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The FBI had the
principal responsibility for a number of major investigations
abroad involving al-Qaeda prior to 9-11. These cases
included, among others, the bombings of the US embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 for which Osama
bin Laden was indicted, the millennium plot to blow
up Los Angeles Airport and the bombing of the USS Cole
in Yemen in October 2000. The FBI also had a responsibility
for penetrating, tracking and countering terrorist conspiracies
in the United States. If it did not pursue leads arising
out of these cases abroad and at home, or pass the information
on, it would constitute an intelligence failure. Consider
the following three FBI events: 1) In the summer of
2001, Phoenix, FBI agents had received reports of Islamists
training to be pilots at American flight schools. One
informer reported a putative liaison between one of
the Islamist trainees and Abu Zubyada. Abu Zubyada had
been identified by Ahmad Ressam, who had been arrested
six months earlier. as a principal in the Millennium
conspiracy to attack Los Angeles Airport. By July 2001,
FBI agent Kenneth Williams of the Phoenix field office
had sent a memo to FBI headquarters detailing te possible
connections and asking for an investigation of Islamists
training in US flight schools. Williams reportedly suggested
in the memo that " the FBI should accumulate a listing
of civil aviation universities/colleges around the country"
to find radical Islamists. This memo was of direct concern
to the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit, which focused
on Osama Bin Laden on his organization (which included
Abu Zubyada.) 2) One month later, in Minnesota, the
subject of Islamist pilots at US flying schools again
came across the FBI's radar. In early August, an executive
at the Pan Am Flight Academy in Eagan, Minnesota reported
to the FBI field office in Minneapolis that an Islamist
student named Zacarias Moussaoui was acting suspiciously
in requesting simulated training on the Boeing 747-400.
On August 15th after the executive specifically warned
that the Boeing 747 could be used as a bomb by a terrorist
pilot, FBI agents detained Moussaoui on an immigration
charge and seized his laptop computer. Since Moussaoui
was a French citizen, the FBI consulted the French intelligence
service, which reported back that Moussaoui had radical
Islamic associations, including one involved with an
Algerian Muslim group that included a known Bin Laden
associate. The possible association with Bin Laden should
have been of interest to the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist
Unit The FBI field office in Minneapolis then sought
a special warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA). To get immediate attention of FBI executives
in Washington DC, a FBI supervisor wrote that the warrant,
and investigation, was needed to make sure Moussaoui
"did not take control of a plane and fly it into the
World Trade Center." Despite this dramatic warning,
FBI executives decided against forwarding the request
to a FISA intelligence court because they believed it
likely that the court would turn down the request.
As a result, Moussaoui's computer was not searched by
the FBI prior to 9- 11, although Moussaoui himself was
imprisoned on an immigration charge. He was subsequently
indicted in the 9-11 plot.
3) While Moussaoui was being
detained, the FBI learned that Khalid Al- Mihdhar, a
radical Islamist, who was a possible suspect in the
bombing of the USS Cole, had entered the United States
in June 2001. This information came from the CIA, which
on August 23, 2001 reported that Khalid Al-Mihdhar,
along with Nawaf Al-Hazmi, had attended a summit meeting
of al-Qaeda leaders in Malaysia in January 2000. The
meeting had been photographed by Malaysian intelligence,
which identified Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi to the CIA
in January 2000, and in on March 5th 2000 the CIA received
an "information only" cable that both men connected
to al-Qaeda were in the US. They had taken rooms in
San Diego and were taking flying lessons in US flying
schools in 2001. Such al-Qaeda residents were also of
direct concern to the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit.
After Al-Mihdhar had made a trip to Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia in the Spring of 2001, he returned to the US,
listing on his landing card a false address at the Marriot
Hotel in New York. In August 2001 the FBI sought to
find al-Mihdhar. On August 29th, an FBI agent in the
New York field office asked headquarters to allow it
to use its "full criminal investigative resources,"
but, misled by the false address, the FBI was unable
to track him down. By this time, he and Al-Hazmi were
in Laurel, Maryland, preparing to hijack Flight 77.
In all three cases, the FBI had encountered cases of
radical Islamists, with possible connections to al-Qaeda,
who were taking flight training lessons in the United
States.
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| Questions:
1) In early January 2000, prior
to George Bush assuming the Presidency, the representatives
of the CIA, FBI and Defense Department all regularly attended
meetings of the Counter terrorism and Security Group (CSG),
which was an interagency group chaired by Richard Clarke
that focused on threats from Al-Qaeda. Was the CSG informed
by the CIA of the identification of al-Qaeda members at
the summit in Malaysia (which included Al-Mihdhar and
Al-Hazmi.)? If so, was the FBI representative excluded
from this information? If not, and the FBI had access
to the names of the al-Qaeda members identified at the
summit, did he, or anyone else at the CSG, relay them
to the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit, which had a
responsibility for investigating al-Qaeda. If not, why
not?
2) Did the FBI relay any information
about Islamist radicals training as pilots in the United
States, or its assessments of their possible associations
with al-Qaeda, to the CSG, or any other units of the national
security apparatus, so it could be factored into their
risk assessments?
3) Did the FBI relay any information
about Islamist radicals training as pilots in the United
States, or its assessments of their possible associations
with al-Qaeda, to the FAA, or other government agencies
involved in ensuring security at US airports?
4) Did the FBI submit intelligence
reports to the CSG or any other unit of the National Security
Council as other intelligence agencies did on terrorism
prior to 9-11?
5) The FBI search for al-Mihdhar
that began on August 29th 2001. Did it check his name
against the computerized data base of passenger reservations?
If so, why did it not find him booked on American Airlines
Flight 77 on 9- 11?
6) If the FBI had elected to request
a FISA search warrant, and it had been authorized by the
Intelligence Court, was there any information on Moussaoui's
computer that would have led the FBI to any of the hijackers
prior to 9-11?
Witnesses:
George Tenet (CIA)
Richard Clarke (CSG)
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III
FBI ex-director Louis Freeh
FBI Agent Kenneth Williams
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Billy
Kurtz
Special Agent Dave Frasca (Radical
Fundamentalist Unit)
FBI Agent Coleen Rowley (Legal Adviser
in the Minneapolis field office)
Zacarias Moussaoui
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