What's your theory about 9/11?

[DGM]

He did presenet the evdience in his book, "Looming Tower", and his artcle in the July 10-17, 2006 New Yorker, "the FBI agent who almost stopped the attacks on 9/11", an artcle on FBI Agent Ali Soufan. You don't have to think hard, just read this material.

I did read the book (and the article). You didn't answer my question. Keep thinking, he never actually make any specific accusations.

 

[fess]

FrankHT,

After looking back through some of your comments about the US military, are you under the opinion that they were complicit or involved in the killing of thousands of US citizens?

If so, I would say that your level of respect has dropped to a new low.

 

[twinstead]

From what I've read he very carefully didn't make any specific accusations

 

[paloalto]

What I know is that the bolded part is simply your opinion. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, is it not? Imagine, the CIA and the FBI not communicating properly. That NEVER happened before

Here is the bolded part on my prior post:

"Had the CIA just given Soufan these photos when Soufan had asked for these photos, the attacks on 9/11 could have been prevented. But it was ultimately the FBI HQ that had hidden this information from FBI Agent Steve Bongardt and his team. It was this criminal obstruction of the FBI investigation of the Cole bombing that had allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take place."

That is the opinion that Soufan had come to. It was in fact a Federal crime to hide this information from Soufan and his team. Even Tenet had come to the same conclusion.

On September 4 and 5, 2001, inexperienced FBI intelligence agent Robert Fuller attempts to find hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar in the US. However, he fails to perform many basic checks, including a check of credit card usage (see September 4-5, 2001). In 2006, journalist Bob Woodward will report that CIA Director George Tenet believed that FBI could have potentially stopped the 9/11 attacks. Woodward will write, paraphrasing Tenet, “If the FBI had done a simple credit card check on the two 9/11 hijackers who had been identified in the United States before 9/11, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, they would have found that the two men had bought 10 tickets for early morning flights for groups of other Middle Eastern men for September 11, 2001.

But what this account leaves out is the fact that it was FBI Agent DINA Corsi who had refused to give permission to Fuller to get the credit number of Khalid al-Mihdhar and from Saudi Arabian Airlines. FBI HQ had known that Mihdhar and had flown back onto the US on July 4, 2001. Fuller had called Corsi on September 5, 2001, and asked her if he could call Saudi Arabian Airlines to get Mihdhar’s credit card number. Corsi refused to give Fuller permission to do this. His investigation stalled out at that point and he had gotten nowhere by the time of the attacks on 9/11.

And my posts prove that the CIA and FBI were ultimately communicating properly. The CIA had given all of this information to the FBI agents and managers at FBI HQ, FBI Agent Dina Corsi and FBI SSA Rod Middleton. It was these FBI HQ agents and managers themselves working under the supervision of former CIA manager Tom Wilshire, that withheld this information from Soufan's assistant, FBI Agent Steve Bongardt and his team of FBI criminal Cole bombing investigators in the New York FBI field office.

From your post: “Hindsight is a wonderful thing, is it not?”

The FBI HQ knew about Mihdhar and Hazmi well before the attacks on 9/11, knew they had taken part in the planning of the Cole bombing, knew they were inside of the US on August 22, 2001, and even knew that these two al Qaeda terrorists were inside of the US only in order to take part in the huge al Qaeda terrorist attack that they had been warned about since April 2001. Yet they never gave this horrific information to FBI Agent Steve Bongardt and his team, and instead shut down Bongardt's criminal investigation of these two al Qaeda terrorists when they knew that this was the one investigation that could have prevented the huge al Qaeda terrorist attack that they had been warned about.

What part of hindsight does not allowing Bongardt to investigate Mihdhar and Hazmi apply to his?

 

[DGM]

What part of hindsight does not allowing Bongardt to investigate Mihdhar and Hazmi apply to his?

Well this part for one:

The FBI HQ knew about Mihdhar and Hazmi well before the attacks on 9/11, knew they had taken part in the planning of the Cole bombing, knew they were inside of the US on August 22, 2001, and even knew that these two al Qaeda terrorists were inside of the US only in order to take part in the huge al Qaeda terrorist attack that they had been warned about since April 2001.

For one you have already convicted these guys for being terrorists. when did that happen? Shouldn't you have said "suspected"? What plan was that exactly that they knew about before it actually happened? Would it be one that became clear well after the fact? What were the actually details of that attack?

Why don't you start by quoting the law that forbid someone that was suspected (but not actually legally charged) with being associated with al Qaeda from being in this country. Now explain how you can connect these guy's to an attack that has not actually happened (and one that some think will not).

 

[twinstead]

Well this part for one:


For one you have already convicted these guys for being terrorists. when did that happen? Shouldn't you have said "suspected"? What plan was that exactly that they knew about before it actually happened? Would it be one that became clear well after the fact? What were the actually details of that attack?

Why don't you start by quoting the law that forbid someone that was suspected (but not actually legally charged) with being associated with al Qaeda from being in this country. Now explain how you can connect these guy's to an attack that has not actually happened (and one that some think will not).

You beat me to it

 

[paloalto]

Well this part for one:

For one you have already convicted these guys for being terrorists. when did that happen? Shouldn't you have said "suspected"? What plan was that exactly that they knew about before it actually happened? Would it be one that became clear well after the fact? What were the actually details of that attack?

Why don't you start by quoting the law that forbid someone that was suspected (but not actually legally charged) with being associated with al Qaeda from being in this country. Now explain how you can connect these guy's to an attack that has not actually happened (and one that some think will not).

I never convicted anyone, but Khalod al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al_hazmi were known to be al Qaeda terrorists by both the CIA and Saudi Arabian intelligence. The CIA and FBI HQ had many warnings starting from April 2001 of a huge al Qaeda terrorist attack just about to take place inside of the US. Tom Wilshire’s email back to his CIA CTC managers Blee, Black and Tenet indicated that the people at the Kuala Lumpur meeting, including Mihdhar and Hazmi, were connected to the warnings of this attack and in Wilshire's July 23, 2001 email back to these managers stated that Khalid al-Mihdhar and by association, Nawaf al Hazmi, would be found at the location of the next big al Qaeda terrorist attack, an attack that was thought to take place inside of the US.

