A Review of the FBI's Handling of Intelligence Information Prior to the September 11 Attacks
Special Report
November 2004 (Released Publicly June 2005)
Office of the Inspector General
REDACTED AND UNCLASSIFIED
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In this chapter, we examine the FBI’s handling of intelligence information concerning two of the September 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. Mihdhar, Hazmi, and three other terrorists hijacked and crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. The FBI has asserted that it learned in late August 2001 that Mihdhar and Hazmi were al Qaeda operatives and that they had traveled to the United States in January 2000. In August 2001, the FBI also discovered that Mihdhar had entered the United States on July 4, 2001, purportedly for a month-long stay. In late August, the FBI initiated an investigation to determine whether Mihdhar was still in the country and to find him. The FBI was still searching for him at the time of the September 11 attacks. We examined the information that the Intelligence Community and the FBI had about Mihdhar and Hazmi prior to September 11. We found no evidence indicating the FBI or any other member of the Intelligence Community had specific intelligence regarding the September 11 plot. However, beginning in late 1999 and continuing through September 11, 2001, we found five junctures at which the FBI either learned of intelligence information about Mihdhar and Hazmi, could have learned of additional intelligence information about them, or could have developed additional information about their location and terrorist connections. These five junctures were:
Yet, despite these ongoing discussions and opportunities for the FBI to learn about and focus on Mihdhar and Hazmi, including their presence in the United States, the FBI was not made aware of and did not connect important details about them until late August 2001, a short time before they participated in the terrorist attacks. Even in August, the FBI’s search for Mihdhar and Hazmi was not given any urgency or priority, and was not close to locating them by the time of the attacks. In this chapter, we describe each of these five opportunities in detail. We set forth the available intelligence information regarding Hazmi and Mihdhar that existed at the time, whether the information was made available to the FBI, and what additional information about Hazmi and Mihdhar the FBI could have developed. In the analysis section of this chapter, we evaluate the problems that impeded the FBI’s handling of the intelligence information about Hazmi and Mihdhar before September 11.
To investigate the issues involving Hazmi and Mihdhar, the OIG asked for and reviewed all documents the FBI had regarding them before September 11. The FBI search for these documents included searches of its Automated Case Support system (ACS), Integrated Intelligence Information Application (IIIA) system,94 and CTLink.95 In addition, searches were conducted on archived FBI e-mail messages and the FBI Director’s briefing documents. These searches were initially conducted in response to a request by the Congressional Joint Intelligence Committee’s Inquiry Staff, which was conducting its own inquiry into this subject. The OIG also obtained direct access to ACS so that we could conduct our own searches for relevant documents. In addition, we reviewed hard copy case and informant files to search for documents relevant to Mihdhar and Hazmi. In addition to reviewing these documents, we conducted more than 70 interviews related to the Mihdhar and Hazmi matter. These included interviews of FBI IOSs, special agents, attorneys, and supervisors who had access to some of the relevant information or participated in meetings or operations related to these hijackers. We also interviewed FBI employees detailed to the CIA and FBI agents who participated in debriefings of intelligence sources who had relevant information. Because much of the information discussed in this chapter of the report involves the FBI’s interactions with the CIA, we also obtained information directly from the CIA. The DOJ OIG does not have oversight authority over CIA operations or personnel, and we therefore did not make assessments of the performance of CIA personnel. That issue is the responsibility of the CIA OIG, which is conducting its own inquiry in response to the JICI report. We had to rely on the cooperation of the CIA in providing access to CIA witnesses and documents that were relevant to the OIG’s oversight of the FBI. We interviewed CIA staff operations officers, analysts, and supervisors, as well as CIA employees detailed to the FBI, including a CIA employee detailed to the FBI’s New York Field Office’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Initially, the CIA made available to the OIG for review various documents that the CIA’s “Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Review Group”96 had identified as being related to our inquiry. The Review Group had gathered these and other documents during its review of the September 11 attacks and during additional searches conducted at the request of the JICI staff. We did not have independent access to CIA databases, and therefore we could not independently verify that all relevant documents had been provided to us. However, we had several lengthy sessions with members of the Review Group at which they identified the documents they used to support their conclusions regarding Hazmi and Mihdhar. The CIA permitted us to review but not have a copy of these documents. In addition, a member of the CIA General Counsel’s staff conducted additional searches for documents relevant to particular disputed issues. As a result of that review, copies of additional relevant documents were also made available for our review. In response to the JICI report issued in December 2002, the CIA OIG initiated a review in February 2003 of the CIA actions related to the September 11 attacks. In July 2003 the CIA OIG review team informed us it had several more documents that were relevant to our review. These documents were made available to us to review, and redacted copies of the documents were provided to us in November 2003. The CIA OIG review team also provided additional relevant documents and information to us that it found during the course of its review. In February 2004, however, while we were reviewing a list of CIA documents that had been accessed by FBI employees assigned to the CIA, we noticed the title of a document that appeared to be relevant to this review and had not been previously disclosed to us. The CIA OIG had not previously obtained this document in connection with its review. We obtained this document, known as a Central Intelligence Report (CIR). This CIR was a draft document addressed to the FBI containing information about Mihdhar’s travel and possession of a U.S. visa. As a result of the discovery of this new document, a critical document that we later determined had not been sent to the FBI before the September 11 attacks (see Section III, A, 4 below), we had to re-interview several FBI and CIA employees and obtain additional documents from the CIA. The belated discovery of this CIA document delayed the completion of our review. In this section of the chapter, we describe background information relevant to the interactions between the CIA and the FBI and the ways in which they exchanged intelligence. We begin with a discussion of the CIA’s authority and mission, organization, forms of communications, and ways in which the CIA passed intelligence to the FBI. We also discuss the role of the FBI’s employees who were “detailed” to work at the CIA. As discussed in Chapter Two, the National Security Act of 1947 created the CIA and established it as the nation’s lead foreign intelligence agency of the United States. The CIA engages primarily in the clandestine collection of “foreign intelligence” information – information relating to the capabilities, intentions, and activities of foreign governments or organizations, including information about their international terrorist activities. The CIA is charged with evaluating and disseminating the intelligence information it collects. The CIA reports directly to the President through the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), who is the head of both the CIA and the Intelligence Community. The DCI is the primary advisor to the President and the National Security Council on national foreign intelligence matters. George Tenet was named to that position in 1997. The work of the CIA is conducted primarily through three “directorates”: the Directorate of Operations, the Directorate of Intelligence, and the Directorate of Science and Technology. Each is led by a Deputy Director. Below we briefly describe the relevant structure and positions within each directorate. The Directorate of Operations is responsible for the clandestine collection of foreign intelligence. This takes place in field offices known as “stations.”97 Smaller cities may have “bases,” which are sub-offices of the stations. “Operations officers,” also known as “case officers,” are responsible for collecting intelligence through contacts with human sources and through the use of technology. Collection management officers, also known as “reports officers,” are responsible for taking raw intelligence reported by the operations officers and removing from it the information that reveals the source, method of collection, or other sensitive information. The reports officers publish intelligence information in a form that can be made available to the Intelligence Community. The head of a station or base is usually an operations officer and is known as a Chief of Station (COS) or Chief of Base (COB). Stations and bases are usually grouped by geographic division and report to the chief of the geographic division at CIA Headquarters. Within the geographic division at CIA Headquarters are “staff operations officers,” or “desk officers,” who provide operational research, advice, and other forms of case management support to the officers in the field. The CIA’s Counterterrorist Center (CTC), which is based in the Directorate of Operations but which draws on all CIA resources, is charged with preempting and disrupting international terrorism. The CTC is staffed by managers, analysts, operations officers, desk officers, and reports officers. The CTC collects and analyzes strategic intelligence on terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism to ascertain the capabilities, sources of support, and likely targets of terrorist elements, and to furnish detailed information on terrorist-related intelligence to the Intelligence Community. At the time of the events relevant to our review, the CTC operated a unit – that we call the “Bin Laden Unit” – that dealt exclusively with issues related to al Qaeda and Usama Bin Laden. The Bin Laden Unit was later merged into a larger group in the CTC. Although staffing levels fluctuated, approximately 40-50 people worked within the Bin Laden Unit before September 11, 2001. The Bin Laden Unit was known as a “virtual station” because it operated from within CIA Headquarters but collected and operated against a subject, much as stations in the field focus on a country. The Directorate of Intelligence, the analytical branch of the CIA, is responsible for the production and dissemination of timely, accurate, and objective intelligence analysis on foreign policy issues. It focuses analysis on key foreign countries, regional conflicts, and issues such as terrorism and narcotics trafficking. The Directorate of Intelligence is primarily composed of analysts who concentrate on particular areas of expertise. For example, intelligence analysts are assigned a particular geographic region to monitor the leadership, motivations, plans, and intentions of foreign governments in relation to U.S. national security interests. Additionally, counterterrorism analysts stationed in the CTC produce a range of long-term intelligence products about terrorist organizations and provide tactical analytic support to intelligence operations. The Directorate of Science and Technology is responsible for creating and applying technology in support of the intelligence collection mission. It employs a broad range of professionals, including computer programmers, engineers, scientists, and linguists. Official internal communications between entities within the CIA are normally conducted by an electronic communication known as a “cable.” Cables are addressed to the stations, offices, or units within an office from which some action is expected. Information acceptable for sharing with a foreign government service is put into a section of a cable called a “tear line.” The CIA shares intelligence with the rest of the Intelligence Community through a communication known as a “TD” (“Telegraphic Dissemination”). TDs can be sent to other Intelligence Community agencies, including the FBI, and are available to the Intelligence Community through the Intelink system. Another type of intelligence report used by the CIA when conducting business with other agencies is a CIR, or “Central Intelligence Report.” CIRs are used for disseminating information to a specific agency or group of agencies. CIRs to the FBI normally concern something occurring in the United States, involving a U.S. person or an ongoing FBI investigation. In addition to formal methods of communicating by the CIA to the FBI, much information can be shared with the FBI informally. CIA and FBI employees who have similar positions and expertise develop relationships and communicate informally while working together on related matters, either by secure telephones or in person. In addition, meetings are sometimes held to discuss a matter or a piece of intelligence that is of value to both agencies. According to the CIA employees we interviewed, when the CIA passed intelligence information or other kinds of information verbally or by another informal mechanism to the FBI, the information exchange normally would be documented through a TD or a CIR. However, they said that not every telephone call or conversation was documented. In 1996, the FBI began detailing employees to work in the CIA’s CTC. During the time period relevant to this chapter of the report, five FBI employees were detailed to the CTC’s Usama Bin Laden Unit in four separate positions. Two of the positions were filled by personnel from the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and one position each was filled from the FBI’s New York Field Office and FBI Headquarters.98 One of the FBI detailees assigned to Bin Laden Unit, who we call “Eric,” held a supervisory position as a deputy chief of the Bin Laden Unit.99 Eric, an FBI Headquarters supervisor in the Radical Fundamentalist Unit, was detailed to the CTC as a branch chief for a particular terrorist group in September 1997. In March 1999, FBI Headquarters transferred him from that part of the CTC to the deputy chief position in the Bin Laden Unit. According to Eric, he was told by FBI Assistant Director Neil Gallagher that there were a lot of problems between the FBI’s New York Field Office and the Bin Laden Unit and that he needed to mend the relationship.100 Eric stated that although he acted as a liaison between the CIA and the FBI, his primary job was to perform substantive work related to the Bin Laden Unit’s mission. Eric left the Bin Laden Unit in January 2000 and was replaced in July 2000 by an FBI employee who we call “Craig.”101 By this time, the Bin Laden Unit had been placed into a newly formed group, which was a much larger organization than the Bin Laden Unit. Craig was designated as a deputy chief in the new, larger group. He described his primary job as being a “referent” for law enforcement issues. He explained this role as involving coordination between the FBI and CIA when they wanted to conduct joint interviews or when the CIA requested assistance with a law enforcement matter. Eric and Craig had access via computers on their desks to the CIA’s internal cables. Eric said that while he was at the CIA, he attempted to read all incoming Bin Laden Unit cables. However, he said that the amount of cable traffic was overwhelming and was too much for one individual to read consistently. In contrast, Craig told the OIG that he did not believe his job was to read all the cable traffic and that he did not even attempt to do so. Another FBI employee detailed to the Bin Laden Unit, an Intelligence Operations Specialist (IOS) who we call “Mary,” was assigned to CIA Headquarters from the FBI’s Washington Field Office in April 1998. Although she was assigned to work on issues of mutual interest to the FBI and the CIA, such as the East African embassy bombings,102 she also was assigned to work on unilateral CTC matters. She said that as a desk officer, she read and responded to cable traffic that was pertinent to the matters she was assigned. She nominally reported to a supervisor in the FBI’s Washington Field Office, but her work was assigned by her CTC supervisors at the Bin Laden Unit.103 The Washington Field Office also detailed to the CTC a special agent, who we call “Dwight.” His performance evaluations were done by the Washington Field Office, but his assignments came from CTC managers. He focused on the financial aspects of terrorism and obtained information through the CTC to help identify and investigate persons who were responsible for funding terrorism. He had access to CIA cables and reviewed them for potential leads or other information related to terrorist financing. An FBI New York Field Office agent from its Bin Laden squad, who we call “Malcolm,” was also detailed to the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit in early 1999 at the request of John O’Neill, the New York Field Office Special Agent in Charge for Counterterrorism at the time. Malcolm replaced another New York Field Office Bin Laden squad agent who had left the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit in August 1998. Malcolm told the OIG that he was not given instructions as to his specific duties at the CIA. He said he understood his job there was to be the “eyes and ears” of the New York Field Office and “to monitor” New York Field Office cases. He said his role was to “facilitate inquiries of mutual interest” and to act as a liaison for FBI offices around the country by following up on tracing requests and reporting on their status. He stated that he also spent a significant amount of time coordinating with the CTC in preparation for and during the trials that arose out of the FBI’s investigations into the East African Embassy bombings. He told the OIG that he did not review all cables; he reviewed only the cables that he thought were interesting, generally based solely on his review of the cable subject line. He said he reported to an SSA in the New York Field Office, not to anyone at the CIA. III. Factual chronology regarding Hazmi and Mihdhar In this section of the report, we discuss in detail the five junctures before September 11, 2001, during which the FBI had an opportunity to obtain or develop information about Mihdhar and Hazmi but did not. We describe in chronological order the sequence of events regarding these five opportunities, including the information that the FBI obtained or could have obtained about Hazmi and Mihdhar. Many of the witnesses told the OIG they did not have specific recollection of the events and conversations related to the Hazmi and Mihdhar matter. In addition, we found few notes and documents relating to these events and conversations. The following is our best reconstruction of the events based on the participants’ recollections and the existing documentary evidence. We show a timeline of the Hazmi and Mihdhar events described in this chapter on the next two pages of the report.
