Michael Santomauro
CIA & 9/11 blocked a memo intended to alert the FBI
Sat Jun 11, 2005 23:11
64.140.158.73
THE NATION
Memo on 9/11 Plotters Blocked
Note added: New disclosures show that CIA information knew in 2000 about two
Al Qaeda operatives in San Diego and it was squelched before reaching the FBI.
Now, I am not normally the paranoid type. But given the evidence that the
Israelis knew about the 9-11 operatives, and now this, it gives one pause. The LA
Times carried the story on page 1 as the featured headline story on June 10,
but I haven't seen much discussion of it. The gist is that a memo to the FBI
on the 9-11 plotters was blocked by a high-level CIA operative who is unnamed,
and, quite possibly, some of the e-mail communication with this person has
been destroyed.
Start:
June 10. 2005
By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-terror10jun10,1,2411329.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
WASHINGTON A chilling new detail of U.S. intelligence failures emerged
Thursday, when the Justice Department disclosed that about 20 months before the
Sept. 11 attacks, a CIA official had blocked a memo intended to alert the FBI
that two known Al Qaeda operatives had entered the country.
The two men were among the 19 hijackers who crashed airliners into the World
Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
If the FBI had received the official communique from the CIA's special Osama
bin Laden unit when it was ready for transmittal in January 2000, its agents
likely could have tracked down the men, according to U.S. intelligence
officials familiar with a newly declassified report of the Justice Department's
inspector general.
Officials involved in the case of alleged would-be hijacker Zacarias
Moussaoui had attempted to block release of the report, asserting that it would
compromise the outcome of his case. But Inspector General Glenn A. Fine went to
court and won release of the report after deleting the section on Moussaoui.
The report does not draw major new conclusions or disclose significant new
episodes about the months and years leading up to Sept. 11. Rather, it fills in
blanks and provides new details about previously known matters notably the
failure to learn sooner about Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, the so-called
San Diego hijackers.
An 18-month delay in the CIA's handing over of information about the two
hijackers to the FBI and other domestic law enforcement agencies had been
well-publicized. But the report's conclusion that an agent had written a memo
specifically designed for transmittal to the FBI to alert the bureau to the men's
presence and that a supervisor deliberately had prevented it from being sent
is new.
The reason the CIA official, identified by the fictitious name "John," put a
hold on the communique remains a mystery, the report said. It said the
officials involved didn't recall the incident. Even when the author of the memo
followed up a week later with an e-mail asking if it had been sent to the FBI,
nothing was done.
The memo was written by an FBI agent on assignment to the CIA's special Bin
Laden unit. According to the report, rather than send his memo directly to the
FBI, he sent it to the deputy chief of the CIA unit because only supervisors
were authorized to send such memos to the FBI.
Fine's report contains extensive new detail about that incident, as well as
several already reported missed opportunities by the FBI to track down the two
men.
The report stops short of concluding that any of the failures was responsible
for allowing the Sept. 11 attacks to move forward. But it is sharply critical
of the FBI and CIA, laying out in 371 pages a series of systemic and
individual failures by the FBI in particular both internally and when dealing with
other U.S. and foreign government agencies.
The report was compiled after Congress and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III
asked the inspector general to evaluate how the FBI had handled intelligence
before the Sept. 11 attacks. More extensive inquiries were done by a joint
House-Senate committee and by the federal 9/11 commission, which reached similar
broad conclusions.
The report disclosed Thursday is an abbreviated version of a top-secret
report submitted in July to the FBI, CIA, Congress and the commission that
investigated Sept. 11.
In an interview Thursday, Fine said it would be "too speculative" to conclude
that the attacks could have been prevented had it not been for the failures
outlined in his report, which was based on interviews with dozens of FBI and
CIA officials and a review of thousands of top-secret internal documents.
"But there were very significant failures, both systemic and individual, and
we lay out the details behind them," Fine said.
His report made 16 recommendations to improve the FBI, including better
training and management of intelligence analysts, integrating FBI lawyers into
counterterrorism investigations, and creating clear procedures on how to document
intelligence information received in informal briefings with other agencies.
In a statement, the FBI said it generally agreed with the inspector general's
findings and was already carrying out most of them.
