ABRIDGED
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
FACTUAL
FINDINGS
1.
Finding: While the Intelligence Community had amassed a great deal of valuable
intelligence
regarding Usama Bin Ladin and his terrorist activities, none of it identified
the
time,
place, and specific nature of the attacks that were planned for September 11,
2001.
Nonetheless,
the Community did have information that was clearly relevant to the
September
11 attacks, particularly when considered for its collective significance.
2.
Finding: During the spring and summer of 2001, the Intelligence Community
experienced
a
significant increase in information indicating that Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida
intended to
strike
against U.S. interests in the very near future.
3.
Finding: Beginning in 1998 and continuing into the summer of 2001, the
Intelligence
Community
received a modest, but relatively steady, stream of intelligence reporting that
indicated
the possibility of terrorist attacks within the United States. Nonetheless,
testimony
and
interviews confirm that it was the general view of the Intelligence Community,
in the
spring
and summer of 2001, that the threatened Bin Ladin attacks would most likely
occur
against
U.S. interests overseas, despite indications of plans and intentions to attack
in the
domestic
United States.
4.
Finding: From at least 1994, and continuing into the summer of 2001, the
Intelligence
Community
received information indicating that terrorists were contemplating, among
other
means of attack, the use of aircraft as weapons. This information did not
stimulate
any
specific Intelligence Community assessment of, or collective U.S. Government
reaction
to,
this form of threat.
5.
Finding: Although relevant information that is significant in retrospect
regarding the
attacks
was available to the Intelligence Community prior to September 11, 2001, the
Community
too often failed to focus on that information and consider and appreciate its
collective
significance in terms of a probable terrorist attack. Neither did the
Intelligence
Community
demonstrate sufficient initiative in coming to grips with the new transnational
threats.
Some significant pieces of information in the vast stream of data being
collected
were
overlooked, some were not recognized as potentially significant at the time and
therefore
not disseminated, and some required additional action on the part of foreign
governments
before a direct connection to the hijackers could have been established. For
all
those
reasons, the Intelligence Community failed to fully capitalize on available,
and
potentially
important, information. The sub-findings below identify each category of this
information.
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[Terrorist
Communications in 1999]
5.a.
[During 1999, the National Security Agency obtained a number of
communications
– none of which included specific detail regarding the time, place or
nature
of the September 11 attacks -- connecting individuals to terrorism who were
identified,
after September 11, 2001, as participants in the attacks that occurred on
that
day.]
Malaysia
Meeting and Travel of al-Qa’ida Operatives
to the
United States
5.b.
The Intelligence Community acquired additional, and highly significant,
information
regarding Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in early 2000.
Critical
parts of the information concerning al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi lay dormant
within
the Intelligence Community for as long as eighteen months, at the very time
when
plans for the September 11 attacks were proceeding. The CIA missed repeated
opportunities
to act based on information in its possession that these two Bin
Ladinassociated
terrorists
were traveling to the United States, and to add their names to
watchlists.
[Terrorist
Communications in Spring 2000]
5.c.
[In January 2000, after the meeting of al-Qa’ida operatives in Malaysia, Khalid
al-Mihdhar
and Nawaf al-Hazmi entered the United States [ ].
Thereafter,
the Intelligence Community obtained information indicating that an
individual
named “Khaled” at an unknown location had contacted a suspected
terrorist
facility in the Middle East. The Intelligence Community reported some of
this
information, but did not report all of it. Some of it was not reported because
it
was
deemed not terrorist-related. It was not until after September 11, 2001 that
the
Intelligence
Community determined that these contacts had been made from future
hijacker
Khalid al-Mihdhar while he was living within the domestic United States.]
[Two
Hijackers Had Numerous Contacts With an Active FBI Informant]
5.d.
[This Joint Inquiry confirmed that these same two future hijackers, Khalid al-
Mihdhar
and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had numerous contacts with a long time FBI
counterterrorism
informant in California and that a third future hijacker, Hani
Hanjour,
apparently had more limited contact with the informant. In mid- to late-
2000,
the CIA already had information indicating that al-Mihdhar had a multiple
entry
U.S. visa and that al-Hazmi had in fact traveled to Los Angeles, but the two
had
not
been watchlisted and information suggesting that two suspected terrorists could
well be
in the United States had not yet [page xiii] been
given to the FBI. The San
Diego
FBI field office that handled the informant in question, did not receive that
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information
or any of the other intelligence information pertaining to al-Mihdhar and
al-Hazmi,
prior to September 11, 2001. As a result, the FBI missed the opportunity to
task a
uniquely well-positioned informant -- who denies having any advance
knowledge
of the plot --- to collect information about the hijackers and their plans
within
the United States].
The
Phoenix Electronic Communication
5.e. On
July 10, 2001, an FBI Phoenix field office agent sent an “Electronic
Communication”
to 4 individuals in the Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU) and two
people
in the Usama Bin Ladin Unit (UBLU) at FBI headquarters, and to two agents
on
International Terrorism squads in the New York Field Office. In the
communication,
the agent expressed his concerns, based on his first-hand knowledge,
that
there was a coordinated effort underway by Bin Ladin to send students to the
United
States for civil aviation-related training. He noted that there was an
“inordinate
number of individuals of investigative interest” in this type of training in
Arizona
and expressed his suspicion that this was an effort to establish a cadre of
individuals
in civil aviation who would conduct future terrorist activity. The Phoenix
EC
requested that FBI Headquarters consider implementing four recommendations:
• accumulate a list of civil aviation
university/colleges around the country;
• establish liaison with these schools;
• discuss the theories contained in the Phoenix EC with
the Intelligence Community; and
• consider seeking authority to obtain visa information
concerning individuals seeking to
attend
flight schools.
However,
the FBI headquarters personnel did not take the action requested by the Phoenix
agent
prior to September 11, 2001. The communication generated little or no interest
at
either
FBI Headquarters or the FBI’s New York field office.
The FBI
Investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui
5.f. In
August 2001, the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, in conjunction with the INS,
detained
Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national who had enrolled in flight training in
Minnesota.
FBI agents there also suspected that Moussaoui was involved in a
hijacking
plot. FBI Headquarters attorneys determined that there was not probable
cause
to obtain a court order to [page xiv] search
Moussaoui’s belongings under the
Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). However, personnel at FBI
Headquarters,
including the Radical Fundamentalism Unit and the National Security
Law
Unit, as well as agents in the Minneapolis field office, misunderstood the
legal
standard
for obtaining an order under FISA. As a result, FBI Minneapolis Field
Office
personnel wasted valuable investigative resources trying to connect the
Chechen
rebels to al-Qa’ida. Finally, no one at the FBI apparently connected the
Moussaoui
investigation with the heightened threat environment in the summer of
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2001,
the Phoenix communication, or the entry of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi into the
United
States.
Hijackers
In Contact With Persons of FBI Investigative Interest
in the
United States
5.g.
The Joint Inquiry confirmed that at least some of the hijackers were not as
isolated
during their time in the United States as has been previously suggested.
Rather,
they maintained a number of contacts both in the United States and abroad
during
this time period. Some of those contacts were with individuals who were
known
to the FBI, through either past or, at the time, ongoing FBI inquiries and
investigations.
Although it is not known to what extent any of these contacts in the
United
States were aware of the plot, it is now clear that they did provide at least
some of
the hijackers with substantial assistance while they were living in this
country.
Hijackers’
Associates in Germany
5.h.
[Since 1995, the CIA had been aware of a radical Islamic presence in Germany,
including
individuals with connections to Usama Bin Ladin. Prior to September 11,
2001,
the CIA had unsuccessfully sought additional information on individuals who
have
now been identified as associates of some of the hijackers.]
Khalid
Shaykh Mohammad
5.i.
Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community had information linking
Khalid
Shaykh Mohammed (KSM), now recognized by the Intelligence Community
as the
mastermind of the attacks, to Bin Ladin, to terrorist plans to use aircraft as
weapons,
and to terrorist activity in the United States. The Intelligence Community,
however,
relegated Khalid Shaykh Mohammed (KSM) to rendition target status
following
his 1996 indictment in connection with the Bojinka Plot and, as a
[page
xv] result, focused primarily on his location, rather than
his activities and place
in the
al-Qa’ida hierarchy. The Community also did not recognize the significance of
reporting
in June 2001 concerning KSM’s active role in sending terrorists to the
United
States, or the facilitation of their activities upon arriving in the United
States.
Collection
efforts were not targeted on information about KSM that might have
helped
better understand al-Qa’ida’s plans and intentions, and KSM’s role in the
September
11 attacks was a surprise to the Intelligence Community.
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[Terrorist
Communications in September 2001]
5.j.
[In the period from September 8 to September 10, 2001 NSA intercepted, but did
not
translate or disseminate until after September 11, some communications that
indicated
possible impending terrorist activity.]
CONCLUSION
– FACTUAL FINDINGS
In
short, for a variety of reasons, the Intelligence Community failed to
capitalize on both the
individual
and collective significance of available information that appears relevant to
the events of
September
11. As a result, the Community missed opportunities to disrupt the September
11th plot by
denying
entry to or detaining would-be hijackers; to at least try to unravel the plot
through
surveillance
and other investigative work within the United States; and, finally, to
generate a
heightened
state of alert and thus harden the homeland against attack.
No one
will ever know what might have happened had more connections been drawn between
these
disparate pieces of information. We will never definitively know to what extent
the Community
would
have been able and willing to exploit fully all the opportunities that may have
emerged. The
important
point is that the Intelligence Community, for a variety of reasons, did not
bring together and
fully
appreciate a range of information that could have greatly enhanced its chances
of uncovering and
preventing
Usama Bin Ladin’s plan to attack these United States on September 11, 2001.
SYSTEMIC
FINDINGS
Our
review of the events surrounding September 11 has revealed a number of systemic
weaknesses
that hindered the Intelligence Community’s counterterrorism efforts before
September
11. If
not addressed, these weaknesses will continue to undercut U.S. counterterrorist
efforts. In
order
to minimize the possibility of attacks like September 11 in the future,
effective solutions to
those
problems need to be developed and fully implemented as soon as possible.
[page
xvi]
1.
Finding: Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community was neither well organized
nor
equipped, and did not adequately adapt, to meet the challenge posed by global
terrorists
focused
on targets within the domestic United States. Serious gaps existed between the
collection
coverage provided by U.S. foreign and U.S. domestic intelligence capabilities.
The
U.S.
foreign intelligence agencies paid inadequate attention to the potential for a
domestic
attack.
The CIA’s failure to watchlist suspected terrorists aggressively reflected a
lack of
emphasis
on a process designed to protect the homeland from the terrorist threat. As a
result,
CIA employees failed to watchlist al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. At home, the
counterterrorism
effort suffered from the lack of an effective domestic intelligence
capability.
The FBI was unable to identify and monitor effectively the extent of activity
by
al-Qa’ida
and other international terrorist groups operating in the United States. Taken
together,
these problems greatly exacerbated the nation’s vulnerability to an
increasingly
dangerous
and immediate international terrorist threat inside the United States.
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2.
Finding: Prior to September 11, 2001, neither the U.S. Government as a whole
nor the
Intelligence
Community had a comprehensive counterterrorist strategy for combating the
threat
posed by Usama Bin Ladin. Furthermore, the Director of Central Intelligence
(DCI)
was
either unwilling or unable to marshal the full range of Intelligence Community
resources
necessary to combat the growing threat to the United States.
3.
Finding: Between the end of the Cold War and September 11, 2001, overall
Intelligence
Community
funding fell or remained even in constant dollars, while funding for the
Community’s
counterterrorism efforts increased considerably. Despite those increases, the
accumulation
of intelligence priorities, a burdensome requirements process, the overall
decline
in Intelligence Community funding, and reliance on supplemental appropriations
made it
difficult to allocate Community resources effectively against an evolving
terrorist
threat.
Inefficiencies in the resource and requirements process were compounded by
problems
in Intelligence Community budgeting practices and procedures.