This section describes the initial development and dissemination of intelligence information concerning Hazmi and Mihdhar. [INFORMATION REDACTED] The intelligence led to a surveillance operation in Malaysia in which it was discovered that Mihdhar had a valid multiple-entry U.S. visa and photographs of Mihdhar meeting with other al Qaeda operatives were taken. There were several ways the FBI could have acquired this information from the CIA – through a CIR from the CIA to the FBI, informally through conversations between a CIA employee and FBI Headquarters employees, and through the FBI employees detailed to the CIA reviewing the CIA cable traffic. We reviewed whether this information was in fact passed to the FBI by the CIA, and based on the evidence, concluded that while the CIA passed some of the information about Mihdhar to the FBI, it did not contemporaneously pass the information about Mihdhar’s U.S. visa to the FBI. We concluded it was not disclosed by the CIA until late August 2001, shortly before the September 11 terrorist attacks. We also reviewed whether FBI detailees to the CIA contemporaneously acquired this information and what action, if any, they took with respect to this information.
In addition, the CIA learned in March 2000 that Hazmi had boarded a United Airlines flight in Bangkok, Thailand, bound for Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 2000.104 We also reviewed whether the FBI was informed of this information, and concluded that it did not learn about this information until August 2001. In late 1999, the Intelligence Community developed significant intelligence information regarding Hazmi and Mihdhar. At this time, the Intelligence Community was on high alert because of concerns involving possible terrorist activity planned in conjunction with the coming of the new Millennium. In addition to concerns about attacks at New Year’s Eve celebrations, the Intelligence Community was concerned that a terrorist attack was planned for January 3, 2000, which in the Islamic calendar is considered a “night of destiny.”105 There were additional concerns about potential terrorist attacks coinciding with the end of Ramadan, around January 6, 2000.106 Several of these planned attacks were uncovered in December 1999. For example, on December 1, 1999, in Jordan, a plot to disrupt New Year activities with explosives designed to kill thousands of revelers, including U.S. citizens, was uncovered and thwarted with the arrest of 16 people. On December 14, 1999, Ahmad Ressam was stopped at the United States/Canadian border in Washington state as he attempted to enter the United States in a vehicle loaded with explosives. It was determined later that he had intended to detonate the explosives at the Los Angeles airport. To be prepared for possible terrorist activity at the end of 1999, the FBI activated its Strategic Information Operations Center (SIOC). The SIOC is located in a secure area within FBI Headquarters and contains several meeting rooms, conferencing equipment, communications equipment, computers, and other operational equipment. It allows the FBI to manage major investigations or other significant operations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. During the Millennium period, the FBI operated its International Terrorism Operations Section from within the SIOC. In addition, the FBI detailed field supervisors with counterterrorism experience and other counterterrorism personnel to the SIOC for around-the-clock monitoring and response to possible terrorist activities. At the CIA, additional personnel were called in to work at the CTC and planned leave was canceled. In addition, personnel from the CIA and other Intelligence Community agencies were detailed to work in the FBI’s SIOC. During this period, personnel in the FBI’s SIOC prepared two daily briefings for the FBI Director and his executive staff, one at 7:30 a.m. and the other at 4:30 p.m. The daily briefings contained summaries of significant terrorism investigations and the latest intelligence related to counterterrorism. Accompanying the briefings were daily threat updates prepared each afternoon for the Director and his executive staff. The briefings and the threat updates were prepared by various people throughout the course of the day and night in the SIOC. [INFORMATION REDACTED] The communications indicated that several members of an “operational cadre” were planning to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in early January 2000. Analysis of the communications revealed that persons named Nawaf, Khalid and Salem were involved. In early 2000, the NSA analyzed what appeared to be related communications concerning a “Khalid.”107 The NSA’s reporting about these communications was sent, among other places, to FBI Headquarters, the FBI’s Washington and New York Field Offices, and the CIA’s CTC. At the FBI, this information appeared in the daily threat update to the Director on January 4, 2000. A CIA desk officer working in the Bin Laden Unit who we call “Michelle” determined that there were links between these people and Al Qaeda as well as the 1998 East African embassy bombings. In addition, the CIA identified “Khalid” as Khalid al-Mihdhar. Mihdhar arrived [INFORMATION REDACTED], on January 5, 2000. Mihdhar was traveling on a Saudi passport. This passport contained a valid U.S. visa. Mihdhar’s passport was photocopied and sent to CIA Headquarters. Several CIA cables contemporaneously discussed Mihdhar’s travel and the discovery of his U.S. visa in his Saudi passport. CIA records show that a CIA employee, who we call “James”108 and who was detailed to FBI Headquarters during the Millennium period, accessed one of these cables approximately two hours after it was disseminated in the morning, and he accessed another of the cables about eight hours after it was disseminated on the next morning. James discussed some information about Mihdhar with two FBI Headquarters employees on the evening of January 5, which we detail in Section 7 below. Dwight, the special agent detailed to the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit from the FBI’s Washington Field Office, also read the cables discussing Mihdhar’s U.S. visa within hours of each cable being disseminated. CIA records also show that Dwight’s immediate supervisor in the Bin Laden Unit opened one of the cables soon after Dwight. Dwight opened one of the cables, which reported that Mihdhar’s visa application had been verified and that he had listed New York as his intended destination. Around 9:30 a.m. on the same morning, Dwight began drafting in the CIA’s computer system a CIR addressed to the UBL Unit Chief at FBI Headquarters and an SSA in the UBL Unit at FBI Headquarters who we call “Bob.” Dwight’s CIR also was addressed to the FBI’s New York Field Office. The CIR first described the NSA information that had been received about Mihdhar, including the planned travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in early January. The CIR also discussed the potential links between the suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East and the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. The CIR stated that photographs of Mihdhar had been obtained and would be sent to the FBI under separate cover. The CIR detailed Mihdhar’s passport and visa information, including that Mihdhar had listed on his visa application his intended destination as New York and that he planned to stay three months. Dwight also wrote that the CTC was requesting “feedback” on “any intelligence uncovered in FBI’s investigation” resulting from the information in the CIR. Michelle, the Bin Laden Unit desk officer who originally had taken notice of the information about Mihdhar and his connections to Al Qaeda, accessed Dwight’s draft CIR less than an hour after Dwight drafted it at approximately 9:30 a.m. Around 4:00 p.m. on the same day, Michelle added a note to the CIR in the CIA’s computer system: “pls hold off on CIR for now per [the CIA Deputy Chief of Bin Laden Unit].” CIA records show that the same morning, the CIA Deputy Chief of Bin Laden Unit, who we will call “John,” also had read the cable indicating that Mihdhar’s visa was valid and that New York had been listed as his intended destination. Around 6:30 p.m. on the same day, John again accessed this cable and then another cable, the same two CIA cables about Hazmi and Mihdhar in the CIA’s computer system that Dwight had used in drafting the CIR. CIA records do not indicate that John accessed Dwight’s draft CIR.109 CIA records show that the CIA employee detailed to FBI Headquarters who we call James and who discussed the Mihdhar information with two FBI Headquarters employees, also accessed the draft CIR on the day it was drafted. In addition, two other FBI detailees accessed the draft CIR: Eric, the other Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Unit, accessed it two hours after Dwight began writing it, and Malcolm, the New York Field Office’s detailee to the Bin Laden Unit, accessed it two days later. CIA records show that as of eight days later the CIR had not been disseminated to the FBI. In an e-mail to John in mid-January, Dwight had attached the draft CIR and wrote, “Is this a no go or should I remake it in some way.” The CIA was unable to locate any response to this e-mail. By mid-February, the CIR had not been sent to the FBI and was still in draft form in the CIA’s computer system. CIA records show that Dwight e-mailed a CIA contractor who handled computer matters and asked him to delete several draft cables in the computer system unrelated to this matter, but to save the draft CIR concerning Mihdhar. The contractor accessed the draft cable in the system the next day. When we interviewed all of the individuals involved with the CIR, they asserted that they recalled nothing about it. Dwight told the OIG that he did not recall being aware of the information about Mihdhar, did not recall drafting the CIR, did not recall whether he drafted the CIR on his own initiative or at the direction of his supervisor, and did not recall any discussions about the reasons for delaying completion and dissemination of the CIR. Malcolm said he did not recall reviewing any of the cable traffic or any information regarding Hazmi and Mihdhar. Eric told the OIG that he did not recall the CIR. The CIA employees also stated that they did not recall the CIR. Although James, the CIA employee detailed to FBI Headquarters, declined to be interviewed by us, he told the CIA OIG that he did not recall the CIR. John (the Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Unit) and Michelle, the desk officer who was following this issue, also stated that they did not recall the CIR, any discussions about putting it on hold, or why it was not sent. On the same day that Dwight was drafting the CIR, the CIA reported in an internal cable additional information about Mihdhar. The cable stated that it appeared that, despite his multiple entry visa, Mihdhar had not yet traveled to the United States. The cable then stated that it was up to the CTC as to whether anyone should inquire with the INS to verify whether Mihdhar had traveled to the United States.110 The cable also reported additional information about Mihdhar while he was in Dubai. CIA records reveal that this cable also was read by FBI detailee Dwight. However, Dwight did not include in the draft CIR the additional information about the lack of any indication that Mihdhar had traveled to United States or the additional information about Mihdhar in Dubai.111 Also on the same day that Dwight was preparing the CIR, Michelle, the Bin Laden Unit desk officer who was following the issue of Mihdhar, prepared a lengthy cable to several stations summarizing the information that had been collected at that point on Mihdhar and three other individuals who also were possibly traveling to Malaysia. The cable began, “After following the various reports, some much more credible than others, regarding a possible [Bin Laden]-associated threat against U.S. interests in East Asia, [INFORMATION REDACTED]. This cable then summarized the CIA’s information that indicated several individuals were planning to travel to Malaysia. In the paragraph describing Mihdhar, Michelle stated that Mihdhar’s travel documents, including a multiple entry U.S. visa, had been copied and passed “to the FBI for further investigation.” This cable –the fifth CIA cable to discuss Mihdhar’s U.S. visa – did not state by whom or to whom Mihdhar’s travel documents were passed. It also did not indicate how they had been passed, or provide any other reference to the passage of the documents. Because this cable was an internal, operational cable, it was not forwarded to or copied to the FBI. This cable was disseminated to various CIA stations approximately three hours after Michelle had noted in the cable system that Dwight was directed to hold off on sending his draft CIR to the FBI “for now per [the CIA Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Unit].” When we interviewed Michelle, she stated that she had no recollection of who told her that Mihdhar’s travel documents had been passed to the FBI or how they had been passed. She said she would not have been the person responsible for passing the documents. According to Michelle, the language in the cable stating “[the documents] had been passed” suggested to her that someone else told her that they had already been passed, but she did not know who it was. The CIA Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Unit also said he had no recollection of this cable, and he did not know whether the information had been passed to the FBI. Neither we nor the CIA OIG was able to locate any other witness who said they remembered anything about Mihdhar’s travel documents being passed to the FBI, or any other documents that corroborated the statement that the documents were in fact passed to the FBI. After he arrived in Malaysia, Mihdhar was followed and photographed in various locations meeting with several different people. These events are referred to as “the Malaysia meetings.” CIA employees wrote several