CHAPTER 29
1
Fuller search/“Sheraton”:
FBI IG, CR, 271–, 539n84–85, Fenton, 312;
2
tracks all over:
Newsweek
, 6/10/06, Lance,
Triple Cross
, 349–, CR, 539n85;
3
Moussaoui detention/agents begged/blocked/Samit shared/Harry/Permission:
FBI IG, Kiser to Samit, 9/10/01, Exhibit 334,
U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui
, ABC News, 3/20/06;
4
Ashcroft turned down/not increased:
Staff Statement 9, CO,
Newsweek
, 5/27/02, Benjamin & Simon, 348;
5
“very docile”:
NYT
, 6/2/02.
6
“The Big Wedding”/“aircraft”:
John Cooley, a renowned Middle East specialist, reported in 2002 that the “Big Wedding” warning came in “late summer,” and referred to an attack within the United States involving airplanes. CNN, reporting earlier, referred to a Jordanian warning “a few days” before 9/11—but suggested that it related to a coming attack not in the United States but on resort hotels in Jordan. According to CIA director Tenet, “a source we were jointly running with a Middle Eastern country” went to his foreign handler on September 10 to say “something big” was about to happen. He was ignored (“Wedding”: Cooley, 229,
International Herald Tribune
, 5/21/02, CNN, 11/19/01; “something big”: Tenet, 160).
7
France passed:
Le Figaro
, 11/1/01;
8
Feinstein/“One of”/“Despite”:
Late Edition
, CNN, 7/1/01, Statement of Dianne Feinstein, 5/17/01, http://feinstein.senate.gov,
Newsweek
, 5/27/02, MSNBC, 9/28/06.
9
Massoud assassinated/“journalists’ ”:
CR, 214,
Time
, 8/12/02, Burke,
Al-Qaeda
, 197. After 9/11, when U.S. strikes on Afghanistan had routed Taliban and al Qaeda forces,
Wall Street Journal
reporter Alan Cullison made remarkable discoveries on a computer that had belonged to the terrorists. The hard drive contained a letter, apparently crafted by Ayman al-Zawahiri, purporting to be the “journalists’ ” request for the Massoud interview (
WSJ
, 12/31/01);
10 widow: Bergen, OBL I Know, 297–;
11 O’Neill had warned/frustrated/resigned/“We’re due”: Murray Weiss, The Man Who Warned America, NY: Regan, 2003, 180–, 320–, 362, 370–, Frontline: “The Man Who Knew,” PBS, 10/3/02.
12 Putin: int. of Putin for Iran & the West: Nuclear Confrontation, BBC, 2/7/09. While-Putin was to say clearly that he spoke with Bush the day before the attack, the former President referred in his 2010 memoir only to a conversation afterward (Bush, 369–);
13 Massoud assassination/analyzed implications: Coll, Holy War Inc., 582–, Tenet, 174;
14 memoir not refer: e.g. see Bush, 187, 196;
15 Deputies tinkered/eliminate OBL: CR, 206, Farmer, 68;
16 “literally headed”: CBS News, 9/11/02;
17 “eerie”: int. Rice by Bob Woodward, “Farmer Misc.,” B9, NYC files, CF;
18 PM of Australia: Sept. 10 entries, Public Papers of the Presidents, 2001, www.gpoaccess.gov;
19 helicopter: Goldberg et al., Ch. 4;
20 Bush at Colony: int. Katie Moulton, Sarasota Magazine, 11/01, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02;
21 “soft event”: WP, 1/27/02;
22 “Tomorrow”/“The match”: Report, JI, 32, 205, 375, Graham with Nussbaum, 138–, CBS News, 6/20/02, Bamford, Shadow Factory, 92.
23 Arabs gathered/“finally”: MFR 04017535, 11/18/03, MFR 04017537, 11/18/03, CR 249–;
24 Dulles/Boston/Newark hotels: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, Stipulation, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, 3/1/06.
25 drove Portland/Comfort Inn/ATM/Walmart/Pizza Hut/phone calls: What Atta bought at the Walmart, though, according to an FBI document, was a “6-volt battery converter”—a puzzling purchase for a would-be hijacker expecting to go to his death in the morning. “Chronology of Events for Hijackers, 8/16/01,” U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibits OG00020.2, FO07011, FO07021, FO07022, FO07023, FO07024, “265D-NY-280350, TWINBOM-PENTTBOM, Biographical Report,” 11/26/01, National Drug Intelligence Center for the FBI, authors’ collection, FBI press release, 10/14/01, entries for 9/10/01 & 9/11/01, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, FBI 302 of [name redacted], 10/15/01, “FBI 302s of Interest,” B17, T7, CF, FBI Timeline of 9–11 Hijacker Activity & Movements, “Timelines 9–11, 2 of 2,” B20, T7, CF.
26 Kara: “Chaos and Ghosts,” www.oredigger61.org, corr. Miles Kara, 2010.
27 Rolince: “Staff Notes of Int. Michael Rolince, 6/9/04,” B70, T5, CF. The authors note that by an FBI account Caysan bin Don, the American Muslim who featured in an episode in January 2000—he was Bayoumi’s companion the day he and Bayoumi had their supposedly chance meeting with newly arrived Mihdhar and Hazmi—was in Portland on September 11. It is hard to imagine, though, why Atta could conceivably have needed to meet with bin Don just before 9/11. Other hypotheses to try to explain the Portland expedition include the suggestion (not dissimilar to Miles Kara’s) that Atta was worried lest the sight of as many as ten Arabs checking in at Boston for the two targeted flights to Los Angeles attract undue attention. The bottom line is that the trip remains unexplained. As the 9/11 Commission Report noted, “no physical, documentary, or analytical evidence” explains the Portland trip (location of bin Don: MFR 04018561, 11/20/03, MFR 04019254, 4/20/04, & see National Enquirer, 11/6/01; met bin Don: “Staff Notes of Int. Michael Rolince, 6/9/04,” B70, T5, CF; other hypotheses: AP, 10/4/01, NYT, 9/11/02; Commission: CR, 451n1).
28 ritual/“spiritual manual”: FBI report, “The 11 September Hijacker Cell Model,” Feb. 03, INTELWIRE. The “spiritual manual” and the ritual it called for is described at length on pp. 161–64;
29 “noticed large amounts”: MFR 04020636, 2/2/04, CF, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE. Similar evidence had been found at locations used by the terrorists involved in the bombings of the U.S. embassy in Kenya in 1998 and of the USS Cole in 2000 (New Yorker, 7/10 & 7/17/06);
30 “the mutual pledge”: see sources for Ch. 14;
31 “God willing”: Fouda & Fielding, 109, translation of Binalshibh audiotape by Naouar Bioud, authors’ collection;
32 green: e.g. Slate, 6/9/09, “The Prophet’s Mosque,” www.sacred-destinations.com.
33 When the news started: translation of Binalshibh audiotape by Naouar Bioud, in authors’ collection. The tape was obtained by reporter Yosri Fouda, and the material is used with his permission.
Part VII: UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
CHAPTER 30
1
Le Figaro
story/picked up by press/According to report:
Le Figaro
, 10/21/01, Reuters, 11/14/01,
NYT
, 11/1/01,
Guardian
(U.K.), 11/1/01 int. Alexandra Richard.
2
medical tests:
Rumors long circulated that bin Laden suffered from serious kidney disease requiring dialysis. His son Omar refuted that allegation in the 2009 memoir written with his mother, Najwa—both of whom had intimate contact with bin Laden until well into 2001. Omar conceded, however, that his father—along with others in the
extended family—“had a tendency to suffer from kidney stones. Those stones caused immense pain until they had passed out of his body, but his kidneys were strong otherwise.” Interviewed by the Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir on November 8, 2001—the only post-9/11 newspaper interview—bin Laden himself said, “My kidneys are all right” (rumors: e.g. Gunaratna, 48,
Eye Spy
magazine, no. 57, 2008; Omar: bin Ladens & Sasson, 172; “all right”: ed. Lawrence, 144);
3
Callaway declined:
Le Figaro
, 10/21/01;
4
Koval denied:
NYT
, 11/1/01;
5
Mitchell told:
int. Alexandra Richard & authors’ int. with Dubai source;
6
possible OBL did visit Dubai:
In the November 2001 interview cited above, bin Laden said, “I did not go to Dubai last year.” The meeting with the CIA, of course, is not alleged to have happened the previous year—2000—but in July 2001 (ed. Lawrence, 144).
