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.
That's the problem in a nutshell. You say stuff. I could very well tell you that I have had many phone interviews with FBI agents who have left the FBI and given them your conclusions, and they have all agreed you're full of crap.
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 investigation on 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 FISA derived
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 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-Mihdhar, 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.
To begin with thanks for your reply and for looking at the documents that I referenced. You have gone further than almost anyone else in this forum. But you did not go far enough.
To address your points:
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.
The evidence I posted shows that the FBI HQ and the CIA knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US on August 22, 2001.
But the real horror story is that on August 22, 2001, when the CIA found that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US, this information went to FBI ITOS Deputy Chief Tom Wilshire and FBI bin Laden unit IOS Agent Dina Corsi, who was working under Wilshire. Wilshire requested that Corsi write up a EC, to start a "intelligence investigation" for Mihdhar and Hazmi, and not a criminal investigation. This would keep this investigation away from Bongardt and his team. Wilshire knew that an intelligence investigation would delay or outright prevent any criminal investigation by Bongardt from being even started, since the rules by the FBI OIPR would not allow both an intelligence investigation and criminal investigation on the same target at the same time.
On August 28, 2001 Corsi’s EC was sent to the New York FBI office and was sent accidentally by John Liguori to FBI Agent Steve Bongardt, who headed the Cole bombing investigation in New York City. Bongardt called Corsi and asked that this investigation be given to him and his team. But Corsi refused and said that the NSA cable that was part of her EC prevented her EC from going to Bongardt, due to a NSA restriction placed on all NSA cables, the “wall”. But the NSA had already approved Corsi’s request to pass this information on to the FBI criminal investigators in New York, (Bongardt and his team) on August 27, 2001, one day before she told him that he could not take part in this investigation.
When Bongardt protested and stated that this NSA information had no connection to any FISA warrant, the only real reason the NSA would deny this information from going to FBI criminal investigators, Corsi at Bongardt’s request contacted a NSLU attorney at FBI HQ. On August 29, 2001 Corsi told Bongardt that the attorney she had contacted had ruled that Bongardt could not take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. But page 238 of the 9/11 Commission report, footnote 81, says that the attorney, Sherry Sabol, in testimony given to DOJ IG investigators on November 7, 2002, told Corsi that since the NSA information had no connection to any FISA warrant, Bongardt could take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. Corsi had lied again to FBI Agent Steve Bongardt in order to illegally shut down his investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. It was these two lies that not only were Federal felonies but cost almost 3000 people their lives on 9/11.
On August 30, 2001, the CIA sent Rod Middleton, Corsi's boss, the photograph of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur, directly connecting both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing. In spite of both Corsi and Middleton having this information they never called Bongardt and asked that he restart his investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi.
Corsi and Middleton who had been directly supervised by Tom Wilshire had illegally shut down the one criminal investigation that could have prevented the attacks on 9/11. Wilshire, Corsi and Middleton were aware of the huge al Qaeda terrorist attack that was just about to take place inside of the US. Wilshire was secretly still working for the CIA while ostensibly working as a high level manager at the FBI HQ and his CIA managers Blee, Black and Tenet were also aware of this huge attack and still allowed Wilshire, Corsi and Middleton to block Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.
So Wilshire, Corsi, and Middleton illegally shut down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi when these agents and managers knew a huge al Qaeda terrorist attack was about to take place inside of the US and even knew that al Qaeda terrorists Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in this attack. They didn’t have to know exactly the "what" or the "where" or or the "when" just the “who” was taking part in this attack.
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.
As Bongardt told Corsi in email on August 29-29, 2001 that the “wall” was a complete fiction. Even Corsi knew the “wall” was a fiction and even admitted it in her August 29, 2001 email back to John Liguori. First no part of any investigation with respect to Mihdhar and Hazmi had anything to do with any FISA warrant, the only reason for a “wall” in this investigation.
In her email on August 29, 2001, after she finds out it was Liguori that had sent her EC to Bongardt, she tells Liguori, that “if at such time as evidence is developed of a substantial Federal crime, (by Mihdhar and Hazmi) this information will be passed over the wall’ (to the FBI criminal investigators on the Cole bombing) according to the proper procedures.