cables contemporaneously about the Malaysia meetings, which we discuss below. The CIA prepared an internal cable stating that Mihdhar had arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the evening of January 5. The cable also described his activities with other Arabs who were unidentified at the time. This cable, which we refer to as the “first Malaysia meetings cable,” did not contain any information regarding passports or visas. It appears that this first Malaysia meetings cable was provided to the FBI. Sometime before the daily FBI executive briefing that took place on January 6 at 7:30 a.m., the January 5 threat update information concerning Mihdhar was edited in the FBI’s SIOC. This January 5 threat update reflected an almost verbatim recitation of portions of the CIA’s first Malaysia meetings cable, including the same spelling mistake in reference to a particular place in Malaysia, which indicates that the CIA provided a copy of the first Malaysia meetings cable to the FBI. However, we were not able to determine who in the FBI received this information from the CIA or who edited the January 5 threat update. No one we interviewed at the FBI said they recalled handling information related to Mihdhar or the January 5 threat update. The threat update contained no reference to Mihdhar’s passport information or his U.S. multiple-entry visitor’s visa. The January 5 threat update also was made part of the January 6 7:30 a.m. executive briefing document. This briefing did not contain any additional information about Mihdhar. The January 5 threat update was the only official document from this period located by the FBI that referenced the Malaysia meetings that were discussed in the first CIA Malaysia meetings cable. As noted above, computer records show that James, the CTC employee detailed to the FBI’s SIOC, read the cables and the draft CIR indicating that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa. Contemporaneous e-mails show that James discussed the Malaysia meetings with two FBI Headquarters employees in the SIOC in the early morning hours of January 6. Below we detail the cables and the evidence about the discussions that took place between the CIA and FBI personnel in the SIOC about the Malaysia meetings. Contemporaneous e-mail messages among CIA employees show that during the night of January 5 James briefed the FBI SSA who we call Bob about Mihdhar’s travel. At the time, Bob was an SSA in the UBL Unit in FBI Headquarters, which was operating out of the SIOC during this period. James wrote an e-mail to several CIA employees in which he stated that he was detailing “exactly what [he] briefed [the FBI] on” in the event the FBI later complained that they were not provided with all of the information about Mihdhar.112 This e-mail did not discuss Mihdhar’s passport or U.S. visa. As previously mentioned, James told the CIA OIG that he had no recollection of these events. He declined to be interviewed by us. Bob told the OIG that he had no independent recollection of any briefing from a CIA employee regarding the Malaysia meetings. However, he was able to locate a scant contemporaneous note that confirmed he had been briefed regarding Mihdhar and his trip to Malaysia. This note contained no details as to the content of the briefing and no reference to Mihdhar’s U.S. visa. Bob told the OIG that he does not believe that he had been told in this conversation about Mihdhar’s U.S. visa. Bob stated to us that the presence of a U.S. visa in Mihdhar’s passport would have been extremely important and would have triggered a more significant response than his minimal notes. Bob also told the OIG that he did not know why James chose to brief him about Mihdhar. Bob said that he was not a designated point of contact for the CIA while the SIOC was activated, although he also said that he did not know whether there was a designated point of contact in the SIOC. Bob said that he knew James because James had previously been detailed from the CTC to FBI Headquarters and had worked in ITOS with Bob. The day after the CIA employee discussed the Malaysia meetings with the two FBI SIOC employees, the CIA sent another internal cable providing new information about the activities of Mihdhar. This cable, “the second Malaysia meetings cable,” provided information about Mihdhar’s activities once he left the Kuala Lumpur airport and his meetings with various individuals. Shortly after 7:30 a.m. on January 6, James briefed another FBI SSA – who we call “Ted” – who was detailed to the SIOC from an FBI field office, about information contained in the second Malaysia meetings cable. Ted told the OIG he was working in the SIOC as an “assistant” to the day shift commander and the UBL Unit Chief, but that he had no specific duties. Because Bob had left FBI Headquarters on a trip to New York by this time, James briefed Ted to ensure that someone at FBI Headquarters had the latest information on Mihdhar. In the same e-mail in which he had detailed what he told Bob, James provided specifics of what he told Ted. The e-mail also stated that the CIA would “continue to run this down and keep the FBI in the loop.” The e-mail did not contain any reference to Mihdhar’s passport or U.S. visa. Based on this briefing by James, Ted prepared an update for the January 6 afternoon FBI executive briefing. Ted e-mailed the update to the ITOS Assistant Section Chief at 8:40 a.m. This update reflected the details of the information Ted had received from James. It did not contain any reference to Mihdhar’s passport or U.S. visa. Like Bob, Ted told the OIG that he had no recollection of being briefed regarding the Malaysia meetings. Although he said he did not recall these events, Ted asserted he did not believe that he had received Mihdhar’s passport or U.S. visa information because if he had he would have unquestionably recognized their significance and documented such information in the update for the executive briefing. Ted told the OIG that he did not know why James briefed him about the Mihdhar information. Like Bob, Ted stated he was not a designated point of contact for the CIA while the SIOC was activated. Ted also knew James because of James’ previous detail to ITOS in FBI Headquarters when Ted served as an SSA in the RFU. On January 8, the CIA reported in another internal cable that a new individual had joined Mihdhar and the others, and that additional surveillance photographs were taken. The cable did not state how many photographs were taken or what would be done with the photos. In another cable sent five hours later, the CIA reported in an internal cable that Mihdhar and two of the unidentified men – one of whom turned out to be Hazmi – departed Malaysia from Kuala Lumpur airport en route to Bangkok, Thailand. On January 9, the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit prepared a cable asking that Mihdhar and his associates be identified while in Thailand. CIA records show that on January 13, the CIA was attempting to locate Mihdhar and his traveling companions. In addition, Mihdhar had been watchlisted at the airport in the event that he attempted to leave Thailand. Several weeks later, CIA officers in Kuala Lumpur followed up with their Bangkok counterparts for additional information about Mihdhar and his traveling companions. Approximately two weeks later, Bangkok reported that there was a delay in responding due to difficulties in obtaining the requested information. In early March 2000, officials in Bangkok reported internally that it had identified one of Mihdhar’s traveling companions as Nawaf al-Hazmi. The cable reported that Hazmi had traveled to Bangkok on January 8 and had subsequently traveled on a United Airlines flight to Los Angeles, California on January 15. The cable also stated that Mihdhar had arrived in Bangkok on January 8 but that it was unknown if and when he had departed.113 In addition, the cable identified the third traveler as Salah Saeed Mohammed Bin Yousaf.114 CIA records show that none of the FBI detailees accessed this early March cable. The OIG found no documents or witnesses indicating that the information that Hazmi had traveled to Los Angeles on January 15, 2000, was shared with the FBI at this time. Rather, as we discuss below, this fact was not shared with the FBI until August 2001. We found no indication that CTC personnel took any action with regard to the important information that Hazmi had traveled to the United States. For example, he was not placed on any U.S. watchlists. The day after Bangkok reported about Hazmi’s travel to Los Angeles, one office that received the Bangkok cable sent a cable to the CTC stating the Bangkok cable regarding Hazmi’s travel had been read “with interest.” Yet, despite this effort to flag the significance of this information, the cable was not shared with the FBI and did not result in any specific action by the CIA. As we discuss below, it was not until August 2001 that FBI Headquarters personnel learned that on January 15, 2000, both Mihdhar and Hazmi had left Thailand and traveled to Los Angeles, California, where they were both admitted into the United States on non-immigrant visas and authorized to remain until July 14, 2000. We discuss here our findings regarding the FBI’s knowledge of information about Mihdhar and the January 2000 Malaysia meetings, including whether the intelligence information concerning Mihdhar’s valid multiple entry U.S. visa and Hazmi’s travel to the United States in January 2000 was passed to the FBI. Several witnesses told the OIG that Mihdhar’s possession of a U.S. visa provided a clear domestic nexus that should have triggered the passing of this information from the CIA to the FBI. At the outset, we note that the CIA has acknowledged that it obtained information that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa and that Hazmi had traveled to the United States, and that the CIA should have placed their names on U.S. watchlists, but that this did not occur.115 The CIA OIG is reviewing this matter to determine why this failure occurred and who is responsible for it. As noted above, the formal method of communicating intelligence information between the CIA and the FBI was an intelligence report called a CIR. CIA records show that between July 1999 and September 10, 2001, the Bin Laden Unit disseminated over 1,000 CIRs, most of which were sent to the FBI. CTC employees as well as FBI detailees to Bin Laden Unit had authority to draft CIRs, and the detailees collectively drafted over 150 CIRs to the FBI during this period. However, CIRs could only be disseminated by persons with authority to “release” the CIRs.116 In the Bin Laden Unit, only supervisors, including John and Eric as the deputy chiefs of the station, had authority to release CIRs.117 Dwight drafted a CIR in which he summarized the information that had been disseminated by the NSA about Mihdhar. He also provided detailed information about Mihdhar’s passport, visa, and visa application indicating that New York had been his intended destination. According to CIA records, this CIR never was disseminated to the FBI. A desk officer’s note on the draft CIR indicated that the Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Unit, John, had instructed the draft CIR be put on hold, and Dwight contacted him through an e-mail about the disposition of the CIR a week later. Despite this e-mail, the evidence clearly shows that the CIR never was disseminated to the FBI. The evidence shows, however, that Dwight acted in accordance with the system that was in place at the time by drafting the CIR to formally pass the visa information to the FBI. In accordance with Bin Laden Unit policy, Dwight was not permitted to pass the CIR to the FBI without permission. All of the witnesses stated, however, that they did not recall the CIR or any communications about it. Other than the note written by the desk officer, we found no documentary evidence about why the CIR was not disseminated. Thus, we were unable to determine why it was not sent. The information in the CIR, which was documented in the appropriate format for passage to the FBI, was potentially significant to the FBI and should have been passed to the FBI. We believe it was a significant failure for the CIR not to be sent to the FBI. We also considered what information that James, a CIA detailee to the FBI, informally passed to FBI Headquarters and whether he informed anyone of the visa information about Mihdhar. Based on the contemporaneous e-mails in which James documented in detail what he told FBI SSAs Bob and Ted, we concluded that he reported to the FBI the information regarding Mihdhar’s transit through Dubai, his arrival in Kuala Lumpur, his activities after his arrival, and his meeting with other suspected al Qaeda operatives. It is far less clear, however, whether he provided Mihdhar’s passport and U.S. visa information to the FBI. We do not believe that James briefed either Bob or Ted on Mihdhar’s passport or U.S. visa information. First, nothing in Bob’s contemporaneous notes or Ted’s e-mail or briefing update referred to Mihdhar’s passport or visa information. [INFORMATION REDACTED] Moreover, James wrote a detailed e-mail to document the contents of his conversations with Bob and Ted. Since the stated purpose of James’ e mail was to prevent the FBI from later claiming he had failed to brief them on some important details, he had every incentive to include all relevant details in that e-mail. At the time he wrote this e-mail, he had read three of the CIA cables indicating that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, as well as the draft CIR. Yet, James’ e-mail contained no mention of Mihdhar’s passport or visa. We found only one piece of evidence suggesting that the FBI was made aware in January 2000 of Mihdhar’s U.S. visa – the early January cable by the desk officer who we call Michelle which stated that Mihdhar’s travel documents, including a multiple entry U.S. visa, had been copied and passed “to the FBI for further investigation.” We could not, however, find any evidence to corroborate that this information actually had been passed to the