4.
Finding: While technology remains one of this nation’s greatest advantages, it
has not
been
fully and most effectively applied in support of U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
Persistent
problems in this area included a lack of collaboration between Intelligence
Community
agencies, a reluctance to develop and implement new technical capabilities
aggressively,
the FBI’s reliance on outdated and insufficient technical systems, and the
absence
of a central counterterrorism database.
5.
Finding: Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community’s understanding of
al-
Qa’ida
was hampered by insufficient analytic focus and quality, particularly in terms
of
strategic
analysis. Analysis and analysts were not always used effectively because of the
perception
in some quarters of the Intelligence Community that they were less important to
agency
counterterrorism missions than were operations personnel. The quality of
counterterrorism
analysis was inconsistent, and many analysts were inexperienced,
unqualified,
under-trained, and without access to critical information. As a result, there
was
a
dearth of creative, aggressive analysis targeting Bin Ladin and a persistent
inability to
comprehend
the collective significance of individual pieces of intelligence. These
analytic
[page
xvii] deficiencies seriously undercut the ability of U.S.
policymakers to understand the
full
nature of the threat, and to make fully informed decisions.
6.
Finding: Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community was not prepared to
handle
the
challenge it faced in translating the volumes of foreign language
counterterrorism
intelligence
it collected. Agencies within the Intelligence Community experienced backlogs
in
material awaiting translation, a shortage of language specialists and
language-qualified
field
officers, and a readiness level of only 30% in the most critical
terrorism-related
languages
used by terrorists.
7.
Finding: [Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community’s ability to
produce
significant
and timely signals intelligence on counterterrorism was limited by NSA’s
failure
to
address modern communications technology aggressively, continuing conflict
between
Intelligence
Community agencies, NSA’s cautious approach to any collection of intelligence
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relating
to activities in the United States, and insufficient collaboration between NSA
and the
FBI
regarding the potential for terrorist attacks within the United States].
8.
Finding: The continuing erosion of NSA’s program management expertise and
experience
has
hindered its contribution to the fight against terrorism. NSA continues to have
mixed
results
in providing timely technical solutions to modern intelligence collection,
analysis, and
information
sharing problems.
9.
Finding: The U.S. Government does not presently bring together in one place all
terrorism-related
information from all sources. While the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center
does
manage overseas operations and has access to most Intelligence Community
information,
it does not collect terrorism-related information from all sources, domestic
and
foreign.
Within the Intelligence Community, agencies did not adequately share relevant
counterterrorism
information, prior to September 11. This breakdown in communications
was the
result of a number of factors, including differences in the agencies’ missions,
legal
authorities
and cultures. Information was not sufficiently shared, not only between
different
Intelligence
Community agencies, but also within individual agencies, and between the
intelligence
and the law enforcement agencies.
10.
Finding: Serious problems in information sharing also persisted, prior to
September 11,
between
the Intelligence Community and relevant non-Intelligence Community agencies.
This
included other federal agencies as well as state and local authorities. This
lack of
communication
and collaboration deprived those other entities, as well as the Intelligence
Community,
of access to potentially valuable information in the “war” against Bin Ladin.
The
Inquiry’s focus on the Intelligence Community limited the extent to which it
explored
these
issues, and this is an area that should be reviewed further.
11.
Finding: Prior to September 11, 2001, the Intelligence Community did not
effectively
develop
and use human sources to penetrate the al-Qa’ida inner circle. This lack of
reliable
and
knowledgeable human sources significantly limited the Community’s ability to [page
xviii]
acquire intelligence that could be acted upon before the September 11
attacks. In part,
at
least, the lack of unilateral (i.e., U.S.-recruited) counterterrorism sources
was a product of
an
excessive reliance on foreign liaison services.
12.
Finding: During the summer of 2001, when the Intelligence Community was bracing
for
an
imminent al-Qa’ida attack, difficulties with FBI applications for Foreign
Intelligence
Surveillance
Act (FISA) surveillance and the FISA process led to a diminished level of
coverage
of suspected al-Qa’ida operatives in the United States. The effect of these
difficulties
was compounded by the perception that spread among FBI personnel at
Headquarters
and the field offices that the FISA process was lengthy and fraught with peril.
13.
Finding: [
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].
14.
Finding: [Senior U.S. military officials were reluctant to use U.S. military
assets to
conduct
offensive counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan, or to support or participate
in
CIA
operations directed against al-Qa’ida prior to September 11. At least part of
this
reluctance
was driven by the military’s view that the Intelligence Community was unable to
provide
the intelligence needed to support military operations. Although the U.S.
military
did
participate in [ ] counterterrorism efforts to counter Usama Bin Ladin’s
terrorist
network
prior to September 11, 2001, most of the military’s focus was on force
protection].
15.
Finding: The Intelligence Community depended heavily on foreign intelligence
and law
enforcement
services for the collection of counterterrorism intelligence and the conduct of
other
counterterrorism activities. The results were mixed in terms of productive
intelligence,
reflecting vast differences in the ability and willingness of the various
foreign
services
to target the Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida network. Intelligence Community agencies
sometimes
failed to coordinate their relationships with foreign services adequately,
either
within
the Intelligence Community or with broader U.S. Government liaison and foreign
policy
efforts. This reliance on foreign liaison services also resulted in a lack of
focus on the
development
of unilateral human sources.
16.
Finding: [The activities of the September 11 hijackers in the United States
appear to
have
been financed, in large part, from monies sent to them from abroad and also
brought in
on
their persons. Prior to [page xix] September
11, there was no coordinated U.S.
Government-wide
strategy to track terrorist funding and close down their financial support
networks.
There was also a reluctance in some parts of the U.S. Government to track
terrorist
funding and close down their financial support networks. As a result, the U.S.
Government
was unable to disrupt financial support for Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist
activities
effectively. ]
RELATED
FINDINGS
17.
Finding: Despite intelligence reporting from 1998 through the summer of 2001
indicating
that Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network intended to strike inside the United
States,
the United States Government did not undertake a comprehensive effort to
implement
defensive measures in the United States.
18.
Finding: Between 1996 and September 2001, the counterterrorism strategy adopted
by
the U.
S. Government did not succeed in eliminating Afghanistan as a sanctuary and
training
ground for Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network. A range of instruments was used
to
counter al-Qa’ida, with law enforcement often emerging as a leading tool
because other
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means
were deemed not to be feasible or failed to produce results. While generating
numerous
successful prosecutions, law enforcement efforts were not adequate by
themselves
to
target or eliminate Bin Ladin’s sanctuary. The United States persisted in
observing the
rule of
law and accepted norms of international behavior, but Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida
recognized
no rules and thrived in the safe haven provided by Afghanistan.
19.
Finding: Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community and the U.S.
Government
labored
to prevent attacks by Usama Bin Ladin and his terrorist network against the
United
States,
but largely without the benefit of an alert, mobilized and committed American
public.
Despite intelligence information on the immediacy of the threat level in the
spring
and
summer of 2001, the assumption prevailed in the U.S. Government that attacks of
the
magnitude
of September 11 could not happen here. As a result, there was insufficient
effort
to
alert the American public to the reality and gravity of the threat.
20. Finding:
Located in Part Four Entitled “Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding
Certain
Sensitive National Security Matters.”
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PART
ONE—FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
I. THE
JOINT INQUIRY
In
February 2002, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House
Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence agreed to conduct a Joint Inquiry into the
activities
of the U.S. Intelligence Community in connection with the terrorist attacks
perpetrated
against our nation on September 11, 2001. Reflecting the magnitude of the
events
of that day, the Committees’ decision was unprecedented in Congressional
history:
for the
first time, two permanent committees, one from the House and one from the
Senate,
would join together to conduct a single, unified inquiry.
The
three principal goals of this Joint Inquiry were to:
conduct a factual
review of what the Intelligence Community knew or
should
have known prior to September 11, 2001, regarding the
international
terrorist threat to the United States, to include the scope and
nature
of any possible international terrorist attacks against the United
States
and its interests;
identify and
examine any systemic problems that may have impeded the
Intelligence
Community in learning of or preventing these attacks in
advance;
and
make
recommendations to improve the Intelligence Community’s ability
to
identify and prevent future international terrorist attacks.
It
should be noted that this Joint Inquiry had the specific charter to review the
activities
of the Intelligence Community and was limited to approximately one year’s
duration.
It is recognized that there are many other issues relating to the events of
September
11, 2001 that are outside the limits of the Intelligence Community, and that
additional
new [page 2] information may be developed within the Intelligence
Community
that was not reviewed by the Inquiry within the allotted time. With that in
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mind,
we look forward to cooperating with the new National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks
Upon the United States and the continuing oversight efforts of the House and
Senate
Intelligence Committees.
During
the course of this Inquiry, these Committees have held nine public
hearings
as well as thirteen closed sessions in which classified information has been
considered.
In addition, the Joint Inquiry Staff has reviewed almost 500,000 pages of
relevant
documents from the Intelligence Community agencies and other sources, of
which
about 100,000 pages have been selected for incorporation into the Joint
Inquiry’s
records.
The Staff also has conducted approximately 300 interviews, and has participated
in
numerous briefings and panel discussions, that have involved almost 600
individuals
from
the Intelligence Community agencies, other U.S. Government organizations, state
and
local entities, and representatives of the private sector and foreign
governments.
Thus,
the Inquiry has sought and considered information from agencies
throughout
the Intelligence Community and other parts of the federal government; from
relevant
state and local authorities; and from private sector and foreign government
individuals
and organizations. This report is based on information gathered by the
Committees
throughout this Inquiry as well as testimony and exhibits received during the
course
of both the closed and open hearings. Consistent with the need to protect the
national
security, [page 2] the Committees will also
subsequently issue an unclassified
* version
of this report for public release.
The
statement of the Committees’ findings and recommendations in Part I of this
report
includes only a brief summary of the nature of the terrorist threat that faced
the
United
States, and the Intelligence Community, in the years that preceded the vicious
attacks
of September 11, 2001. Given the scope of the information and issues considered
during
the course of this Inquiry, these findings and recommendations can only be
completely
understood against the background of the full hearing and investigative
record.
To provide that context, a detailed description of the hearings and
investigative
work of
the Joint Inquiry is contained in Part II of this report.1
* This is the unclassified
version of the original classified report that was approved by the Joint
Inquiry.
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II. THE
CONTEXT
September
11, 2001, while indelible in our collective memory, was by no means
America’s
first confrontation with international terrorism. Although the nature of the
threat
had evolved considerably over time, the United States and its interests have
long
been
prime terrorist targets. For example, the bombings of the Marine barracks and
the
U.S.
Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983 should have served as a clear warning that
terrorist
groups were not reluctant to attack U.S. interests when they believed such
attacks
would further their ends.
The
Intelligence Community also had considerable evidence before September 11
that
international terrorists were capable of, and had planned, major terrorist
strikes
within
the United States. The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center confirmed this
point,
as did the 1993 plots to bomb New York City landmarks and the 1999 arrest at
the
U.S.-Canadian
border of Ahmad Ressam, who intended to bomb the Los Angeles
International
Airport. [Page 4]
Usama
Bin Ladin’s role in international terrorism had also been well known for
some time
before September 11. He initially came to the attention of the Intelligence
Community
in the early 1990s as a financier of terrorism. However, Bin Ladin’s own
words
soon provided evidence of the steadily escalating threat to the United States
he and
his
organization posed. In August 1996, he issued a fatwa -- or religious
decree --
authorizing
attacks on Western military targets in the Arabian Peninsula. In February
1998,
Bin Ladin issued a second fatwa authorizing attacks on U.S. civilians
and military
personnel
anywhere in the world. Bin Ladin’s fatwas cited the U.S. military presence in
1 Anthrax
attacks in October 2001 eventually killed five Americans, contaminated the
Senate Hart Office building in
Washington,
D.C. as well as U.S. Postal Service facilities in Maryland, and significantly
affected the U.S. economy.