7
Chouet:
int. & corr. Alain Chouet, 2009 & 2011, Chouet int. for
Le Monde
, 3/29/07, http://alain.chouet.free.fr. In the furor after initial publication of the story, a
New York Times
article suggested that the allegation of the Dubai meeting was planted by French intelligence “to suggest a continuing covert linkage between the CIA and bin Laden.” In her description of how the story developed, however, reporter Alexandra Richard made clear that she first learned of it from a private source she had long trusted—in Dubai. As described in the text, moreover, she firmed it up with further research. Another French journalist, Richard Labévière, meanwhile, told the authors he received corroboration of the Dubai meeting from three other sources. (
NYT
, 11/1/01,
Guardian
[U.K.], 11/1/01, ints. Richard Labévière);
8
contacts with Taliban/improved cooperation/assistance/threats:
Guardian
(U.K.), 9/22/01,
Le Monde Diplomatique
, 1/02,
Nation
, 7/12/02, BBC News, 9/18/01;
9
Simons pressed:
Guardian
(U.K.), 9/22/01,
Le Monde Diplomatique
, 1/02,
Nation
, 7/12/02, BBC News, 9/18/01;
10 Rice “whether any”: CR, 204.
11 major stories re Atta: e.g. Chicago Tribune, 9/16/01;
12 “had been trailing”: corr. Kate Connolly, 2009;
13 German intelligence interest/CIA/Joint Inquiry aired: Report, JI, 29–, 183–;
14 Commission Report ignored: CR, 495n81;
15 sequence of events/Zammar/Darkazanli/card/phone tapped: ibid., CR, 164, 495n81, McDermott, 71–, Chicago Tribune, 10/5/03, “Germany’s Imam Mamoun Darkazanli,” Vol. 1, No. 8, www.jamestown.org. See earlier references to Zammar and Darkazanli in Chs. 24 and 27 and their related notes;
16 incoming call/“Marwan”/second/third calls: “Memorandum, Investigative Proceedings Against Mohmammed Haydar Zammar,” 11/19/01, Bundeskriminalamt ST 23–067–256/01, authors’ collection, Report, JI, 185–, Der Spiegel, 11/23/06, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagzeitung, 2/2/03, CR, 495n81;
17 “particularly valuable”/CIA “didn’t sit”/“uncertain”: NYT, 22/24/04, 2/25/04, Testimony of George Tenet, Hearings, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 2/24/04, www.intelligence.senate.gov, Report, JI, 185–, Staff Statement 11, CO, Graham with Nussbaum, 61;
18 Volz: McDermott, 71–, 75–, 278n11, Stern (Germany), 8/3/03, & see Chicago Tribune, 11/16/02.
19 Landesamt: Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz translates in English as the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Each of Germany’s sixteen states has such an office, which in turn answer to the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, the federal body. Together, they function as Germany’s domestic intelligence service.
20 “had knowledge”/“turned”/tried approaching: Chicago Tribune, 11/16/02. In an extraordinary episode right after 9/11, German police raided Mamoun Darkazanli’s apartment only to find it empty of documents. The raid was followed, however, by the mysterious delivery to the authorities of a bag of Darkazanli’s papers—by a man claiming to be a burglar who had stolen them from the suspect. The “burglar’s” account, however, appeared to be bogus. In light of the earlier CIA insistence on trying to persuade Darkazanli to become an informant, one German investigator remembered, “We all thought, ‘CIA.’ ” As of this writing, Darkazanli was reportedly still in Hamburg and at liberty (Chicago Tribune, 11/16/02).
21 Jarrah stopped Dubai/“It was”: Corbin, 179–;
22 “because his name”: McDermott, 294n3;
23 learn fly/spread Islam: Corbin, 180, McDermott, 186;
24 “What happened”: McDermott, 187.
25 item redacted: Ziad Jarrah chronology, “03009470—ACS Download Documents, Packet 6,” CF. The FBI’s “Hijackers’ Timeline [redacted]” has also been heavily censored at that point. Because the episode was first reported as having occurred in January 2001—not, as was in fact the case, in 2000—U.S. sources were initially able to deny that Jarrah had been questioned at Dubai in response to a CIA request. They also denied ever having been told about it. Vanity Fair reported in 2004 that the CIA had merely asked foreign border agencies to “question anyone [authors’ italics] who may have been returning from a training camp in Afghanistan.” While acknowledging that U.S. officials said it was untrue that Jarrah had been stopped specifically because his name was on a U.S.-supplied watchlist, investigative reporter Terry McDermott noted in 2005 that Washington had abandoned its initial denial it had been advised of about the Jarrah stop. “The United States,” McDermott wrote, “has acknowledged in internal documents and in communications with German investigators that the Emiratis did contact them.… They decline to say what they told the Emiratis” (Timeline: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE; reported as 2001: CNN, 8/1/02, McDermott, 294n3, Corbin, 179–; deny: CNN, 8/1/02, Statement of Eleanor Hill, 9/20/02, JI; McDermott: McDermott, 186, 294n3).
26 DIA/disquieting claim/four on radar: Statement of Mark Zaid, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 9/21/05, MFR 04021341, 7/13/04, CF, MFR [names & number redacted], Defense HUMINT Service Officers, Bagram Base, 10/21/03, CF; WSJ, 11/17/05, NYT, 8/9/05, 8/11/05, Fox News, 8/28/05, Lance, Triple Cross, 330–;
27 “data mining”/“use of high-powered”/visa records: Anthony Shaffer, Operation Dark Heart, NY: Thomas Dunne, 2010, 17–,164–, 245–, 272–, Bergen Record (N.J.), 8/14/05.
28 evidence destroyed: Though the Able Danger claim had not yet emerged when Congress’s Joint Inquiry was at work, its staff did question Major Keith Alexander of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, and twice visited the unit from which much of the Able Danger material reportedly originated. On both occasions, asked whether they knew of any evidence that the government had prior knowledge or should have had prior knowledge of the attack, military personnel said they knew of none.
A Defense Department report, and a Senate Intelligence Committee review, were to conclude in 2006 that the Able Danger claims were unsupported by the evidence. It is clear from both documents that witnesses’ memories were confused, as one might expect so long after the fact. Relevant documentary material that existed in 2003 now does not. Some was inadvertently destroyed during an office move. Some duplicate documentation Shaffer kept at his office, his attorney told the Committee on the Judiciary, was “apparently destroyed—for reasons unknown—by DIA in spring 2004.” The DOD report says no such documentation was found at Shaffer’s office (Joint Inquiry: corr. Miles Kara, 2011; claims unsupported: Defense report: “Alleged Misconduct by Senior DOD Officials Concerning the Able Danger Program & Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer,” U.S. Dept of Defense, Office of the Inspector General, 9/18/06; Senate review: Roberts & Rockefeller to colleagues, 12/22/06,
www.intelligence.senate.gov
; had Commission followed/destroyed?: Statement of Mark Zaid, Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senate, 9/21/05, Shaffer, 164–, 246–, Kean & Hamilton, 114, 294–, MFR 04021341, 7/13/04, CF).
29 Grenzfahndung: The two known to have been under border watch were Said Bahaji and Mounir Motassadeq (ints. Mounir el-Motassadeq, Motassadeq’s lawyer Udo Jacob, Dr. Manfred Murck, Dr. Herbert Müller, McDermott, 73–, 297n23, Stern [Germany], 8/13/03, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 2/2/03).
30 officials unhelpful: The two other organizations that declined interview requests were the Generalbundesanwalt, or Public Prosecutor’s Office—which has responsibility for terrorist cases—and the Bundeskriminalamt, the Federal Criminal Police Agency. The latter was the source of most German-related information in the 9/11 Commission Report.
31 Müller “Atta was”: Dr. Müller serves with the Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz Baden-Württemberg—Stuttgart is the state capital of Baden-Württemberg;
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).
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,
FrontPage Magazine
, 9/28/07, ABC News, 2/11/10,
Newsweek
, 8/19/02, Tenet, 244,
The Independent
[U.K.], 3/7/10);
4
“convincing evidence”:
www.thedailybeast.com
, 5/20/11,
Daily Mail
(U.K.), 5/20/11,
www.newsmax.com
, 5/19/11.
5
no evidence Iraq:
CR, 66, Staff Statement 15, CO;
6
last-minute changes/Snell/Jacobson/De:
Shenon, 398–.
7
Bandar delight/posted:
press statement, 7/22/04,
www.saudiembassy.net
. Prince Bandar’s own name and that of his wife, Princess Haifa—whose name featured in an intriguing part of the investigators’ work, described later, in the Notes to Ch. 33—made fleeting appearances in the Report’s endnotes, but not in the text (CR, 482n66, 498n123, 557n27, 563n19);
8
“no evidence”/“problematic”/“a commitment”:
CR, 171, 371–;
9
Khilewi/“A Saudi citizen”:
Middle East Quarterly
, 9/98, & see
WP
, 8/25/94,
New Yorker
, 10/22/01;
10 Khalifa: see Ch. 20 and related Notes, “In re search of luggage and personal belongings, Khalifa v. U.S,” 3/6/95 cited in ed. Berger, Khalifa, “Top al Qaeda Fundraiser Dead,” www.counterterrorismblog.org.
11 limousine/“high-ranking”/Prince Sultan: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 2002 [author was in fact Michael Scheuer], 138–, Lance, Triple Cross, 166, “Mohammed Jamal Khalifa: Life & Death Secrets,” INTELWIRE. Philippine Daily Inquirer, 8/11/00. The authors are unaware of any response by or on behalf of Prince Sultan to the report that he welcomed Khalifa home. Nor have they been able to establish that Khalifa did carry a diplomatic passport.