FBI. This cable did not state by whom or to whom the documents were passed or make any other reference to the passage of the documents. The cable was an internal cable, which means it would not have been forwarded to or accessible to the FBI. In addition, Michelle, the CIA desk officer who wrote the cable, had no recollection of who told her that the documents had been passed or how they had been passed. She said that she would not have been responsible for passing the information but instead would have been told by someone else that the documents had been passed. We were unable to locate any witness who said they remembered anything about the documents being passed to the FBI, as Michelle’s cable asserted. Even if her cable was accurate, and she had been told by someone that the documents had been passed to the FBI, there is no evidence that such information was correct. The CIA and FBI witnesses we interviewed described this period as very hectic and said they were flooded with information. Several witnesses suggested that these hectic circumstances could have created an environment where unintentional misunderstandings might have occurred about whether information was actually passed to other Intelligence Community agencies. We also searched ACS for any FBI record of the travel documents having been provided to the FBI, since this cable indicated that a physical copy of the documents, not merely information about the documents, was passed. We found no reference to the documents. Aside from this cable, we found no other evidence that the information or documents about Mihdhar’s passport or visa information was in fact provided to the FBI during this time period. As discussed above, five FBI employees were detailed to the CTC to work on Bin Laden matters during 2000 and 2001, and all had access at their desks to CIA internal cable traffic. Four of those employees – the supervisor who we call Eric, the IOS who we call Mary, and the agents who we call Dwight and Malcolm – were at the Bin Laden Unit in January 2000 when the Malaysia meetings occurred.118 We considered how each handled the intelligence information concerning Mihdhar during this period. After reading two of the cables indicating that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, Dwight prepared a draft CIR to officially notify the FBI about that information, since the U.S. visa presented a nexus between Mihdhar and the United States. But the CIR was not provided to the FBI. However, we also examined whether any of the detailees took any other action to notify FBI Headquarters or, in Malcolm’s case, the New York Field Office, about the information concerning Mihdhar. The evidence shows that each FBI detailee reviewed some of the cables about Mihdhar’s U.S. visa. Dwight accessed several of the cables that indicated Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, such as the cables stating that Mihdhar had transited through Dubai and had a U.S. visa, the cable stating that Mihdhar’s visa application listed New York as his intended destination in May 1999, and the cable stating that based on a review of Mihdhar’s visa, it did not appear that he had actually traveled to the United States. Malcolm also accessed the cable stating that Mihdhar’s visa application listed New York as his intended destination in May 1999, and the cable stating that it did not appear that Mihdhar had actually traveled to the United States. Malcolm also accessed the two cables stating that Mihdhar had arrived in Kuala Lumpur and that surveillance photos showed him meeting with others in Malaysia. Malcolm also accessed Dwight’s draft CIR indicating passage of the visa information to the FBI, including the New York Field Office. Mary accessed the January cable stating that Mihdhar’s travel documents, including a multiple-entry U.S. visa, had been passed to the FBI, but she did not access the previous cables reflecting the visa information or Dwight’s CIR. She also accessed the two cables stating that Mihdhar had arrived in Kuala Lumpur and that surveillance photos showed him meeting with others in Malaysia. Eric did not access these cables, but he accessed Dwight’s draft CIR which detailed Mihdhar’s visa information and which summarized the NSA information. However, Dwight, Malcolm, Mary, and Eric all told the OIG that they did not recall anyone from the CIA bringing to their attention the fact that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa.119 In addition, despite the records of their access to the cable traffic or the CIR, they all told the OIG that they did not recall discovering at the time – such as by reading a cable – that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa. As discussed above, Dwight told the OIG that he did not even recall writing the CIR or even being aware of the Malaysia meetings or of the fact that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa. Eric told the OIG that his CIA counterpart – John, the CIA Bin Laden Unit Deputy Chief – mentioned the Malaysia meetings and that surveillance photos had been taken, but Eric did not recall ever hearing anything about Mihdhar having a U.S. visa. Mary told the OIG that she did not recall even being contemporaneously aware of the Malaysia meetings.120 Mary explained that she did not have reason to be made aware of the Malaysia meetings at the time because the matter had been assigned to another CIA desk officer – Michelle (the one who wrote the cable indicating that Mihdhar’s travel documents had been passed to the FBI). Malcolm said he was not aware of the fact that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa until after September 11. He stated that he recalled being shown the Kuala Lumpur photos, but he could not remember whether that was before or after September 11. He said that it was not until he was shown the Kuala Lumpur photos that he became aware of the Malaysia meetings. Yet, the evidence shows that all had accessed contemporaneously cables indicating that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, which was important intelligence information that was never provided to FBI Headquarters. They did not violate any specific policy or procedure in their handling of the information, and they did not have the authority to unilaterally pass CTC information to the FBI without permission. This restriction included any informal passage of the information, such as by telephone call or in-person discussions. However, none of them, particularly Dwight, ensured that the information was provided to the FBI. Dwight drafted a CIR that would have provided the FBI with the important information about Mihdhar, but the CIR was not released by the CIA. Although Dwight followed up a few days later to ask whether the cable was going to be sent or whether he should remake it in some other way, there is no record of a response to his request, and no one could explain why the cable was not sent. We believe it was critical that the information be sent. We found no indication that this ever happened. This failure to send the information to the FBI, in our view, was also attributable to problems in how the detailees were instructed and supervised, and that these problems significantly impeded the flow of information between the CIA and the FBI. We discuss these systemic problems in detail in our analysis section later in this chapter. In sum, the evidence shows that in January and March 2000, the CIA uncovered important intelligence information about Mihdhar and Hazmi: Yet, we found that the CIA did not share significant pieces of this information with the FBI – that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa and that Hazmi had traveled to Los Angeles. An FBI detailee at the CIA drafted a CIR to share this information with the FBI, but that information was not released by the CIA to the FBI. We were unable to determine why this did not occur. No one we interviewed said they remembered the CIR or why it was not sent to the FBI. We consider it a significant failure for this CIR not to be sent to the FBI. In addition, the evidence shows that the limited information that was provided to FBI Headquarters – that Mihdhar traveled [INFORMATION REDACTED] was never documented by the FBI in any system that was retrievable or searchable, thus limiting the usefulness of the information that was shared. The FBI’s only official record of having received this information was in the hard copies of the January 5 threat update, which was attached to the January 6 executive briefing, and Ted’s e-mail summarizing information from his discussion with the CIA employee. We discuss this and other systemic problems in our analysis section below. The second set of events that may have led the FBI to discover Mihdhar and Hazmi’s presence in the United States related to their stay in San Diego. As noted above, on January 15, 2000, Mihdhar and Hazmi boarded a flight in Bangkok, Thailand, for Los Angeles. They were admitted to the United States on non-immigrant visitor visas and authorized to remain in the U.S. until July 14, 2000. Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, they traveled to San Diego, California, where they were aided in finding a place to stay by Omar al Bayoumi. Bayoumi had been the subject of an FBI preliminary intelligence investigation that had been closed. In late May 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar rented a room in the residence of an FBI asset.121 Mihdhar remained in San Diego until June 10, 2000, when he left the United States.122 Hazmi remained in the San Diego area until approximately December 2000, when he moved to the Phoenix, Arizona area. In Phoenix, Hazmi lived for approximately three months with another September 11 hijacker, Hani Hanjour. In April 2001, Hazmi and Hanjour moved to New Jersey and remained on the East Coast until September 11. While residing in San Diego in 2000, Mihdhar and Hazmi did not act in an unusual manner that would draw attention, but they did not attempt to hide their identities. Using the same names contained in their travel documents and known to at least some in the Intelligence Community, they rented an apartment, obtained driver’s licenses from the state of California Department of Motor Vehicles, opened bank accounts and received bank credit cards, purchased a used vehicle and automotive insurance, took flying lessons at a local flying school, and obtained local phone service that included Hazmi’s listing in the local telephone directory. Although Hazmi and Mihdhar were in San Diego for a significant period of time, the FBI did not learn of their presence there until after September 11, 2001. After September 11, much would be learned about Hazmi and Mihdhar’s time in San Diego and the Intelligence Community’s missed opportunities to find and investigate them before the terrorist attacks in which they participated. In this section, we describe the facts surrounding Hazmi and Mihdhar’s residence in San Diego, including their associations with two persons known to the FBI. Omar al-Bayoumi is a Saudi Arabian national who came to the United States in 1993. In early 2000 he had been living with his wife and four children in San Diego for at least four years. Although he described himself to others in San Diego as a graduate student in business administration, he took classes intermittently and was not enrolled in a program of study. He did not work in the United States and received a monthly stipend of $4,000 plus “other allowances,” ranging from $465 to $3,800 each month, from Dallah/Avco, a Saudi contractor to the Presidency of Civil Aviation.123 Bayoumi was active in the San Diego Muslim community and was involved in the establishment of several mosques in the United States. In September 1998, the FBI’s San Diego Field Office opened a preliminary inquiry on Bayoumi based on allegations raised by the manager in the apartment complex where he was living at the time. The manager alleged that Bayoumi had received a suspicious package from the Middle East, and the maintenance worker for the apartment complex had noted strange wires in Bayoumi’s bathroom. In addition, the manager reported frequent gatherings of young Middle Eastern males at Bayoumi’s apartment on weekend nights. The FBI case agent conducted a limited investigation of Bayoumi, but the preliminary inquiry was closed in June 1999 and was not converted to a full field investigation.124 As a result, the FBI was no longer investigating Bayoumi at the time that Hazmi and Mihdhar met Bayoumi in February 2000. However, the following paragraphs describe what was later learned about Bayoumi’s interactions with Hazmi and Mihdhar. On February 1, 2000, Bayoumi traveled by car from San Diego to Los Angeles, to resolve a visa issue at the Saudi consulate. Bayoumi invited an associate, Isamu Dyson, to accompany him.125 Dyson provided the following account to the FBI of the trip with Bayoumi.126 Dyson said that at the time of the invitation, Bayoumi mentioned a Los Angeles restaurant serving halal food where they could eat lunch after Bayoumi’s meeting at the consulate.127 After Bayoumi spent approximately one hour at the Saudi consulate, he and Dyson went to the restaurant but discovered it had been converted to a butcher shop. The butcher shop employees recommended another nearby halal restaurant, the “Mediterranean Gourmet.” Bayoumi and Dyson walked to that restaurant. While they were eating there, Hazmi and Mihdhar entered the restaurant and the four talked in Arabic. Although Dyson had limited Arabic language skills, he said that Bayoumi kept him apprised of the content of the conversation. Hazmi and Mihdhar told Bayoumi that they were in the United States to study English, but they did not like living in Los Angeles. Bayoumi invited the men to visit San Diego and offered to assist them. Bayoumi provided the men with his phone number. Bayoumi and Dyson left the restaurant, and after stopping at a nearby mosque for sunset prayers, returned to San Diego. Dyson asserted that the encounter with Hazmi and Mihdhar seemed to be a coincidental meeting. Within several days of the meeting, Hazmi and Mihdhar accepted