"We enhanced our cadre of intelligence analysts with hundreds of new hires,
new training and a clear career path," the FBI statement said. "We changed the
criteria by which special agents, field offices and investigative programs are
evaluated to emphasize intelligence-related functions."
The report identifies five junctures, from March 2000 to August 2001, when
there were opportunities for the FBI to learn about Almihdhar and Alhazmi and
their presence in the U.S. Each episode has been previously reported, but not in
such great detail.
The report documents day-to-day contacts among FBI, CIA and other officials
identifying them with names such as "John," "Mary" and "Rob" and, in many
cases, assessing their performance. It quotes extensively from e-mails they sent
and handwritten notes they kept of meetings.
Typical was the mild criticism of an FBI employee, "Lynn," for failing to
respond to an e-mail from colleague "Jane" about the now-famous Phoenix memo.
That memo by an agent in the Phoenix bureau urged the FBI to investigate the
enrollment of Middle Eastern men in aviation schools, but it was never acted upon.
"A response from Lynn may have prompted Jane to take some other step .
Instead the [memo] languished," the report said.
One of the well-known missed opportunities was the fact that Almihdhar and
Alhazmi had rented a room in the Lemon Grove home of a well-established local
FBI informant. In a footnote, the report discloses that the informant was paid
$100,000 in 2003 for his work over the years. However, he never told his FBI
handler important details about Almihdhar and Alhazmi, and said afterward that
he had known nothing about their terrorist connections or plans.
The report does not name the informant, but he has been identified elsewhere
as Abdussattar Shaikh.
The report's findings come as the FBI faces continued criticism of its
intelligence-gathering efforts, with some lawmakers and others calling for those
functions to be taken over by another agency or by the new national intelligence
director.
CIA officials had little comment, noting that the focus of the report was on
the FBI's performance before Sept. 11. Fine also noted that his scope did not
include evaluating the CIA's handling of pre-Sept. 11 intelligence.
Then-CIA Director George J. Tenet has vigorously disputed some of the
criticisms of his agency, but Thursday attributed the CIA's failure to turn over
information about Alhazmi and Almihdhar to his agents' being overwhelmed,
exhausted and understaffed.
Days after a meeting of Al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia in January 2000, the
CIA's Bin Laden specialists drafted a flurry of memos about the two men, their
suspected terrorist connections and Almihdhar's possible ties to the 1998
bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. Some of the memos were based in part on
intelligence provided by the National Security Agency. The CIA was also in
possession of a photocopy of Almihdhar's Saudi passport and valid multi-entry
visa to the U.S.
Several cables from the CIA's Bin Laden desk disseminated the information to
agency officials around the world including to one of the unit's special
agents detailed to the FBI's Washington field office, according to Fine's report.
That employee, "Dwight," began drafting a memo addressed to the FBI's Bin
Laden unit chief at bureau headquarters and to its New York field office. The
memo contained virtually all of the details known to the agency, including
Almihdhar's passport and visa information, which listed his intention to stay in New
York.
But at 4 p.m. that day, another CIA Bin Laden desk officer, "Michelle," added
a note to the memo: "pls hold off on [memo] for now per [the CIA deputy chief
of Bin Laden unit]."
Eight days later, in mid-January, "Dwight" sent an e-mail to "John," asking
why it hadn't been sent: "Is this a no go, or should I remake it in some way."
The CIA was unable to locate a response to the e-mail. Fine's report
concludes that the CIA didn't turn over documentation of the electronic memo until
Fine's investigators came across a reference and specifically asked for it in
February 2004. That came so late in the investigation that it delayed release of
the report and caused many more CIA and FBI officials to be interviewed, the
report says.
Ultimately, Fine's investigators gave up trying to find an explanation.
Records show that the CIA didn't forward the information about Almihdhar and
Alhazmi to domestic law enforcement officials until late August 2001, when it
asked that the men be put on watch lists.
Times staff writer H.G. Reza contributed to this report from Orange County.
=============
Peace is patriotic!
