You wrote:
"So you refuse to provide the source, eh?"
Since I can't post URLs, the sources are Google "DOJ/OIG Federal Bureau of Investigation" or "A Review of the FBI's Handling of Intelligence Information Related ..." for the DOJ IG report
and
for the Moussaoui trail documents, Google "United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui Criminal No. 01-455-A" and your post:
"Once again, where is your source that these agents knew that these two Al-Qaeda agents were going to carry out an attack in the USA, and the specifics that would have allowed them in any way to stop the attacks?"
This is the account of the conversation, from FBI Special Agent Steve Bongardt, lead US investigator on the Cole bombing, on August 28, 2001 in a phone call to FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi:
“Dina, you got to be kidding me!” he said. “Mihdhar is in the country?” He complained that the Wall was a bureaucratic fiction that was preventing investigators from doing their work. In a conversation the next day, he said,
“If this guy is in the country, it’s not because he’s going to ****ing Disneyland!” Later, he wrote in an e-mail, “Someday somebody will die—and, Wall or not, the public will not understand why we were not more effective.”
This is found in the article; “The Agent, Did the C.I.A. stop an F.B.I. detective from preventing 9/11? by Lawrence Wright”, use Google to find this.
The following email is from the FBI Agent in charge of the Cole bombing investigation FBI Special Agent Steve Bongardt to FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi on August 29, 2001:
Email, from FBI Special Agent Steve Bongardt back to Dina Corsi, 908/29 8:38 AM said:
Dina- where is "the wall" defined? Isn't it dealing with FISA information"? I think everyone is still confusing this issue. I know we discussed this issue ad nasuseum but "the wall" concept grew out of the fear that FISA would be obtained as opposed to a Title III.
It is clear that Bongardt knew immediately when told Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US that both these long time al Qaeda terrorists were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda terrorist attack!
This information is located in the DOJ IG report, the long title is "A Review of the FBI's Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice".
This further summarizes the information at the web site for the Moussaoui trial documents :
The document DE #939, is titled “Substitution for the testimony of John” , aka Tom Wilshire, former Deputy Chief of the CIA bin Laden unit, the CIA officer who had been moved over to the FBI ITOS unit in mid-May 2001 to be liaison to Michael Rolince head of this unit:
It is clear from the “Substitution for the testimony of John, that Tom Wilshire, states in his July 23, 2001 email back to his CTC managers, Richard Blee, Chief of the Bin Laden unit, Cofer Black, head of the CIA CTC unit, that was over the Bin Laden unit, and George Tenet, that Mihdhar will be found at the location of the next big al Qaeda attack.
Wilshire had already indicated in his July 5, 2001, email to his CTC managers found in the DOJ IG report that he thought that the people at Kuala Lumpur meeting, Khalid al-Mihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Hama’s brother Salem al-Hazmi were connected to the warnings the CIA and FBI had been receiving about a huge al Qaeda attack.
It is also clear from this document that Wilshire had been forbidden twice from giving this information to the FBI criminal investigators, by his CTC managers at the CIA, Richard Blee, Cofer Black, and George Tenet, on July 13, 2001, and again on July 23, 2001.
The instructions to hide the information on the Kuala Lumpur meeting from the FBI criminal investigators came from the very top of the CIA management at the very same time, that they, Blee, Tenet and Black, were holding meetings in the White House with Rice and Clarke, July 10, 2001, and with Ashcroft and Rumsfeld on July 17, 2001 warning them a huge attack was just about to take place inside of the US that would kill thousands of Americans.