Bayoumi’s invitation and traveled to San Diego. In San Diego, Bayoumi arranged for Hazmi and Mihdhar to rent an apartment on Mount Ada road in the same apartment complex where Bayoumi lived. Bayoumi also co-signed their lease. Shortly after Hazmi and Mihdhar moved into the apartment, Bayoumi hosted a party to introduce them to the local Muslim community. Within a few weeks of moving into the apartment, Hazmi and Mihdhar filed a 30-day notice to vacate the apartment, apparently to move to another apartment. However, they later rescinded the vacate notice and continued to lease the apartment until June 2, 2000.128 The apartment manager told the FBI that Bayoumi paid Hazmi and Mihdhar’s first month’s rent and security deposit because they had not yet established a local bank account and the apartment complex would not accept cash. A review of Bayoumi and Mihdhar’s financial records after September 11, 2001, indicate that Bayoumi was reimbursed for this expense on the same day it was paid.129 On March 20, 2000, a long distance telephone call was placed from Mihdhar and Hazmi’s Mount Ada apartment to a suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East linked to al Qaeda activities. (See section III, A, 2 above.) A record of the call was captured in the toll records. After the September 11 attacks, the call was identified through a record check. Sometime in May 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar moved out of the apartment Bayoumi had found for them on Mount Ada Road and moved as boarders into the home of an asset of the FBI’s San Diego Field Office.130 Hazmi and Mihdhar met the asset at the mosque they attended.131 Mihdhar stayed at the asset’s residence until June 10, 2000, when he left the United States. Hazmi resided in the asset’s house until December 10, 2000, when he moved to Arizona. In 1994, the asset was recruited by San Diego FBI Special Agent who we call “Stan.” The FBI had interviewed the asset in connection with a bombing investigation several years before. Stan remained the asset’s handling agent – or “control agent” – until Stan retired in February 2002.132 The asset was opened as an asset on May 14, 1994.133 He worked as an informational source, providing to the FBI information acquired in his normal daily routine. He normally was questioned about specific individuals who were under investigation by the FBI, although he occasionally volunteered information that he thought might be relevant. According to Stan, during some periods, he would talk to the asset several times per day, but there were periods in which he did not talk to him for several weeks or months. Stan said that many of their conversations were about family matters, the informational asset’s health, and other non-substantive issues. In 1996, the asset began renting out rooms in his home. Prior to September 11, 2001, he had 14 different boarders in his house, including Hazmi and Mihdhar. When Hazmi and Mihdhar rented rooms from the asset in 2000, two other persons also were renting rooms there. It is not clear what information the asset provided to the FBI about Hazmi and Mihdhar before the September 11 attacks. After the September 11 attacks, the FBI interviewed the asset and asked about the conduct and activities of Hazmi and Mihdhar while they were living with the asset. In those interviews, the asset described them as quiet tenants who paid their rent. He said they were good Muslims who regularly prayed at the mosque. The asset said that Hazmi and Mihdhar often would go outside when using their cellular telephones. The asset insisted that he noted no indicators of nefarious activity by Hazmi or Mihdhar that should have resulted in his reporting their identities to the FBI.134 The asset was asked what information he provided to Stan about Hazmi and Mihdhar before September 11. In these interviews, the asset provided conflicting accounts regarding the information on Hazmi and Mihdhar that he had disclosed to Stan. The agent who interviewed the asset - this agent had taken over as the asset’s control agent after Stan’s retirement from the FBI - told us that the asset said he told Stan about his boarders in general terms, although he had not fully identified Hazmi and Mihdhar. The control agent said that the asset later said that he had not told Stan about the boarders at all. Although Stan declined to be interviewed by the OIG, after September 11, his FBI supervisors had interviewed him about the asset. Stan also had discussed the asset with co-workers and was interviewed by, and subsequently testified in, a closed session before the Joint Intelligence Committee.135 Stan reported that the asset had told him contemporaneously that two Saudi national visitors were residing in a room at his residence. Stan said that the asset merely provided the first names of the boarders, Nawaf and Khalid. Stan contended that he had asked the asset for the boarders’ last names but never received them and did not follow up. He said that the asset told him that his boarders were in the U.S. on valid visitors’ visas, and they planned to visit and to study while they were in the country. In addition, Stan said that the asset told him that he believed that the two boarders were good Muslims because of the amount of time that they spent at the mosque. Stan stated that he did not recall the asset ever telling him that either of the boarders had moved out. According to Stan, the asset did not describe his boarders as suspicious or otherwise worthy of further scrutiny. Stan reported that he never obtained Hazmi and Mihdhar’s full identities from the asset and that he did not conduct any investigation of them. In sum, the FBI did not obtain information about Mihdhar’s and Hazmi’s time in San Diego, either as a result of the Bayoumi preliminary inquiry or from the asset. In the analysis section of this chapter, we evaluate Stan’s actions with regard to Hazmi and Mihdhar and whether he should have pursued additional information about who was living with one of his assets. The third potential opportunity for the FBI to acquire information about Hazmi and Mihdhar occurred in January 2001, [INFORMATION REDACTED]. However, the FBI has asserted that it did not learn of the source’s identification of the al Qaeda operative at the Malaysia meetings until much later in 2001, just before the September 11 attacks. This section of the report describes the events surrounding this third opportunity for the FBI to focus on Hazmi and Mihdhar. In 2000, the CIA and the FBI began debriefing a source who provided significant information on operatives and operations related to Usama Bin Laden. The source gave the CIA and the FBI information about an al Qaeda operative known as “Khallad” and described him as being involved with the East African embassy bombings in August 1998. Shortly after the U.S.S. Cole was attacked in October 2000, the CIA and the FBI received a photograph and information that a man named “Khallad” was the purported mastermind behind the attack on the Cole. In December 2000, the CIA and the FBI showed the source the photograph of Khallad, and the source identified the person in the photograph as the same Khallad he had described as involved with the East African bombings. As part of the Cole investigation, the FBI sought to find Khallad. In January 2001, the source was shown photographs from the Malaysia meetings in an effort to determine whether Khallad was in the photographs. [INFORMATION REDACTED]136 [INFORMATION REDACTED] As a result, they said, they may have uncovered earlier the CIA’s information about Mihdhar and Hazmi and found them in the United States well before the summer of 2001. [INFORMATION REDACTED] For example, on September 26, 2002, Cofer Black, who served as Director of the CIA’s CTC from 1999 until May 2002, testified before the Joint Intelligence Committee: FBI agents and analysts had full access to information [the CIA] acquired about the Cole attack. For example, we ran a joint operation with the FBI to determine if a Cole suspect was in a [INFORMATION REDACTED] surveillance photo. I want to repeat – it was a joint operation. The FBI had access to that information from the beginning. More specifically, our records establish that the Special Agents from the FBI’s New York Field Office who were investigating the USS Cole attack reviewed the information about the [INFORMATION REDACTED] photo in late January 2001. We therefore examine in detail the evidence relating to whether the FBI was aware of the identification of Khallad in the photographs of the Malaysia meetings. In mid-2000, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) personnel arranged for FBI Legal Attaché (Legat) Office personnel overseas to meet a source who had substantial information on Bin Laden and his operatives and operations. This particular FBI Legat office was staffed by the Legal Attaché (the “Legat”) and the Assistant Legal Attaché (the ALAT), who were FBI Special Agents.137 Because of the FBI Legat personnel’s inability to converse in any of the source’s languages, limits on the FBI’s authority to conduct unilateral intelligence activities overseas, and the source’s potential value as a source of intelligence information relevant to the CIA, the FBI contacted the CIA for assistance with the source. The source was subsequently handled as a joint FBI/CIA source. Even though the FBI ALAT – who we call “Max” – was unable to directly communicate with the source due to the lack of a common language, he was designated as the FBI control agent for the source. Because the source had significant information about Bin Laden and his operatives and operations, the FBI New York Field Office – the office that was leading the investigations on the East African embassy bombings, the Cole attack, and other Bin Laden-related investigations – also became involved with the source. This joint handling of the source created concerns within the CIA. The CIA’s most significant concern was the FBI’s desire to use the source for the criminal investigations involving Bin Laden conducted by the FBI’s New York Field Office. The CIA believed that the source should not face possible exposure in criminal proceedings. CIA Headquarters was asked to work with FBI Headquarters to convert the source to purely an intelligence role, solely under CIA control. According to CIA documents, the CIA and the Legat had discussed the FBI’s “wall” whereby separate but concurrent intelligence and criminal investigations were conducted within the FBI, but the CIA expressed concerns about the CIA’s ability to continue clandestine handling of the source if the FBI was involved. Although the CIA acknowledged that the source had value to the FBI’s criminal case, the CIA argued that the source’s potential as an intelligence asset was more important then his potential assistance in the criminal case. Despite the CIA’s concerns, the source remained a joint FBI/CIA asset. Beginning in 2000, the CIA and FBI began to debrief the source on a regular basis. Over the course of several months, the source frequently was shown photographs and asked to identify people in them. Although Max was the source’s designated control agent, a CIA officer who spoke one of the source’s languages conducted the debriefings. Max was present for some of these debriefings, but not all. Some of the debriefings were unilateral CIA interviews. The time spent with the source was kept short because of issues of travel and security. According to Max, during the debriefings the CIA officer usually did not immediately translate the source’s statements for the benefit of Max. He said that the CIA case officer would only immediately translate something when Max had specific questions for the CIA officer to ask the source. The CIA case officer told the OIG he recalled translating for Max things that the source said, but he did this only when he recognized the significance of the information to Max or an FBI operation. In an effort not to duplicate the reporting of information received from the source, the CIA and the FBI agreed that the CIA would be responsible for reporting the information from the debriefings. However, in instances where the source was solely being shown FBI photographs or questioned based on an FBI lead, Max would document the source’s information, either in an EC or an FBI FD-302 form, and the CIA would not document the same information. After the debriefings, the CIA officer would write internal cables covering the debriefings and forward them to the CTC and other appropriate offices. These cables were internal CIA communications and were not provided to or shared with Max or other FBI personnel.138 Instead, Max and FBI Headquarters would be informed of the debriefings when the information was reported by the CIA in a TD. As previously discussed, TDs were prepared by CIA reports officers who reviewed the internal cables and determined what information needed to be disseminated and to which agencies. Based on our review of internal cables reporting the source’s debriefings and the TD reporting of the same interviews, it is clear the TDs often contained only a part of the information obtained during the source debriefings. As a result, either through direct knowledge or through the TDs, Max had access to only some of the information obtained from the source during the debriefings. In addition to the debriefings of the source by the CIA case officer, FBI agents from the New York Field Office working Bin Laden-related criminal investigations also interviewed the source with the CIA case officer present. Max occasionally was present for these interviews. After each of these interviews, the New York agents documented the source’s information in detail in an FD-302 that was entered into ACS and retrievable by all FBI personnel working on the Bin Laden cases.139 These FD-302s were routinely shared with CIA personnel in the field and at the CTC. Over a 3-month period in 2000, FBI New York Field Office personnel interviewed the source overseas four times. During one of these interviews, the source described an individual known as “Khallad” as a trusted senior Bin Laden