Michael Santomauro - RePorterNoteBook@aol.com
Editorial Director
253 West 72nd street #1711
New York, NY 10023
http://www.RePortersNoteBook.com
Available for Talk-Radio interviews 24hours 212-787-7891
http://reportersnotebook.com/newforum/indexforum.html
========
Memo on 9/11 Plotters Blocked
Note added: New disclosures show that CIA information knew in 2000 about two
Al Qaeda operatives in San Diego and it was squelched before reaching the FBI.
Now, I am not normally the paranoid type. But given the evidence that the
Israelis knew about the 9-11 operatives, and now this, it gives one pause. The LA
Times carried the story on page 1 as the featured headline story on June 10,
but I haven't seen much discussion of it. The gist is that a memo to the FBI
on the 9-11 plotters was blocked by a high-level CIA operative who is unnamed,
and, quite possibly, some of the e-mail communication with this person has
been destroyed.
Start:
June 10. 2005
By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-terror10jun10,1,2411329.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
WASHINGTON A chilling new detail of U.S. intelligence failures emerged
Thursday, when the Justice Department disclosed that about 20 months before the
Sept. 11 attacks, a CIA official had blocked a memo intended to alert the FBI
that two known Al Qaeda operatives had entered the country.
The two men were among the 19 hijackers who crashed airliners into the World
Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
If the FBI had received the official communique from the CIA's special Osama
bin Laden unit when it was ready for transmittal in January 2000, its agents
likely could have tracked down the men, according to U.S. intelligence
officials familiar with a newly declassified report of the Justice Department's
inspector general.
Officials involved in the case of alleged would-be hijacker Zacarias
Moussaoui had attempted to block release of the report, asserting that it would
compromise the outcome of his case. But Inspector General Glenn A. Fine went to
court and won release of the report after deleting the section on Moussaoui.
The report does not draw major new conclusions or disclose significant new
episodes about the months and years leading up to Sept. 11. Rather, it fills in
blanks and provides new details about previously known matters notably the
failure to learn sooner about Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, the so-called
San Diego hijackers.
An 18-month delay in the CIA's handing over of information about the two
hijackers to the FBI and other domestic law enforcement agencies had been
well-publicized. But the report's conclusion that an agent had written a memo
specifically designed for transmittal to the FBI to alert the bureau to the men's
presence and that a supervisor deliberately had prevented it from being sent
is new.
The reason the CIA official, identified by the fictitious name "John," put a
hold on the communique remains a mystery, the report said. It said the
officials involved didn't recall the incident. Even when the author of the memo
followed up a week later with an e-mail asking if it had been sent to the FBI,
nothing was done.
The memo was written by an FBI agent on assignment to the CIA's special Bin
Laden unit. According to the report, rather than send his memo directly to the
FBI, he sent it to the deputy chief of the CIA unit because only supervisors
were authorized to send such memos to the FBI.
Fine's report contains extensive new detail about that incident, as well as
several already reported missed opportunities by the FBI to track down the two
men.
The report stops short of concluding that any of the failures was responsible
for allowing the Sept. 11 attacks to move forward. But it is sharply critical
of the FBI and CIA, laying out in 371 pages a series of systemic and
individual failures by the FBI in particular both internally and when dealing with
other U.S. and foreign government agencies.
The report was compiled after Congress and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III
asked the inspector general to evaluate how the FBI had handled intelligence
before the Sept. 11 attacks. More extensive inquiries were done by a joint
House-Senate committee and by the federal 9/11 commission, which reached similar
broad conclusions.
The report disclosed Thursday is an abbreviated version of a top-secret
report submitted in July to the FBI, CIA, Congress and the commission that
investigated Sept. 11.
In an interview Thursday, Fine said it would be "too speculative" to conclude
that the attacks could have been prevented had it not been for the failures
outlined in his report, which was based on interviews with dozens of FBI and
CIA officials and a review of thousands of top-secret internal documents.
"But there were very significant failures, both systemic and individual, and
we lay out the details behind them," Fine said.
His report made 16 recommendations to improve the FBI, including better
training and management of intelligence analysts, integrating FBI lawyers into
counterterrorism investigations, and creating clear procedures on how to document
intelligence information received in informal briefings with other agencies.
In a statement, the FBI said it generally agreed with the inspector general's
findings and was already carrying out most of them.