They don't have to be convicted on anything to know they were al Qaeda terrorists and stop the al Qaeda terrorist attack that the CIA and FBI HQ knew that these terrorists were going to take part in. They could have been arrested for several reasons; providing material support to a terrorist organization, for taking part in the planning of the Cole bombing at Kuala Lumpur and for taking part in the east African bombings that had killed over 200 people and 12 Americans.

Here is what FBI Agent Ali Soufan told Lawrence Wright for his article in the New Yorker, "Did the C.I.A. stop an F.B.I. detective from preventing 9/11?"
and what he put in his book, Black Banners:

From the Lawrence Wright article in the New Yorker on Ali Soufan:

“There was a fourth photograph of the Malaysia meeting that Shannon did not produce (at the New York City meeting on June 11, 2001). That was a picture of Khallad, the one-legged operative. Thanks to Soufan’s interrogation of Quso, the Cole investigators had an active file on Khallad and were preparing to indict him. Knowledge of that fourth photo would likely have prompted O’Neill to demand that the C.I.A. turn over all information relating to Khallad and his associates. By withholding the picture of Khallad attending the meeting with the future hijackers, the C.I.A. may in effect have allowed the September 11th plot to proceed.”

Again from the Lawrence Wright article in the New Yorker on Ali Soufan shortly after the attack on 9/11.

Finally, the next day, Soufan received the fourth photograph of the Malaysia meeting—the picture of Khallad, the mastermind of the Cole operation. The two plots, Soufan instantly realized, were linked, and if the C.I.A. had not withheld from him he likely would have drawn the connection months before September 11th.

Three times he and O'Neill queried the CIA, asking for information about this meeting, and three times the CIA refused to respond. Just set aside 9/11, what happened; Soufan is investigating the death of seventeen American sailors and the CIA is essentially obstructing justice and refusing to help him. They knew about the meeting in Kuala Lumpur, they had surveilled it, they had the Malaysian authorities surveil it for them, they had photographs of the participants who included some of the plotters of the Cole bombing but also two future 9/11 hijackers who flew from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles and then to San Diego.

In March of 2000 the CIA knew that two members of al Qaeda were in America and they refused to tell the FBI. This is one of those parallels with my movie that I find really regrettable, the inability of these two organizations to work together. Had the CIA shared that information with the FBI, which they were really obligated to do -- once they're on American soil, they're part of the FBI's jurisdiction. The Bureau had all the authority it needed legally, because they were in al Qaeda and they were subsumed under the bin Laden indictment, to follow these men, to wiretap them, to clone any computer they [used] -- they didn't need any illegal wiretaps or warrants. They had already all the authority they needed, and they had twenty months before 9/11 to do their work, had they been given the knowledge that al Qaeda was in America, but that information was shielded from them.

From Soufan’s book. Black Banners:

Questioned by Soufan shortly thereafter, al-Quso easily identified Marwan Alshehhi, but didn't seem to know any of the other hijackers, and misidentified a picture of Khalid Almihdhar as Khallad bin Attash (apparently their faces look very similar). As a result, the CIA revealed they had another picture from the Malaysia summit and they sent it to Soufan to show to al-Quso. It was of bin Attash talking in a telephone booth, the booth right in front of Sufaat's condo that Soufan had identified months earlier from his earlier interrogation of al-Quso. Malaysian intelligence had helpfully included the booth's phone number with the picture.

Soufan was really frustrated, and asked, "Look, how many pictures are there?" But he was not given any more pictures, or told any more info about them. He notes that he and the others on the Cole investigation knew what bin Attash looked like, and if they'd seen that fourth picture(of bin Attash), they probably would have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks.

 

[beachnut]

... they probably would have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks.

Oh, from a book. Wow. Now you have solved 911, in reverse. Would of, could have, should have. Good for you. Is that your theory? They probably would have stopped 911. Wow. Remember this method for your next accident. I probably would have stopped my accident...

 

[shure]

^ ad hominem!!!

The Yemen hub was tapped for years (Since 1998). Mihdhar and Hazmi were tracked for years. The meeting in Malaysia was monitored.

The cia PURPOSELY withheld information from FBI counter-terrorism agents that would have at least have stopped AA77 from crashing into the pentagon.

Anthony Shaffer's Able Danger operation identified 3 of the 4 hijacker cells a year before 9/11 and he was shut down by DoD. Hundreds of terabytes of information was then destroyed.

There was a lot known before 9/11. Enough that it should have never happened.

Even worse...

After 9/11, Bush covered-up for Saudi Arabia and attacked Iraq instead.

 

[shure]

^ ad hominem!!!

The Yemen hub was tapped for years (Since 1998). Mihdhar and Hazmi were tracked for years. The meeting in Malaysia was monitored.

The cia PURPOSELY withheld information from FBI counter-terrorism agents that would have at least have stopped AA77 from crashing into the pentagon.

Anthony Shaffer's Able Danger operation identified 3 of the 4 hijacker cells a year before 9/11 and he was shut down by DoD. Hundreds of terabytes of information was then destroyed.

There was a lot known before 9/11. Enough that it should have never happened.

Even worse...

After 9/11, Bush covered-up for Saudi Arabia and attacked Iraq instead.

 

[BasqueArch]

<snip>
If you wish to present a intelligent rebuttal, please go the official US documents I have used and find any information that you think can rebut my post. You can start with the DOJ IG report, see pages 295-310 and then the article in the New Yorker July 10-17 2006, the account of FBI Agent Ali Soufan by Lawrence Wright, and the defense exhibits from the Moussaoui trial, particularly DE 939.
I have already posted the exact page numbers with the exact document that I had used to find the facts that I had presented in my post. <snip>

So I did go to the official documents you have used. Although you are thoroughly familiar with the two sources you reference, you overlooked the reason the FBI and CIA failed to stop the Cole and 9/11 attacks. You left out, and keep leaving out the important bit that explained the reason CIA and FBI did not share their information, and why the FBI criminal and FBI intelligence branches did not share their information with each other; “The Wall.”