The
statement of Initial Scope of this Joint Inquiry made specific reference to the
anthrax attacks. In pursuing that
matter,
the Inquiry received briefings from the FBI and the U.S. General Accounting
Office (GAO) regarding their
investigations
of the anthrax attacks. It also requested that GAO’s Center for Technology and
Engineering review the
attacks;
current knowledge regarding the use of anthrax as a weapon; technologies
available to detect anthrax; and the
law
enforcement community’s ability to combat chemical and biological terrorist
attacks, including the FBI’s resources
and
analytical capabilities to investigate such attacks. The GAO report has been
completed. It is summarized in Part
Three of
this report and is included in its entirety as an appendix. To date, no
connection has been established between
the
anthrax attacks and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
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Saudi
Arabia and the Persian Gulf, the Palestinian issue, and U.S. support for Israel
as
justification
for ordering these attacks.
The
gradual emergence of Bin Ladin and others like him marked a change from
the
type of terrorist threat that had traditionally confronted the Intelligence
Community.
Throughout
the Cold War, radical left and ethno-nationalist groups had carried out most
terrorist
acts. Many of these groups were state-sponsored. The first bombing of the
World
Trade Center in February 1993, however, led to a growing recognition in the
Intelligence
Community of a new type of terrorism that did not conform to the Cold War
model:
violent radical Islamic cells, not linked to any specific country, but united
in anti-
American
zeal. A July 1995 National Intelligence Estimate noted the danger of this “new
breed”.
By 1996, agencies within the Intelligence Community were aware that Bin Ladin
was
organizing these kinds of cells, and they began to collect intelligence on him
actively.
In
January 1996, the Counterterrorist Center (CTC) – which had been established
at CIA
in 1986 -- created a special unit that was dedicated to focusing on Bin Ladin
and
his
associates. The unit quickly determined that he was more than a terrorist
financier,
and it
soon became a hub for expertise on Bin Ladin and for operations directed
against
his
terrorist network, al Qa’ida. Officials from the unit, which started with about
16 CIA
officers
and grew to about 40 officers from throughout the Intelligence Community prior
to
September 11, 2001, had unprecedented access to senior agency officials and
White
House
policymakers.
[Page
5]
[At the
FBI, the Radical Fundamentalist Unit was created in March 1994 to
handle
responsibilities related to international radical fundamentalist terrorists,
including
Usama
Bin Ladin. This Unit also handled other counterintelligence matters, and was
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responsible
for the coordination of extraterritorial intelligence operations and criminal
investigations
targeted at radical fundamentalist terrorists. In 1999, the FBI recognized
the
increased threat to the United States posed by Bin Ladin and created the Usama
Bin
Ladin
Unit to handle al-Qa’ida-related counterterrorism matters].
[As
al-Qa’ida grew, both CIA and FBI officials recognized that the foreign
intelligence,
security, and law enforcement agencies of foreign governments, collectively
referred
to as “foreign liaison,” could be of great value in penetrating and countering
the
organization.
They understood that foreign liaison could act as a tremendous force
multiplier
against terrorism and, with that in mind, tried to coordinate and streamline
what
had been ad hoc relationships. As a result, as former National Security Advisor
Sandy
Berger testified, al-Qa’ida cells were disrupted in a number of countries after
1997.
CTC also stepped up its efforts to enhance the capabilities of some foreign
liaison
services
to work against joint terrorist targets. These efforts had mixed results].
The FBI
also increased its focus on counterterrorism, establishing its own
Counterterrorism
Center at FBI Headquarters in 1996. Recognizing the importance of
good
relationships with foreign liaison services, the FBI expanded the permanent
stationing
of agents, known as Legal Attaches, or “Legats,” in principal cities across the
globe.
In addition to improving relations with foreign services, the FBI engaged in an
aggressive
program with the CIA to arrest terrorists outside the United States. Finally,
the FBI
established Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) in thirty-five field offices
before
September
11. These task forces were designed to bring together a range of federal, state
and
local agencies that could provide valuable assistance in counterterrorism
investigations.
[Page
6]
The
August 1998 bombing of two American embassies in East Africa definitively
put the
U.S. Intelligence Community on notice of the danger that Bin Ladin and his
network,
al-Qa’ida, posed. The attacks showed that Bin Ladin’s network was capable of
carrying
out very bloody, simultaneous attacks and inflicting mass casualties. In
December
1998, George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, gave a chilling
direction
to his deputies at the CIA:
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We must
now enter a new phase in our effort against Bin Ladin. . .
. We
are at war. . . . I want no resources or people spared in this
effort,
either inside the CIA or the Community.
Discovering
and disrupting al-Qa’ida’s plans proved exceptionally difficult,
however.
Details of major terrorist plots were not widely shared within the al-Qa’ida
organization,
making it hard to develop the intelligence necessary to preempt or disrupt
attacks.
Senior al-Qa’ida officials were sensitive to operational security, and many al-
Qa'ida
members enjoyed sanctuary in Afghanistan, where they could safely plan and
train
for their
missions. Finally, senior members of al-Qa'ida were skilled and purposeful:
they
learned
from their mistakes and were flexible in organization and planning.
Nonetheless,
particularly after the bombings in East Africa, the Intelligence
Community
amassed a body of information detailing Bin Ladin’s ties to terrorist
activities
against U.S. interests around the world. Armed with that information, prior to
September
11, 2001, U.S. Government counterterrorist efforts to identify and disrupt
terrorist
operations focused to a substantial degree on Bin Ladin and his network. The
Intelligence
Community achieved some successes – in some cases, major successes – in
these
operations. In other cases, little came of the Intelligence Community’s
efforts.
[Page
7]
By late
2000 and 2001, the Intelligence Community was engaged in an extensive,
shadowy
struggle against al-Qa’ida. Despite such efforts, Bin Ladin carried out
successful
and devastating attacks against Americans and citizens of other nations,
including
the bombing of USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000 and the attacks on the
World
Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
III.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
A.
Factual Findings
In
reviewing the documents, interview reports, and witness testimony gathered
during this
Inquiry, the Joint Inquiry has sought to determine what information was
available
to the Intelligence Community prior to September 11, 2001 that was relevant to
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the
attacks that occurred on that day. The record that has been established through
this
Inquiry
leads to the following factual findings and conclusions.
1.
Finding: While the Intelligence Community had amassed a great deal of valuable
intelligence
regarding Usama Bin Ladin and his terrorist activities, none of it
identified
the time, place, and specific nature of the attacks that were planned for
September
11, 2001. Nonetheless, the Community did have information that was
clearly
relevant to the September 11 attacks, particularly when considered for its
collective
significance.
Discussion:
This Inquiry has uncovered no intelligence information in the
possession
of the Intelligence Community prior to the attacks of September 11 that, if
fully
considered, would have provided specific, advance warning of the details of
those
attacks.
The task of the Inquiry was not, however, limited to a search for the
legendary,
and
often absent, “smoking gun.” The facts surrounding the September 11 attacks
demonstrate
the importance of strengthening the Intelligence Community’s ability to
detect
and prevent terrorist attacks in what appears to be the more common, but also
far
more
difficult, scenario. Within the huge volume of intelligence reporting that was
available
prior to September 11, there were various threads and pieces of information
that,
at least in retrospect, are both relevant and significant. The degree to which
the
Community
was or was not able to build on that information to discern the bigger picture
[page
8] successfully is a critical part of the context for the September 11
attacks and is
addressed
in the findings that follow.
2.
Finding: During the spring and summer of 2001, the Intelligence Community
experienced
a significant increase in information indicating that Bin Ladin and al-
Qa’ida
intended to strike against U.S. interests in the very near future.
Discussion:
The National Security Agency (NSA), for example, reported at least
33
communications indicating a possible, imminent terrorist attack in 2001. Senior
U.S.
Government
officials were advised by the Intelligence Community on June 28 and July
10,
2001, that the attacks were expected, among other things, to “have dramatic
consequences
on governments or cause major casualties” and that “[a]ttack preparations
have
been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”
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Some
Community personnel described the increase in threat reporting as
unprecedented,
at least in their own experience. The Intelligence Community advised
senior
policymakers of the likelihood of an attack but, given the non-specific nature
of
the
reporting, could not identify when, where, and how an attack would take place.
Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in his testimony, described his
recollection
of the
threat and the U.S. Government’s response:
We
issued between January and September nine warnings, five of them
global,
because of the threat information we were receiving from the
intelligence
agencies in the summer, when [DCI] George Tenet was
around
town literally pounding on desks saying, something is happening,
this is
an unprecedented level of threat information. He didn’t know where
it was
going to happen, but he knew that it was coming.
3.
Finding: Beginning in 1998 and continuing into the summer of 2001, the
Intelligence
Community received a modest, but relatively steady, stream of
intelligence
reporting that indicated the possibility of terrorist attacks within the
United
States. Nonetheless, testimony and interviews confirm that it was the general
view of
the Intelligence Community, in the spring and summer of 2001, that the
threatened
Bin Ladin attacks would most likely occur against U.S. interests
overseas,
despite indications of plans and intentions to attack in the domestic United
States.
[Page
9]
Discussion:
Communications intercepts, the arrests of suspected terrorists in the Middle
East
and Europe, and a credible report of a plan to attack a U.S. Embassy in the
Middle East
shaped
the Community’s thinking about where an attack was likely to occur. While
former FBI
Director
Louis Freeh testified that the FBI was “intensely focused” on terrorist targets
within the
United
States, the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director for Counterterrorism testified
that in 2001
he
thought there was a high probability – “98 percent” – that the attack would be
overseas. The
latter
was the clear majority view, despite the fact that the Intelligence Community
had
information
suggesting that Bin Ladin had planned, and was capable of, conducting attacks
within
the domestic United States.
This
stream of reporting began as early as 1998 and continued during the time of
heightened
threat levels in 2001. For example, the Community received reporting in May
2001
that
Bin Ladin supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States to conduct
terrorist
operations
and, in late summer 2001, that an al-Qa’ida associate was considering mounting
terrorist
attacks within the United States.
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[Of
particular interest to the Joint Inquiry was whether and to what extent the
President
received
threat-specific warnings during this period. The Joint Inquiry was advised by a
representative
of the Intelligence Community that, in August 2001, a closely held intelligence
report
for senior government officials included information that Bin Ladin had wanted
to
conduct
attacks in the United States since 1997. The information included discussion of
the
arrest
of Ahmed Ressam in December 1999 at the U.S.-Canadian border and the 1998
bombings
of U.S.
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. It mentioned that members of al-Qa’ida,
including
some
U.S. citizens, had resided in or traveled to the United States for years and
that the group
apparently
maintained a support structure here. The report cited uncorroborated
information
obtained
and disseminated in 1998 that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack airplanes to gain the
release
of
U.S.-held extremists; FBI judgments about patterns of activity consistent with
preparations for
hijackings
or other types of attacks; as well as information acquired in May 2001 that
indicated a
group
of Bin Ladin supporters was planning attacks in the United States with
explosives].*
[Page
10]
4.
Finding: From at least 1994, and continuing into the summer of 2001, the
Intelligence
Community received information indicating that terrorists were
contemplating,
among other means of attack, the use of aircraft as weapons. This
information
did not stimulate any specific Intelligence Community assessment of, or
collective
U.S. Government reaction to, this form of threat.