operative with potential connections to the East African embassy bombings. As noted above, on October 12, 2000, two terrorists in a boat laden with explosives committed a suicide attack on the U.S.S. Cole, a U.S. naval destroyer, during its brief refueling stop in the port in Aden, Yemen. The FBI’s investigation into the attack was led by the FBI’s New York Field Office. After the attack on October 12, the Yemenis provided the FBI and the CIA with information on the Bin Laden operative known as “Khallad.” According to this information, Khallad had been described as the purported mastermind of the Cole attack. U.S. intelligence agencies had already connected Khallad to the East African embassy bombings. The Yemenis also identified “Khallad” as Tawfiq Muhammad Salih Bin Rashid al Atash. On November 22, 2000, the Yeminis provided the FBI with a photograph of Khallad (“the Yemeni-provided photograph”). Around this same time, the Yemenis provided the FBI with several photographs of other Cole suspects. The New York FBI agents investigating the Cole bombing wanted to determine whether the Khallad identified by the Yemenis was the same Khallad who had been previously described by the source. At the same time, a CIA internal cable to was sent to several CIA offices suggesting that the photographs of the Cole suspects that the FBI had obtained from the Yemenis, including the Khallad photograph, be shown to the source. Because the FBI did not have the technological capability to easily transmit the Khallad photograph from Yemen to the ALAT who was handling the source and who we call Max, the photograph was forwarded through CIA channels to the nearby CIA office in order to show the photograph to the source.140 CIA documents show that on December 16, 2000, the CIA officer conducted a debriefing of the source. Max was present for the debriefing.141 During the debriefing, the CIA case officer showed the source many photos of Cole bombing suspects and other suspected Arab terrorists, including the Yemeni-provided photograph of Khallad. The source immediately identified the individual in the Yemeni-provided photograph as the same Khallad he had previously described as a trusted senior Bin Laden operative with potential connections to the East African embassy bombings. The CIA officer prepared a cable documenting the debriefing, which was addressed to several CIA offices. The CIA officer wrote in the cable that the source was shown the many photographs and “quickly” identified Khallad in the Yemeni-provided photograph. Notably, the CIA cable stated that the CIA officer had the source repeat the identification specifically for the benefit of Max. In addition, the cable stated that before the debriefing ended, the CIA officer again showed the photographs to the source and asked the source to verify the Khallad identification. Max acknowledged to the OIG that he was contemporaneously aware of the identification of Khallad in the Yemeni-provided photograph by the source on December 16. Max stated that he recalled specific circumstances of the debriefing and recounted them to us. Max told us that he recalled the source immediately identifying Khallad in the photograph. Around this same time, CIA personnel were beginning to connect Khallad with Mihdhar [INFORMATION REDACTED]. In a December 2000 cable, CIA personnel overseas asked for copies of the January 2000 Kuala Lumpur surveillance photographs of Mihdhar. The cable noted that further connections had been made between Mihdhar and Al Qaeda. As a result of these further connections, the CIA believed there might be a connection between Mihdhar and the Cole perpetrators. The CIA office reported in the December 2000 cable that the it had learned that Fahd al Quso, who was in Yemeni custody for his participation in the Cole attack, had received $7,000 from someone named Ibrahim, which Quso had taken to Bangkok, Thailand, on January 6, 2000, to deliver to “Khallad,” a friend of Ibrahim’s. It was noted in the cable that because Mihdhar had departed Kuala Lumpur around that same time to travel to Bangkok, the CIA suspected that the “Khallad” mentioned by Quso could actually be Khalid al Mihdhar or one of his associates.142 It was noted further that this information had “added significance” because Khallad had been identified as a “key operative likely serving as an intermediary between Usama Bin Laden and the [Cole] perpetrators.” In another December 2000, cable the CTC concurred with the overseas CIA office’s theory and forwarded a Kuala Lumpur surveillance photo of Mihdhar to the CIA case officer to show to the source. According to the cable, the purpose was “to confirm/rule out this particular Khalid [Mihdhar] as a match for [Khallad].”143 The next day, the CIA officer received permission to show the Kuala Lumpur surveillance photographs to the source. Max told the OIG, however, that he was not aware of the CIA cables or the theory that Khallad was actually Mihdhar. We found no other evidence that Max knew about the information that Mihdhar was at the Malaysia meetings, or the CIA’s theory that Khallad was actually Mihdhar.144 The CIA case officer debriefed the source again in early January 2001. At some point, the CIA case officer showed the source photographs, including two of the surveillance photographs taken during the January 2000 Malaysia meetings. One of the photographs from the Malaysia meetings, which we call “Photo No. 1” included an unknown subject. [INFORMATION REDACTED] According to a January 2001, cable written by the CIA case officer, the source was asked if he was sure, and he replied that he was “ninety percent” certain.145 The second photograph from the Malaysia meetings, which we call “Photo No. 2,” contained a picture of the person the CIA knew to be Mihdhar. The source could not identify the person in the photograph.146 [INFORMATION REDACTED] First, the source previously provided information that Khallad was a Bin Laden operative who was connected to the Cole attack and the East African embassy bombings. [INFORMATION REDACTED] Thus, the source’s identification of Khallad at the Malaysia meetings raised the question whether Mihdhar and Hazmi also were linked to the Cole attack. We tried to determine if the FBI’s ALAT learned of the source’s identification of Khallad in the photograph. Max told the OIG that he did not specifically recall the early January 2001 debriefing of the source. [INFORMATION REDACTED] The CIA case officer told the OIG that he had no independent recollection of any particular meeting with the source, including the meeting in early January 2001. (1) CIA cables To examine whether the FBI learned of the source’s identification of [INFORMATION REDACTED], we reviewed the CIA documentation concerning the meeting with the source in early January 2001. In an internal cable written the day after the debriefing, the CIA case officer reported that the source had identified [INFORMATION REDACTED] with a “ninety percent” certainty. However, unlike in the December 2000 CIA cable, which stated that the CIA officer had the source repeat the identification of Khallad in the Yemeni-provided photograph to Max, the January 2001 cable did not suggest the identification was repeated for Max or was brought to the attention of Max. The January 2001 cable did not provide any other details about the debriefing, such as where the meeting took place, when exactly during the debriefing the photographs were shown to the source, who was present when the photographs were shown to the source, or what other topics were discussed with the source. We also reviewed a detailed January 2001 CIA TD to the Intelligence Community regarding the early January 2001 debriefing. The TD reported specifics about what the source discussed and that he had provided a stack of documents to his CIA and FBI handlers. The TD made no mention of any photographs being shown to the source [INFORMATION REDACTED].147 A few days later, the CIA case officer wrote another cable describing the logistics of the early January 2001 meeting with the source. In addition, the cable summarized what was discussed during the meeting. This cable also did not mention the photographs being shown to or discussed with the source, but the CIA case officer told the OIG that these kinds of cables were not always comprehensive with respect to the information obtained from the source. (2) FBI documents We also reviewed FBI documents from this period relating to the source. On January 9, 2001, a New York FBI agent who was the FBI’s lead case agent on the Cole investigation sent Max an e-mail stating that he and his co-case agent wanted to meet with the source to talk about some of the Cole suspects, including Khallad. The New York agent wrote that he was “specially [sic] interested in all [the source] knows about Khallad and his associates.” The agent noted that the source previously had given the agents important information regarding Khallad and the Cole attack. In a January 10 e-mail response, Max referred to the December 16 meeting with the source in which the source had been shown many photographs and had immediately identified the Yemeni-provided photograph as Khallad. Max also mentioned the early January 2001 meeting, summarizing specific information provided by the source in the debriefing. Max wrote that, due to the lack of technological capabilities in the Legat Office, he promised to make the CIA TD numbers relating to the source available to the case agent within a few days so the agent could read them before his trip to interview the source. However, Max made no mention of any identification of photographs by the source in the early January 2001 debriefing. Around the same time as this e-mail exchange, Max was criticized by the head of the FBI’s UBL Unit at Headquarters for insufficient reporting regarding the source’s information. The UBL Unit chief wanted to know from Max what information the source was providing. She also was concerned because Max was not producing any reports regarding the source. In response, on January 16, 2001, Max wrote a 34-page EC summarizing the source’s debriefings and other information obtained from the source since mid-2000, most of which was based on the information that had been disseminated in the TDs by the CIA. Max explained in the EC that he merely was repeating what the CIA had previously reported in TDs, which had already been forwarded to FBI Headquarters. He noted the agreement with the CIA that there would not be duplicative reporting on the source’s information. He explained the CIA was doing the primary reporting on the source debriefings Max noted that the interview was conducted in the foreign language, and he would read the CIA’s report of the interview (the TD) once it was completed. Max then listed all of the CIA’s TDs that summarized what the source had said. On page 29 of this January 16 EC, Max summarized the CIA’s reporting of what had occurred at the December 16, 2000, meeting with the source. The EC stated the source was handed a stack of many photographs and immediately identified the top photograph as a photograph of Khallad, the person the source had previously implicated in the attack on the Cole. The EC stated, “At that time it was the clear impression of [the Legat] and [the CIA officer] that both FBIHQ CTD and NYO were receiving all of the reporting above from CIA liaison in the U.S., as soon as it was being filed.” In the next paragraph of the EC, Max summarized what the CIA had reported in the TD about the early January 2001 debriefing of the source. This summary is contained on pages 29 through 33 of the EC. Max reported at length about the source’s information, and the EC provided a lengthy description of the documents provided by the source. [INFORMATION REDACTED] Max discussed with the CIA case officer the complaint from FBI Headquarters about Max’s reporting on the source. As a result, the CIA case officer provided Max with a report of the next debriefing of the source in late January 2001. The day after this debriefing, Max prepared a lengthy EC summarizing this debriefing. He noted in the EC that the report was based on the CIA’s report of an interview conducted by a CIA officer and, although Max was present for the debriefing, he only became aware of what was said after the CIA officer provided the report.148 Around the same time, Max was preparing for the arrival of the Cole case agent from the FBI’s New York Field Office. The Cole case agent was traveling to interview the source about Khallad, along with another FBI agent who spoke one of the languages of the source and was going to assist in the preparation of the FD-302 for the criminal investigation. Max had received a January 17 e-mail from one of the Cole agents stating that the information being provided by the source was very important to the FBI’s criminal investigation of the Cole attack and discussing the arrangements for the upcoming interview of the source by the Cole agents. The New York Cole agents also asked Max to prepare an FD-302 documenting Max’s personal knowledge of the source’s identification of Khallad from the Yemeni-provided photograph on December 16. On January 24, 2001, Max sent an EC to the New York Field Office and FBI Headquarters with an attached FD-302 regarding the source’s December 16, 2000, identification of Khallad. On February 1, 2001, the New York Cole case agent and another agent who spoke one of the source’s languages interviewed the source overseas.149 The CIA case officer who had shown the Kuala Lumpur photographs to the source in early January was also present at the interview. During the interview, they showed the source the Yemeni-provided photograph of Khallad, which previously had been shown to the source by the CIA officer on December 16, 2000. The source again identified Khallad in the photograph. As discussed above, the agents had received information indicating that Quso, who was in custody for his participation in the Cole attack, had traveled to Bangkok and met Khallad in January 2000. The New York agents were investigating the circumstances of that trip. The agents knew that Quso previously had