But on page 301 of the DOJ IG report, Corsi admits to DOJ IG investigators that she was aware by August 22, 2001, that the CIA had a photograph of Walid bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur. This is six days before she shuts down Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. She knew that this photo directly connected both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing with Walid bin Attash, the mastermind of the Cole bombing at the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting, a substantial Federal crime, and she also knows on August 22, 2001 that this investigation should have gone immediately to Bongardt and that she had no legal right to shut down Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.
In addition, FBI HQ knew that the information in the NSA cable in Corsi’s EC had no connection to any FISA warrant, the only reason to require a written release by the NSA General Council. So even though Corsi had been approved to give the NSA information in her EC to Bongardt the day before on August 27, 2001, this release was unnecessary. A FISA warrant was only required in a criminal investigation when the information was gathered on a terrorist who was inside of the US. No FISA warrant was ever required when this information was gathered outside of the US and the FBI HQ knew that the NSA information had been obtained from a phone call at a al Qaeda communications center in Yemen that had been used to plan the east Africa bombings and the Kuala Lumpur meeting.
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.
The did not need to know this information. When the al Qaeda terrorists had been photographed at Kuala Lumpur, most of them identified as long time al Qaeda terrorists that were all connected to the east Africa bombings. The CIA had even photographed Khalid Sheikh Mohamed at this meeting and KSM had a 2 million dollar reward on his head for taking part in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the Bojinka plot. Yet the CIA let all of these long time al Qaeda terrorists walk away from this meeting to later carry out the attacks on the USS Cole on 9/11.
Your speculation is unsubstantiated and wrong. You have no evidence, no facts for any of these claims.
Both the CIA and the FBI HQ was well aware a huge al Qaeda terrorist attack was just about to take place inside of the US ion August 2001.
Tom Wilshire’s July 5, 2001 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 huge al Qaeda terrorist attack and in Wilshire's July 23, 2001 email back to these same 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.
Because we now have Wilshire's emails we know that he immediately knew on August 22, 2001 when he was told that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US that they were here in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda terrorist attack. This information that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US went back to the CIA, and Blee, Black and Tenet, just after this August 22, 2001 meeting.
What is even more horrific is that Tenet flew down to Crawford Texas, to have a secret 6 hour meeting with President Bush on August 24, 2001, when he knew that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in the huge al Qaeda terrorist attack that the CIA had been warned about since April 2001, and even knew that the FBI had already had Zacarias Moussaoui arrested when he had tried to get training on B747 simulator without even having a pilot’s license.
So what did Tenet tell Bush about Mihdhar, Hazmi and Moussaoui when he met with Bush on August 24, 2001. We still don’t know since when Tim Roemer asked Tenet at the April 14, 2004 public hearings what he told the President, Tenet said he had not talked to the President in all of August 2001. We now know this was an out and out lie to hide this meeting and prevent any further questions by Roemer on what Tenet had told Bush at this meeting.
That's the problem in a nutshell. You say stuff. I could very well tell you that I have had many phone interviews with FBI agents who have left the FBI and given them your conclusions, and they have all agreed you're full of crap.
No, Soufan is selling a book. Is he one of your FBI agents you talk to?
Soufan said 19 terrorists did 911. You say the FBI and CIA did 911, and they are guilty. Soufan does not support your fantasy. Oh, and this is super stuff; After 911, Soufan confirms some of the terrorists were, ... terrorists. After 911?
Wait, after 911, Soufan saw pictures of the pilots, the terrorists - and he said they were terrorists. Wow, how does this after the fact revelations work? lol, Soufan is selling a book. That is how it works; called advertising, marketing, the old hindsight and intrigue has fooled you again. SPAM on, SPAM off...
How would they stop 911? Start water-boarding early?
What is your fantasy? Who are you FBI buddies who agree with you? lol, non-whistle blowers? Any mouse FBI guys? Names?
I don't get it. If these guys are so super they can write books after 911, exposing their failures; and you say they could stop 911; Why did they fail? Was Soufan in on the evil not stopping 911 crime too?
How would arresting two terrorists before 911, stop 911? Do you have similar fantasy on OKC, or Flt 800? Bigfoot? Chemtrails?