On August 22, 2001, Margaret Gillespie finds out from the INS that both that both Mihdhar and Hazmi are inside of the US and takes this information to FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi and CIA officer Tom Wilshire. Note on July 24, 2001 Gillespie had already found the January 5, 2000 CIR on Mihdhar’s travels to Kuala Lumpur and his US multi-entry visa that specified New York City as his destination, written up by FBI IOS Agent Doug Miller at the CIA Bin Laden unit. This CIR that had written on the bottom; “Blocked by Deputy Chief” (of the bin Laden unit, Tom Wilshire). August 22, 2001 was less than one month after Wilshire’s July 23, email to his CTC mangers on Mihdhar. See “Substitution for the testimony of John”
After Wilshire gave this investigation to Corsi, Corsi and Wilshire started to put together the EC to start an investigation of Mihdhar.
Document DE#469 is the actual EC written up by FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi, that actually connects both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the Cole bombing. During August 22, 2001 and August 28, 2001 this information known by the CIA and FBI HQ was kept completely secret from the FBI Cole bombing investigators even though both the CIA and FBI HQ knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi had taken part in the planning of the Cole bombing at the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting in January 2000.
When FBI Agent Steve Bongardt got Corsi’s EC accidentally on August 28, 2001 he called Corsi to demand that the investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi go to his FBI Cole investigating team. Corsi tells him that he cannot investigate Mihdhar and Hazmi due to the restrictions on NSA information going to FBI criminal investigators.
But on it is clear from DE #448, the release from the NSA that the NSA had already given FBI Agent Dina Corsi written permission to pass the information on Mihdhar and Hazmi and the fact they attended the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting to the FBI criminal investigators in New York, on August 27, 2001 and was sent to Corsi on August 28, 2001.
Page 306 of the DOJ IG report says:
Bongardt received the EC, Corsi’s EC, on August 28. Shortly thereafter, Bongardt, Corsi , and Rod Middleton, (Corsi’s boss), engaged in a conference call to discuss whether the case should be opened as a criminal instead of an intelligence investigation. Corsi told the OIG that the information on Mihdhar was received through intelligence channels and, because of restrictions on using intelligence information, could not be provided directly to the criminal agents working the Cole investigation. Rod Middleton told the OIG he had concurred with Corsi’s assessment that the matter should be an intelligence investigation.
Corsi with Rod Middleton’s concurrence ordered Bongardt to not have anything to do with any investigation of Mihdhar and to destroy any and all information that he had on Mihdhar. She later tells him, as described in the September 20, 2002 public hearings for the Joint Inquiry of 9/11, that if one piece of paper ever surfaced at the FBI with his name and Mihdhar’s name, he was through as an FBI agent at the FBI.
Since Bongardt did not see any connection of the NSA information to any FISA warrant, he asks Corsi on August 28, 2001 to get a legal ruling from the NSLU the unit at FBI HQ that issued legal rulings on whether to allow criminal agents to take part in FBI investigations that might have been started using intelligence information.
On August 29, 2001, Corsi tells Bongardt that the NSLU attorney had ruled that Bongardt and his team could have no part in the investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.
Email, from FBI Special Agent Steve Bongardt back to Dina Corsi, 908/29 8:38 AM said:
Dina- where is "the wall" defined? Isn't it dealing with FISA information"? I think everyone is still confusing this issue. I know we discussed this issue ad nasuseum but "the wall" concept grew out of the fear that FISA would be obtained as opposed to a Title III.
It is clear that Bongardt knew immediately when told Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US that both these long time al Qaeda terrorists were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda terrorist attack!
The Justice Department’s office of inspector general and the 9/11 Commission will later back Bongardt and say the investigation should have been a criminal investigation, as the “wall” procedures did not apply. The inspector general will comment that Bongardt “was correct that the wall had been created to deal with the handling of only [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] information and that there was no legal barrier to a criminal agent being present for an interview with Almihdhar if it occurred in the intelligence investigation.” [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 351
The 9/11 Commission: “Simply put, there was no legal reason why the information [Corsi] possessed could not have been shared with [Bongardt].” …Because Almihdhar was being sought for his possible connection to or knowledge of the Cole bombing, he could be investigated or tracked under the existing Cole criminal case. No new criminal case was needed for the criminal agent to begin searching for [him]. And as the NSA had approved the passage of its information to the criminal agent, he could have conducted a search using all available information.