12 “Since 1994”/“ ’96 is the key”: New Yorker, 10/16/01;
13 Paris meeting/protection money: Complaint, Thomas Burnett et al. v. al Baraka Investment & Development et al., U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, pt. 1080, Trento, 306–, Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, NY: Plume, 2004, 99–;
14 Kerrey: LAT, 6/20/04;
15 “It’s a lovely”: transcript, Frontline: “Saudi Time Bomb,” www.pbs.org;
16 Turki recalled: Time, 8/31/03, int. Turki, OnLine NewsHour: Inside the Kingdom, 1/21/02, www.pbs.org, Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 208–, 364, Wright, 266–, 288–, Anthony Cordesman, “Saudi Security & the War on Terrorism,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, 4/22/02, Bergen, 240;
17 Others say two trips: Rashid, 48 & see LAT, 6/20/04;
18 Khaksar/deal: Guardian, 3/2/03, NYT, 3/24/09 & see WP, 1/15/06;
19 Turki deny: MSNBC, 9/5/03;
20 met with OBL: Reeve, 194—citing interview with U.S. intelligence source;
21 “at least two”/“The deal was”: U.S. News & World Report, 1/6/02;
22 named the two: Henderson, formally a journalist with the BBC and the Financial Times, later named Naif and Sultan in this connection in articles in The Wall Street Journal and in a paper published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The authors are not aware that Prince Naif or Prince Sultan has commented on the allegation (WSJ, 8/3/05, “After King Abdullah: Succession in Saudi Arabia,” Policy Focus 96, 8/09);”hundreds”/“Saudi official”: int. & corr. Simon Henderson, WSJ, 8/12/02.
23 7,000: WSJ, 2/15/11;
24 “They would go out”: MSNBC, 9/5/03 & see WP, 7/19/07;
25 “We’ve got”: U.S. News & World Report, 10/11/98;
26 “an interminable”/“Your Royal Highness”: Tenet, 106–;
27 Gore/“The United”: CR, 122.
28 “never lifted”/clerics: Baer, See No Evil, 33. The two clerics were Salman al-Awadah and Safar al-Hawali (National Review, 3/11/03, Erik Stakelback, “The Saudi Hate Machine,” 12/17/03, www.investigativeproject.org);
29 “the Saudi government”: Report, JI, 110;
30 “As one of”/“foreign enemy”: Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell, 72, 15;
31 “You’ve got to be”: Wright, 238.
32 “All the answers”: Brisard & Dasquié, xxix. The O’Neill conversation was with Jean-Charles Brisard, who began investigating terrorist finances for French intelligence in 1997. After 9/11, he became a lead investigator for the legal firm Motley Rice in connection with the civil action brought by 9/11 victims’ families against a list of Saudi-based Islamic charities, a number of financial institutions, and several members of the Saudi royal family. He provided written testimony to the U.S. Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in 2003 (ints. Jean-Charles Brisard, Written Testimony, Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, 10/22/03, www.banking.senate.gov, Brisard & Dasquié, xxvii–, xxi).
33 longtime head: Prince Turki had resigned as GID chief, after a quarter of a century, just ten days before 9/11. The reason for the resignation remains unclear. Turki’s departure was the more striking, reportedly, because he had been confirmed in his post as recently as the end of May (Simon Henderson, “A Prince’s Mysterious Disappearance,” NPR, 10/22/10, Hamel, 237).
34 “At the instruction”: Arab News, 9/18/02. On another occasion, in a 2010 CNN interview, Prince Turki said much the same. “From my previous experience, there is a continuous exchange of information between the CIA and the Saudi security agencies” (CNN, 11/17/10);
35 GID/U.S. understanding: e.g., Cordesman, “Saudi Security”;
36 specifically/“What we told”: USA Today, 10/16/03, Salon, 10/18/03;
37 Bandar hinted: transcript of int. Bandar, Frontline: “Looking for Answers,” www.pbs.org;
38 Abdullah now king: Abdullah had succeeded to the throne in 2005, on the death of his long-ailing and incapacitated half-brother King Fahd;
39 “Saudi security”: ABC News, 11/2/07, CNN, 11/2/07;
40 “We have sent”/British deny: John Simpson int. of King Abdullah, BBC News, 10/29/07, CNN, 10/29/07;
41 denial: Wright, 448;
42 silence: Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell, 72–;
43 “There is not”: USA Today, 10/16/03.
44 Turki stood by/Badeeb: Wright, 448, 310. A Saudi security consultant, Nawaf Obaid, also told author Lawrence Wright that the terrorists’ names were passed to the CIA station chief in Riyadh. Wright believed Turki’s 2003 account, and indicated in a New Yorker article that the CIA had consulted the Saudi authorities—after learning from an intercept on the Yemen phone “hub” that Mihdhar was headed to Kuala Lumpur (Wright, 310, 376n, 448, New Yorker, 7/10 & 16/06).
45 Scheuer/“fabrication”: Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell, 72–;
46 Bandar/Commission: MFR of int. Prince Bandar, Access Restricted, Item (3 pages) withdrawn, 10/14/08, CF.
47 Turki/“I can”: corr. Kristen Wilhelm. This reply to the authors’ inquiry is known as a “Glomar Response” to a request under the Freedom of Information Act—so called after the first occasion on which it was used, when the CIA sought to prevent publication of a Los Angeles Times story on the agency’s operation to raise a sunken Soviet submarine. The U.S. ship that had been intended for use in the operation to raise the sub was called the Glomar Explorer. The Glomar Response has been used in cases involving both national security and privacy issues (“The Glomar Response,” http://nsarchive.wordpress.com).
48 “penetrated al Qaeda”: Seattle Times, 10/29/01;
49 returned to Saudi/disclosed: Report, JI, 131–.
50 “presented with”: Staff Report, “9/11 & Terrorist Travel,” 12, 15, 37. Before 9/11, according to the Commission’s staff report on terrorist travel, neither State Department personnel processing visa applications nor immigration inspectors were aware of such indicators. Even two years after the attacks, the information had “yet to be unclassified and disseminated to the field.”
51 Commission footnote: The Commission footnote appears to distinguish the cases of Mihdhar, the Hazmi brothers, and two other hijackers from those of the other ten Saudi hijackers. This may reflect the possibility that only the passports of Mihdhar and his named comrades were marked by the Saudi authorities. Absent fuller and clearer information, it is impossible to know (CR, 563n32).
52 “contained a secret”: Bamford, Shadow Factory, 58;
53 Trento account/“We had been”: Joe Trento, “The Real Intelligence Cover-up,” 8/6/03 & Joseph Trento & Susan Trento, “The No Fly List,” 1/11/10, http://dcbureau.org, & Trento & Trento, refs., conv. Joseph Trento.
54 Kuala Lumpur “to spy”: Trento & Trento, 7–. The administrator of the Islamic Center of San Diego, whom Mihdhar and Hazmi asked for assistance following their arrival in early 2000, said after 9/11 that he had “suspected that Mihdhar might have been an intelligence agent of the Saudi government” (CR, 517n29, 220).
55 Mihdhar multiple-entry visa: Trento & Trento, 8. According to the Trentos, citing Michael Springmann, who had years earlier served as head of the visa department in the Jeddah consulate, the CIA would have known this fact even sooner—because a CIA officer in the Jeddah consulate “routinely approved visas for Saudi intelligence operatives as a courtesy” (Trento & Trento, 8—see Michael Springmann, “A Sin Concealed—the Visas for Terrorists Program,” 12/13/07, http://visasforterrorists.blogspot.com).
56 “were perceived”: Trento & Trento, 9;
57 “Many terrorists”: ibid, 187;
58 “because they were”: Joe Trento, “The Real Intelligence Cover-up,” 8/6/03, http://dcbureau.org;
59 “In fact”: Trento & Trento, 9.
60 account bumps facts?: The Trento account, for example, asserts that the “complacency” of the Bush administration in summer 2001 is explained by CIA assurances that it had high-level penetration of al Qaeda via the GID. In fact, as documented in this book, the CIA leadership was far from complacent that summer, desperately worried and telling the White House—notably Condoleezza Rice—as much (Trento & Trento, 193; see—re far from complacent—pp. 315–16).
61 “[name redacted]”: Executive Summary, Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks, 6/05, www.cia.gov;
62 “hostile service”/passed to al Qaeda: Risen, State of War, 181–;
63 “On some occasions”: Report, JI, 274;
64 Rahman defense: New York, 3/27/95.
65 screen saver: The intelligence counterparts who told the CIA about bin Laden’s picture being used as a screen saver were those of Jordan—apparently in the late 1990s (Risen, 182);
66 “80% sympathetic”: The Times (London), 7/5/04.
CHAPTER 33
1
tens of thousands:
Reuters, 9/11/01;
2
honked horns:
transcript,
Frontline:
“Saudi Time Bomb,”
www.pbs.org
;
3
killed camels:
int. of Saad al-Fagih for
Frontline: “
Looking for Answers,”
www.pbs.org
;
4
screen savers/“somebody”:
int. of person in Saudi Arabia who asked to remain anonymous;
5
Ahmed/“muted”/“So, they lost”:
Qanta Ahmed, 395.