No, Soufan is selling a book. Is he one of your FBI agents you talk to?
Soufan said 19 terrorists did 911. You say the FBI and CIA did 911, and they are guilty. Soufan does not support your fantasy. Oh, and this is super stuff; After 911, Soufan confirms some of the terrorists were, ... terrorists. After 911?
Wait, after 911, Soufan saw pictures of the pilots, the terrorists - and he said they were terrorists. Wow, how does this after the fact revelations work? lol, Soufan is selling a book. That is how it works; called advertising, marketing, the old hindsight and intrigue has fooled you again. SPAM on, SPAM off...
How would they stop 911? Start water-boarding early?
What is your fantasy? Who are you FBI buddies who agree with you? lol, non-whistle blowers? Any mouse FBI guys? Names?
I don't get it. If these guys are so super they can write books after 911, exposing their failures; and you say they could stop 911; Why did they fail? Was Soufan in on the evil not stopping 911 crime too?
How would arresting two terrorists before 911, stop 911? Do you have similar fantasy on OKC, or Flt 800? Bigfoot? Chemtrails?
Here is what FBI Agent Ali Soufan said about the CIA withholding information from his Cole bombing investigation:
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.
You can't make this any clearer than that. Soufan fully supports my conclusions. It is clear that 19 al Qaeda terrorists were responsible for the attacks on 9/11. But it also clear that the CIA and later FBI HQ withheld critical information from the FBI Cole bombing investigators that could have allowed these investigators to prevent the attacks on 9/11.
Your post:
"Soufan said 19 terrorists did 911. You say the FBI and CIA did 911, and they are guilty. Soufan does not support your fantasy. Oh, and this is super stuff; After 911, Soufan confirms some of the terrorists were, ... terrorists. After 911?"
I said that 19 terrorist did 9/11, the same as Soufan. But I said that the CIA and FBI HQ had withheld material information from his criminal investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole. Withholding material information from an ongoing FBI criminal investigation is a serious Federal felony.
Your post:
"I don't get it. If these guys are so super they can write books after 911, exposing their failures; and you say they could stop 911; Why did they fail? Was Soufan in on the evil not stopping 911 crime too?"
To accuse FBI Agent Ali Soufan to be in on the evil in not stopping 9/11 when he had repeatedly had asked the CIA for information they had on Walid bin Attash and any meeting in Kuala Lumpur and was told that the CIA had none of this information when in fact they had all of this information, information that could have prevented the attacks on 9/11, is in my opinion nothing less than totally despicable.
Soufan failed because material information was withheld from him and his investigation. With all due respect, from looking at your posts, I realize it seems that it is difficult for you to form complete thoughts, and put the dots together, but just give it a try.
... Soufan failed because material information was withheld from him and his investigation. With all due respect, from looking at your posts, I realize it seems that it is difficult for you to form complete thoughts, and put the dots together, but just give it a try.
You connected the dots and found I can't write, you can't connect the dots to form a rational conclusion on 911?
Soufan identified the hijackers after 911. ..., that was hard. don't worry, 911 truth has connected the dots, formed a fantasy. What did 60 Minutes say about your fantasy?
Is Soufan selling a book?
CIA and later FBI HQ withheld critical information from the FBI Cole bombing investigators that could have allowed these investigators to prevent the attacks on 9/11
Soufan failed because material information was withheld from him and his investigation. With all due respect, from looking at your posts, I realize it seems that it is difficult for you to form complete thoughts, and put the dots together, but just give it a try.
What possible motive do these agents have in withholding evidence? The only one I can think of is the jealousy and friction between the agencies. I don't buy that though, there was definitely a "wall" that these agencies feared crossing. Let's look at paloalto's blatant bias in the case of Corsi concerning the "wall." In this instance, we have conflicting stories between her and the attorney Corsi consulted. Corsi says she was told they couldn't share info. the attorney doesn't remember telling her that.. Who's version does palo side with? Ah, the one that produces a conspiracy. Which leads back to the question, what is Corsi's motive? There isn't one. So what's happening here? Could it possibly be the attorney doing a little CYA? Or could be a communication breakdown between the two? Neither of those most probable options appeal to the CT, so instead Corsi is blatant liar and villain. That's the man bites dog story that is way more interesting than befuddled consultations and bureaucratic agency fubar.