The Church Committee, 1975.

“The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975. A precursor to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the committee investigated intelligence gathering for illegality by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after certain activities had been revealed by the Watergate affair.”

Colby testified, "These last two months have placed American intelligence in danger. The almost hysterical excitement surrounding any news story mentioning CIA or referring even to a perfectly legitimate activity of CIA has raised a question whether secret intelligence operations can be conducted by the United States."

“The Committee's work has more recently been criticized after the September 11th attacks, for leading to legislation reducing the ability of the CIA to gather human intelligence.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

“While the old CIA may have been noted for the “cowboy” swagger of its personnel, the new CIA is, in the words of one critic, composed of “cautious bureaucrats who avoid the risks that come with taking action, who fill out every form in triplicate” and put “the emphasis on audit rather than action.” Congressional meddling is primarily responsible for this new CIA ethos, transforming it from an agency willing to take risks, and act at times in a Machiavellian manner, into just another sclerotic Washington bureaucracy. This cautious, legalistic attitude has crippled the agency’s effectiveness and will not change unless the oversight committees of Congress acknowledge the uniquely executive character of intelligence and covert operations, and start to dismantle the cumbersome oversight apparatus erected during the last twenty five years.”
http://hnn.us/articles/380.html

In 1995, the Justice Department established a policy, known as “the Wall,” which regulated the exchange of foreign intelligence information between agents and criminal investigators. Intelligence agents were warned that sharing such information with criminal agents could mean the end of their careers. The Wall, the F.B.I. decided, separated even people who were on the same squad. The C.I.A. embraced the idea of the Wall with equal vigor. The agency frequently
decided not to share intelligence with the F.B.I. on the ground that it would compromise “sensitive sources and methods.”

From THE NEW YORKER, JULY 10 & 17, 2006
A REPORTER AT LARGE - THE AGENT
Did the C.I.A. stop an F.B.I. detective from preventing 9/11?
BY LAWRENCE WRIGHT
http://www.lawrencewright.com/WrightSoufan.pdf

You left out “The Wall” bits.

In 1995, the Justice Department established a policy, known as “the Wall,” which regulated the exchange of foreign intelligence information between agents and criminal investigators. Managers at F.B.I. headquarters misinterpreted the policy, turning it into a straitjacket for their own investigators. Intelligence agents were warned that sharing such information with criminal agents could mean the end of their careers. The Wall, the F.B.I. decided, separated even people who were on the same squad. The F.B.I. also began withholding intelligence from the White House. Every morning on the classified computers of the National Security Council, there were at least a hundred reports, from the C.I.A., the N.S.A., and other intelligence branches, but the F.B.I. never disseminated information.

The C.I.A. embraced the idea of the Wall with equal vigor. The agency frequently
decided not to share intelligence with the F.B.I. on the ground that it would compromise “sensitive sources and methods.” For example, the C.I.A. collected other crucial information
about Mihdhar that it did not provide to the F.B.I. Mihdhar, it turned out, was the son-in-law of Ahmed al-Hada, the Al Qaeda loyalist in Yemen whose phone number operated as the
network’s switchboard. After arriving in New York on July 4th, Mihdhar flew to San Diego and rented an apartment. From there, he made eight calls to the Hada phone to talk to his wife, who
was about to give birth. In the I-49 (The lead unit in the F.B.I.’s investigation of Al Qaeda) squad’s office, there was a link chart showing the connections between Hada’s phone and other phones around the world. Had a line been drawn from Hada’s Yemen home to Mihdhar’s San Diego apartment, Al Qaeda’s presence in America would have been glaringly obvious.

After September 11th, the C.I.A. claimed that it had divulged Mihdhar’s identity to the F.B.I. in a timely manner; indeed, both George Tenet, the agency’s director, and Cofer Black, the head of
its counterterrorism division, testified to Congress that this was the case. Later, the 9/11 Commission concluded that the statements of both were false. The C.I.A. was unable to produce evidence proving that the information had been passed to the bureau.

The I-49 squad (FBI) responded to the secrecy in aggressive and creative ways. When the C.I.A. refused to share intercepts of bin Laden’s satellite phone, the squad came up with a plan to build two antennae to capture the signal— one on Palau, in the Pacific, and another on Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean. The squad also constructed an ingenious satellite telephone booth in Kandahar, hoping to provide a convenient facility for jihadis wanting to call home. The agents could listen in on the calls, and they received videos of callers through a camera hidden in the booth. Millions of dollars and thousands of hours of labor were consumed in replicating information that other U.S. officials refused to share. According to Soufan, the I-49 (FBI) agents were so used to being denied access to intelligence that they bought a CD containing the Pink Floyd song “Another Brick in the Wall.” He recalled, “Whenever we got the speech about ‘sensitive sources and methods,’ we’d just hold up the phone to the CD player and push Play.”

….. By then, Soufan had a much clearer idea of the relationship between Khallad and the Cole conspirators. In July,2001, he sent a third formal request to the C.I.A. asking for information about a possible Al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia, and about Khallad’s trip to Bangkok to meet with Quso and the Cole suicide bomber. Yet again, the agency did not respond. …..

….. The week that O’Neill retired (August 22, 2001) from the bureau, the F.B.I. analyst at Alec Station who had been reviewing intelligence on the Malaysia meeting realized that Mihdhar and Hazmi were in the U.S. She passed the information to Dina Corsi, at F.B.I. headquarters. Corsi, alarmed, sent an e-mail to the supervisor of the I-49 squad, ordering the unit to locate the Al Qaeda operatives. But, she added, because of the Wall no criminal investigators could be involved in the search. As it turned out, there was only one intelligence agent available, and he was new. An F.B.I. agent forwarded Corsi’s message to Steve Bongardt, Soufan’s top assistant. He called her. “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 *********** 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.” The new agent’s attempt to find Mihdhar and Hazmi proved fruitless. …..