6
survey/Prince Nawwaf:
The survey was conducted by the Saudi GID, the intelligence service, and leaked to
The New York Times
a year later by a U.S. administration official. Prince Nawwaf had become GID chief following the resignation of Prince Turki. In a 2004 interview, Prince Bandar was to claim the situation was very different, that a Zogby poll “showed 91 percent of Saudis said they like America.” What the poll actually said was that 91 percent of Saudis said they had “no quarrel with the people of the United States, yet their overall impression of the American people is 70% unfavorable, 24% favorable” (leaked survey:
NYT
, 1/27/02,
Middle East Economic Digest
, 9/14/01; Bandar: int. Bandar,
Meet the Press
, NBC, 4/25/04).
7
“Almost unanimously”:
Kean & Hamilton, 113.
8
Bandar/“not Arabs”/“My God”:
New Yorker
, 3/24/03;
9
Palestinians celebrating:
There were numerous reports of Palestinians celebrating the attacks. It has been suggested, though, that some news footage of Palestinians supposedly celebrating 9/11 was a distortion—that it in fact showed celebration of something else. For more on the reaction to 9/11 across the Middle East, see Ch. 14, p. 154 (ed. Woods, 12);
10 “condemned”: statement, 9/11/01 cied in Cordesman, “Saudi Official Statements on Terrorism, After the Sept. 11 Attacks,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, 11/01;
11 Abdullah fumed/declined/snapped/“I reject”/Bush responded: WP, 2/10/02, New Yorker, 3/24/03, Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, 241–, Online NewsHour: Inside the Kingdom, www.pbs.org.
12 Abdullah pulled: Atlantic Monthly, 5/03, Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 232, WP, 2/12/02. Though Saudi Arabia at the time produced only some 18 percent of the crude oil consumed by the United States, it has what other oil-producing countries do not have—the world’s only surplus production capacity. It means that world oil prices are controlled by Saudi Arabia, according to its decisions as to how much oil to make available at any given time. It had used the oil weapon in 1973, after the Yom Kippur War, by joining with other countries in cutting off the oil supply and in 1990–1991—in reverse—by increasing supply when Iraqi oil was cut off during the Gulf War (Atlantic, 2/21/08, Statistical Abstract of the U.S., 2007, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 2007, 821).
13 15 were Saudi: Newsweek, 11/19/01, New Yorker, 3/24/03;
14 “That was a”: transcript, Frontline: “House of Saud,” www.pbs.org;
15 75 royals/Caesars Palace: Las Vegas to Counterterrorism, 9/25/01, FBI documents obtained under FOIA by Judicial Watch;
16 One of OBL’s brothers: Unger, 7;
17 more than 20: e.g., re International Flight 441 from Boston, 9/17/03, “Ryan Air folder,” B70, T5, CF;
18 Prince Ahmed/yearling: Jason Levin, From the Desert to the Derby, NY: Daily Racing Form Press, 2002, 1, 15, Unger, 7, 255–;
19 unable to charter/flight on 13th: MFR of Dan Grossi, “Dan Grossi, Tampa-Lexington Flight,” B70, T5, CF, “his father or his uncle”: ibid., Unger, 9;
20 Bandar statement: press release, 9/12/01, www.saudiembassy.net;
21 Bush appointment/welcomed/cigars: Unger, 7, William Simpson, 315, New Yorker, 3/24/03;
22 assistant rang/Watson/Clarke: int. of Bandar, Meet the Press, 4/24/04, Staff Report, 9/11 & Terrorist Travel, 171–, MFR 04019823, 6/3/04, CR, 557, Shenon, 287;
23 photo published: Woodward, State of Denial, facing p. 274;
24 “not inclined”: corr. Jodie Steck, George W. Bush Presidential Library, 2011.
25 Florida/Kentucky flight: e.g., Unger, 7–. The confusion about the Tampa charter persisted in part because the FBI accepted, even after having been challenged by journalists, a secondhand report that Prince Ahmed’s son and his friends had driven rather than flown to Lexington, and because the Bureau’s own reports reflected confusion as to when U.S. airspace reopened to charter flights (Final Draft of response to October 2003 Vanity Fair article, “Saudi Flights,” B68, T5, CF, The Saudi Flights—A Summary, “Saudi Flights,” B6, Dan Marcus Files, CF, CTD to Counterterrorism, 9/24/03, FBI 265A-NY-280350, serial 1234567890, Vanity Fair, 10/03).
26 after airspace open: FAA Notices to Airmen [NOTAM], 1/9817, 1/9832, 1/9853, www.aopa.org, corr. Laura Brown, FAA. The records show that U.S. airspace was open to almost all aircraft—including charter flights—as of 11:00 A.M. EDT on September 13. The exception was for “general aviation” flights—which, contrary to previous reporting, did not include charters such as the Tampa flight. In any event, the Tampa-to-Lexington flight took off at approximately 4:30 P.M.
27 on their way home: Staff Report, 9/11 & Terrorist Travel, 171–, 270n49/50;
28 charter: Judicial Watch press release, 6/20/07, Counterterrorism to Boston, 9/21/01, FBI 265A-NY-280350, serial 1652;
29 watchlist: CR, 558, n31;
30 most not interviewed: CR, 557n28. It has been reported that one of those interviewed was Prince Ahmed, but there is no evidence of such an interview in FBI files thus far released (The Saudi Flights—A Summary, “Saudi Flights,” B6, Dan Marcus Files, CF).
31 agents interviewed family/Omar: FBI 302s of ints. Bin Laden family members 9/13–24/01 (inc. Omar Awadh), all in “Ryan Air folder,” B70, T5, CF.
32 Omar shared/briefly investigated: Coll, The Bin Ladens, 483–, 526–, Brisard & Dasquie, 176–, WP, 10/2/03. The group, of which Abdullah bin Laden was listed as president, was the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, or WAMY. The U.S. branch was operated by Abdullah, according to The Washington Post, until 9/11. Though it has been reported that Abdullah was on a flight with Saudis on board that departed on September 20—Ryan International 441—his name is not on the passenger list supplied by the charter company (Coll, 483–, WP, 10/2/03, passenger list in “Saudi Flights, FBI Docs., 3 of 4,” B70, T5, CF, Staff Report, 9/11 & Terrorist Travel, 272n94).
33 “Although”: NYT, 3/27/05;
34 “there is the existence”: CNN, 9/4/03. The reference is to the brother of Adel al Jubeir, mentioned earlier in this chapter (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 11/07).
35 public relations firms/Another firm: The firms initially hired were Burson Marsteller and Qorvis Communications. Patton Boggs was used for the contacts with Congress. On one infamous occasion, Saudi PR maneuvers misfired. New York mayor Giuliani handed back a $10 million donation made to the Twin Towers Fund by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in light of the press release the prince’s staff distributed following the presentation. It read: “We must address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack. I believe the government of the United States of America should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.… Our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of the Israelis while the world turns the other cheek.” This caused outrage in the United States. Prince Alwaleed, however, has also said: “You have to ask the simple question. Why fifteen Saudis? You can’t just say it happened by coincidence. Clearly, there’s something wrong with the way of thinking here [in Saudi Arabia], with the way people are raised” (PR firms: New Internationalist, 3/1/02, “Terrorism to End Terrorism,” fall 2001, www.prwatch.org, WP, 3/21/02, Washington Times, 12/9/04, Gold, 193; Alwaleed: Arab News, 10/14/01; Irish Times, 8/3/09, Giuliani, 374–).
36 “We feel what”: transcript, Larry King, CNN, 10/1/01;
37 Abdullah to ranch/“Yes, I”: Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 284–, Suskind, One Percent Doctrine, 104–, Remarks by the President After Meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah, 4/25/02, posted at www.globalsecurity.org, Fox News, 4/26/02.
38 “probably” stolen: BG, 9/15/01. The spokesman, Gaafar Allagany, was to say on September 19 that two men with the same names as those of two hijackers, a Salem al-Hazmi and an Abdulaziz al-Omari, had indeed had their passports stolen over the past few years. The two cases cited by Allagany turned out to be cases of mistaken identity—there is no evidence the passports of hijackers Hazmi or Omari had been stolen. On the issue of hijackers’ identity, see also Ch. 14 and its related Notes (WP, 9/20/01, 10/7/01, Telegraph [U.K.], 9/23/01).
39 “most people”: int. of Hatoon al Fassi for Frontline: “House of Saud,” www.pbs.org;
40 “There is no proof”: Gold, 185, citing Al Hayat, 10/23/01;
41 “another power”: NYT, 10/23/01;
42 Naif/“The names”: USA Today, 2/6/02;
43 “It is enough”: Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 231;
44 “Zionists”/“we put big”: AP, 12/5/02 citing int. Naif by Al Siyasa (Kuwait), ’Ain al Yaqeen, 11/29/02 citing same int.;
45 “We’re getting”: LAT, 10/13/01;
46 “They knew”: New Yorker, 10/16/01;
47 not allowed access: Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/30/03;
48 “dribble out”: NYT, 12/27/01.