I have a lot of respect for Soufan, he was a sharp and intelligent agent. But he isn't claiming conspiracy, he's boiling over in the frustration of bureaucratic fubar, agency turmoil, and turf wars. As for turf wars, the distrust the CIA had of the FBI handling any case was ridiculously high, and vice versa.
eta: Does anyone else find it funny that of all these FBI agents palo has supposedly spoken to and agree with him about these obvious and reprehensible crimes, not one has come forward to serve justice? What's the FBI motto again? Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity
What possible motive do these agents have in withholding evidence? The only one I can think of is the jealousy and friction between the agencies. I don't buy that though, there was definitely a "wall" that these agencies feared crossing. Let's look at paloalto's blatant bias in the case of Corsi concerning the "wall." In this instance, we have conflicting stories between her and the attorney Corsi consulted. Corsi says she was told they couldn't share info. the attorney doesn't remember telling her that.. Who's version does palo side with? Ah, the one that produces a conspiracy. Which leads back to the question, what is Corsi's motive? There isn't one. So what's happening here? Could it possibly be the attorney doing a little CYA? Or could be a communication breakdown between the two? Neither of those most probable options appeal to the CT, so instead Corsi is blatant liar and villain. That's the man bites dog story that is way more interesting than befuddled consultations and bureaucratic agency fubar.
I have a lot of respect for Soufan, he was a sharp and intelligent agent. But he isn't claiming conspiracy, he's boiling over in the frustration of bureaucratic fubar, agency turmoil, and turf wars. As for turf wars, the distrust the CIA had of the FBI handling any case was ridiculously high, and vice versa.
eta: Does anyone else find it funny that of all these FBI agents palo has supposedly spoken to and agree with him about these obvious and reprehensible crimes, not one has come forward to serve justice? What's the FBI motto again? Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity
Maybe you have a short memory. Coleen Rowley has already come forward to claim that the Minneapolis FBI office had more than enough information that an al Qaeda terrorist attack was in the works, after arresting Moussaoui. She jointly held the TIME "Person of the Year" award in 2002 with two other women credited as whistleblowers:
She stated that:
During the early aftermath of September 11th, when I happened to be recounting the pre–September 11th events concerning the Moussaoui investigation to other FBI personnel in other divisions or in FBIHQ, almost everyone's first question was "Why?--Why would an FBI agent(s) ( Michael Maltbie and David Frasca at the RFU unit at FBI HQ) deliberately sabotage a case? (I know I shouldn't be flippant about this, but jokes were actually made that the key FBI HQ personnel had to be spies or moles, like (Robert Hanssen), who were actually working for Osama Bin Laden to have so undercut Minneapolis's effort.)
Maltbie and Frasca had prevented the Minneapolis office to even make a request for a FISA search warrant for Moussaoui’s duffle bag. After the attacks on 9/11 were over these FBI HQ managers allowed FBI Agent Harry Samit to get a FISA warrant. Samit found the receipt for $14,000 from Ramzi bin al Sheibh, and traced this information to Mohamed Atta, Marwin al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah, three of the pilots on 9/11 who were bin Al-Sheibh’s roommates in Hamburg, Germany. Samit’s manager told Maltbie and Frasca that Moussaoui was quite likely a terrorist who wanted to fly a hijacked commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center Towers.
You wrote:
“In this instance, we have conflicting stories between her and the attorney Corsi consulted. Corsi says she was told they couldn't share info. the attorney doesn't remember telling her that. Who's version does palo side with? Ah, the one that produces a conspiracy. Which leads back to the question, what is Corsi's motive? There isn't one. So what's happening here? Could it possibly be the attorney doing a little CYA? Or could be a communication breakdown between the two?”