claimed that he had intended to meet Khallad in Malaysia. The agents were concerned about Quso’s veracity and [INFORMATION REDACTED]. [INFORMATION REDACTED] [INFORMATION REDACTED] Neither Max nor the CIA case officer specifically recalled the early January debriefing, but the documentary evidence supports this conclusion. In numerous CIA and FBI documents discussing the source and the early January debriefing, other important information from the source is described, [INFORMATION REDACTED]. Given the importance of that identification and the other details reported in the documents, we believe such information would have been included had the FBI been made aware of the identification. For example, as described above, in the CIA case officer’s cable reporting the December 16 debriefing of the source during which the source had identified Khallad in the Yemeni photograph, the CIA officer specifically noted that ALAT heard the identification and that the identification was repeated for the benefit of him. Max said he recalled this debriefing and the identification of Khallad being brought to his attention by the CIA case officer. By contrast, in his cable reporting the early January source debriefing, the CIA case officer did not state that he brought to the attention of Max the identification of [INFORMATION REDACTED]. Likewise in his cable describing the logistics of the debriefing, the CIA case officer provided a description of what was discussed with the source and stated that Max was present for a significant portion of the meeting with the source, [INFORMATION REDACTED]. The documents prepared at the time by Max about the early January debriefing also suggest that Max was not aware of the identification of Khallad in the Kuala Lumpur photographs. For example, in response to the Cole case agent’s January 9 e-mail specifically requesting “all [the source] knows about Khallad,” Max did not include any information about the Khallad identification from the Kuala Lumpur photographs. This was shortly after the early January debriefing, and the case agent had specifically indicated his interest in any information about Khallad. Max’s January 16 EC to FBI Headquarters in which he described at length what the source had reported in the early January meeting also did not mention the identification of Khallad or that any [INFORMATION REDACTED] were shown to the source. In addition, Max prepared an FD-302 to document the source’s identification of Khallad from the Yemeni photograph to provide documentation for the criminal investigation. We believe that if Max had known of the source’s identification of [INFORMATION REDACTED], he likely would have prepared a similar FD-302 of that identification as well. We also found that the New York Field Office agents who interviewed the source overseas in February 2001 were not made aware of the early January identification of Khallad. The agents insisted that they were completely [INFORMATION REDACTED] other than the Yemeni-provided photograph. In addition, we found no documentary evidence that the New York FBI agents were even aware [INFORMATION REDACTED]. Because the agents were keenly interested in Khallad and had asked the source to confirm his identification of Khallad from the Yemeni photograph, we believe the agents would have noted, remembered, and acted upon any information regarding another Khallad identification. We also believe that had the FBI known about the identification of [INFORMATION REDACTED], which could have increased the FBI’s chances of locating them before the September 11 attacks. Due to the OIG’s lack of complete access to CIA employees and documents, we were unable to fully examine why the CIA did not inform Max or the New York agents that the source had identified [INFORMATION REDACTED]. We believe the FBI should have been made aware that the joint FBI/CIA source had provided such significant information about the person purported to be the mastermind behind the Cole attack. This failure demonstrated significant problems in communication between the FBI and the CIA. However, the FBI employees’ inaccurate belief that CIA reporting in TDs was comprehensive contributed to the FBI’s failure to obtain this critical piece of information. We discuss this and other systemic problems that this case revealed in the analysis section of this chapter. The fourth opportunity for the FBI to have acquired intelligence information about Hazmi and Mihdhar – including Mihdhar’s possession of a U.S. visa, Hazmi’s travel to the United States, and the source’s identification of [INFORMATION REDACTED] – occurred in May and June 2001 when the CIA and FBI Headquarters discussed the status of their information concerning the Cole attack. Once again, these discussions could have caused the FBI and the CIA to focus on the other persons attending [INFORMATION REDACTED], and thereby led the FBI to search for Mihdhar and Hazmi earlier than it did. But, as we describe below, the FBI did not obtain the critical information about the identification of [INFORMATION REDACTED] despite several interactions in May and June 2001 between the FBI and the CIA about Khallad. As discussed above, the FBI’s investigation on the Cole attack was led by the FBI’s New York Field Office.150 One of the case agents investigating the Cole attack was an agent who we call “Scott,” and who was assigned to the New York FBI’s counterterrorism squad that handled only al Qaeda investigations (the “Bin Laden squad”).151 After serving eight years in the U.S. Navy as a fighter pilot, in April 1996 Scott became a special agent in the FBI’s New York Office. In July 1996 he was assigned to the TWA Flight 800 investigation because of his experience as a military pilot. Shortly after the East African embassy bombings in August 1998, he was transferred to the New York’s Bin Laden squad to assist with the embassy bombings investigation, and then was assigned as one of the case agents on the investigation the Cole attack. The New York FBI was assisted on the Cole investigation by several Intelligence Operations Specialists (IOS) assigned to the UBL Unit and the Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU) at FBI Headquarters. One of the primary IOSs who worked on the Cole investigation was an IOS who we call “Donna.” She had joined the FBI in 1988 as a clerk while she completed her college education. After graduating from college in 1995, she entered the FBI’s language training program and became a Russian language specialist working on foreign counterintelligence matters. In November 1997, she became an Intelligence Research Specialist (IRS), and a year later was assigned to assist the RFU on the East African embassy bombings investigation. In 2000 she was permanently assigned as an IOS in the UBL Unit and was assigned to work on the Cole investigation in October 2000. With regard to Donna’s work on the Cole investigation, she stated that she and the other UBL Unit IOSs conducted the investigation as directed by the New York Field Office, sent out requests for information to other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, obtained budget enhancements to support the investigation, and performed other duties in support of the investigation. She and the other UBL IOSs often traveled to New York where they met with the Cole agents and worked on the investigation. The information relevant to this section of the report includes NSA information disseminated about Mihdhar in late 1999 and early 2000. As noted in Chapter Two, by the summer of 2001 NSA counterterrorism intelligence information could not be disseminated within the FBI without adhering to certain procedures and protocols. At this time, the FBI was required by the Department and the FISA Court to keep criminal investigations separate from intelligence investigations, a policy which was commonly referred to as “the wall.” Information obtained from FISA intercepts and search warrants had to be screened by someone not involved in the criminal investigation and then “passed over the wall” from the intelligence investigation to the criminal investigation. The FISA Court became the screening mechanism for FISA information obtained from al Qaeda intelligence investigations that the FBI wanted to pass to criminal investigators. As described in Chapter Two, in response to notification that there had been many errors in FISA applications approved by the FISA Court, the Court imposed additional restrictions before information could be shared. First, based on the FISA Court’s concerns about the errors in the FISA applications, the FBI directed that only intelligence agents were permitted to review FISA intercepts and materials seized pursuant to a FISA warrant (called “FISA-obtained material”) or any CIA and NSA intelligence provided to the FBI based on information obtained through FISA search or intercept (called “FISA-derived” material) without further Court approval. The Court required anyone who reviewed the FISA-obtained or FISA-derived intelligence to sign a certification acknowledging that the Court’s approval was required for dissemination to criminal investigators. Because FISA-obtained information often was passed from the FBI to the NSA and the CIA, the question was raised to the FISA Court whether the FBI was required to obtain certifications from all NSA or CIA employees who reviewed the FISA-obtained material. The Court exempted the NSA and CIA from the certification but required that the two agencies note on any intelligence shared with the FBI if it was FISA-derived. This was referred to as “a caveat.” When made aware of this requirement, the NSA reported to the Department of Justice that for the NSA to determine in real-time which counterterrorism intelligence that it had acquired was FISA-derived would delay dissemination of the information. As a result, the NSA decided to indicate on all its counterterrorism intelligence provided to the FBI as being FISA-derived so that it could not be disseminated to criminal agents or prosecutors without approval from the NSA.152 Therefore, when the FBI wanted to pass this NSA intelligence to criminal investigators, it had to contact the NSA General Counsel’s Office to determine whether the information was in fact FISA-derived before it could be passed.153 In May 2001, the potential connection of [INFORMATION REDACTED] was again discussed by CIA personnel. FBI personnel also discussed Khallad in reference to his nexus to the Cole attack. There were also discussions between the CIA and FBI in reference to the [INFORMATION REDACTED]. But, as described below, the identification of [INFORMATION REDACTED], such as Hazmi and Mihdhar, were not addressed during these May discussions between the FBI and the CIA. Between the early January 2001 debriefing of the source and May 2001, the CIA’s focus on whether Khallad, the suspected mastermind behind the Cole attack, had attended [INFORMATION REDACTED] appears to have subsided. In May 2001, John, a former Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Unit, who by that time was detailed to ITOS in FBI Headquarters, had continuing concerns about [INFORMATION REDACTED], especially whether they had any nexus to the Cole attack.154 John also noted to the OIG that during this period there were heightened concerns in the Intelligence Community about the threat of an imminent terrorist attack in Southeast Asia. CIA records show that on May 15, 2001, John accessed the March 2000 cable stating that Mihdhar, Hazmi, and another person had traveled to Bangkok from Malaysia on January 8, 2000. The cable also stated that Hazmi had left Bangkok on January 15, 2000, flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong and then to Los Angeles. Around this same time in May, John began inquiring about the Malaysia meetings with a CTC analyst, who we call “Peter,” at CIA Headquarters. John said he knew that Peter had been “down in the weeds” and knew the “nuts and bolts” of the Cole investigation because Peter had been assigned to prepare a CTC report on who was responsible for the Cole attack. Peter told the OIG that his area of expertise and focus since August 1999 was the Arabian Peninsula. He said that because the Cole attack took place in Yemen, he was assigned to develop an intelligence report on who was responsible for the Cole attack. He completed his report in January 2001, finding that UBL/al Qaeda was circumstantially tied to the attack. Peter stated that while working on the Cole report he regularly interacted with the IOSs in the FBI’s UBL Unit. By the spring 2001, he was no longer working directly on the Cole attack, and had moved on to potential threats in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. However, Peter said he had a continued interest in the Cole information and continued to gather information on an ad hoc basis. According to John, he and Peter discussed [INFORMATION REDACTED], and Peter provided him with a copy of the timeline of events related to the Cole investigation that Peter had compiled as part of his work on the Cole attack.156 In addition, John said they discussed [INFORMATION REDACTED]. John and Peter were aware that Quso had stated that he was supposed to take money to a person named “Khallad” [INFORMATION REDACTED] but had met him in Bangkok instead in January 2000. John told the OIG that Peter had posited that perhaps [INFORMATION REDACTED]. In an e-mail to Peter in mid-May 2001, John noted that Mihdhar had arranged his travel to Malaysia and was associated with [INFORMATION REDACTED].157 In addition, John wrote that he was interested because Mihdhar was traveling with two “companions” who had left Malaysia and gone to Bangkok, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong and “also were couriers of a sort.” John noted in the e-mail that “something bad was definitely up.” Peter replied in an e-mail dated May 18, “My head is spinning over this East Asia travel. Do you know if anyone in [the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit] or FBI mapped this?” Around this same time, FBI IOS Donna and other FBI IOSs working on the Cole investigation were focusing on Quso’s