49 blocked attempts: U.S. News & World Report, 1/6/02, Suskind, One Percent Doctrine, 109. A State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, had said in November that Saudi Arabia had been “prominent among the countries acting against the accounts of terrorist organizations … in compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1333.” The following month, however, following a visit to Saudi Arabia by Treasury Department assets control chief Richard Newcombe, it was reported that the Saudis “had balked at freezing bank accounts Washington said were linked to terrorists.” Working with the Saudis had apparently been “like pulling teeth” (Boucher: State Department briefing, 11/27/01, http://usinfo.org; Newcombe: U.S. News & World Report, 1/6/02).
50 “It doesn’t look”: BG, 3/3/02;
51 few fluent Arabic: Report, JI, 59, 245, 255, 336, 358;
52 men believed to have helped: For information not particularly cited here, see Ch. 25 and its related Notes;
53 Thumairy diplomat: Kean & Hamilton, 308;
54 “in a Western”: MFR 04019254, 4/20/04;
55 “uncertain”: MFR of int. Omar al-Bayoumi, 10/18/03, CF;
56 Bayoumi’s income: Graham with Nussbaum, 167, int. Bob Graham;
57 three-page section; Report, JI, 175–;
58 Graham re payments: Graham with Nussbaum, 24–, 167–, 224–, int. Bob Graham.
59 payments originated embassy?: The 9/11 Commission was to report that it found no evidence that Mihdhar and Hazmi received money from Basnan—or Bayoumi. The public furor around the Basnan money centered on reports that it came to the Basnans in cashier’s checks in the name of Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar’s wife, Princess Haifa. The royal couple were predictably outraged by the notion that there could have been a link between the princess and terrorists. Such payments would have been in line, a Saudi embassy spokesman said, with her normal contributions to the needy. 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman surmised that the princess simply signed checks put in front of her by radicals working in the embassy’s Islamic Affairs office. Newsweek has reported that Saudi wire transfers amounting to $20,000 were made to an individual who was featured in another terrorist case, also in connection with medical treatment for the individual’s wife. Newsweek made no mention of Princess Haifa in that regard (Commission: CR, 516n24; furor: e.g., Newsweek, 11/22/02, 12/9/02, Washington Times, 11/26/02; outraged: Fox News, 11/27/02, LAT, 11/24/02, CounterPunch, 12/3/02, Lehman: Shenon, 185; $20,000: Newsweek, 4/7/04, Daily Times [Pakistan], 8/8/08).
60 Thumairy “might be”: CR, 217;
61 Bayoumi attracted/“connections”/left country: FBI IG, Report, JI, 173;
62 Basnan came up: Report, JI, 176;
63 party: ibid., 177;
64 did more for Islam: MFR 04017541A, 11/17/03, CF;
65 “wonderful”: Newsweek, 11/22/02;
66 contact with Binalshibh: MFR 04017541A, 11/17/03, CF.
67 agent or spy: Graham with Nussbaum, 11, 24–, 168–, 224–. At least five people told the FBI they considered Bayoumi to be some sort of government agent. According to Dr. Abdussattar Shaikh, in whose San Diego home future hijackers Hazmi and Mihdhar eventually rented accommodations, one of those who expressed that view was none other than Hazmi himself. In an early interview with The New York Times after 9/11, Shaikh said Hazmi and Midhar had been his friends, that their identification as hijackers was perhaps a case of stolen identities. Congressional investigators would later be startled to discover something Sheikh had certainly not revealed to the Times—and that the FBI initially sought to conceal from the investigators. Shaikh had long been an FBI informant, and had regularly shared information with a Bureau agent named Steven Butler. Butler had on occasion talked with Shaikh at home while Hazmi and Mihdhar were in a room nearby. According to the agent, Shaikh had mentioned the pair by their first names, saying that they were Saudis. That rang no alarm bells for him, Butler recalled, because “Saudi Arabia was considered an ally.” The FBI, backed up by Bush officials, refused to allow Joint Committee staff to interview Shaikh. A 9/11 Commission memorandum, identifying Shaikh only as Dr. Xxxxxxxxxxx Xxxxxx, makes it clear that 9/11 Commission staff did talk to Shaikh. The memorandum does not say whether Shaikh shared with Agent Butler his belief that Bayoumi, the man who had introduced the hijackers to San Diego, was a Saudi agent. Nor is there evidence that Commission staff queried Shaikh about inconsistencies in his story of how he first met the two future hijackers. Shaikh’s simultaneous relationship with both the two terrorists and the FBI just might have led to their being unmasked—an even more glaring might-have-been when one recalls that the CIA had early on identified both men as terrorist suspects, and known they had visas for travel to the United States—yet failed to inform the FBI (see pp. 379–80). Much remains to be explained. The former chair of Congress’s joint probe, former senator Bob Graham, accepts that the FBI may at first have tried to conceal its relationship with Shaikh simply because it was a “big embarrassment.” Graham also raised the possibility, though, that what the FBI tried to hide was that Shaikh knew something that “would be even more damaging were it revealed.” What, too, of the report in the press that Agent Butler’s interview with congressional investigators had been “explosive,” that he “had been monitoring a flow of Saudi Arabian money that wound up in the hands of the two hijackers”? Butler, an official was quoted as having said, “saw a pattern, a trail, and he told his supervisors, but it ended there.” As of 2009, Shaikh was still living in San Diego.
Because of agencies’ iron rules about the protection of informants—whatever the full story of Shaikh’s relationship with the hijackers or with the FBI—there is little likelihood of learning more about him anytime soon. He is virtually invisible in the Commission Report, not even named in the index.
Much the same applies to the Report’s handling of Ali Mohamed, a truly significant figure in the sorry story of U.S. agencies’ understanding—or lack of it—of al Qaeda. “No single agent of al Qaeda,” the author Peter Lance has written, “was more successful in compromising the U.S. intelligence community than a former Egyptian army captain turned CIA operative, Special Forces advisor, and FBI informant” than former Egyptian army major Mohamed. “Mohamed succeeded in penetrating the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, while simultaneously training the cell that blew up the World Trade Center in 1993. He went on to train Osama bin Laden’s personal bodyguard, and photographed the U.S. embassy in Kenya—taking the surveillance pictures bin Laden himself used to target the [1998] suicide truck bomb.”
Though beyond the scope of this book, there is much more to this labyrinthine tale. While the August 6, 2001, CIA brief delivered to President Bush did not mention Mohamed by name, it was shot through with references to him. He was that summer due to be sentenced for his crimes, having pled guilty to multiple terrorist offenses, including his role in the embassy bombings. FBI agent Jack Cloonan, who interviewed Mohamed in prison after 9/11, had the eerie sense that he “knew every detail” of the attacks, in spite of having been in custody for years. As of 2006, though reportedly still a prisoner at an unknown location, Mohamed had yet to be sentenced. There is just one reference to him in the 9/11 Commission Report—and no mention of his relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies (Hazmi view: MFR [unnumbered], 4/23/04, CF;
Times
interview:
NYT
, 10/24/01; investigators startled: Graham with Nussbaum, 159–, ints. Bob Graham, Eleanor Hill; informant/Butler talked: FBI IG, Report, JI, 162, “Conspiracy Theories: The Intelligence Breakdown,”
www.cbc.ca
; “ally”: Report, JI, 162; FBI refused: Joint Inquiry, Report, 3, Graham with Nussbaum, 162; Bush officials: “Bush Should Cry Uncle and Release Saudi Info,” 6/28/03,
www.opednews.com
, Report, JI, 3; Commission memorandum: MFR [unnumbered], 4/23/04, CF; inconsistencies: CR, 517n28; might-have-been: Report, JI, 19–; “big embarrassment”/“did know”: Graham with Nussbaum, 166; “explosive”/“monitoring”:
U.S. News & World
Report, 11/29/02; Shaikh 2009: Miriam Raftery, “Abdussattar Shaikh, Co-Founder of San Diego’s Islamic Center, Honored for 50 Years of Service Promoting Religious Tolerance,” 10/8/09,
www.eastcountymagazine.org
; “No single”: “A Conversation with Peter Lance,” 12/06,
www.internetwritingjournal.com
& see Wright, 179–, Bergen,
OBL I Know
, 142–; Aug. 6 brief: J. M. Berger, “What the Commission Missed,” 10/4/06,
www.intelwire.com
; “knew every”: ibid.; pled guilty: J. M Berger, ed.,
Ali Mohamed Sourcebook
, INTELWIRE, 2006, 311; unknown location/yet to be sentenced: Bergen,
OBL I Know
, 433, Scott, 348n28, 157, 159; one reference: CR, 68 & see Staff Report, ”9/11 & Terrorist Travel, CO, 57).
68 “incontrovertible”: Report, JI, 395. The document, which Graham dated as August 2, 2002, is partially cited in Congress’s Joint Inquiry Report in a passage about a CIA memo that cited “incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists [words redacted].” The Report goes on to state that “it is also possible that further investigation of these allegations could reveal legitimate, and innocent, explanations for these associations.” Senator Graham cast doubt on an FBI finding that Bayoumi and Basnan were neither agents nor accomplices in the 9/11 plot. Former Saudi ambassador Bandar, for his part, described reports that Bayoumi was a Saudi agent as “baseless” (Graham with Nussbaum, 169, 224–, 11n, Bandar press release, “Bayoumi is not a government agent,” 7/23/03, www.saudiembassy.net).