Out of the Department of Justice Inspector General’s Report (DOJ IG)2004- 2006 you reference, you left out a few of “The Wall” references as the main reason for the lack of sharing information between the CIA and FBI and between the criminal and intelligence branches of the FBI . You skipped these few instances of mentioning the wall, so I reproduce them here for your benefit in case you may not have read them.
http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s0606/final.pdf

III. The wall between intelligence and criminal terrorism investigations......21

2. FISA Court’s new requirements regarding the wall.................37

D. The impact of the wall ..................................................................... 41

E. Changes to the wall after September 11, 2001 ................................ 42

….. For example, it contains descriptions of key terminology, the FBI’s organizational structure, the so-called “wall” that separated intelligence and criminal investigations in the FBI and the DOJ…..

This section summarizes the creation of the “wall” separating criminal
and intelligence terrorism investigations in the Department of Justice. The wall began as a separation of intelligence investigators from contact with criminal
prosecutors, and evolved to include a separation of FBI investigators working
on intelligence investigations from investigators working on criminal
investigations.

As a result, procedural restrictions – a wall – were created to
separate intelligence and criminal investigations. Although information could
be “passed over the wall” – i.e., shared with criminal investigators – this
occurred only subject to defined procedures.
The wall separating intelligence and criminal investigations affected both
the Moussaoui case and the Hazmi and Mihdhar case. As we discuss in detail
in Chapter Four, in the Moussaoui case FBI Headquarters believed that the
Minneapolis agents should not contact the local U.S. Attorney’s Office to seek
a criminal warrant to search Moussaoui’s possessions because, under the
standards prior to September 11, 2001, contact with the local prosecutor would
undermine any later attempt to obtain a FISA warrant. And as we discuss in
detail in Chapter Five, because of the wall – and beliefs about what the wall
required – an FBI analyst did not share important intelligence information
about Hazmi and Mihdhar with criminal investigators. In addition, also
because of the wall, in August 2001 when the New York FBI learned that
Hazmi and Mihdhar were in the United States, criminal investigators were not
allowed to participate in the search for them.
Because the wall between intelligence and criminal investigations
affected these two cases, we provide in this section a description of how the wall was created and evolved in response to the 1978 FISA statute. We also
describe the unwritten policy separating criminal and intelligence
investigations in the 1980s and early 1990s, the 1995 Procedures that codified
the wall, the FISA Court procedures in 2000 that required written certification
that the Department had adhered to the wall between criminal and intelligence
investigations, and the changes to the wall after the September 11 attacks.

In one memorandum, Scruggs described this separation of criminal and
intelligence investigations as a wall: “The simple legal response to parallel
investigations is a ‘Chinese Wall’ which divides the attorneys as well as the
investigators.” Scruggs’ use of the term “Chinese wall” is the first reference
we found to the term “wall” in connection with separating intelligence and
criminal investigations.

In a memorandum faxed to Gorelick on December 27, 1995, White argued that the
Department and the FBI were structured and operating in a way that did not make maximum
legitimate use of all law enforcement and intelligence avenues to prevent terrorism and
prosecute terrorist acts. She asserted that the 1995 Procedures were building “unnecessary
and counterproductive walls that inhibit rather than promote our ultimate objectives” and
that “we must face the reality that the way we are proceeding now is inherently and in
actuality very dangerous.”

5. Additional restrictions on sharing intelligence information
In addition to the wall between FBI intelligence investigators and
criminal prosecutors, a wall within the FBI between criminal investigations and
31 intelligence investigations also was created. Although it is unclear exactly
when this wall within the FBI began, sometime between 1995 and 1997 the
FBI began segregating intelligence investigations from criminal investigations
and restricting the flow of information between agents who conducted
intelligence investigations and agents who conducted criminal investigations.

As discussed above, in a position paper prepared by OIPR when the
Department was considering the 1995 Procedures, OIPR recommended that the
FBI be required to open separate and parallel criminal and intelligence
investigations, and that the FBI place “a wall” between the two investigations
by staffing the criminal investigation with FBI agents who did not have access
to the intelligence investigation. This wall was intended to ensure that
information from each investigation would be fully admissible in the other.
OIPR proposed certain procedures for sharing information developed in the
intelligence investigation that was relevant to the criminal investigation, a
process that was referred to as “passing information over the wall.”

In March 1995, at the direction of the Department, the FBI established
special “wall” procedures for the New York Field Office’s handling of the
criminal and intelligence investigations that arose out of the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing. It is unclear when similar procedures were employed
throughout the FBI. By 1997 OIPR was including a description of the
screening or “wall” procedures in all FISA applications that were filed with the
FISA Court when a criminal investigation was opened.

According to James Baker, the current OIPR Counsel,39 in late 1999
the Department proposed the use of the FISA Court as “the wall.”
Three reports – a July 1999 OIG report on the Department’s campaign
finance investigation, a May 2000 Department report on the Wen Ho Lee case,
and a July 2001 General Accounting Office (GAO) report – discussed these
issues and the impact of the 1995 Procedures and the wall.
In applications where criminal investigations were identified,
inaccurate information was presented in FISA applications about the “wall” procedures to separate the criminal investigation from the intelligence
investigation. For example, the description of the wall procedures in the
majority of FISA applications involving Terrorist Organization No. 1 stated
that the FBI New York Field Office had separate teams of agents handling the
criminal and intelligence investigations. While different agents were assigned
to the criminal and intelligence investigations, they were not kept separate from
each other. Instead, the criminal agents worked on the intelligence
investigation, and the intelligence agents worked on the criminal investigation.
This meant that, contrary to what had been represented to the FISA Court,
agents working on the criminal investigation had not been restricted from the
information obtained in the intelligence investigation.