The DOJ IG report says that no one can remember what was said at the meeting between Corsi and Sherry Sabol the attorney Corsi had consulted at the NSLU at FBI HQ. But the 9/11 Commission report says the following:
On August 28, 2001 Corsi’s EC was sent to the New York FBI office and was sent accidentally by John Liguori to FBI Agent Steve Bongardt. Bongardt called Corsi and asked that this investigation be given to him and his team. But Corsi refused and said that the NSA cable that was part of her EC prevented this EC from going to Bongardt, due to a NSA restriction placed on all NSA cables. But the NSA had already approved Corsi’s request to pass this information on to the FBI criminal investigators in New York on August 27, 2001, one day before she told him that he could not take part in this investigation.
When Bongardt protested and stated that this NSA information had no connection to any FISA warrant, the only real reason the NSA would deny this information from going to FBI criminal investigators, Corsi at Bongardt’s insistence contacted a NSLU attorney at FBI HQ. On August 29, 2001 she told Bongardt that the attorney had ruled that he could not take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. But page 538 of the 9/11 Commission report, footnote 81, says that the attorney, Sherry Sabol, that Corsi had contacted, told Corsi that since the NSA information had no connection to any FISA warrant, Bongardt could take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. This was in testimony given tothe DOJ IG investigators on November 7, 2002. No one has come forward with any other information other than since the information in the NSA cable had no connection to any FISA warrant, there was no legal reason to withhold this EC from Bongardt and his team. The was no conflict in this account. There is the account as told by Sherri Sabol to DOJ IG investigators, and Corsi’s lies to cover up her deliberate and illegal actions to shut down Bongardt’s criminal investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. While the DOJ IG report says no one can remember what went on at this meeting between Sabol and Corsi, the 9/11 Commission had a copy of this written transcript of this meeting that they had gotten from the DOJ IG. So it is clear that the DOJ Inspector General had this same transcript and yet says in his DOJ IG report that no one can remember what went on at this meeting between Corsi and Sabol. So it is clear that the DOJ IG had obfuscated his own report to hide Corsi’s criminal culpability in allowing the attacks on 9/11 to take place by shutting down Bongardt’s criminal investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.
In this case we do not have conflicting testimony, we have written testimony documenting Corsi’s crimes in shutting down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt’s investigation and DOJ IG criminal obfuscation of this account. There was no conflicting testimony.
On August 30, 2001 the CIA sent Rod Middleton the photograph of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur, directly connecting both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing. According to the DOJ IG report Corsi had known since August 22, 2001, that the CIA had this photo, knew it connected both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing. In spite of both Corsi and Middleton having this information they never called Bongardt and asked that he restart his investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi.
Corsi and Middleton who had been directly supervised by Tom Wilshire had illegally shut down the one criminal investigation that FBI HQ and the CIA knew could have prevented the attacks on 9/11. Wilshire, Corsi and Middleton were aware of the huge al Qaeda terrorist attack that was just about to take place inside of the US. Wilshire was secretly still working for the CIA while ostensibly working as a high level manager at the FBI HQ. The refusal by Blee, Black and Tenet, his former CIA managers to his two requests for permission in July 2001, to turn over the Kuala Lumpur information to the FBI Cole bombing investigators is evidence that he was still working under the control of the CIA. Blee, Black and Tenet were also aware of this huge al Qaeda terrorist attack and still allowed Wilshire, Corsi and Middleton to block Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.
You wrote:
“What possible motive do these agents have in withholding evidence? The only one I can think of is the jealousy and friction between the agencies. I don't buy that though, there was definitely a "wall" that these agencies feared crossing.”
The CIA had been hiding the information that Khalid al-Mihdhar had a multi-entry visa for the US since January 4, 2000. When FBI Agent Doug Miller wrote up a cable to send this information to the FBI Tom Wilshire blocked his cable without any explanation.
When Nawaf al Hazmi entered the US in January 15, 2000, the CIA hid this information from the FBI and did not put either Hazmi or Mihdhar on any watch list, when they were required by law to do this.
When the June 11, 2001 meeting took place between the CIA, FBI HQ and the FBI Cole bombing investigators set up by Corsi at the request of Wilshire, Corsi gave three photos of Mihdhar that Wilshire had obtained from the CIA. When Bongardt asked CIA officer Clarke Shannon, who were the people in these photos and why was the CIA surveying these people, even though Shannon knew that al Qaeda terrorist Hazmi was inside of the US and knew that al Qaeda terrorist Mihdhar has a visa for the US, and even knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi had taken part in the planning of the Cole bombing he said nothing to Bongardt and his team.