69 Commission interviews: e.g., MFR 04019365, 2/24/04;
70 Thumairy “deceptive”/denied/prompted/second interview/“say bad”/“implausible”: Snell, De, & Jacobson to Zelikow, 2/25/04, MFR 04019362, 2/23/04, CF;
71 Bayoumi favorable/stuck to story: Shenon, 309–, MFR of int. Omar al-Bayoumi, 10/18/03, CF;
72 Zelikow think not agent: Zelikow to Shenon, 10/18/07, www.philipshenon.com;
73 distinguishing mark: CR, 516n19;
74 salary approved/picture found: Report, JI, 174 & see Staff Statement 16, DOCEX 199-HQ-1361032, “Hijacker Primary Docs, PENTTBOM Memo re CD found,” B50, T5, CF;
75 “cleansed”/“deceptive”: MFR 04019367, 2/24/04, Snell, De, & Jacobson to Zelikow, 2/25/04, CF;
76 “the witness’ utter”: MFR int. of Osama Basnan, 10/22/03, CF.
77 Hussayen/Mosques/in States: WSJ, 2/10/03. In October 2001 the FBI began an investigation of Hussayen’s nephew Sami. He eventually became the first person to be charged under the broadened “material support” for terrorism provisions of the then new USA Patriot Act. The government sought to prove that Hussayen used his expertise as an Internet “webmaster” to further the cause of terrorists and promote violent jihad. The hard drive of a computer he had used, according to an agent’s testimony, contained “thousands” of photographs, of the World Trade Center, of the Pentagon, and of planes hitting buildings. Sami Hussayen was eventually found not guilty and returned to Saudi Arabia (Second Superceding Indictment, U.S. v. Sami Omar al Hussayen, U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, AP, 3/12/03, Dept. of Justice press release, “Indictments Allege Illegal Financial Transfers to Iraq; Visa Fraud Involving Assistance to Groups that Advocate Violence,” 2/26/03, www.usdoj.gov, Seattle Times, 11/22/04).
78 Marriott Sept. 10/“muttering”/Paramedics/“faking”/kitchenette/“I don’t”: MFR 04017480, 10/9/03, MFR 04017486, 10/9/03, MFR 04017482, 10/9/03, MFR 04019354, CF, WSJ, 2/10/03, Telegraph (U.K.), 10/2/03, WP, 10/2/03, 3/12/03;
79 Aulaqi contact/move: See pp. 291–92;
80 son of minister: Dallas Morning News, 12/25/09;
81 preached Capitol: NYT, 5/8/10, Fox News, 11/11/10;
82 lunched Pentagon: NY Daily News, 10/21/10;
83 remained U.S.: WSJ, 2/10/03, ABC News, 11/30/09;
84 phone number/Binalshibh: Report, JI, 178;
85 Fort Hood/Detroit bomb/Times Square/cargo planes: Christian Science Monitor, 5/19/10, Fox News, 10/20/10, CNN, 1/7/10, Guardian (U.K.), 10/31/10, MSNBC, 11/1/10;
86 capture or kill: Christian Science Monitor, 5/19/10, NYT, 4/6/10;
87 “loose end”: McClatchy News, 11/21/09.
88 “that the Saudis”: int. Bob Graham.
89 “persuasive evidence”/“did not find”: Zelikow to Shenon, 10/18/07, www.philipshenon.com. The Commission, according to its Report, believed that al Qaeda likely did have “agents” in California, “one or more individuals informed in advance” of Mihdhar and Hazmi’s arrival. During their research, the authors also saw information suggesting that hijacker leader Mohamed Atta had contact in Florida with one or more wealthy Saudis. A senior law enforcement officer in Florida told the authors—on condition that he not be identified—that he was personally involved after 9/11 in investigating the activities of “a man married into one of the Saudi ruling families.” Until his sudden departure on August 30, 2001, the man had lived not far from Venice, where Atta, Shehhi, and Jarrah had trained to fly. The information gathered convinced the authors’ source that the three future hijackers visited the man’s house, where alcohol and women were made available. The authors have also seen a lengthy taped interview with a former Venice Yellow Cab driver named Bob Simpson. Simpson described having picked up a “wealthy Saudi businessman” at Orlando Executive Airport and later that day having taken him to an apartment building where he had previously picked up Mohamed Atta. After 9/11, Simpson said, the FBI questioned him about the Saudi. Simpson did work for Yellow Cab in 2001, but the authors’ efforts to trace him were unsuccessful (“agents”: CR, 215; Simpson: videotape & transcript in the collection of Daniel Hopsicker).
90 page 395: Report, JI, 395–;
91 CIA not obstruct: corr. office of Bob Graham, 2009;
92 Bush himself: ibid., Graham with Nussbaum, 228, 215–, 231, NYT, 6/24/09, Salon, 9/8/04;
93 Pelosi: CNN, 7/30/03;
94 “I went back”: Nation, 7/29/03.
95 should be made public: Prince Bandar, then ambassador to Washington, said in 2003 that there was nothing to hide, and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said it was an “outrage to any sense of fairness that 28 blank pages are now considered substantial evidence to proclaim the guilt of a country.” The Saudis, it was suggested, saw publication of the classified material as “a chance to clear their Kingdom’s name.” Senator Graham did not buy it. “It seemed to me,” he has written, “that George W. Bush and Prince Bandar were performing a sort of good cop–bad cop routine, in which Prince Bandar got to claim innocence of behalf of Saudi Arabia, while George W. Bush protected him by being the bad cop who wouldn’t release troubling information” (Bandar: “Saudi Ambassador Responds to Reports of Saudi Involvement in 9/11,” 7/24/03, www.saudiembassy.net; “outrage”: AP, 7/29/03; “a chance”: AP, 7/30/03; “It seemed”: Graham with Nussbaum, 228–).
96 “I can’t tell you”: int. Eleanor Hill;
97 leaks/details/“central figure”/“very direct”/“cannot be”/Graham/“apparent”: Newsweek, 2/3/03, LAT, 8/2/03, Shenon, 50–, 308–, AP, 7/27/03, NYT, 8/1/03;
98 Zubaydah waterboarded June/July: int. of CIA OIG John Helgerson, Der Spiegel, 8/31/09, “Yoo’s Legal Memos Gave Bush Retroactive Cover for Torture,” 2/23/09, http://pubrecord.org, BBC News, 7/13/09.
99 Kiriakou/Zubaydah: As reported, what Kuriakou learned about Zubaydah’s references to the princes came to him not firsthand but from those reading the cable traffic. For that reason and because of the passage of time, he told the authors, he is today unsure whether the Zubaydah/princes element first surfaced during interrogation or because he was questioned about something found in the journal Zubaydah had kept.
Refuting suggestions that Zubaydah may not have given good information, or that he may even have been mentally unstable, Kiriakou said he thought the contrary was true, that he did give reliable information and was “not crazy” but “bright, well-read, a good conversationalist.”
The Kiriakou interview for this book is first corroboration of the core elements of an account written by author Gerald Posner in 2003, with different detail and citing only anonymous sources. The Posner account, according to Kiriakou, got important detail and chronology skewed. The relevant interrogation of Zubaydah that produced the lead about the Saudi prince did not occur—as Posner wrote—within days of his capture but only months later, after he had been waterboarded. (This would fit with the account of FBI investigator Ali Soufan, who took part in interrogations of Zubaydah until June. During that early period, the link to the Saudi princes did not come up.)
As reported by Posner, Zubaydah was tricked into believing that he had been moved from U.S. to Saudi custody—in hopes that fear of the truly gruesome torture practiced in Saudi Arabia would lead him to start talking. Instead, by the Posner account, he seemed relieved and promptly urged his “Saudi” interrogators to telephone Prince Ahmed bin Salman—even providing the prince’s phone numbers from memory. Prince Ahmed, he said, “will tell you what to do.” Later, according to Posner’s account, he added the names and numbers of the two other princes. Bin Laden, Zubaydah reportedly said, had made a point of letting the Saudi royals know in advance, without sharing details, that there was going to be an attack on the United States on September 11.
Again according to Posner, the CIA decided to share what Zubaydah had said with Saudi intelligence, with a request that it probe further.
New York Times
journalist and author James Risen added a new detail in 2006. When Zubaydah was captured, sources told Risen, he had on his person two bank cards, one from a Saudi bank and another from an institution in Kuwait. American investigators worked through a Muslim financier to check on the accounts, only to be frustrated. There no longer was a way to trace the money that had gone into the accounts, the financier reported, because “Saudi intelligence officials had seized all the records relating to the card from the Saudi financial institution in question; the records then disappeared.”
Not only Posner and Risen but also a third writer, Tom Joscelyn, have probed the Zubaydah story. Joscelyn told the authors that one of his interviewees said he had seen the Zubaydah interrogation logs and that they corroborate the Zubaydah/princes scenario. Kiriakou’s interview with the authors now becomes the first on-the-record corroboration from a former CIA officer.