2. FISA Court’s new requirements regarding the wall As a result of the FISA Court’s concerns about the mistakes in the FISA
applications, the FISA Court began requiring in October 2000 anyone who
reviewed FISA-obtained materials or other intelligence acquired based on
FISA-obtained intelligence (called “FISA-derived” intelligence42) to sign a
certification acknowledging that the Court’s approval was required for
dissemination to criminal investigators. The FBI came to understand that this
meant that only intelligence agents were permitted to review without FISA
Court approval all FISA intercepts and materials seized by a FISA warrant, as
well as any CIA and NSA intelligence provided to the FBI based on
information obtained by an FBI FISA search or intercept.

As stated above, in late 1999, the Court had become the screening mechanism or “the wall” for all investigations involving FISA techniques on al Qaeda in which the FBI wanted
to pass intelligence information to a criminal investigation.
In March 2001, OIPR also became aware of an error in a FISA
application related to Terrorist Organization No. 2. The error concerned the
description of the wall procedures in several FBI field offices. This description
also had been used in 14 other applications related to Terrorist Organization
No. 2. After the FISA Court learned of these errors, it stated that it would no
longer accept any FISA application in which the supporting affidavit was
signed by the SSA who had presented that Terrorist Organization No. 2 FISA
application to the Court.

D. The impact of the wall The actions of the Department, including OIPR, the implementation of
the 1995 Procedures, the additional requirements created by the FISA Court,
and the OPR investigation had several effects on the handling of intelligence
and criminal investigations. First, witnesses told the OIG that the concerns of
the FISA Court, the banning of the SSA from the FISA Court, the OPR
investigation, and the additional requirements for sharing information imposed
by the FISA Court contributed to a climate of fear in ITOS at FBI
Headquarters. SSAs and IOSs at FBI Headquarters were concerned about
becoming the subject of an OPR investigation and the effect that any such
investigation would have on their careers.
They said they were concerned not only about the accuracy of the
information they provided to the Court, but also about ensuring that
intelligence information was kept separate from criminal investigations. A
former ITOS Unit Chief and long-time FBI Headquarters SSA told the OIG
that the certification requirement was referred to as “a contempt letter.” He
explained that FBI employees began fearing that they would lose their jobs if
any intelligence information was shared with criminal investigators.
Second, the restrictions imposed by the FISA Court – the re the requirement
that anyone who received intelligence sign the certification and the screening
procedures applicable to both FISA-obtained and FISA-derived material
created administrative hurdles for the FBI in handling intelligence information.
For example, the new requirements were imposed in December 2000, just two
months after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, and during the time the FBI was
actively pursuing its criminal investigation. Given the new requirements, the
FBI employed several IOSs on the Cole investigation just to track all of the
required certifications.
Consistent with the conclusions of the AGRT report, employees at FBI
Headquarters and in the Minneapolis Field Office who we interviewed told us
that before September 11, 2001, there was a general perception within the FBI
that seeking prosecutor input or taking any criminal investigative step when an intelligence investigation was open potentially harmed the FBI’s ability to
obtain, maintain, or renew a FISA warrant. FBI Headquarters employees
described cases in which OIPR required that electronic surveillance obtained
under FISA be “shut down” and that the FBI “go criminal” because permission …..

E. Changes to the wall after September 11, 2001
Shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Department
proposed lowering the wall between criminal and intelligence information by
changing the language in the FISA statute from “the purpose” of the
surveillance or search (for the collection of foreign intelligence information) to
only “a purpose”.

In March 2002, the Attorney General issued new guidelines on
intelligence sharing procedures that superseded the 1995 Procedures. The
2002 Procedures effectively removed “the wall” between intelligence and
criminal investigations. The 2002 Procedures explained that since the Patriot
Act allowed FISA to be used for a “significant purpose” rather than the
primary purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence, FISA could “be used
primarily for a law enforcement purpose, as long as a significant foreign
intelligence purpose remain[ed].” (Emphasis in original.)

According to Henry, the Minneapolis FBI was aware of the requirement that to open
a criminal investigation Minneapolis had to establish a “wall” between the criminal
investigation and the intelligence investigation. He said that the Minneapolis FBI had
planned for Henry to remain the agent for the intelligence investigation and for a different
agent to handle the criminal investigation.

Baker stated that if the request for a FISA warrant had been presented to
OIPR for consideration in August 2001, he would have “asked lots of
questions” about it. He said that he would have been concerned about such a
FISA application because the Minneapolis FBI had at first wanted to go to the
U.S. Attorney’s Office to seek a criminal search warrant, and he believed this
would have raised questions with the FISA Court that the FBI was trying to use
FISA to pursue a criminal investigation. He said that in order to obtain a FISA
warrant, OIPR likely would have recommended a wall between the two
investigations.

In addition, as discussed in Chapter Two criminal investigations had to be segregated
from intelligence investigations, and information collected in the intelligence investigation
that related to the criminal investigation had to be passed “over the wall” to the agents
handling the criminal investigation. We discuss some of the problems created by this
system in Chapter Five.

Beginning in October 2000, the FISA Court began to require all
Department personnel who received FISA information in cases involving the
terrorist group that had been the subject of the majority of the errors to certify
that they understood “that under ‘wall’ procedures FISA information was not
to be shared with criminal prosecutors without the Court’s approval.”
Everyone who reviewed such FISA-derived information was required to sign
the certification stating that they were aware of the FISA Court order and that
the information could not be disseminated to criminal investigators without
prior approval of the Court. After being notified of additional errors in FISA
applications in March 2001, the FISA Court banned one FBI SSA from
appearing before it. DOJ OPR was asked by the Attorney General to expand…..

As discussed in Chapter Two, a significant number of the errors concerned
inaccurate information in FISA applications about the “wall” procedures that had been put
into effect to separate criminal investigations from intelligence investigations.