When Wilshire asked permission to send the Kuala Lumpur information to the Cole investigators in July 2001, his managers Blee, Black and Tenet refused to give him permission to send this information to the Cole bombing investigators.
So when Mihdhar and Hazmi were found to be inside of the US, Corsi and Middleton, who were supervised by former CIA manager Wilshire, just continued with the withholding of the Kuala Lumpur information from Bongardt and his team.
There was never a wall with respect to any part of the Cole bombing investigation, this was just a fiction to allow FBI HQ agent Corsi to hide information from the FBI Cole bombing investigators. To have a wall you need information obtained by using a FISA warrant. There was never any information in any part of the FBI criminal investigation of the Cole bombing that had any connection to any FISA warrant.
Remind me again what crimes Coleen Rowley is pushing for with the Justice Dept and the people that committed these crimes? Oh that's right, she's not. Sorry, she is claiming incompetence and tentativeness of personnel to act, and rightfully so, not malfeasance. Nice try at the quote mine, but here is more of her quote:
Our best real guess, however, is that, in most cases avoidance of all "unnecessary" actions/decisions by FBIHQ managers (and maybe to some extent field managers as well) has, in recent years, been seen as the safest FBI career course. Numerous high-ranking FBI officials who have made decisions or have taken actions which, in hindsight, turned out to be mistaken or just turned out badly (i.e. Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc.) have seen their careers plummet and end. This has in turn resulted in a climate of fear which has chilled aggressive FBI law enforcement action/decisions. In a large hierarchal bureaucracy such as the FBI, with the requirement for numerous superiors approvals/oversight, the premium on career-enhancement, and interjecting a chilling factor brought on by recent extreme public and congressional criticism/oversight, and I think you will see at least the makings of the most likely explanation. Another factor not to be underestimated probably explains the SSA and other FBIHQ personnel's reluctance to act. And so far, I have heard no FBI official even allude to this problem-- which is that FBI Headquarters is staffed with a number of short term careerists* who, like the SSA in question, must only serve an 18 month-just-time-to-get-your-ticket-punched minimum. It's no wonder why very little expertise can be acquired by a Headquarters unit! (And no wonder why FBIHQ is mired in mediocrity! -- that maybe a little strong, but it would definitely be fair to say that there is unevenness in competency among Headquarters personnel.) (It's also a well known fact that the FBI Agents Association has complained for years about the disincentives facing those entering the FBI management career path which results in very few of the FBI's best and brightest choosing to go into management. Instead the ranks of FBI management are filled with many who were failures as street agents. Along these lines, let me ask the question, why has it suddenly become necessary for the Director to "handpick" the FBI management?)
I really tried to find where you addressed motive in yet another long, drawn out, pointless post, of why these agents would deliberately withhold info, so terrorists could commit atrocious crimes, but I didn't find any. Anyone else have any luck?
I really tried to find where you addressed motive in yet another long, drawn out, pointless post, of why these agents would deliberately withhold info, so terrorists could commit atrocious crimes, but I didn't find any. Anyone else have any luck?
Remind me again what crimes Coleen Rowley is pushing for with the Justice Dept and the people that committed these crimes? Oh that's right, she's not. Sorry, she is claiming incompetence and tentativeness of personnel to act, and rightfully so, not malfeasance. Nice try at the quote mine, but here is more of her quote: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/wtc_whistleblower1.htm
In the future, please provide a source as I did, so we can check your quote mine? Thanks in advance.
I really tried to find where you addressed motive in yet another long, drawn out, pointless post, of why these agents would deliberately withhold info, so terrorists could commit atrocious crimes, but I didn't find any. Anyone else have any luck?
Harry Samit, who was lead investigator on the Moussaoui investigation with Rowley, called the actions of Maltbie and Frasca in shutting down his FBI criminal investigation of Moussaoui criminal and called both Maltbie and Frasca criminals in sworn testimony at Moussaoui’s trial..
Attempting to find motivation is in effect trying to get into their heads and figure out what these people were thinking. This is not an exact science, and is largely based on speculation and conjecture.
But I could give it a try, recognizing that this is pure speculation.
