;

34 “that Mihdhar”:FBI IG;

35 CIA summary/​acknowledged/​accountability board:Executive Summary, Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks, Office of the Inspector General, CIA, 6/05;

36 Goss declined/​“amongst the finest”:Director’s Statement on Office of Inspector General’s Report, “CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks,” 10/6/05, www.cia.gov.

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

38 “nobody read”: NYT , 10/17/02;

39 “All the processes”:Report, JI, 151.

40 “It is clear”:Fenton, 311, 104. Fenton goes on to suggest that CIA officers may have been aware of the 9/11 plot and “desired the outcome we saw on our television screens.” Fenton has done an intriguing analysis, but the authors do not accept that there is sufficient evidence or rationale to accept such a heinous possibility (e.g., Fenton, 95, 239, 281, 241–, 327).

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

42 Maxwell: New Yorker , 7/10 & 17/06;

43 “They purposely”:Bamford, Pretext , 224.

44 run operations in U.S.:For evidence of the CIA having engaged in operations within the United States, readers could consult, for example, the report of the Senate committee that investigated intelligence agency abuses in the wake of the Watergate scandal. That report, published in 1976, details a number of such operations, including four mail-opening programs spanning a twenty-year period, and CHAOS, launched in 1967 to gather information that might reveal foreign government influence on antiwar and civil rights protesters (Final Report, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans , U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 94th Cong., 2nd Sess., Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1976, 559–, 679–).

45 Yousef/“wanted to continue”/“fought”: New York , 3/27/95;

46 some Bureau agents:Wright, 312;

47 “Without penetrations”/select group:Report, JI, 388–. This was the Small Group, which typically included Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Attorney General Janet Reno, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, CIA director Tenet, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Hugh Shelton, and counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke (CR, 119–, 199, Shenon, 255);

48 Berger episode:unless otherwise indicated—Biography of Samuel Berger, http://clinton4.nara.gov, Investigative Summary & Exhibits, “Report of Investigation: Samuel R. Berger,” Office of the Inspector General, National Archives & Records Administration, www.fas.org, Kean & Hamilton, 183–, 297, Shenon, 1–249–, Fox News, 1/23/07;

49 MAAR/recommendations:Clarke, 215–, 219–, CR, 182, 504n78, Farmer, 41;

50 handwritten notes?:Farmer, 41;

51 “desperate”:ibid., 289;

52 “What information?”:www.usnewswire.com, 7/20/04.

53 “Michelle” “we need”:Staff Statement 2, CO;

54 “to determine”:Report, JI, 147;

55 “believed they were”:KSM SUBST. Ramzi Binalshibh was to tell reporter Yosri Fouda after 9/11, before his arrest, that “Brothers Marwan [Shehhi] and Ziad [Jarrah] were tailed by security officers throughout their reconnaissance flight from New York to California … But Allah was with them” (Fouda & Fielding, 135);

56 Cambone note:Notes of Stephen Cambone, 9/11/01, released under FOIA to Thad Anderson, www.outragedmoderates.org.

CHAPTER 32

1

“Had the hijackers”:

Kean & Hamilton, 234;

2

“The terrorists”/“a sensitive”:

press briefing, 9/18/01,

www.defenselink.mil

.

3

Iran not know re 9/11:

CR, 241. Iranian contacts with al Qaeda went back at least as far as bin Laden’s time in Sudan. Up to ten of the future muscle hijackers traveled through Iran, as did Binalshibh—who said they did so because Iran did not stamp Saudi passports. Numerous al Qaeda operatives fled to Iran following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, and members of the bin Laden family were given sanctuary there. In 2010, in what was surely a crude exercise in political mischief making, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed that 9/11 had been merely a “big fabrication” to justify U.S. actions abroad (CR, 240, trial transcript,

U.S. v. Ali Mohamed

, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of NY, 10/20/00, Shenon, 372, int. Thomas Joscelyn,

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