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.

b. The wall and the caveat on NSA information
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.

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.
E. The FBI’s efforts to locate Mihdhar in August and September 2001
The fifth and final opportunity for the FBI to locate Mihdhar and Hazmi
occurred in late August 2001, when it was informed that Mihdhar and Hazmi
had traveled to the United States. The FBI learned in August 2001 that
Mihdhar had entered the United States in July 2001 and that Mihdhar and
Hazmi had previously traveled together to the United States in January 2000.
On August 29, the FBI began an investigation to locate Mihdhar, but it did not
assign great urgency or priority to the investigation. The New York FBI
criminal agents who wanted to participate in the investigation were specifically
prohibited from doing so because of concerns about the wall and the
procedures to keep criminal and intelligence investigations separate. The FBI
did not locate Mihdhar before the September 11 attacks.

To comply with the wall, the New York Field
Office had designated agents as either “criminal” or “intelligence,”

…The opinion is as follows: Al-Mihdar [sic] can be opened directly as a FFI [Full
Field Investigation]…The EC is still not cleared for criminal investigators…Per NSLU,
if Al-Mihdar [sic] is located the interview must be conducted by an intel agent.
A criminal agent CAN NOT be present at the interview. This case, in its entirety,
is based on intel. If…information is developed indicating the existence of a substantial federal crime, that information will be passed over the wall according to the proper procedures and
turned over for follow-up criminal investigation.

…where is the wall defined? Isn’t it dealing with FISA
information? I think everyone is still confusing this
issue…someday someone will die – and wall or not – the public
will not understand why we were not more effective and
throwing every resource we had at certain ‘problems.’ Let’s
hope the National Security Law Unit will stand by their
decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now,
UBL, is getting the most ‘protection’.
Later that morning, Donna replied in an e-mail:
I don’t think you understand that we (FBIHQ) are all frustrated
with this issue. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know
how many other ways I can tell this to you. These are the rules.
NSLU does not make them up and neither does UBLU. They
are in the MIOG251 and ordered by the [FISA] Court and every
office of the FBI is required to follow them including FBINY…

Moreover, the dispute within the FBI about whether to allow a criminal investigation to be opened again demonstrated the problems with the wall between criminal and intelligence investigations.

1. Restrictions on the flow of information within the FBI
By the summer of 2001, the effect of the various restrictions within the
FBI on information sharing – commonly referred to as “the wall” – had
resulted in a nearly complete separation of intelligence and criminal
investigations within the FBI. This separation greatly hampered the flow of
information between FBI personnel working criminal and intelligence
investigations, including information concerning Hazmi and Mihdhar in the
summer of 2001.

FBI Headquarters personnel became wary that any involvement of
criminal agents in intelligence investigations could present problems for the
FBI with the FISA Court. A former ITOS unit chief described the FISA
Court’s certification requirement as a “contempt letter” and said that it “shut
down” the flow of information in the FBI. He further stated that FBI Headquarters employees became worried that any misstep in handling FISA information could result in harm to their careers because an FBI agent was banned from appearing before the FISA Court and OPR began an investigationon him.
These three factors – the Court had become the screener in al Qaeda
cases, the certification requirement imposed by the FISA Court, and concerns
about violating the Court’s rules – combined to stifle the flow of intelligence
information within the FBI. FBI employees described this to the OIG as the walls within the FBI becoming “higher” over time. New York FBI agents told
the OIG that the walls were viewed as a “maze” that no one really understood
or could easily navigate.
As we discuss below, these walls affected the FBI personnel’s
discussions about the Mihdhar information at the June 11, 2001, meeting in…

This NSA intelligence about Mihdhar would have been important to the
FBI agents conducting a criminal investigation of the Cole attacks. However,
Donna did not share this information with the criminal agents at the June 11
meeting because of concerns about the wall. By this time, the FBI was
operating under the requirement that all NSA counterterrorism information had
to be reviewed by the NSA’s General Counsel’s Office for a determination of
whether it was FISA-derived before it could be considered for dissemination to
criminal agents. Because she had not yet asked the NSA whether the
information could be passed, Donna did not provide the New York agents with
any of the NSA information. That information would have been important to
the New York agents who were working the Cole investigation because they
specialized in al Qaeda operations and at the June 11 meeting showed great
interest in the Malaysia meetings and Mihdhar. That information may also
have provided the criminal agents with additional leads and could have led to
the information that Mihdhar and Hazmi had traveled to the United States in
January 2000.

This, in our view, was not because of the wall, but was because of Donna’s failure to
plan the meeting adequately or ask sufficient questions from the CIA in
advance of the meeting.

Once again, however, the separation between intelligence and criminal
information affected who could receive access to the information about Hazmi
and Mihdhar. This interpretation of the wall also hampered the ability of the
FBI New York agents working on the Cole investigation to participate in the
search for Hazmi and Mihdhar. In addition, we found that the FBI’s efforts to
locate Hazmi and Mihdhar were not extensive. We do not fault the case agent
assigned to locate them. He was new and not instructed to give the case any
priority. Rather, we found that the FBI New York did not pursue this as an
urgent matter or assign many resources to it.

a. The effect of the wall on the FBI’s attempts to locate Mihdhar
As discussed above, Donna drafted an EC to the New York FBI
requesting it open an investigation to locate Mihdhar. She also called Chad,
the FBI New York agent who primarily handled intelligence investigations for
the Bin Laden squad, to give him a “heads up” about the matter, and she
subsequently sent the EC to him. She wrote in the e-mail that she wanted to
get the intelligence investigation going and the EC could not be shared with
any of the agents working the Cole criminal case. Chad forwarded the EC to
his squad supervisor, Jason, who nevertheless disseminated the EC via e-mail
within the Bin Laden squad, including to the criminal agents assigned to the
Cole investigation.
Scott read the EC and contacted Donna regarding it. Donna informed
Scott that he was not supposed to have read the EC because it contained NSA
information that had not been cleared to be passed to criminal agents. Donna
told Scott that he needed to destroy his copy. Scott responded that the effort to
locate Mihdhar should be part of the Cole criminal investigation, and he argued
with Donna regarding the designation of the investigation as an intelligence
matter. Donna asserted that, because of the wall, criminal agents were not yet
entitled to the underlying intelligence provided by the NSA, and without that
predicating material, the FBI could not establish any connection between
Mihdhar and the Cole criminal investigation.