Discussion:
[While the credibility of the sources was sometimes questionable and
the
information often sketchy, the Inquiry confirmed that the Intelligence
Community did
receive
intelligence reporting concerning the potential use of aircraft as weapons. For
example,
the Community received information in 1998 about a Bin Ladin operation that
would
involve flying an explosive- laden aircraft into a U.S. airport and, in summer
2001,
about a
plot to bomb a U.S. embassy from an airplane or crash an airplane into it. The
FBI and
CIA were also aware that convicted terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad and several
others
had discussed the possibility of crashing an airplane into CIA Headquarters as
part
of “the
Bojinka Plot” in the Philippines, discussed later in this report. Some, but
* National
Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice stated in a May 16, 2002 press briefing that,
on August 6, 2001, the
President’s
Daily Brief (PDB) included information about Bin Ladin’s methods of operation
from a historical
perspective
dating back to 1997. One of the methods was that Bin Ladin might choose to
highjack an airliner in order
to hold
passengers hostage to gain release of one of their operatives. She stated,
however, that the report did not
contain
specific warning information, but only a generalized warning, and did not
contain information that al-Qa’ida
was
discussing a particular planned attack against a specific target at any
specific time, place, or by any specific
method.
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apparently
not all, of these reports were disseminated within the Intelligence Community
and to
other agencies].
The
Transportation Security Administration, for example, advised the Committees
that
the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had not received three of these
reports,
that
two others were received by the FAA but through State Department cables, and that
one
report was received by the FAA, but only after September 11, 2001. Many
policymakers
and U.S. Government officials apparently remained unaware of this kind of
potential
threat and the Intelligence Community did not produce any specific assessments
of the
likelihood that terrorists would in fact use airplanes as weapons. For example,
former
National Security Advisor Sandy Berger testified before these Committees that:
I don’t
recall being presented with any specific threat information about an
attack of
this nature [the use of aircraft as weapons] or any alert
highlighting
this threat or indicating it was any more likely than any other.
That
testimony is consistent with the views publicly expressed by the current
National
Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice, shortly after the September 11 attacks.
[Page
11] Similarly, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz testified
that he
had not
been made aware of this type of potential threat:
I don’t
recall any warning of the possibility of a mass casualty attack using
civilian
airliners or any information that would have led us to contemplate
the
possibility of our shooting down a civilian airliner.
Even
within the Intelligence Community, the possibility of using aircraft as
weapons
was apparently not widely known. At the FBI, for instance, the FBI Phoenix
field
office agent who wrote the so-called “Phoenix memo” testified that he was aware
of
the
plot to crash a plane into CIA Headquarters, but not the other reports of
terrorist
groups
considering the use of aircraft as weapons. The Chief of the Radical
Fundamentalist
Unit in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division also confirmed, in an Joint
Inquiry
interview, that he was not aware of such reports.
5.
Finding: Although relevant information that is significant in retrospect
regarding
the
attacks was available to the Intelligence Community prior to September 11,
2001,
the Community too often failed to focus on that information and consider and
appreciate
its collective significance in terms of a probable terrorist attack. Neither
did the
Intelligence Community demonstrate sufficient initiative in coming to grips
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with
the new transnational threats. Some significant pieces of information in the
vast
stream of data being collected were overlooked, some were not recognized as
potentially
significant at the time and therefore not disseminated, and some
required
additional action on the part of foreign governments before a direct
connection
to the hijackers could have been established. For all those reasons, the
Intelligence
Community failed to capitalize fully on available, and potentially
important,
information. The sub-findings below identify each category of this
information.
[Terrorist
Communications in 1999}
5.a.
[During 1999, the National Security Agency obtained a number of
communications
– none of which included specific detail regarding the time,
place
or nature of the September 11 attacks -- connecting individuals to
terrorism
who were identified, after September 11, 2001, as participants in
the
attacks that occurred on that day].
[Page
12]
Discussion:
[In early 1999, the National Security Agency (NSA) analyzed
communications
involving a suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East that had
previously
been linked to al-Qa’ida activities directed against U.S. interests.
Information
obtained
[ ] included, among other things, the full name of future hijacker Nawaf al-
Hazmi.
Beyond the fact that the communications involved a suspected terrorist facility
in
the
Middle East, the communications did not, in NSA’s view at the time,
feature any
other
terrorist-related information. The information was not published because the
individuals
mentioned in the communications were unknown to NSA, and, according to
NSA,
the information did not meet NSA’s reporting thresholds. NSA has explained that
these
thresholds are flexible, sometimes changing daily, and consist of several
factors,
including:
the priority of the intelligence requirement; the apparent intelligence value
of
the
information; the level of customer interest in the topic; the current
situation; and the
volume
of intercept to be analyzed and reported].
[During
the summer of 1999, NSA analyzed additional communications involving
a
suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East that included the name of
Khaled. At
about
the same time, the name Khallad also came to NSA’s attention. This information
did not
meet NSA’s reporting thresholds and thus was not disseminated].
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[In
late 1999, NSA analyzed communications involving a suspected terrorist
facility
in the Middle East that included the names of Khaled and Nawaf. At this time,
NSA did
not associate the latter individual with the Nawaf al-Hazmi it had learned
about
in
early 1999. Later, the two individuals [ ] were determined to be Khalid
al-Mihdhar
and
Nawaf al-Hazmi, now known to be two of the September 11 hijackers. [
]. This
information was passed to the CIA as well as the FBI in late 1999. In
early
2000, NSA also [ ] passed additional
information
about Khalid to the CIA, FBI, FAA, the Departments of State, Treasury,
Transportation,
and Justice, and others in the U.S. Government].
[Page
13]
Malaysia
Meeting and Travel of al-Qa’ida Operatives
to the
United States
5.b.
The Intelligence Community acquired additional, and highly significant,
information
regarding Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi in early
2000.
Critical parts of the information concerning al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi
lay
dormant within the Intelligence Community for as long as eighteen
months,
at the very time when plans for the September 11 attacks were
proceeding.
The CIA missed repeated opportunities to act based on the
information
in its possession that these two Bin Ladin-associated terrorists
were
traveling to the United States, and to add their names to watchlists.
Discussion:
[By early January 2000, CIA knew al-Mihdhar’s full name and that it
was
likely Nawaf’s last name was al-Hazmi, knew that they had attended what was
believed
to be a gathering of al-Qa’ida associates in Malaysia, was aware that they had
been
traveling together, and had documents indicating that al-Mihdhar held a U.S.
B-1B-
2
multiple entry visa that would allow him to travel to and from the United
States until
April
6, 2000. CIA arranged surveillance of the meeting and the DCI was kept informed
as the
operation progressed].
Despite
having all this information, and despite the republication of CTC
guidance
regarding watchlisting procedures in December 1999 (see Appendix, “CTC
Watchlisting
Guidance – December 1999”), CIA did not add the names of these two
individuals
to the State Department, INS, and U.S. Customs Service watchlists that are
used to
deny individuals entry into the United States. The weight of the record also
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suggests
that, despite providing the FBI with other, less critical, information about
the
Malaysia
meeting, the CIA did not advise the FBI about al-Mihdhar’s U.S. visa and the
very
real possibility that he would travel to the United States. The CIA stated its
belief
that
the visa information was sent to the FBI and produced a cable indicating that
this had
been
done.*
The
FBI, for its part, had no record the visa information was received. Although
the
facts of the Malaysia meeting were included in several briefings for senior FBI
officials,
including FBI Director Louis Freeh, no record could be found that the visa
information
was part of these briefings.
[Page
14]
[On
March 5, 2000, CIA Headquarters received a cable from an overseas CIA
station
indicating that Nawaf al-Hazmi had traveled to Los Angeles, California on
January
15, 2000. The following day, March 6, CIA Headquarters received a message
from
another CIA station noting its “interest” in the first cable’s “information
that a
member
of this group had traveled to the U.S.” The CIA did not act on either message,
again
did not watchlist al-Hazmi or al-Mihdhar, and, again, did not advise the FBI of
their
possible presence in the United States. In 2000, these same two individuals had
numerous
contacts with an active FBI counterterrorism informant while they were living
in San
Diego, California].
On
January 4, 2001, CIA acquired information that Khallad, a principal planner in
the
bombing of USS Cole, had, along with al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, attended
the
January
2000 meeting in Malaysia. Again, the CIA did not watchlist these two
individuals.
At the time, al-Mihdhar was abroad, but al-Hazmi was still in the United
States.
FBI Director Robert Mueller testified to the Joint Inquiry that: “al-Mihdhar’s
role
in the
September 11 plot . . . before his re-entry into the United States may well
have
been
that of the coordinator and organizer of . . . the non-pilot hijackers.”
In May
2001, the CIA provided FBI Headquarters with photographs taken in
Malaysia,
including one of al-Mihdhar, for purposes of identifying another Cole bombing
* In interviews, CIA
personnel could not confirm that the visa information had in fact been provided
to the
FBI.
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suspect.
Although the CIA told FBI Headquarters about the Malaysia meeting and about
al-Mihdhar’s
travel in Southeast Asia at that time, the CIA did not advise the FBI about
al-Mihdhar’s
or al-Hazmi’s possible travel to the United States. Again, the CIA did not
watchlist
the two individuals. While CIA personnel were working closely with the FBI
in
support of the USS Cole bombing investigation, the importance and
urgency of
information
tying suspected terrorists to the domestic United States apparently never
registered
with them. CIA Director Tenet testified that CIA personnel:
. . .
in their focus on the [USS Cole] investigation, did not recognize the
implications
of the information about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar that
[page
15] they had in their files.
On June
11, 2001, FBI Headquarters and CIA personnel met with the New York
FBI
field office agents who were handling the USS Cole investigation. The
New York
agents
were shown the Malaysia photographs, but were not given copies. Although al-
Mihdhar’s
name was mentioned, the New York agents’ requests for more information
about
al-Mihdhar and the circumstances surrounding the photographs were refused,
according
to one of the field office agents. The FBI Headquarters analyst recalls that
she
said at
the meeting that she would try to get the information the agents had requested.
In
Joint Inquiry hearing testimony, one of the New York FBI agents who was
present
described his recollection of the meeting:
When
these photos were shown to us, we had information at the time that
one of
the suspects had actually traveled to the same region of the world
that
this might have taken place, so we pressed the individuals there for
more
information regarding the meeting. So we pressed them for
information.
[A]t the end of the meeting – some of them say it was
because
I was able to get the name out of the analyst, but at the end of that
day we
knew the name Khalid al-Mihdhar but nothing else. The context
of the
meeting was that we continued to press them two or three times on
information
regarding, “Why were you looking at this guy? You couldn’t
have
been following everybody around the Millennium. What was the
reason
behind this?
And we
were told that that information – as I recall, we were told that that
information
could not be passed and that they would try to do it in the
days
and weeks to come. That meeting – I wouldn’t say it was very
contentious,
but we were not very happy, the New York agents at the time
were
not very happy that certain information couldn’t be shared with us.
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Again,
in that meeting, the CIA had missed yet another opportunity to advise the
FBI
about al-Mihdhar’s visa and possible travel to the United States and, again,
the CIA
took no
action to watchlist these individuals. Just two days later, al-Mihdhar obtained
a
new
U.S. visa and, on July 4, 2001, he re-entered the United States.
It was
not until mid July 2001, that a concerned CIA officer assigned to the FBI
triggered
a CIA review of its cables regarding the Malaysia meeting, a task that, [page
16]
ironically,
fell to an FBI analyst assigned to the CTC. Working with the Immigration and
Naturalization
Service (INS), the FBI analyst determined that both al-Mihdhar and al-
Hazmi
had entered the United States. As a result of that effort, on August 23, 2001,
the
CIA
finally notified the FBI and requested of the State Department that the two
individuals
should
be watchlisted.
Even
then, there was less than an all-out effort to locate what amounted to two
Bin
Ladin-associated terrorists in the United States during a period when the
terrorist
threat
level had escalated to a peak level. For example, neither CIA, FBI, nor State
Department
informed the FAA. On August 21, 2001, coincidentally, FAA had issued a
Security
Directive, entitled “Threat to U.S. Aircraft Operators.” That Directive alerted
commercial
airlines that nine named terrorism-associated individuals – none of whom
were
connected to the 19 hijackers -- were planning commercial air travel and should
receive
additional security scrutiny if they attempted to board an aircraft. The
Directive
was
updated on August 24 and August 28, 2001. Had FAA been advised of the presence
of
al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar in the United States, a similar directive could have
been
issued,
subjecting the two, their luggage and any carry-on items to detailed,
FAAdirected
searches.