Absent the logs, proof positive that Zubaydah did make the claims attributed to him is unobtainable—for the worst of reasons. Though the 2002 interrogations of Zubaydah were videotaped, the Agency has admitted that it has since destroyed the tapes. While the destruction was deplorable, it may have been done to obscure evidence of brutal interrogation rather than of what Zubaydah said. The waterboarding of the prisoner occurred weeks before the CIA received formal authority to use that violent measure (Kiriakou:
int. John Kiriakou; Soufan: Testimony of Ali Soufan, 5/13/09, http://judiciary.senate.gov, corr. Daniel Freedman, the Soufan Group; 2011 Posner account: Posner,
Why America Slept
, 202–; gruesome torture: e.g., Hollingsworth & Mitchell, 11–, 21–, 56, 62; princes died: AP, 9/2/03, “Prince Ahmed Cited in New Book on Sept. 11 Attacks,” 9/4/03,
www.bloodhorse.com
; Risen: Risen, 173–, 187; Joscelyn: conv. Thomas Joscelyn; destroyed tapes:
WP
, 12/12/07,
NYT
, 3/3/09).
100 “wrongdoing”: LAT, 8/1/03;
101 credible: int. Bob Graham;
102 “assistance”: Financial Times (U.K.), 7/25/03;
103 40 clamored: CNN, 7/30/03;
104 “engaged”/“to protect”/“He has”: Graham with Nussbaum, xv, 231;
105 “being kept”/“It was”: ibid., 215–;
106 “If the 28”: New Republic, 8/3/04.
CHAPTER 34
1
Bush seeded/Cheney said:
In his address to the nation of October 7, 2002, for example, Bush said: “We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.… After September 11, Saddam Hussein’s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.” The President mentioned 9/11 eight times at his press conference just before the invasion of Iraq. “The White House played endless semantic games on the issue,”
The New York Times
’s Philip Shenon has written. “When pressed, Bush was careful not to allege that Iraq had any role in the 9/11 attacks, at least no direct role. But he insisted that if Saddam Hussein had remained in power, he … would have been tempted to hand over [weapons of mass destruction] to his supposed ally Osama bin Laden. Vice President Cheney went further … suggesting repeatedly, almost obsessively, that Iraq may in fact have been involved in the September 11 plot.” The Vice President liked to cite the Czech intelligence report suggesting that hijack leader Atta had met with an Iraqi agent in Prague. See note below—evidence was developed strongly suggesting that the report was unreliable (10/7/02 address: “Address to the Nation on Iraq,”
www.presidency.ucsb.edu
; mentioned 9/11:
Christian Science Monitor
, 3/14/03; “White House played”: Shenon, 126–, 381–, & see Report, “Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government Offcials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information,” U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, 110th Cong., http://intelligence.senate.gov).
2
polls:
The references are to a Pew Research poll of February 2003, a Knight-Ridder poll in January that year, and a
Washington Post
poll in September 2003. (
Editor & Publisher
, 3/26/03,
USA Today
, 9/6/03).
3
Atta/Prague/Iraqi intelligence:
An informant reported to Czech intelligence after 9/11 that photographs of Mohamed Atta resembled a man he had seen meeting with an Iraqi diplomat and suspected spy named Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani in Prague at 11
A.M
.
on April 9, 2001. Investigation indicated that neither Atta nor Ani had been in Prague at the time alleged. Atta was recorded on closed-circuit TV footage in Florida on April 4, and his cell phone was used in the state on the 6th, 9th, 10th, and 11th. Atta and Shehhi, moreover, apparently signed a lease on an apartment on the 11th. This information, while not certain proof, strongly suggests that Atta was in the United States on April 9. CIA analysts characterized the alleged Prague sighting as being “highly unlikely.” Nevertheless, the report crept into prewar intelligence briefings as having been a “known contact” between al Qaeda and Iraq.
In addition to the alleged Atta meeting, rumors have long circulated that two other hijackers, Mihdhar and Hazmi, had contact with an Iraqi agent. This was alleged to have been Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, who acted as a greeter for Arab visitors in Kuala Lumpur at the time of the terrorist summit there in 2000. Shakir was captured in 2002. The CIA later received information that “Shakir was not affiliated with al Qaeda and had no connections with IIS [Iraqi intelligence].”
(Atta/Prague: CR, 228–, Report, “U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq,” U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, 108th Cong., 2nd Sess., Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 2004, 340–, “Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,” Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of Defense, 2/9/07, 5–, but see Edward Jay Epstein, “Atta in Prague,”
NYT
, 11/22/05; Shakir: Report, “Postwar Findings About Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar Assessments,” U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 109th Cong., 2nd Sess., Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 9/8/06, 111.)
4
Mylroie propagated:
e.g.
National Interest
, Winter 95/96,
New Republic
, 9/24/01, CR, 336, 559n73, Laurie Mylroie,
The War Against America
, NY: Regan, 2001,
WSJ
, 4/2/04, “The Saddam-9/11 Link Confirmed,” 5/11/04,
www.frontpagemagazine.com
;
5
Investigation:
Michael Isikoff and David Corn,
Hubris
, NY: Three Rivers Press, 2007, 72–, and refs., Clarke, 94–, 232;
6
multiple/“My view”:
Washington Monthly
, 12/03.
7
“We went back”:
int. of Michael Scheuer for
Frontline:
“The Dark Side,”
www.pbs.org
. As described earlier in this book, bin Laden had an antipathy for Saddam Hussein and had sought Saudi government backing to use his fighters to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait (see p. 212). Though there are reports that bin Laden and Iraqi representatives did meet to discuss possible cooperation as early as 1992, there is no evidence that anything came of the encounters. Reporting in 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that prior to the invasion of Iraq, the CIA had “reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship … no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance in an al Qaeda attack” (e.g. Wright, 295–, Report, “U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq,” 346–).
8
CIA Report 2003/“no credible”/pressure/“questions”:
Report, “U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq,” 314, 322, 353, 363, 449–.
9
Duelfer/senior intelligence officials:
The detainee to whom Duelfer referred was Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi, who had headed the M-14 section of the Mukhabarat, the principal Iraqi intelligence agency. Duelfer noted the episode in a 2009 book and in an interview. The story was reported by Robert Windrem, senior research fellow at New York University’s Center on Law and Security and a longtime producer for NBC (Charles Duelfer,
Hide and Seek
, NY: PublicAffairs, 2009, 416, Robert Windrem, “Cheney’s Role Deepens,” 5/13/09,
www.dailybeast.com
).
10 “There were two”/“We were not”: McClatchy News, 4/21/09, Report, “Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody, U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services,” 110th Cong., 2nd Sess. 11/20/08, 72.
11 Suskind/forgery/brief storm/denials: Following Ronald Suskind’s account of the forgery’s origins in his 2008 book, The Way of the World, House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers wrote letters saying he intended to follow up. As this book went to print, however, there was no sign that he did. The Suskind book suggests that the forgery was handwritten by former Iraqi intelligence chief Tahir Habbush, who began cooperating with the CIA even before the Iraq invasion and was eventually paid off and “resettled.” The purported memo was slipped to a British reporter, billed as authentic, by an aide in the Interim Governing Council in Iraq, and published in late 2003 in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph (Ronald Suskind, The Way of the World, NY: Harper, 2008, 361–, CIA statement, 8/22/08, www.cia.gov, “Statement from Rob Richer,” http://suskinsresponse.googlepages.com, “A Note to Readers,” www.ronsuskind.com, Letters from Rep. Conyers to Rob Richer, John Maguire, A. B. “Buzzy” Krongard, & John Hannah, 8/20/08, www.judiciary.house.gov).
12 Giraldi: Philip Giraldi, “Suskind Revisited,” 8/7/08, www.amconmag.com;
13 “manufactured”: int. Paul Pillar for Frontline: “The Dark Side,” www.pbs.org;
14 “Unfortunately”/It’s my belief: press release, 6/5/08, http://intelligence.senate.gov, Report, cited above.
15 reputable estimates re deaths: www.iraqbodycount.org, http://icasualties.org. In addition to the American military casualties, more than three hundred non-U.S. troops had died as of early 2011 (Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, www.icasualties.org).
CHAPTER 35
1
“led and financed”:
Richard Falkenrath, “The 9/11 Commission Report,”
International Security
, Vol. 29, Winter 04;
2
only three nations:
CR, 122;
3
“Pakistani military”/“held the key”:
CR, 63–.
4
financial transactions:
Known 9/11-related money transfers were handled out of Dubai in the UAE. In anticipation of pursuit in the wake of the attacks, the al Qaeda agents involved headed for Pakistan.
5
Rawalpindi, headquarters:
Fouda & Fielding, 181;
6
Defense Society:
ibid., 15;
7
Zubaydah caught:
ibid., 20, int. John Kiriakou;
8
“Pakistani people”:
Scheuer,
Osama bin Laden
, 121;
9
“We found”:
ed. Lawrence, 71;
10 “As for Pakistan”: Rashid, 138;
11 called on the faithful: Scheuer, Osama bin Laden, 121.