Donna consulted with an NSLU attorney, Susan. According to Donna,
Susan concurred that the matter should be handled as an intelligence
investigation and that because of the wall, a criminal agent could not participate in the search for or any interview of Mihdhar.
When Donna advised Scott of Susan’s opinion in an e-mail message, Scott responded
by email that he believed the wall was inapplicable. Scott ended his message by
suggesting that because of the NSLU’s position, people were going to die and
that he hoped that NSLU would stand by its position then.

The way that FBI Headquarters handled the Mihdhar information
reflected its interpretation of the requirements of the wall prior to September
11. First, because the predication for the search for Mihdhar originated from
the NSA reports, this information could not be immediately shared with
criminal agents. Instead, it first had to be cleared for dissemination by the
NSA, which would determine whether the intelligence was based on FISA
information. If so, the information had to be cleared for passage to the criminal
agents – the information had to be provided to the NSLU, which then provided
the information to OIPR, which then provided it to the FISA Court, which then
had to approve the passage of this information to criminal agents. In fact, the
limited INS information concerning Mihdhar’s and Hazmi’s entries into the
United States was the only unrestricted information in the EC immediately
available to the criminal investigators.

As in the Moussaoui case, the decision to open an intelligence
investigation resulted in certain restrictions. FBI Headquarters employees
understood that they needed to ensure that they avoided any activities that the
FISA Court or OIPR could later deem “too criminal” and could use as a basis
to deny a FISA application. This included preventing a criminal agent from
participating in a subject interview in an intelligence investigation. While
Scott was correct that the wall had been created to deal with the handling of
only FISA information and that there was no legal barrier to a criminal agent
being present for an interview with Mihdhar if it occurred in the intelligence
investigation, FBI Headquarters and NSLU believed that the original wall had
been extended by the FISA Court and OIPR to cover such an interview.
Scott’s frustration over the wall was similar to Henry’s in the Moussaoui
investigation, when Henry was told by Don that seeking prosecutor

involvement prematurely could potentially harm any FISA request. Scott, like
Henry, wanted to pursue a criminal investigation and became frustrated when
he was advised by FBI Headquarters that he could not proceed in the manner
he deemed appropriate. Scott’s perception was that FBI Headquarters had
misconstrued “the wall” and the wall had been inappropriately expanded. He
told the OIG that he believed the wall should only relate to FISA or FISAderived
information. Like the Minneapolis FBI, Scott believed that he was
being “handcuffed” in the performance of his job and that FBI Headquarters
“erred on the side of caution” in its approach to intelligence information.

As in the Moussaoui case, the decision to open an intelligence
investigation resulted in certain restrictions. FBI Headquarters employees
understood that they needed to ensure that they avoided any activities that the
FISA Court or OIPR could later deem “too criminal” and could use as a basis
to deny a FISA application. This included preventing a criminal agent from
participating in a subject interview in an intelligence investigation. While
Scott was correct that the wall had been created to deal with the handling of
only FISA information and that there was no legal barrier to a criminal agent
being present for an interview with Mihdhar if it occurred in the intelligence
investigation, FBI Headquarters and NSLU believed that the original wall had
been extended by the FISA Court and OIPR to cover such an interview.

Our review of this case showed that the wall had been expanded to create
a system that was complex and had made it increasingly difficult to effectively
use intelligence information within the FBI. The wall – or “maze of walls” as
one witness described it – significantly slowed the flow of intelligence
information to criminal investigations. The unintended consequence of the wall was to hamper the FBI’s ability to conduct effective counterterrorism
investigations because the FBI’s efforts were sharply divided in two, and only
one side had immediate and complete access to the available information.
The wall was not, however, the only impediment in the FBI’s handling of
the investigation to find Mihdhar and Hazmi. We found there were also other
problems in how the search for Mihdhar and Hazmi was handled.

b. Allocation of investigative resources
We found that prior to the September 11 attacks, the New York Field
Office focused its al Qaeda counterterrorism efforts on criminal investigations,
but it did not expend a similar effort on intelligence investigations or the development of intelligence information.

He described himself as the “leper” on the squad due to “the wall.” Furthermore, Chad stated that the intelligence side of the squad received far
less and lower quality resources.


V. OIG conclusions
In sum, we found individual and systemic failings in the FBI’s handling
of information regarding the Hazmi and Mihdhar matter. The FBI had at least
five opportunities to learn about their presence in the United States and to seek
to find them before September 11, 2001. Much of the cause for these lost
opportunities involved systemic problems. We found information sharing
problems between the CIA and the FBI and systemic problems within the FBI
related to counterterrorism investigations. The systemic problems included
inadequate oversight and guidance provided to FBI detailees at the CIA, the
FBI employees’ lack of understanding of CIA procedures, the inconsistent
documentation of intelligence information received informally by the FBI, the
lack of priority given to counterterrorism investigations by the FBI before
September 11, and the effect of the wall on FBI criminal investigations.
Our review also found that the CIA did not provide information to the
FBI about Hazmi and Mihdhar when it should have and we believe the CIA
shares significant responsibility for the breakdown in the Hazmi and Mihdhar
case. However, the FBI also failed to fully exploit the information that was
made available to them. In addition, the FBI did not assign sufficient priority
to the investigation when it learned in August 2001 that Hazmi and Mihdhar
were in the in the United States. While we do not know what would have
happened had the FBI learned sooner or pursued its investigation more
aggressively, the FBI lost several important opportunities to find Hazmi and
Mihdhar before the September 11 attacks.