Further,
only the FBI’s New York field office received a request from FBI
Headquarters
to conduct a search for the two prior to September 11, 2001. The
Headquarters
written instruction to the New York field office only identified al-Mihdhar
in its
subject line. Nawaf al-Hazmi was mentioned in the text, and it is not clear
whether
it was
intended that he be a subject of the search as well. It was not until September
11,
2001
that the Los Angeles FBI field office was asked to conduct a search. Other FBI
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offices
with potentially useful informants, such as San Diego, were not notified prior
to
September
11.
A New
York FBI field office agent testified that he urged FBI Headquarters on
August
28, 2001 to allow New York field office criminal agents to participate in the
search
with FBI intelligence agents, given the limited resources that are often
applied to
[page 17] intelligence
investigations. The request was refused by FBI Headquarters
because
of concerns about the perceived “wall” between criminal and intelligence
matters.
Looking back, the New York FBI agent testified about his hope that the
Intelligence
Community would overcome this kind of restriction in the future:
…after
everything happened and we had ramped up where thousands of
FBI
agents all over the world were trying to find somebody, I thought to
myself
– and I don’t necessarily know how to do it, but we’ve got to be
able to
get there – when we find out a Khalid al-Mihdhar is in the country,
intelligence,
criminal, or whatever, we’ve got to be able to get to the level
we were
at September 12, the afternoon of September 11. We’ve got to be
able to
get there before September 11, not September 12.
Joint
Inquiry witnesses testified that other federal agencies with potentially
valuable
information
databases were never asked to assist in FBI’s search.
[Terrorist
Communications in Spring 2000]
5.c.
[In January 2000, after the meeting of al-Qa’ida operatives in
Malaysia,
Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi entered the United
States
[ ]. Thereafter, the Intelligence
Community
obtained information indicating that an individual named
“Khaled”
at an unknown location had contacted a suspected terrorist
facility
in the Middle East. The Intelligence Community reported
some of
this information, but did not report all of it. Some of it was
not
reported because it was deemed not terrorist-related. It was not
until
after September 11, 2001 that the Intelligence Community
determined
that these contacts had been made from future hijacker
Khalid
al-Mihdhar while he was living within the domestic United
States].
Discussion:
[While the Intelligence Community had information regarding these
communications,
it did not determine the location from which they had been made [ ]
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[ ].
After September 11, the
FBI determined
from domestic toll records that it was in fact the hijacker Khalid al-
Mihdhar
who had made these communications and that he had done so from within the
United
States. The Intelligence Community did not identify what was critically
important
[page 18] information in terms of the domestic threat to the
United States: the
fact
that the communications were between individuals within the United States and
suspected
terrorist facilities overseas. That kind of information could have provided
crucial
investigative leads to law enforcement agencies engaged in domestic
counterterrorist
efforts].
[Two
Hijackers Had Numerous Contacts with an Active FBI Informant]
5.d.
[This Joint Inquiry confirmed that these same two future hijackers,
Khalid
al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had numerous contacts with a long
time
FBI counterterrorism informant in California and that a third future
hijacker,
Hani Hanjour, apparently had more limited contact with the same
informant.
In mid- to late-2000, the CIA already had information indicating
that
al-Mihdhar had a multiple entry U.S. visa and that al-Hazmi had in fact
traveled
to Los Angeles, but the two had not been watchlisted and
information
suggesting that two suspected terrorists could well be in the
United
States had not yet been given to the FBI. The San Diego FBI field
office,
which handled the informant in question, did not receive that
information
or any of the other intelligence information pertaining to al-
Mihdhar
and al-Hazmi, prior to September 11, 2001. As a result, the FBI
missed
the opportunity to task a uniquely well-positioned informant -- who
denies
having any advance knowledge of the plot --- to collect information
about
the hijackers and their plans within the United States.]
Discussion:
[Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar had numerous contacts with
a
long-time FBI counterterrorism informant while they were living in San Diego,
California.
There are several indications that hijacker Hani Hanjour may have had more
limited
contact with the same informant in December 2000.]
[During
the summer of 2000, the informant advised the FBI handling agent that
the
informant had contacts with two individuals named “Nawaf” and “Khalid”. The
informant
described meeting these individuals. The informant described the two to the
FBI
agent as Saudi Muslim youths who were legally in the United States to visit and
attend
school. The FBI agent did not, at the time, consider these individuals to be of
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interest
to the [page 19] FBI. While the agent says he asked
the informant for the
individuals’
last names, the informant never provided that information and the FBI agent
did not
press for the names because he had no reason to think they were significant
until
after
September 11, 2001.]
[ ]
[During
one of their last contacts, al-Hazmi advised the informant that he was moving
to
Arizona
to attend flight training, but the informant did not advise the FBI of this
information
until after the September 11 attacks].
[When
the FBI’s San Diego field office determined after the attacks that a longtime
FBI
counterterrorism informant had had numerous contacts in 2000 with two of the
September
11 hijackers, personnel there were immediately suspicious about whether the
informant
was involved in the plot. Subsequently, however, all of the field office
personnel,
including senior managers and various case agents, concluded that the
informant
was unwitting of, and had no role in, the September 11 plot].
[Several
questions remain, however, with regard to the informant’s credibility.
First,
while there are several indications suggesting that future hijacker Hani
Hanjour had
contact
with the informant in December 2000, the informant has repeatedly advised the
FBI
that the informant does not recognize photos of Hanjour. Second, the informant
told
the FBI
that the hijackers did nothing to arouse the informant’s suspicion, but the
informant
also acknowledged that al-Hazmi had contacts with at least four individuals
the
informant knew were of interest to the FBI and about whom the informant had
previously
reported to the FBI. Third, the informant has made numerous inconsistent
statements
to the FBI during the course of interviews after September 11, 2001. Fourth,
the
informant’s responses during an FBI polygraph examination to very specific
questions
about the informant’s advance knowledge of the September 11 plot were
judged
by the FBI to be “inconclusive,” although the FBI asserts that this type of
result is
not
unusual for such individuals in such circumstances].
[Page
20]
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[Finally,
there is also information which conflicts with the information provided
by the
informant concerning the dates of contacts with the hijackers. The Joint
Inquiry,
for
example, brought to the FBI’s attention information that is inconsistent with
the date
of
initial contact as provided by the informant. In its November 18, 2002 written
response
to the Joint Inquiry, the FBI has acknowledged that there are “significant
inconsistencies”
in the informant’s statements about these contacts. The FBI investigation
regarding
this issue is continuing].
[The
Administration has to date objected to the Inquiry’s efforts to interview the
informant
in order to attempt to resolve those inconsistencies. The Administration also
would
not agree to allow the FBI to serve a Committee subpoena and deposition notice
on the
informant. Instead, written interrogatories from the Joint Inquiry were, at the
suggestion
of the FBI, provided to the informant. Through an attorney, the informant has
declined
to respond to those interrogatories and has indicated that, if subpoenaed, the
informant
would request a grant of immunity prior to testifying].
[The
FBI agent who was responsible for the informant testified before the Joint
Inquiry
that, had he had access to the intelligence information on al-Mihdhar’s and al-
Hazmi’s
significance at the time they were in San Diego:
It
would have made a huge difference. We would have immediately
opened
[ ] investigations. We had the predicate for a
[ ]
investigation if we had that information.…[W]e would
immediately
go out and canvas the sources and try to find out where these
people
were. If we locate them, which we probably would have since they
were
very close – they were nearby – we would have initiated
investigations
immediately.…We would have done everything. We would
have
used all available investigative techniques. We would have given
them
the full court press. [Page 21] We would…have done
everything –
physical
surveillance, technical surveillance and other assets.
[Whether,
as the agent testified he believes, that kind of investigative work would
have
occurred and would have then uncovered the hijackers’ future plans will
necessarily
remain
speculation. What is clear, however, is that the informant’s contacts with the
hijackers,
had they been capitalized on, would have given the San Diego FBI field office
perhaps
the Intelligence Community’s best chance to unravel the September 11 plot.
Given
the CIA’s failure to disseminate, in a timely manner, intelligence information
on
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the
significance and location of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, that chance,
unfortunately,
never
materialized].
The
Phoenix Electronic Communication
5.e. On
July 10, 2001, an FBI Phoenix field office agent sent an “Electronic
Communication”
to four individuals in the Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU)
and two
individuals in the Usama Bin Ladin Unit (UBLU) at FBI Headquarters,
and to
two agents on International Terrorism squads in the FBI New York field
office.
In the communication, the agent expressed his concerns, based on his
first-hand
knowledge, that there was a coordinated effort underway by Bin
Ladin
to send students to the United States for civil aviation-related training. He
noted
that there was an “inordinate number of individuals of investigative
interest”
in this type of training in Arizona and expressed his suspicion that this
was an
effort to establish a cadre of individuals in civil aviation who would
conduct
future terrorist activity. The Phoenix agent’s communication requested
that
FBI Headquarters consider implementing four recommendations:
• accumulate a list of civil aviation
universities/colleges around the country;
• establish liaison with these schools;
•discuss the theories contained in the Phoenix EC with
the Intelligence
Community;
and
• consider seeking authority to obtain visa information
concerning individuals
seeking
to attend flight schools.
However,
the FBI Headquarters personnel did not take the action
requested
by the Phoenix field office agent prior to September 11, 2001.
The
Phoenix communication generated little or no interest at either FBI
Headquarters
or the FBI’s New York field office.
[Page
22]
Discussion:
Before the Joint Inquiry, the Phoenix agent who authored the
Phoenix
communication testified that:
What I
wanted was an analytical product. I wanted this discussed with the
Intelligence
Community. I wanted to see if my hunches were correct.
He
noted, however, that he also knew that this type of analytical product took a
back seat
to
operational matters at the FBI:
But, I
am also a realist. I understand that the people at FBI Headquarters
are
terribly overworked and understaffed, and they have been for years.
And at
the time that I am a sending this in, having worked this stuff for 13
years,
and watched the unit in action over the years, I knew that this was
going
to be at the bottom of the pile, so to speak, because they were
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dealing
with real-time threats, real-timer issues trying to render fugitives
back to
the United States from overseas for justice. And again, it is a
resource
issue.
The
Phoenix agent was correct, and his communication did fall to the bottom of the
pile.
He sent
the communication to four individuals in the Radical Fundamentalist
Unit,
two individuals in the Usama Bin Ladin Unit, and two agents on International
terrorism
squads in the New York field office. Only three of the eight addressees recall
reading
the communication prior to September 11, 2001. Neither of the two Intelligence
Operations
Specialists who reviewed it at FBI Headquarters undertook a comprehensive
national
analysis of the theories it set forth. Nor did they send the communication to
the
FBI’s
analytic unit or the Intelligence Community, as requested by the Phoenix agent.
Instead,
it was forwarded to the Portland FBI field office, not primarily because of
concerns
about flight school theories, but rather because that field office had a
possible
investigative
interest in one of the individuals who were named in the communication.
Similarly,
the New York field office personnel who reviewed the communication
said
they found it to be speculative and not particularly significant. That office
had been
one of
the recipients of a 1999 FBI Headquarters request to track Islamic flight
students
in its
area of jurisdiction.
[Page
23]
The
Chief of the Radical Fundamentalist Unit testified that he did not see the
communication
prior to September 11, 2001. In his testimony before the Joint Inquiry,
FBI
Director Mueller acknowledged that: “the Phoenix [communication] should have
been
disseminated to all field offices and to our sister agencies, and it should
have
triggered
a broader analytical approach.”
After
September 11, the FBI discovered that [ ],* one of
the individuals
who was
identified in the Phoenix communication, was an associate of hijacker Hani
* The identities of several
individuals whose activities are discussed in this report have been deleted by
the
Joint Inquiry. While the
FBI has provided the Joint Inquiry with these names and those names are
contained in the
classified version of this final report, the Joint Inquiry has decided to
delete them from this
unclassified version due
to the as yet unresolved nature of much of the information regarding their
activities.