In spite of the fact that Corsi tells Bongardt that he cannot take part in any investigation of Mihdhar, from Sherry Sabol’s testimony to DOJ IG investigators, on November 7, 2002, it is clear that Sabol, the NSLU attorney Corsi had contacted, had ruled in fact just the opposite from what Corsi had told FBI Agent Bongardt, and had ruled that Bongardt and his team could be part of any investigation and search for of Mihdhar since the NSA information had no connection to any FISA warrant. It is also clear that Corsi had not even told Sabol that she had received a written NSA release to allow her to give this information to Bongardt two days earlier. See testimony of Sherry Sabol to the DOJ IG investigators found in the 9/11 Commission report p 538, footnote 81.
DE #792 is also the threat warning that went to the ITOs unit and was written into an EC by the FBI Bin Laden unit, which included both Rod Middleton and Dina Corsi.
According to information from a FOIA, this material shows that the FBI ITOS with the RFU and Corsi’s Bin Laden unit had held a meeting on July 9, 2001 with 35 Federal agencies warning them of a huge al Qaeda attack.
It is clear when Middleton, Corsi and Wilshire shut down Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar on August 29, 2001 they all were clearly aware of a massive al Qaeda attack about to take place inside of the US, and had to know their actions would prevent Bongardt from stopping this al Qaeda attack.
At this time but unknown to Sabol, and to FBI Agent Steve Bongardt, it is clear from the DO IG report, that Corsi had been aware since August 22, 2001, that Khallad Bin Attash had been identified in a photograph that she knew the CIA had been hiding from the FBI of Khallad taken at the Kuala Lumpur meeting in January 2000, see DOJ IG report. This photograph connected, Khallad the master mind of the Cole bombing, to both Mihdhar and Hazmi and to the planning of the Cole bombing at this meeting, since all three had been photographed at this same meeting.
The photograph of Mihdhar and Hazmi were sent over to the FBI NY office by Wilshire and the CIA on August 23, 2001, just one day after FBI Agent Gillespie found that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US and this information given to Corsi and Wilshire.
The DOJ IG report on page 301 says:
On August 30, 2001, the CIA sent a CIR to the FBI (HQ) outlining the identification of “Khallad” from one of the Kuala Lumpur surveillance photographs in January 2001 (January 4, 2001) by the source. The first line of the text stated the information should be passed to Rob, (aka Rod Middleton FBI HQ Agent Dina Corsi’s immediate supervisor). This CIR even included the very photo of Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur.
So on August 30, 2001 Dina Corsi’s boss Rod Middleton knows that Walid Bin Attash had been at the Kuala Lumpur meeting with Mihdhar and Hazmi actually planning the Cole bombing and actually has photographic proof of this information, the very information that had been kept completely secret from the FBI Cole bombing investigators since January 4, 2001, when Attash was identified in the Kuala Lumpur photos by the FBI/CIA joint source.
Once Rod Middleton, Corsi’s boss received the photo of Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur and knew that Walid bin Attash had been at the Kuala Lumpur meeting planning the Cole bombing with Mihdhar and Hazmi, a horrific criminal act, there was no longer any legitimate reason why he did not immediately contact FBI Agent Steve Bongardt and allow him start a criminal investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.
On August 28, 2001 he had been on the phone with Corsi blocking Bongardt from starting a criminal investigation of Mihdhar. He could have called Bongardt and undone the damage he had done on August 28, 2001, shutting down Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.
Bongardt was never even aware that this photograph of Khallad existed until long after the events on 9/11 and was never made aware that when Corsi told him to shut down his investigation of Mihdhar and destroy all of the information he and his team had on Mihdhar, that she knew this photograph existed, and knew that the CIA had been hiding this photograph from him and his team. She even knew that this meant the investigation of Mihdhar should have gone to him and his team. Corsi clearly knew that the CIA and Wilshire had been hiding this photograph from him and his team, when she shut down his investigation of Mihdhar on August 28 and August 29, 2001.