12 “the most complicated”: Sunday Times (U.K.), 8/1/10;
13 Kashmir: CR, 58, 63–, Coll, Ghost Wars, 292. China also controls part of Kashmir. The region is a tinderbox.
14 Hamid Gul: Rashid, 129;
15 trained in camps: CR, 67, Clinton, 799, Rashid, 137, Coll, Ghost Wars, 341;
16 “Whatever”: Scheuer, Osama bin Laden, 121;
17 security system: Coll, Ghost Wars, 341;
18 “shoehorned”: Time, 8/19/08;
19 “always” support: Foreign Policy Journal, 9/20/10;
20 “actually were”: MFR 03012967, 10/8/03;
21 additional cash: Coll, Ghost Wars, 296;
22 “the most influential”: Sunday Times (U.K.), 8/1/10, Salon, 10/18/03, Napoleoni, 82;
23 “shadow government”: Coll, Ghost Wars, 296, NYT, 5/12/11;
24 “helplessness”/tensions: MFR 04021470, 12/12/03;
25 commando operation: WP, 12/19/01;
26 Clinton visit/“the moon”: WP, 12/20/01, CR, 183, 503n64;
27 “people who”/“not persuasive”: WP, 12/19/01;
28 Sheehan: Benjamin & Simon, 515;
29 “influential”: Clarke to Rice, 1/25/01;
30 “loss of urgency”: Tenet, 139;
31 “Full Monty”: NYT, 5/12/11.
32 foreknowledge: The authors have seen no evidence of Pakistani involvement in 9/11. Soon after publication of the 9/11 Commission Report, however, the distinguished reporter Arnaud de Borchgrave reported that—according to an “unimpeachable source”—former Pakistani intelligence officers knew beforehand all about the September 11 attacks.” This information, de Borchgrave wrote, had reached the Commission only as its report was being printed. UPI, 8/3/04.
33 “Stone Age”: Musharraf, 201.
34 demands: There are differences between the language of Washington’s demands as rendered in Musharraf’s memoir—seemingly verbatim—and the version reproduced in the 9/11 Commission Report. Musharraf found a demand to help “destroy” bin Laden illogical, he remembered. How could the United States be so sure that bin Laden and al Qaeda were behind 9/11, he wondered, if it was still searching for evidence? Musharraf, 205, CR 331, 558n37.
35 reservations/cooperated: CR, 331, Musharraf, 206;
36 “We have done”: Musharraf, 223;
37 3,021: Sunday Times (U.K.), 8/1/10;
38 some 700/369 handed over/bounty: Musharraf, 237, 369;
39 Grenier: NYT, 5/12/11;
40 best-known: Musharraf, 237–, 220, 240–.
41 “destroy”/“We have done”: Musharraf, 205, 220.
42 “still visiting”: MFR 03012967, 10/8/03;
43 McFarland: Fox News, 1/7/11;
44 “I’m convinced”: “Whatever Happened to bin Laden?,” http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com;
45 “You in the West”/poll: Sunday Times (U.K.), 8/1/10;
46 S Section: NYT, 5/12/11;
47 “They were very”: Sunday Times (U.K.), 3/8/08;
48 Better to do/officials: Sunday Times (U.K.), 8/1/10, Fox News, 1/7/11;
49 “We will kill”: transcript, 2nd presidential debate, 10/7/08;
50 no statements: NYT, 10/2/10;
51 “I think”: transcript, Meet the Press, NBC News, 8/15/10;
52 audio messages/still shaped: NYT, 10/2/10;
53 “senior NATO”: CNN, 10/18/10;
54 “sightings”/“years”: New York Daily News, 10/18/10.
55 intelligence: In late November 2010, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki said in an interview that he thought bin Laden was moving to and fro across the Pakistani/Afghan border, communicating by messenger, and still giving orders. “I think they should find him,” Turki said, “I think the United States should call the countries that are of interest, like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, China, and set a plan in motion to capture or—or eliminate him.” Transcript, int. of Turki, Situation Room, CNN, 11/17/10.
56 “launched”: Courrier International (France), 5/5/11;
57 bulletin/Post: breaking news alerts, WP, 5/1/11;
58 Tonight/Jubilant: text of Obama address, Telegraph (U.K.), 5/2/11, WP, 5/2/11;
59 shield/unfounded/“Resistance”/nightclothes: e.g., Telegraph (U.K.), 5/3/11, 5/4/11, 5/5/11, Reuters, 5/4/11;
60 “full authority”: Irish Times, 5/4/11;
61 “before the Pakistanis”: Independent (U.K.), 5/8/11;
62 “captured alive”: Al-Arabiya, 5/4/11, Guardian (U.K.), 5/5/11;
63 Abbottabad: Musharraf, 39–, Independent (U.K.), 5/4/11, Weekly Standard, 5/2/11, AP, 5/2/11;
64 “involved”/“inconceivable”/“whether there”: Financial Times, 5/4/11, Spectator, 5/7/11, LAT, 5/8/11;
65 “was not anywhere”: Independent (U.K.), 5/4/11;
66 “a bit amazing”: AP, 5/2/11;
67 couriers: WSJ, 5/4/11, Telegraph (U.K.), 5/4/11, 5/5/11, Independent (U.K.), 5/4/11;
68 Musharraf on al-Libi: Musharraf, 258–, 221;
69 “It was decided”: Irish Times, 5/5/11;
70 “a few minutes”: AP, 5/2/11;
71 under surveillance?: Telegraph (U.K.), 5/4/11.
72 Bush/Musharraf deal reported, et seq.: Guardian (U.K.), 5/9/11. As this book went to press, the authors were unaware of any response by either the U.S. administration or Prime Minister Gilani to the report that there had been a deal in place. The All Pakistan Muslim League, however, posted a legal notice denying the reported deal by Musharraf (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150198113099339).
73 Musharraf denial: Indian Express, 5/10/11;
74 disposed of at sea: WP, 5/2/11;
75 “trophies”/Congress/DNA: Telegraph (U.K.), 5/5/11, Irish Times, 5/13/11, Sunday Times (U.K.), 5/8/11;
76 al Qaeda acknowledged: Telegraph (U.K.), 5/7/11, Irish Times, 5/7/11.
AFTERWORD
1
“We are sure”:
Miller & Stone with Mitchell, 187;
2
“the noblest”:
AP, 9/23/09;
3
“Palestine”:
ed. Lawrence, 9;
4
“Crusaders’ ”:
ibid., 17;
5
“theft”/“paltry”:
ibid., 163;
6
“have surrendered”:
ibid., 163, 171, and Scheuer,
Osama bin Laden
, 155;
7
$144:
AP, 9/28/01,
NYT
, 10/14/01;
8
$100:
ed. Lawrence, 272;
9
$146:
BBC News, 7/3/08;
10 $124: AFP, 4/8/11;
11 permitted: Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 291, Guardian (U.K.), 4/30/03;
12 a constant: see ed. Lawrence, 4, & refs., Scheuer, Osama bin Laden, 99, 153, & refs.;
13 motivation: see pp. 233, 276–77, and 279–80. “We wanted”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 225;
14 bled: ibid., 316, bin Ladens & Sasson, 177, CR, 191: “I am rejoicing”: ed. Lawrence, 208;
15 second only: NYT, 7/24/10, CNN, 7/20/10;
16 Pew: “Muslim Publics Divided on Hamas and Hezbollah,” 12/2/10, http://pewglobal.org;
17 “Brand”: “Bin Laden Is a Dying Brand,” 1/7/10, www.businessinsider.com;
18 Leiter: Fox News, 2/9/11, citing testimony to House Homeland Security Committee;
19 Aulaqi target: Sunday Times (London), 5/8/11;
20 pastor/Qur’an: NYT, 4/1, 4/2/11, New York Daily News, 4/2/11, Irish Times, 4/2, 4/4, 4/6/11;
21 mosque: Washington Times, 8/18/10, WSJ, 8/15/10, NYT, 7/13/10, 8/21/10, 4/1/11, press release, 5/24/10, www.911familiesforamerica.org, “Proposed Muslim Community Center Near Ground Zero,” 5/21/10, www.huffingtonpost.com;
22 Museum/remains/disagreements: press release, 12/11/09, National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum, AP, 8/10/10, NYT, 4/1/11, 5/12/11, AP, 4/3/11;
23 Phoenix: Arizona Daily Star, 4/2/11, Yuma Sun, 3/29/11; Aeneid: NYT, 4/1, 4/6, 4/8/11.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
This list includes some two hundred books that are cited in the Notes and Sources. It does not include the many other books used for general reference and background only. Nor does it include newspaper and magazine articles or official documents, which are cited in full in the Notes and Sources.
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ALSO BY ANTHONY SUMMERS AND ROBBYN SWAN
Sinatra: The Life
The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon
ALSO BY ANTHONY SUMMERS
Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover
Honeytrap (with Stephen Dorril)
Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe
Conspiracy
The File on the Tsar (with Tom Mangold)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
A
NTHONY
S
UMMERS
is the author of seven bestselling nonfiction books. After leaving Oxford University, he worked in television, becoming a senior journalist for the BBC’s flagship current-affairs program. He covered the United States, the Middle East, and the Vietnam War. His previous books have included biographies of President Richard Nixon and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
R
OBBYN
S
WAN
,
Summers’s coauthor and wife, graduated from Smith College. They have been partners on three books, have contributed to
Vanity Fair
, and have been consultants on documentaries for PBS, the History Channel, CNN, and the BBC.
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