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Hanjour.
[This individual] left the United States in April 2000 and returned in June
2001,
remaining
in the United States for approximately one month. The FBI now speculates
that
[the individual] may have returned to the United States either to evaluate
Hanjour's
flying
skills, or to provide Hanjour with his final training on the flight simulator
before
the
September 11 attacks. [The individual] was an experienced flight instructor who
was
certified
to fly Boeing 737s.
The FBI
also has determined since September 11, 2001 that another individual
mentioned
in the Phoenix communication – [ ] -- is also connected
to the
al-Qa'ida network. [ ] was arrested at an al-Qa'ida safehouse in
Pakistan
in 2002 along with [ ], one of the most prominent al-Qa'ida
facilitators.
The FBI
Investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui
5.f. In
August 2001, the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, in conjunction
with
the INS, detained Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national who
had
enrolled in flight training in Minnesota. FBI agents there also
suspected
that Moussaoui was involved in a hijacking plot. FBI
Headquarters
attorneys determined that there was not probable cause
to
obtain a court order to search Moussaoui’s belongings under the
Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). However, personnel at
FBI
Headquarters, including the Radical Fundamentalist Unit and
the
National Security Law Unit, as well as agents in the Minneapolis
field
office, misunderstood the legal standard for obtaining an order
under
FISA. As a result, FBI Minneapolis field office personnel
wasted
valuable investigative resources trying to connect the Chechen
rebels
to al-Qa’ida. Finally, no one at the FBI apparently connected
the
Moussaoui investigation with the heightened threat environment
[page
24] in the summer of 2001, the Phoenix communication, or
the
entry
of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi into the United States.
Discussion:
On February 23, 2001, Moussaoui entered the United States at
Chicago’s
O’Hare Airport, traveling on a French passport that allowed him to stay in the
country
without a visa for 90 days, until May 22, 2001. On August 11, 2001, Moussaoui
and his
roommate arrived in Eagan, Minnesota to begin classes at Pan Am, a flight
school
that
offered training on a Boeing 747 flight simulator used by professional pilots.
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According
to FBI documents, on August 15, an employee at Pan Am called the FBI’s
Minneapolis
field office because he and other employees were suspicious of Moussaoui,
who met
none of the usual qualifications for Pan Am students. The FBI’s Minneapolis
field
office opened an international terrorism investigation and determined that,
since
Moussaoui
had been authorized to stay in the United States only until May 22, 2001, he
was no
longer in proper legal status.
On the
same day the Minneapolis field office learned about Moussaoui, it asked
both
the CIA and the FBI’s legal attaché in Paris for any information about
Moussaoui
and
informed FBI Headquarters of the investigation. The FBI Headquarters agent who
was
responsible for the contact suggested that the Minneapolis field office put
Moussaoui
under
surveillance. However, a Minneapolis field office supervisory agent testified
to the
Joint
Inquiry that:
. . .
.[m]y background in the criminal arena suggests that when a violation
occurs
and you can stop further or potential criminal activity, you act on
that.
So that is exactly what I instructed the agents to do. . . . Because I
didn’t
want him to get any additional time on a flight simulator that would
allow
him to have the knowledge that we could no longer take back from
him to
operate an aircraft.
INS
agents took Moussaoui into custody on August 16 because his authority to
stay in
the United States had expired. Moussaoui declined to consent to a search of his
belongings.
On Saturday, August 18, the Minneapolis field office sent a detailed
memorandum
to an agent in the Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU) at FBI Headquarters
describing
the investigation.
[Page
25]
The
memorandum stated that Moussaoui had two knives, padded gloves and shin
guards
in his possession when he was arrested; had told his roommate that “true Muslims
must
prepare themselves to fight;” and had begun exercise and martial arts training.
In
addition,
the memorandum stated that the Minneapolis field office believed that
Moussaoui
and his roommate were part of a larger international radical fundamentalist
group.
Based on Moussaoui’s “possession of weapons and his preparation through
physical
training for violent confrontation,” the Minneapolis filed office stated it had
reason
to believe that Moussaoui, his roommate, “and others yet unknown,” were
conspiring
to seize control of an airplane.
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The
Minneapolis field office agent testified to the Inquiry that Minneapolis agents
decided
not to try to obtain a criminal search warrant to search Moussaoui’s belongings
as that
might prejudice any subsequent efforts to get a court order for a physical
search
under
FISA. The FBI field office agent contacted the CTC, which then advised CIA
stations
abroad about Moussaoui and asked them in an August 25 cable to provide any
relevant
information they might have. Based on information provided by the FBI’s
Minneapolis
field office, that cable described Moussaoui and his roommate as “suspect
747
airline attackers” and a “suspect airline suicide attacker,” who might be
“involved in
a
larger plot to target airlines traveling from Europe to the U.S…..”
On
August 21, 2001, the Minneapolis field office agent sent an e-mail to the RFU
supervisory
agent at FBI Headquarters stating: “[It is] imperative that the [U.S. Secret
Service]
be apprised of this threat potential indicated by the evidence.…If [Moussaoui]
seizes
an aircraft flying from Heathrow to NYC, it will have the fuel on board to
reach
DC.” In
an interview, the FBI Headquarters agent to whom the message was addressed
said
that he told the Minneapolis field office agent that he was working on a
notification
to the
entire Intelligence Community and the Secret Service about the threat presented
by
Moussaoui.
The RFU supervisory agent did send a teletype message to the Intelligence
Community
and other U.S. Government agencies, including the FAA, on September 4,
2001.
That message reported the FBI’s interviews of Moussaoui and his roommate, as
well as
other information the FBI had obtained. The teletype, however, merely described
[page
26] the steps in the investigation and did not place Moussaoui’s actions in
the
context
of the
increased
level of terrorist threats during the summer of 2001. Nor did it provide its
recipients
with any analysis of Moussaoui’s actions or plans, or information about what
type of
threat he may have presented.
[On
August 22, the FBI legal attache’s office in Paris provided a report to the
RFU and
the Minneapolis field office that contained information [
]. The
FBI’s receipt of this information began a series of discussions
between
the Minneapolis field office and FBI Headquarters focusing on whether the
Chechen
rebels were a “recognized” foreign power for purposes of obtaining approval to
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search
Moussaoui’s belongings under FISA. The Minneapolis field office agent testified
to the
Joint Inquiry that he had had no training in FISA, but that he believed, based
on
advice
from FBI Headquarters, that “we needed to identify a – and the term that was
thrown
around was ‘recognized foreign power’ and so that was our operational theory.”
As the
FBI’s Deputy General Counsel has testified, however, this was incorrect. The
FBI
may
obtain a search warrant under FISA for an agent of any international terrorist
group,
including
the Chechen rebels. Because of this misunderstanding, the Minneapolis field
office
expended valuable time and effort trying to establish a connection between the
Chechen
rebels and al-Qa’ida, which it believed was a “recognized” foreign power].
The FBI
Headquarters supervisory agent briefed the FBI’s Deputy General
Counsel,
who testified that he agreed with the Headquarters agent that there was
insufficient
information to show that Moussaoui was an agent of a foreign power. The
FBI’s
focus shifted to arranging for Moussaoui’s deportation to France on September
17,
2001,
at which point French officials would search his belongings and provide the
results
to the
FBI. Although the FBI was no longer considering a search warrant under FISA, no
one
revisited the idea of attempting to obtain a criminal search warrant.
[Page
27]
Thus,
during the summer of 2001 -- a time when the Intelligence Community was on the
highest
state of alert, disparate parts of the FBI had information about Zacarias
Moussaoui – a
suspected
suicide hijacker, a Phoenix field office agent’s suspicions about radical
fundamentalists
engaging in flight training, and the entry into the United States of Nawaf al-
Hazmi
and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who would become two of the September 11 hijackers. The
FBI
field
office agents in Minneapolis who were investigating Moussaoui knew nothing
about the
Phoenix
communication or al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. The Phoenix field office agent had
never
heard
about Moussaoui or the two future hijackers. The FBI agents in New York who
were
informed
on August 23, 2001 that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar had entered the United States
knew
nothing
about the other events of that summer. And, finally, the Chief of the RFU at
FBI
Headquarters,
which had handled both the Moussaoui investigation and the Phoenix
communication,
acknowledged in testimony to the Joint Inquiry on September 24, 2001, that no
one at
FBI Headquarters connected those events.
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[The
indictment against Moussaoui, which was filed on December 11, 2001, alleges
that
Moussaoui
possessed a number of items on August 16, 2001. On that day, which is when FBI
and INS
agents first interviewed him, the INS took Moussaoui’s possessions for
safekeeping.
Absent
search authority, however, the possessions were not examined at that time. As
it turned
out,
according to the indictment, Moussaoui’s possessions included letters
indicating that
Moussaoui
was a marketing consultant in the United States for Infocus Tech. The letters
had
been
signed by Yazid Sufaat, whom the Intelligence Community was aware was the owner
of the
Malaysian
condominium in which the January 2000 al-Qa’ida meeting attended by hijackers
al-
Mihdhar
and al-Hazmi had been held. The indictment also alleges that Moussaoui
possessed a
notebook
listing two German telephone numbers and the name “Ahad Sabet,” which, the
indictment
states, was used by Ramzi Bin al-Shibh to send funds to Moussaoui. Bin al-Shibh,
who was
apprehended in Pakistan in September 2002, is named in the indictment as a
supporting
conspirator].
Hijackers
In Contact With Persons of FBI Investigative Interest
in the
United States
5.g.
The Joint Inquiry confirmed that at least some of the hijackers were not
as
isolated during their time in the United States as has been previously
suggested.
Rather, they maintained a number of contacts both in the United
[page
28] States and abroad during this time period. Some of those contacts
were
with individuals who were known to the FBI, through either past or, at
the
time, ongoing FBI inquiries and investigations. Although it is not known
to what
extent any of these contacts in the United States were aware of the
plot,
it is now clear that they did provide at least some of the hijackers with
substantial
assistance while they were living in this country.
Discussion:
The Intelligence Community had information indicating the potential
existence
of an al-Qa’ida support network in the United States prior to the attacks, and
this
was consistent with al-Qai’da’s modus operandi in previous attacks. The FBI
had, to
some
degree, focused sources and investigative work on radical Islamic extremists
within
the
United States prior to September 11. Former National Security Advisor Sandy
Berger
testified
that, during his time in office, the FBI view had been that “al-Qa’ida had
limited
capacity
to operate in the United States and any presence here was under surveillance.”
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[Ironically,
this Inquiry has confirmed that at least some of the hijackers operated,
without
detection, within the scope of the FBI’s coverage of radical Islamic
extremists.
Hani
Hanjour, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Khalid al-
Mihdhar
may have had contact with a total of 14 people who had come to the FBI’s
attention
during counterterrorism or counterintelligence investigations prior to
September
11, 2001.
Four of those 14 were the focus of active FBI investigations during the time
that
the hijackers were in the United States. In fact, as noted earlier, two future
hijackers
had
numerous contacts with an active FBI counterterrorism informant while in the United
States.
Despite their proximity to FBI targets and at least one FBI source, the future
hijackers
successfully eluded FBI attention].
Several
examples illustrate not only the reliance of the hijackers on the potential
support
networks, but also the ease with which they operated despite the FBI’s pre-
September
11 domestic coverage. Shortly after their arrival in the United States, future
hijackers
Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi moved to San Diego at the suggestion
of Omar
al-Bayoumi, who had previously been the focus of an FBI counterterrorism
[ ]
inquiry. In San Diego, they stayed at al-Bayoumi’s apartment for several
days
until he was able to find them an apartment. He then co-signed their lease,
paid
[page
29] their security deposit and first month’s rent, arranged a party to
welcome them
to the
San Diego community, and tasked another individual to help them become
acclimated
to the United States. [
]. The
second
individual served as their translator, helped them obtain bank accounts and
drivers’
licenses, and assisted them in locating flight schools.