I gave a very short summary of the many times the CIA had hidden the information on Mihdhar and Hazmi starting in January 4, 2000, almost 19 months before the attacks on 9/11. I didn't even mention that FBI Agent Ali Soufan had asked the CIA for any information the CIA had on Walid bib Attash and any information on any al Qaeda planning meeting the CIA had, three times. While the CIA had all of this information they either said they had none of this information or did not even reply to Soufan’s request.
This conspiracy to hide the information on Mihdhar and Hazmi seemed to go into high gear when Walid bin Attash was positively identified from the Kuala Lumpur photo of him on January 4, 2001 by the FBI/CIA joint source. This identification had been done in secret by the CIA when the FBI agent that was working with the FBI/CIA joint source in the debriefing of this Joint source stepped out of the room where the joint source was being debriefed to photo copy a number of documents while the CIA Pakistani alat showed the Kuala Lumpur photo of Walid bin Attash to this Joint source. The source positively identified this person a high level al Qaeda terrorist who had taken part in the east Africa bombings and the Cole bombing. At that point the CIA Yemen Station, the CIA Pakistani Station, the CIA bin Laden unit, and even the CIA top managers all knew that Walid bin Attash, who the FBI Cole bombing investigators had identified as the mastermind of the Cole bombing, had been at the Kuala Lumpur meeting with Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi actually planning the Cole bombing. The CIA knew that if this information got out to the main stream media it would be deleterious to the reputation of the CIA and that Tenet, Black and Blee would have their jobs on the line. They also knew that if this information got to FBI criminal investigators on the Cole bombing, the CIA actions to allow Mihdhar and Hazmi to enter the US in secret would be exposed and the CIA culpability in allowing the Cole bombing to take place would be exposed. In spite of at least three different CIA units having this information, and information known by CIA management, it was kept completely secret from the FBI Cole bombing investigators. The people in these units all knew that the FBI Cole bombing investigators were keenly interested in any information on this al Qaeda planning meeting and on Walid bin Attash. But in spite of this they still conspired to keep all of this information secret
When FBI Agent Ali Soufan sent a request to the CIA headquarters in April 2001, the CIA must have thought that he and his Cole bombing investigators had uncovered this information that the CIA had been trying to keep secret. The CIA immediately moved Tom Wilshire over to be Deputy Chief of the FBI ITOS unit, the one unit in charge of all FBI investigations of terrorists including al Qaeda terrorists in the world. The first thing Wilshire did when he got to the FBI was enlist FBI Agent Dina Corsi to set up a meeting with the Cole bombing investigators in order to show them the three photos of Mihdhar taken at Kuala Lumpur that Wilshire had obtained from the CIA. At that meeting CIA officer Clark Shannon asked Bongardt and his team if they recognized anyone in these photos?
Since one photo only had Midhar and Hazmi in it and the CIA knew full well what these al Qaeda terrorists looked like it is clear that the CIA only wanted to know if the Cole bombing investigators had uncovered in their search for Walid bin Attash, that bin Attash had been at Kuala Lumpur with Mihdhar and Hazmi planning the Cole bombing.
Wilshire was denied twice by his direct CTC managers Blee, Black and Tenet, in July 2001 permission to transfer the Kuala Lumpur information to the FBI Cole bombing investigators. Since Wilshire had made two requests to transfer this information to the FBI, at the time he made these requests he only knew that the CIA had moved him to the FBI to find out what the Cole bombing investigators had found out about the Kuala Lumpur meeting. But after two of his direct requests were denied Wilshire must have known that the CIA, and his managers Blee, Black and Tenet wanted all information on Kuala Lumpur from ever going to the FBI Cole bombing.
When the CIA found out that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US on August 22, 2001, this information went to FBI Agent Dina Corsi and Deputy Chief of the ITOS unit Tom Wilshire, in Wilshire's office at the FBI.