It is now clear that the criminal activities at the CIA to hide the fact from the FBI Cole bombing criminal investigators that Khallad had been identified on January 4, 2001 by the FBI/CIA joint source as having attended the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting with Mihdhar and Hazmi, had started even before this identification by the joint FBI/CIA source.
According to the account of Ali Soufan by Lawrence Wright, Soufan first asked the Yemen CIA station in November 2000, if the CIA had been aware of any al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000, or had any information on Walid Bin Attash, aka Khallad. He was told there was no information at the CIA on any meeting in Kuala Lumpur or on Bin Attash. But just after Bin Attash had been identified on December 16, 2000 by the FBI/CIA joint source from the passport of bin Attash that Soufan attached to his request, “CIA overseas personnel" requested photos from the CIA Bin Laden unit of Bin Attash and Mihdhar taken at the Kuala Lumpur meeting. While no one has ever identified the CIA overseas personnel, later documents from the CIA show this was the Yemen CIA station, since this information on the identification of Walid Bin Attash was sent back to the Yemen station, an action that would not make sense if it was not the Yemen Station that had initiated the request to show the Kuala Lumpur photos of Walid Bin Attash and Khalid al-Mihdhar to the FBI/CIA joint source.
So while Soufan was told by the CIA Yemen station the CIA had none of this information it is clear they did and that this information was kept secret from the Cole bombing investigation in a criminal conspiracy by the CIA Bin Laden unit and the CIA Yemen station.
Once the photo of Bin Attash was identified by the FBI/CIA joint source on January 4, 2001, the CIA knew they would appear to have been culpable in the Cole bombing for having photographed many known al Qaeda terrorists at the Kuala Lumpur meeting and then allowing them to walk away to carry out the Cole bombing 9 months later. This was the information that the CIA wanted to keep secret! Beacue the planning for the Cole bombing and the attacks on 9/11 took place at the same al Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur, hidding the CIA culpability in allowing the Cole bombing from the FBI investiators on the Cole bombing also hid the very information that could have prevented the attacks that took place on 9/11.
When Soufan received no information from the Yemen station to his request, he asked FBI Director Louis Freeh, if Freeh would make a formal request to the CIA and CIA Director George Tenet for any information the CIA had on any meeting in Kuala Lumpur or on Walid Bin Attash, aka Khallad. But Soufan again was told the CIA had none of this information.
But The DOJ IG report pages 237-238 says:
In the midst of the Millennium period concerns in late 1999, the NSA analyzed communications associated with a suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East linked to Al Qaeda activities directed against U.S. interests. 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. At the FBI, this information appeared in the daily threat update to the Director on January 4, 2000.
The 9/11 Commission report page 181 says;
The Counter terrorism center had briefed the CIA leadership on the gathering in Kuala Lumpur and the information had been passed on ... to the Director Freeh and others at the FBI...
So it is clear that Freeh knew about the meeting in Kuala Lumpur at the very time of Soufan's request in November 2000 and then had criminally obstructed his own FBI investigation of the Cole bombing, an investigation that could have prevented the attacks on 9/11. This horrific information is still contained to this day in Freeh's January 4, 2000 daily briefing papers, a fact that was conveniently overlooked by the 9/11 Commission.
When all of this information is now in the public domain for over three years the big question is why does it appear that many people are just hearing about it for the first time?
And why did this information not appear in any significant way in the 9/11 Commission report especially when the 9/11 Commission stated that they were in possession of the DOJ IG interviews and reports and the Moussaoui trial documents were also the result of DOJ IG interviews with DOJ IG investigators? Maybe Farmer can explain this?
Edited by LashL:
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