[Other
individuals in San Diego also provided the two hijackers with similar types
of
assistance. A manager of a local gas station, who was at the time being
investigated
by the
FBI, hired al-Hazmi to work for him briefly, after receiving a call from a
mutual
friend
at the mosque. In addition, a local imam, who was the subject of an FBI
counterterrorism
inquiry for part of the time that the future hijackers were in San Diego,
served
as their spiritual advisor when they were living in San Diego. Finally,
al-Hazmi
and
al-Mihdhar also maintained a number of other contacts in the local Islamic
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community
during their time in San Diego, some of whom were also known to the FBI
through
counterterrorist inquiries and investigations].
Future
hijacker Hani Hanjour also may have received flight-related assistance
from
[an individual], who, was also known to the FBI and was, in fact, included
among
the
individuals discussed in the Phoenix communication. As noted earlier, [this
individual]
left the United States in April 2000, and returned in June 2001, remaining in
the
United States for approximately one month. [The individual] was an associate of
Hanjour’s
and the FBI now speculates that [the individual] may have returned to the
United
States either to evaluate Hanjour’s flying skills, or to provide Hanjour his
final
training
on the Cessna simulator before the attacks. This individual was an experienced
flight
instructor and was certified to fly Boeing 737s.
When
some of the future hijackers relocated to the East Coast, it appears that they
received
assistance similar to that provided to them on the West Coast. Al-Hazmi and al-
Mihdhar’s
spiritual advisor relocated to the East Coast, and, when Hanjour and al-Hazmi
arrived
at his mosque, one of the mosque’s members helped them find an apartment in
the
area. After approximately a month, this same individual drove Hanjour and al-
[page
30] Hazmi, along with two other hijackers, to Connecticut, and then to
Paterson,
New
Jersey. From the hotel in Connecticut where they stayed for two nights, a total
of
75
calls were made in attempts to locate apartments, flight schools, and car
rental
agencies
for the future hijackers. The hijackers were also in contact with a number of
other
people during their time on the East Coast.
[The
fact that these future hijackers could rely on this type of support within the
United
States is consistent with other information that was available to the
Intelligence
Community
prior to September 11, 2001. That information also points to the existence of
an
al-Qa’ida support network within the United States. An August 2001 Intelligence
Community
publication for senior U.S. government policy officials (called a “SEIB”), for
example,
indicated that al-Qa’ida members, including some U.S. citizens, have resided in
or
traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support
structure in
the
United States. The FBI Phoenix field office agent who authored the Phoenix
communication
also testified that, based on his experience, he had developed an
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“investigative
theory” that indicated that this kind of support network had been in place
in
Arizona for some time].
[Finally,
an early summer 2001 Intelligence Community report stated that Khalid
Shaykh
Mohammed – the senior al-Qa’ida official who has been identified as the
mastermind
of the September 11 attacks -- was recruiting individuals to travel to the
United
States and engage in planning terrorist-related activity there. According to
the
[ ]
report, these individuals would be “expected to establish contact with
colleagues
already living there.” This information was disseminated [ ]
to all
Intelligence Community agencies and the [ ], military commanders, and
components
within the Departments of Treasury and Justice].
[A
September 12, 2001 FBI interview [
] also
suggests the existence of an al-Qa’ida support
network
within the United States. In that interview, an individual with al-Qa’ida
connections
recalled that a senior al-Qa’ida operative had discussed [page
31] “using
multiple
cells operating independently in the United States that could execute ten
operations
simultaneously or in sequence that would produce a big impact on the United
States.”
When queried by the FBI, the individual indicated that the senior operative had
the
necessary people positioned in the United States to carry out such a plan,
noting that
the
senior operative has many contacts in the United States].
Hijackers’
Associates in Germany
5.h.
[Since 1995, the CIA had been aware of a radical Islamic presence in
Germany,
including individuals with connections to Usama Bin Ladin. Prior
to
September 11, 2001, the CIA had unsuccessfully sought additional
information
on individuals who have now been identified as associates of
some of
the hijackers].
Discussion:
[CIA and FBI counterterrorism operations and investigations prior to
September
11, 2001 repeatedly produced intelligence relating to two individuals in
Hamburg,
Germany – Mamoun Darkazanli, a suspected logistician in Bin Ladin’s
network,
and Mohammed Zammar, a suspected recruiter for al- Qa’ida. The CIA had
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been
seeking more information about Darkazanli. [
].
After
September 11, 2001, it was determined that these same two individuals had
been
associates in Hamburg of hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad
Jarrah,
as well as other individuals, such as Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who are now believed
to
have
been involved in the September 11 plot. In fact, the FBI now believes that
Zammar
recruited
Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah into Al Qaeda, and encouraged their participation
in
the
September 11 attacks.
[Page 32]
Khalid Shaykh
Mohammad
5.i.
Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community had information linking
Khalid
Shaykh Mohammed (KSM), now recognized by the Intelligence
Community
as the mastermind of the attacks, to Bin Ladin, to terrorist plans to
use
aircraft as weapons, and to terrorist activity in the United States. The
Intelligence
Community, however, relegated KSM to rendition target status
following
his 1996 indictment in connection with the Bojinka Plot and, as a
result,
focused primarily on his location, rather than his activities and place in
the al-Qa’ida
hierarchy. The Community also did not recognize the significance
of
reporting in June 2001 concerning KSM’s active role in sending terrorists to
the
United States, or the facilitation of their activities upon arriving in the
United
States. Collection efforts were not targeted on information about KSM
that
might have helped better understand al-Qa’ida’s plans and intentions, and
KSM’s
role in the September 11 attacks was a surprise to the Intelligence
Community.
Discussion:
[According to information obtained by the Intelligence Community from
several
sources after September 11, 2001, Khalid Shaykh Mohammed (KSM) -- also known
as
“Mukhtar” (Arabic for “The Brain”) -- masterminded the September 11 attacks.
The
information
indicates that KSM presented a plan to Usama Bin Ladin to mount an attack
using
small rental aircraft filled with explosives. Usama Bin Ladin reportedly
suggested
using
even larger planes. Thus, the idea of hijacking commercial airliners took hold.
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Thereafter,
KSM reportedly instructed and trained the hijackers for their mission,
including
directing
them to undergo pilot training].
KSM
came to the attention of the Intelligence Community as a terrorist in early
1995
when he
was linked to Ramzi Yousef’s “Bojinka Plot” in the Philippines. One portion of
that
plot
involved the idea of crashing an airplane into CIA Headquarters. Through
additional
intelligence
and investigative efforts in 1995, KSM was also connected to the first World
Trade
Center bombing. He was indicted by a U.S. grand jury in January 1996. The
indictment
was kept under seal until 1998 while the FBI and CIA attempted to locate him
and
arrange
to take him into custody. Subsequently, indications were received that he might
have
been
involved in the East Africa U.S. Embassy bombings.
[In
June 2001, [ ] disseminated a report to all Intelligence Community
agencies,
[ ], military commanders, and components in the Treasury and Justice
[page
33] Departments emphasizing KSM’s ties to Bin Ladin as well as his
continuing travel
to the
United States. The report explained that KSM appears to be one of Bin Ladin’s
most
trusted
lieutenants and was active in recruiting people to travel outside Afghanistan,
including
to the United States, on behalf of Bin Ladin. According to the report, he
traveled
frequently
to the United States, including as recently as May 2001, and routinely told
others
that he
could arrange their entry into the United States as well. Reportedly, these
individuals
were
expected to establish contact with colleagues already there. The clear implication
of his
comments,
according to the report, was that they would be engaged in planning
terroristrelated
activities].
Although
this particular report was sent from the CIA to the FBI, neither agency
apparently
recognized the significance of a Bin Ladin lieutenant sending terrorists to the
United
States and asking them to establish contacts with colleagues already there. CTC
questioned
this report at the time and commented: “We doubt the real [KSM] would do
this…because
if it is [KSM], we have both a significant threat and an opportunity to pick
him
up.”
Neither the CIA nor the FBI has been able to confirm whether KSM had in fact
been
traveling
to the United States or sending recruits here prior to September 11.
[Terrorist
Communications in September 2001]
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5.j.
[In the period from September 8 to September 10, 2001 NSA intercepted,
but did
not translate or disseminate until after September 11, some
communications
that indicated possible impending terrorist activity].
Discussion:
[In early September 2001, NSA intercepted [ ]
communications
involving [ ].
The
communications discussed events that were to occur in the near term and
appeared to be
related
to terrorism. In the first communication, [ ]
[ ]
asked whether [ ]. [ ] responded that [ ]
[ ].
[Page
34]
[Another
communication, between [ ] and an unknown person [ ], was a
discussion
of whether [ ].
[
]. NSA
did not disseminate reports regarding the communications until
September
12 and 13, 2001].
Two
additional communications that indicated imminent terrorist activity were
intercepted
by NSA on September 10, 2001. The communications contained conversations
between
unknown individuals located abroad. NSA Director Hayden described the content
of
those
communications in his testimony before the Joint Inquiry:
In the
hours just prior to the attacks, NSA did obtain two pieces of information
suggesting
that individuals with terrorist connections believed something significant
would
happen on September 11.
These
communications were, however, not translated into English and disseminated by
NSA
until
September 12, 2001.
It
remains uncertain whether any of the September [ ] conversations
referred
directly to the attacks of September 11. Like the intelligence reporting
described
earlier,
these intercepts did not provide any indication of where or what terrorist
activities
might
occur.
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B.
CONCLUSION – FACTUAL FINDINGS
In
short, for a variety of reasons, the Intelligence Community failed to
capitalize on
both
the individual and collective significance of available information that
appears relevant
to the
events of September 11. As a result, the Community missed opportunities to
disrupt
the
September 11 plot by denying entry to or detaining would-be hijackers; to at
least try to
unravel
the plot through surveillance and other investigative work within the United
States;
[page
35] and, finally, to generate a heightened state of alert and thus harden
the homeland
against
attack.
No one
will ever know what might have happened had more connections been drawn
between
these disparate pieces of information. We will never definitively know to what
extent
the Community would have been able and willing to exploit fully all the
opportunities
that
may have emerged. The important point is that the Intelligence Community, for a
variety
of
reasons, did not bring together and fully appreciate a range of information
that could have
greatly
enhanced its chances of uncovering and preventing Usama Bin Ladin’s plan to
attack
the
United States on September 11, 2001.
C.
SYSTEMIC FINDINGS
Our
review of the events surrounding September 11 has revealed a number of
systemic
weaknesses that hindered the Intelligence Community’s counterterrorism efforts
before
September 11. If not addressed, these weaknesses will continue to undercut U.S.
counterterrorist
efforts. In order to minimize the possibility of attacks like September 11
in the
future, effective solutions to those problems need to be developed and fully
implemented
as soon as possible.
1.
Finding: Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community was neither well
organized
nor equipped, and did not adequately adapt, to meet the challenge posed
by
global terrorists focused on targets within the domestic United States. Serious
gaps
existed between the collection coverage provided by U.S. foreign and U.S.
domestic
intelligence capabilities. The U.S. foreign intelligence agencies paid
inadequate
attention to the potential for a domestic attack. The CIA’s failure to
watchlist
suspected terrorists aggressively reflected a lack of emphasis on a process
designed
to protect the homeland from the terrorist threat. As a result, CIA
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employees
failed to watchlist al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. At home, the
counterterrorism
effort suffered from the lack of an effective domestic intelligence
capability.
The FBI was unable to identify and monitor effectively the extent of
activity
by al-Qa’ida and other international terrorist groups operating in the
United
States. Taken together, these problems greatly exacerbated the nation’s
vulnerability
to an increasingly dangerous and immediate international terrorist
threat
inside the United States.