"We enhanced our cadre of intelligence analysts with hundreds of new hires,
new training and a clear career path," the FBI statement said. "We changed the
criteria by which special agents, field offices and investigative programs are
evaluated to emphasize intelligence-related functions."
The report identifies five junctures, from March 2000 to August 2001, when
there were opportunities for the FBI to learn about Almihdhar and Alhazmi and
their presence in the U.S. Each episode has been previously reported, but not in
such great detail.
The report documents day-to-day contacts among FBI, CIA and other officials
identifying them with names such as "John," "Mary" and "Rob" and, in many
cases, assessing their performance. It quotes extensively from e-mails they sent
and handwritten notes they kept of meetings.
Typical was the mild criticism of an FBI employee, "Lynn," for failing to
respond to an e-mail from colleague "Jane" about the now-famous Phoenix memo.
That memo by an agent in the Phoenix bureau urged the FBI to investigate the
enrollment of Middle Eastern men in aviation schools, but it was never acted upon.
"A response from Lynn may have prompted Jane to take some other step .
Instead the [memo] languished," the report said.
One of the well-known missed opportunities was the fact that Almihdhar and
Alhazmi had rented a room in the Lemon Grove home of a well-established local
FBI informant. In a footnote, the report discloses that the informant was paid
$100,000 in 2003 for his work over the years. However, he never told his FBI
handler important details about Almihdhar and Alhazmi, and said afterward that
he had known nothing about their terrorist connections or plans.
The report does not name the informant, but he has been identified elsewhere
as Abdussattar Shaikh.
The report's findings come as the FBI faces continued criticism of its
intelligence-gathering efforts, with some lawmakers and others calling for those
functions to be taken over by another agency or by the new national intelligence
director.
CIA officials had little comment, noting that the focus of the report was on
the FBI's performance before Sept. 11. Fine also noted that his scope did not
include evaluating the CIA's handling of pre-Sept. 11 intelligence.
Then-CIA Director George J. Tenet has vigorously disputed some of the
criticisms of his agency, but Thursday attributed the CIA's failure to turn over
information about Alhazmi and Almihdhar to his agents' being overwhelmed,
exhausted and understaffed.
Days after a meeting of Al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia in January 2000, the
CIA's Bin Laden specialists drafted a flurry of memos about the two men, their
suspected terrorist connections and Almihdhar's possible ties to the 1998
bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. Some of the memos were based in part on
intelligence provided by the National Security Agency. The CIA was also in
possession of a photocopy of Almihdhar's Saudi passport and valid multi-entry
visa to the U.S.
Several cables from the CIA's Bin Laden desk disseminated the information to
agency officials around the world including to one of the unit's special
agents detailed to the FBI's Washington field office, according to Fine's report.
That employee, "Dwight," began drafting a memo addressed to the FBI's Bin
Laden unit chief at bureau headquarters and to its New York field office. The
memo contained virtually all of the details known to the agency, including
Almihdhar's passport and visa information, which listed his intention to stay in New
York.
But at 4 p.m. that day, another CIA Bin Laden desk officer, "Michelle," added
a note to the memo: "pls hold off on [memo] for now per [the CIA deputy chief
of Bin Laden unit]."
Eight days later, in mid-January, "Dwight" sent an e-mail to "John," asking
why it hadn't been sent: "Is this a no go, or should I remake it in some way."
The CIA was unable to locate a response to the e-mail. Fine's report
concludes that the CIA didn't turn over documentation of the electronic memo until
Fine's investigators came across a reference and specifically asked for it in
February 2004. That came so late in the investigation that it delayed release of
the report and caused many more CIA and FBI officials to be interviewed, the
report says.
Ultimately, Fine's investigators gave up trying to find an explanation.
Records show that the CIA didn't forward the information about Almihdhar and
Alhazmi to domestic law enforcement officials until late August 2001, when it
asked that the men be put on watch lists.
Times staff writer H.G. Reza contributed to this report from Orange County.
=============
Peace is patriotic!
Michael Santomauro - RePorterNoteBook@aol.com
Editorial Director
253 West 72nd street #1711
New York, NY 10023
http://www.RePortersNoteBook.com
Available for Talk-Radio interviews 24hours 212-787-7891
http://reportersnotebook.com/newforum/indexforum.html
========
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