With regard to Hazmi and Mihdhar, the FBI had at least five
opportunities to uncover information that could have informed the FBI about
these two terrorists’ presence in the United States and led the FBI to seek to
find them before September 11, 2001. But the FBI did not uncover this
information until shortly before the September 11 attacks. The FBI’s
investigation then was conducted without much urgency or priority, and the
FBI failed to locate Hazmi and Mihdhar before they participated in the attacks.
Our examination of the five lost opportunities found significant systemic
problems with information sharing between the CIA and the FBI, and systemic
problems within the FBI related to its Counterterrorism Program. These
problems included inadequate oversight and guidance provided to FBI
detailees at the CIA, FBI employees’ lack of understanding of CIA procedures,
inconsistent documentation of intelligence information received informally by
the FBI, the lack of priority given to counterterrorism investigations by the FBI
before September 11, and the impact of the “wall” between criminal and
intelligence investigations.

The conclusions that I have drawn are the only ones that makes any sense when you look at the information I have posted. If you have any issue with any conclusion, please point it out with the information that backs up your conclusion.

The facts prove you wrong. Your claim that the CIA and FBI allowed the Cole bombing and 9/11 attacks to take place is false. Your claims are a combination of public well known facts and unsubstantiated personal speculation.

A. Facts
1. Ali Soufan, Moussaoui, Alat, Cole bombing, Kuala Lumpur, bin Attash, al Qaeda, Khalid al-Mindhar, others, meetings, photographs, associations. All these are very well known undisputed published public facts provided by government investigations and reporters and form the body of your posts. These facts are not in dispute and in hindsight form an integrated consensus narrative. Predicting the Past is a common gift as all other conflicting information is ignored as your posts prove.

2. There is no evidence the CIA and FBI knew beforehand who, how, where and when the Cole and 9/11 attacks would take place.

3. “The Wall” was the main reason the FBI and CIA investigations failed to share their information, not a criminal conspiracy, and failed to stop the Cole and 9/11 attacks. This is the main conclusion of the DOJ IG report and New Yorker article you reference.

B. Speculation. (Reasoning based on inconclusive evidence; conjecture or supposition.)

Neither the DOJ IG report nor the New Yorker article that form the basis for your claims conclude that the FBI and CIA knew beforehand who, how, where and when the Cole and 9/11 attacks would take place.

Your speculation is unsubstantiated and wrong. You have no evidence, no facts for any of these claims.

 

[BasqueArch]

Originally Posted by paloalto
... and Middleton to shut down Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, which then allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take place.

Allowed? Where is your Pulitzer? lol SPAM attack again. Can't you answer your own questions?

Are you trying to get on topic? What are you doing to free KSM? Oh, you are convicting him.

beachnut was right. Offtopic free KSM. paloalto's posts moved to this right thread.

beachnut+few words = right
paloalto+many words = wrong

 

[shure]

The main thing is that a lot was known about the hijackers long before 9/11 happened.

 

[DGM]

The main thing is that a lot was known about the hijackers long before 9/11 happened.

How is this significant? Without a generous dose of hindsight, there was no way to know what they were going to do (specifically).

Could you imagine how bad it would "shred the Constitution" if we picked up every person we suspected COULD be involved in a crime?

 

[twinstead]

The main thing is that a lot was known about the hijackers long before 9/11 happened.

The main thing was the hijackers were able to take advantage of the lack of communication between investigative organizations and other inherent vulnerabilities in the US system.

 

[beachnut]

When you understand all the information as a whole like jimd3100 and paloalto do, there is no other conclusion you can come to.
...[/quote] Are drugs involved? What does it take to accept fantasy conclusions? Cover up the Saudis? Hard to cover up 15 Saudi murderers. lol - have you called the Saudi embassy?

jimd3100 and paloalto do not understand anything. Jimd is off making up non-theories of a shoot down, and paloalto jumps to fantasy conclusions. You support paloalto's theory? You are looking for something to be anti-what-ever it is you felt when you were a full blown Balsamo hugging truth activist? Your theories rest on the nonsense of book promotion and nonsense from the same people who were "responsible" for intel. Bob and other's writing books, selling to those too lazy to understand all the information over the last 11 years.

Do it. Take what you, jimd3100, and now since you support paloalto, take his stuff too, team with a newspaper, and be the next Watergate super exposers of stuff, add in the stand-down, shoot-down stuff, clean up. Is this stuff you have now, better than the stuff you had then?

 

[000063]

From what I've read he very carefully didn't make any specific accusations

Gosh, that's totally new for truthers.

:eyeroll:

 

[dafydd]

The main thing is that a lot was known about the hijackers long before 9/11 happened.

Your point being that clairvoyance should have been used?

 

[paloalto]

To you.

This makes no sense. What information could I use? I have the same information as you. I never said your information was wrong. You want me to dig into your mind and debunk how you see it?

No, I want you to point out specially what conclusions of mine that you think are not backed up by the information I have posted and what different conclusions anyone could have come to, and how the information I posted backs up these new conclusions.

The conclusions I have drawn come not only from the information I have posted but a massive amount of information that is too much to put into a short post. It is the total volume of information that allowed me to come the conclusions that I have, not just the information I have posted.

I had also had many phone interviews with FBI agents still at the FBI and with FBI agents who have left the FBI and have given them my conclusions, and they all have agreed with my conclusions. It is also clear that Soufan had come to the same conclusions that I had, as my posted quotes from Soufan show.

 

[beachnut]

... I had also had many phone interviews with FBI agents still at the FBI and with FBI agents who have left the FBI and have given them my conclusions, and they all have agreed with my conclusions. It is also clear that Soufan had come to the same conclusions that I had, as my posted quotes from Soufan show.

Your fantasy conclusions? They agree? No wonder they don't give their names to this fantasy claim.