The first thing Corsi did after this metering was call Craig Donnachie, a intelligence SA at the New York FBI field office and tell him it was urgent that he start an intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi right away. As soon as Donnachie agreed to start a intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi Corsi sent Wilshire an email and said that " Craig will start a intelligence investigation". Even though both Wilshire and Corsi knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi had taken part in the planning of the Cole bombing with bin Attash, at Kuala Lumpur, they knew an intelligence investigation would block Bongardt from starting a criminal investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi, as long as they kept the information that Mihdhar and Hazmi had taken part in the Cole bombing secret. The FBI OPIR almost never allowed a intelligence investigation and an criminal investigation to take place at the same time for the same target. Corsi acting under Wilshire’s request wrote up a EC to start a intelligence investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. When the EC was completed and had a final review by Wilshire, on August 28, 2001, it was marked with precedence “Routine" in spite of the fact that Corsi had called Donnachie on August 22, 2001 and said it was urgent that he start an intelligence investigation as soon a possible. Routine is the lowest possible priority for any investigation, meaning that the investigation would have no urgency to find Mihdhar or Hazmi. This precedence was marked on this EC even though both Wilshire and Corsi knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US only in order to take part in a horrific al Qaeda terrorists attack that would kill thousands of Americans and that it was important to find these terrorist before they had time to carry out a horrific al Qaeda terrorist attack inside of the US.
On August 28, 2001 Corsi’s EC was sent to the New York FBI office and was sent accidentally by John Liguori, Craig Donnachie’s boss, to FBI Agent Steve Bongardt, who headed the Cole bombing investigation in New York City. Bongardt called Corsi and requested that this investigation be given to him and his team. But Corsi refused and said that the NSA cable that was part of her EC prevented her EC from going to Bongardt, due to a NSA restriction placed on all NSA cables, the “wall”. But the NSA had already approved Corsi’s request to pass this information on to the FBI criminal investigators in New York, (Bongardt and his team) on August 27, 2001, one day before she told him that he could not take part in this investigation.
When Bongardt protested and stated that this NSA information had no connection to any FISA warrant, the only real reason the NSA would deny this information from going to FBI criminal investigators, Corsi at Bongardt’s insistence contacted a NSLU attorney at FBI HQ. On August 29, 2001 Corsi told Bongardt that the attorney she had contacted had ruled that Bongardt could not take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. But page 238 of the 9/11 Commission report, footnote 81, says that the attorney, Sherry Sabol, in testimony given to DOJ IG investigators on November 7, 2002, told Corsi that since the NSA information had no connection to any FISA warrant, Bongardt could take part in any investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi. Corsi had lied again to FBI Agent Steve Bongardt in order to illegally shut down his investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. It was these two lies that not only were Federal felonies but cost almost 3000 people their lives on 9/11.
On August 30, 2001, the CIA sent Rod Middleton, Corsi's boss, the photograph of Walid Bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur, directly connecting both Mihdhar and Hazmi to the planning of the Cole bombing. In spite of both Corsi and Middleton having this information they never called Bongardt and asked that he restart his investigation for Mihdhar and Hazmi.
Corsi and Middleton who had been directly supervised by Tom Wilshire had illegally shut down the one criminal investigation that could have prevented the attacks on 9/11. There is no way they would commit major Federal felonies unless they had been direct orderedly to do this by their supervisor, Tom Wilshire. Wilshire, Corsi and Middleton were even all aware of a huge al Qaeda terrorist attack that was just about to take place inside of the US. Wilshire was also still secretly working for the CIA while ostensibly working as a high level manager at the FBI HQ. His CIA managers Blee, Black and Tenet were also all aware of this huge attack and still allowed Wilshire, Corsi and Middleton to block Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.
All of these people knew they had already committed many Federal felonies by withholding the Kuala Lumpur information from Bongardt and his team, and knew that if Bongardt or Soufan continued with any criminal investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, and then found the photo of bin Attash taken at Kuala Lumpur, that they would have realized immediately that the CIA and FBI HQ had criminally obstructed their criminal investigation of the Cole bombing numerous times. The CIA and FBI HQ clearly knew that this would have sent many people at the CIA and the FBI to Federal prision for years.
Hogwash, not sure what howash is. 19 terrorists did 911, and you are saying they could have stopped 2 of them, and made it a 17 terrorists job, then you go off the deep end and make up charges of treason. And you know all there is to know about the 911 attacks?
You said nothing about the attacks on 911, you slander the FBI and CIA.
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