connection to Bangkok and his trip to deliver money to Khallad. The FBI, like the CIA, was aware that in January 2000 [INFORMATION REDACTED]. According to an FBI document drafted by Donna in May 2001, Quso had claimed that on January 6, 2000, he and Ibrahim Al-Nibras went to Bangkok first but were unable to travel on to Kuala Lumpur because of problems with their travel documents, and Khallad had traveled to Bangkok to meet them there instead. The FBI began researching telephone numbers that appeared to be connected to Quso’s trip and requested that several Legat Offices contact local law enforcement authorities to obtain subscriber information. Donna told the OIG that she and others were tracking the information related to the telephone numbers associated with Quso in an attempt to determine the truth of his statements. In addition, she said that she was focused on the identity and whereabouts of Khallad, since he was the purported mastermind of the Cole attack. At some point before the end of May 2001, John discussed with Donna the East Asian travel of Quso. In response to Peter’s May 18 e-mail that asked whether anyone had “mapped” the East Asia travel, John replied in an undated e-mail that “key travel still needs to be mapped” and stated “[Donna] sounds really interested in comparing notes in a small forum expert to expert so both sides can shake this thing and see what gaps are common.” In addition to reviewing the East Asia travel of several Bin Laden operatives in January 2000, [INFORMATION REDACTED]. John obtained three of them. John told the OIG that he had not read the cable stating that the joint source had identified Khallad in the photographs, but he was aware that an identification of Khallad in the photographs had been made. At the end of his e-mail to Peter, John stated that he had obtained three surveillance photographs of Mihdhar in Malaysia, but he did not see “Khallad” in any of the photographs, [INFORMATION REDACTED].158 In response to John’s e-mail, Peter wrote in an e-mail dated May 24 that he had thought one of the [INFORMATION REDACTED]. Peter added that Donna and another FBI IOS in the UBL Unit, who we call “Kathy,” were meeting with Peter on May 29 to discuss the Cole investigation. [INFORMATION REDACTED] On May 24, Donna sent John an e-mail stating that a meeting with Peter and others was “tentatively scheduled” for May 29 for “an in depth discussion about the Cole.” We were unable to determine with certainty whether a meeting with Peter, Donna, and Kathy actually took place on May 29. None of the witnesses had notes of any such meeting, nor were there any e-mails discussing the meeting after it would have taken place. The witnesses told the OIG that they could not recall whether a meeting took place on May 29. For example, when asked whether she knew Peter, Kathy told the OIG that his name sounded familiar and that she may have met him, but she did not recall a meeting on May 29, 2001, about the Cole investigation. A May 29 e-mail from Peter to Mary indicates that he met with Mary earlier in the day, but it does not identify the other participants or what was discussed. However, it is clear that at some point before the end of May 2001, Donna became aware of the existence of the Kuala Lumpur photographs in January 2000. Donna told the OIG that she recalled John printing one of the CIA photographs on the printer in his office at FBI Headquarters, and Donna acknowledged that she obtained two other Kuala Lumpur photographs from him. According to Donna, Peter had raised the photographs in a discussion with her prior to her obtaining the photographs from John, although she said that she did not recall the details of their discussion about the photographs. Donna said she did recall that, at the time, Peter had posited that one of the photographs could relate to Quso, which if true would contradict Quso’s statements about going only to Bangkok and not going to Malaysia. According to Donna, the FBI was attempting to determine the veracity of Quso’s information, so the photographs potentially were connected to the Cole investigation. She stated, however, that outside of this potential connection, the photographs were “another piece of a thousand things coming in” at the time. She said that if Quso were determined to be in the photographs, then the photographs would have become significant to the Cole investigation. Donna also told the OIG that she did not recall a “substantive conversation” with John about the photographs or the Malaysia meetings. Donna told the OIG that she wrote on the back of the photographs what John told her about the photographs, which included that “Khalid Al-Midar” traveled from Sana, Yemen, via Dubai, to Kuala Lumpur on January 5, 2000, and he was in Kuala Lumpur between January 6 and 8. She also wrote Khalid Mihdhar’s name on the back of the photograph in which he had been identified. [INFORMATION REDACTED] Donna also said that no one told her that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa or that Hazmi had traveled to the United States. John told the OIG that he did not recall anything about his discussion with Donna when he printed the Kuala Lumpur photographs for her. John said he recalled that at the time the FBI was trying to “nail down Quso’s story.” [INFORMATION REDACTED] John emphasized that the FBI was focused on the Cole investigation, not the Malaysia meetings. [INFORMATION REDACTED] Peter told the OIG that he recalled talking to FBI IOSs, including Donna, about mapping the telephone number information based on information provided by Quso. [INFORMATION REDACTED] Around the same time that Donna was discussing Quso and the Cole investigation with Peter and John, she also was planning a meeting at the New York FBI Office to discuss the Cole investigation. The planned participants for the New York meeting included personnel from FBI Headquarters, the CIA’s CTC, and the New York FBI agents working on the Cole investigation. FBI documents show that Donna began organizing the meeting as early as May 24. There was no record of an agenda for the meeting, and no supervisors were involved in the preparation for this meeting or were consulted regarding what should be accomplished at the meeting. Donna told the OIG that she organized the meeting in an effort to consolidate information and determine what further action was warranted on the Cole investigation. She stated that the purpose of the meeting at the New York FBI Office was to address unresolved issues and produce additional leads or other activities focusing on the Cole investigation. According to a May 24 e-mail by Donna, the meeting was “to discuss our direction, particularly as it relates to Nashiri.”159 Donna stated that she planned to take the Kuala Lumpur photographs with her to New York to find out whether the New York FBI Cole agents, who had met and debriefed Quso, could identify him in the photographs. She said that if Quso was in the photographs, the FBI would have reason to question Quso’s statement that he had not gone to Malaysia but had met Khallad in Bangkok instead. Sometime after obtaining the Kuala Lumpur photographs from John, Donna queried CTLink for the name Khalid al-Midhar [sic], which John had provided to her and which she had noted on the back of one of the photographs.160 In CTLink she discovered the NSA information from late 1999 and early 2000 referencing Mihdhar’s planned travel to Malaysia and [INFORMATION REDACTED]. She also queried ACS about Mihdhar but did not obtain any additional information about him. Mary, an FBI detailee to the Bin Laden Unit who worked as a CTC desk officer, also attended the June 11 meeting, as did Peter, the CTC analyst. According to Mary, Donna invited her to the meeting and told her the meeting was intended for information sharing and as a “brainstorming session” concerning the Cole investigation. Mary told the OIG she had recently been given the assignment by CTC management of “getting up to speed” in her spare time on the [INFORMATION REDACTED]. Mary said that she had not yet begun reviewing the Malaysia meetings at the time of Donna’s invitation. According to Peter, the meeting was also described to him as an “information sharing and brainstorming session” to determine whether any further leads should be pursued. Peter said that he heard about the meeting from Mary and contacted Donna about attending because he was interested in learning what the New York FBI agents had uncovered in their investigation of the Cole attack. According to FBI personnel in New York, Donna told them that FBI Headquarters and CIA personnel had indicated they had “information to share” regarding the Cole investigation. The FBI New York personnel anticipated the meeting would be a mutual exchange of information. Scott, one of the New York case agents on the Cole investigation, said he was told that the CIA representatives who would be attending the meeting wanted a briefing on the Cole investigation. On his own initiative, Scott arranged for David Kelley, an AUSA from the SDNY who was assigned to the Cole matter, to discuss with the CIA representatives other issues related to the Cole investigation, one of which was the impact on the prosecution if some of the targets of the Cole investigation were captured or detained outside the United States. On June 11, the meeting was held in a conference room at the FBI’s New York Field Office. We could not determine with certainty all the participants at the meeting. There was no list of attendees, and the witnesses could not recall exactly who was there. However, we confirmed that Donna, Mary, Peter, Scott, and another New York agent assigned to the Cole investigation who we call “Randall,” attended. AUSA Kelley attended for part of the meeting. Although it was unclear exactly how long the meeting lasted, the witnesses said it lasted between two and four hours. In interviews with the OIG, the attendees said they did not recall the specifics of what was discussed at the meeting. The only contemporaneous notes from the meeting that we were able to obtain were Donna’s. Her notes indicate that the latest developments in the Cole investigation were discussed. The second page of the notes is labeled “to do” and referenced several items. Randall said he recalled that at the beginning of the meeting, Scott gave an update of the results and status of the investigation. Mary said she recalled that the attendees “brainstormed” various issues, but she did not recall any significant ideas being developed during the meeting. Peter said he recalled that the New York agents “railed” about the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen and the lack of cooperation they believed they were receiving from the Yemeni government. At some point during the meeting, AUSA Kelley discussed the feasibility of prosecution in the Cole case. Toward the end of the meeting, Donna produced the three Kuala Lumpur surveillance photographs and asked the agents if they recognized Quso in any of the photographs. Donna said she told the agents that the photographs had been taken in Malaysia around the Millennium. Donna said she provided Khalid al Mihdhar’s name to at least some of the agents present. [INFORMATION REDACTED]161 The witnesses’ accounts of what happened next differ. Scott told the OIG that after reviewing the Kuala Lumpur photographs, the FBI agents began to ask questions, such as whether there were additional photographs or information concerning the background on the photographs, including questions about Mihdhar, who was in the photographs. According to Scott, he pressed Donna and Peter for details of the Malaysia meetings. [INFORMATION REDACTED] Scott contended that Donna “refused” to provide any further information about the photographs or the Malaysia meetings due to “the wall.” Scott told the OIG that he previously had numerous conversations about the wall with Donna, which had been an issue between them. He stated that during this June 11 meeting, he disputed that the wall was applicable to the information at hand because the photographs had not been obtained as the result of a FISA Court order, and he continued to press Donna for more information. Scott said the meeting degenerated into an argument about the wall. In his initial OIG interview, Scott described the meeting as very contentious and combative.162 In a second OIG interview, although Scott did not characterize the meeting as having the same level of combativeness, he contended that he pressed Donna for more information but none was forthcoming. Scott stated he had heated telephone conversations and e mail exchanges with Donna over this issue after the June 11 meeting. Donna, Mary, and Peter described the showing of the Kuala Lumpur photographs as a sidebar to the main meeting and generally inconsequential. All three asserted that neither the display of the surveillance photographs nor the meeting overall was contentious. Although Donna agreed that the FBI agents asked further questions regarding the origin of the photographs and asked for additional information regarding the Malaysia meetings, she contended that she responded simply by saying she did not know anything further. She told the OIG that these questions made sense to her when they were asked, but she did not know the answers. She stated that someone asked what kind of passport Mihdhar was traveling on, and Peter responded that it was a Saudi passport.163 According to Donna, she had not known this information prior to Peter stating it. Donna told us that this was the only information volunteered by Peter, and she believed he would have provided additional information if he knew it. Peter told the OIG that he was not asked any questions at the June 11 meeting, he had no formal role, and he did not brief anyone on anything at the June 11 meeting. Peter explained that it is not within his purview or authority as an analyst to share CIA information. He said he did not recall the meeting becoming heated or contentious. He said he did not recall any time during the meeting where Donna said, “I can’t answer that question” or directly refused to answer a question. |