[Page
36]
Discussion:
The United States has a long history of defining internal threats as
either
foreign or domestic and assigning responsibility to the intelligence and law
enforcement
agencies accordingly. This division reflects a fundamental policy choice
and is
codified in law. For example, the National Security Act of 1947 precludes CIA
from
exercising any internal security or law enforcement powers. The Congressional
investigations
of the 1970’s into the activities of the intelligence agencies, including their
efforts
to collect information regarding anti-Vietnam War activists and other
“radicals,”
reinforced
the importance of this division in the minds of the Congress, the American
public,
and the agencies.
The
emergence, in the 1990s, of a threat posed by international terrorists who
operate
across national borders demanded huge changes in focus and approach from
intelligence
agencies traditionally organized and trained to operate primarily in either the
United
States or abroad. The legal authorities, operational policies and cultures that
had
molded
agencies like CIA, NSA and the FBI for years had not responded to the
“globalization”
of terrorism that culminated in the September 11 attacks in the United
States.
While some efforts, such as the creation of the CTC at CIA in 1986, were made
to
increase collaboration between these agencies, the agencies focused primarily
on what
remained
essentially separate spheres of operations. In the absence of any collective
national
strategy, they retained significant autonomy in deciding how to attack and
array
their
resources against Usama Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida. Efforts to develop such a
strategy
might have exposed the significant counterterrorism gaps that existed between
the
agencies as well as the increasingly urgent need to compensate for those gaps
in the
absence
of more fundamental changes in organization and legal authority.
Prior
to September 11, CIA and NSA continued to focus the bulk of their efforts
on the
foreign operations of terrorists. While intelligence reporting indicated that
al-
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Qa’ida
intended to strike in the United States, these agencies believed that defending
against
this threat was primarily the responsibility of the FBI. This Joint Inquiry
found
that
both agencies routinely passed a large volume of intelligence to the FBI, but
that
neither
agency followed up to determine what the FBI learned from or did with that
[page
37] information. Neither did the FBI keep NSA and CIA adequately informed of
developments
within its areas of responsibility.
As
noted earlier, the record confirms instances where, despite numerous
opportunities,
information that was directly relevant to the domestic threat was simply
overlooked
and not disseminated in a timely manner to the FBI. For example, the CIA
analyst
who neglected to raise the information concerning al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi’s
U.S.
travel in a June 2001 meeting with the FBI in New York said in a Joint Inquiry
interview
that the information he had learned concerning the pair’s travel to Los Angeles
“did
not mean anything to him.” He also explained to the Joint Inquiry that the
information
was operational in nature and he would have needed permission before
disclosing
it.
The
CIA’s inconsistent performance regarding the watchlisting of suspected
terrorists
prior to September 11 also suggests a lack of attention to the domestic threat.
Watchlists
are a vital link in denying entry to the United States by terrorists and others
who
threaten the national security, and CTC had reminded personnel of the
importance of
watchlisting
in December 1999 (see Appendix, “CTC Watchlisting Guidance –
December
1999”). Yet, some CIA officers in CTC indicated they did not put much
emphasis
on watchlists. The Joint Inquiry confirmed that there was no formal process in
place
at the CTC prior to September 11 for watchlisting suspected terrorists, even
where,
as was
the case with al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, there were indications of travel to the
United
States.
Other
CIA personnel reported that they received no training on watchlisting and
that
names were added on an ad hoc basis. In the days and weeks following the
September
11 attacks, more focused CIA review of over 1,500 Classified Intelligence
Reports
that had not previously been provided to the State Department for watchlist
purposes
resulted in the identification of 150 suspected terrorists and the addition of
58
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suspected
terrorist names to the watchlist. DCI Tenet acknowledged in his testimony
before
the Joint Inquiry that CIA’s watchlisting training had been deficient and that
a
[page
38] mistake had been made in the failure to watchlist both al-Mihdhar and
al-
Hazmi
promptly.
[There
were also gaps between NSA’s coverage of foreign communications and
the
FBI’s coverage of domestic communications that suggest a lack of sufficient
attention
to the
domestic threat. Prior to September 11, neither agency focused on the
importance
of
identifying and then ensuring coverage of communications between the United
States
and
suspected terrorist-associated facilities abroad [
].
Consistent with its focus on communications abroad, NSA adopted a policy that
avoided
intercepting the communications between individuals in the United States and
foreign
countries].
NSA
adopted this policy even though the collection of such communications is
within
its mission and it would have been possible for NSA to obtain FISA Court
authorization
for such collection. NSA Director Hayden testified to the Joint Inquiry that
NSA did
not want to be perceived as targeting individuals in the United States and
believed
that the FBI was instead responsible for conducting such surveillance. NSA did
not,
however, develop a plan with the FBI to collect and to ensure the dissemination
of
any
relevant foreign intelligence to appropriate domestic agencies. This further
evidences
the slow response of the Intelligence Community to the developing
transnational
threat.
[The
Joint Inquiry has learned that one of the future hijackers communicated with
a known
terrorist facility in the Middle East while he was living in the United States.
The
Intelligence Community did not identify the domestic origin of those
communications
prior to September 11, 2001 so that additional FBI investigative efforts
could
be coordinated. Despite this country’s substantial advantages, there was
insufficient
focus on what many would have thought was among the most critically
important
kinds of terrorist-related communications, at least in terms of protecting the
Homeland].
[Page
39]
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While
most of the Intelligence Community focused on the collection of foreign
intelligence,
the Joint Inquiry was told repeatedly that the nation lacked an effective
domestic
intelligence capability prior to September 11. Former National Coordinator for
Counterterrorism
Richard Clarke saw this as a longstanding problem that became
painfully
obvious in the aftermath of September 11:
Well, I
hear all of these comments about the Phoenix memo, the
Minnesota
case, whatever. I think they miss the point that the failures
were
years earlier. It was a failure on the part of the United States to not
have a
domestic intelligence collection capability. I understand the
reasons
for the lack of the ability. I know the abuses the FBI engaged in
[during]
the 1950s and 1960s. I know the reason we have the Attorney
General-levied
guidelines. But I think the pendulum swung too far, and
when we
became aware of the fact that there were forces in the world such
as
al-Qa’ida, and others, Iran, Hezbollah, that meant us ill, certainly by the
1980s
or 1990s we should have recognized the need for a domestic
intelligence
collection capability. Other democracies with civil rights and
civil
liberties have that. It doesn’t mean you become a totalitarian state if
you do
a good job of oversight and control. We needed to have a domestic
intelligence
collection and analysis capability, and we did not have it, and
only
now are we beginning to get it.
. . . .
But my
point about the FBI was not just a few hints were missed or dots
weren’t
connected; it is – my point was, they didn’t have the mission. It
was not
their job to be a domestic collection service. Their job was to do
law
enforcement. And they didn’t have the rules that permitted them to do
domestic
intelligence collection.
While
the FBI’s counterterrorist program had produced successful investigations
and
major prosecutions of both domestic and international terrorists, numerous
witnesses
told
the Joint Inquiry that the program was, at least prior to September 11,
incapable of
producing
significant intelligence products. The FBI’s traditional reliance on an
aggressive,
case-oriented, law enforcement approach did not encourage the broader
collection
and analysis efforts that are critical to the intelligence mission. Lacking
appropriate
personnel, training, and information systems, the FBI primarily gathered
intelligence
to support specific investigations, not to conduct all-source analysis for
dissemination
to other intelligence agencies. Former National Security Advisor Sandy
Berger
testified about the FBI’s failure, prior to September 11, to assess the extent
of the
foreign
terrorist threat to the United States adequately: [page 40]
Until
the very end of our term in office, the view we received from the
Bureau
was that al-Qa’ida had limited capacity to operate in the United
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States
and that any presence here was under surveillance. That was not
implausible
at the time. With the exception of the World Trade Center
bombings
in 1993, not attributed before 9/11 to Bin Ladin, plots by
foreign
terrorists within the United States have been detected and stopped.
But
revelations since September 11 have made it clear that the Bureau
underestimated
the domestic threat. The stream of threat information we
received
continuously from the FBI and CIA pointed overwhelmingly to
attacks
on U.S. interests abroad. Certainly, the potential for attacks in the
United
States was there.
Former
National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft told the Joint Inquiry hearing
on
September 19, 2002, that:
. . .
.I was thinking back [on] intelligence information from the FBI, and I
was
trying to think of cases where we actually got it. Not very much,
because
we are or I was focused on foreign intelligence primarily. There
was
some counterintelligence issues where the FBI intelligence was
particularly
involved, and the one case I mentioned. Pan Am 103, but that
was
investigative intelligence and the FBI and the CIA did an absolutely
brilliant
job on that. But I can't think of many--can't recall of any instances
of pure
intelligence product from the FBI. And I don't say that pejoratively
at all.
Former
National Coordinator for Counterterrorism Richard Clarke voiced similar
concerns
about the extent of the FBI’s understanding of the domestic threat:
Let me
give you the FBI case, because I think it is the most clear.
Following
the Millennium alert . . . and . . . review, it became very clear to
. . .
the [FBI] Assistant Director for Counterterrorism, there was the
potential
for sleeper cells in the United States, people . . . the United States
that
had been involved in the planned attacks.
. . . .
This
was in 2000. The Assistant Director . . . then began a program to try
to get
more control of the 56 FBI field offices, and I visited five or six of
the
field offices and asked them what they were doing about al-Qa’ida. I
got
sort of blank looks of “what is al-Qa’ida?”
He
compared the effort to add priority to al-Qa’ida investigations in the FBI
field offices
to
”trying to . . . sort of turn this big Queen Mary luxury liner, trying to turn
it.”
[Page
41]
Numerous
individuals told this Inquiry that the FBI’s 56 field offices enjoy a
great
deal of latitude in managing their work, consistent with the dynamic and
reactive
nature
of its traditional law enforcement mission. In counterterrorism efforts,
however,
that
flexibility apparently served to dilute the FBI’s national focus on Bin Ladin
and al-
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Qa’ida.
Although the FBI made counterterrorism a “Tier One” priority, not all of its
field
offices
responded consistently to this FBI Headquarters decision. The New York Field
Office
did make terrorism a high priority and was given substantial responsibility for
the
al-Qa’ida
target following the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. However,
many
other FBI offices were not focused on al-Qa’ida and had little understanding of
the
extent
of the threat it posed within this country prior to September 11.
The
combination of these factors seriously handicapped efforts to identify and
defend
against the foreign terrorist threat to the domestic United States. It is not
surprising,
in the absence of more focused intelligence, that senior policymakers told this
Inquiry
that, prior to September 11, they believed the terrorist threat was focused on
U.S.
interests
overseas. Deputy Secretary of State Armitage, for example, testified that “. .
. I
don’t
think we really had made the leap in our mind that we are no longer safe behind
these
two great oceans. . . .” Former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre said in
a
Joint
Inquiry interview that he could not remember ever seeing an intelligence report
on
the
existence of terrorist sleeper cells in the United States. In retrospect, he
recalled: “. . .
we
thought we were dealing in important things, but we missed the domestic threat
from
international
terrorism.”
2.
Finding: Prior to September 11, 2001, neither the U.S. Government as a whole
nor the
Intelligence Community had a comprehensive counterterrorist strategy for
combating
the threat posed by Usama Bin Ladin. Furthermore, the Director of
Central
Intelligence (DCI) was either unwilling or unable to marshal the full range
of
Intelligence Community resources necessary to combat the growing threat to the
United
States.
Discussion:
The Intelligence Community is a large distributed organism. It
encompasses
14 agencies and tens of thousands of employees. The number of people
[page
42] employed exclusively in the effort against Usama Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida
was
relatively
small. In addition, these people were operating in geographically dispersed
locations,
often not connected by secure information technologies, and within established
bureaucracies
that were not culturally or organizationally attuned to one another’s
requirements.
Many of them had limited experience against the target, and did not know one
another.
To achieve success in such an environment, leadership is a critical factor. The
Joint
Inquiry
found that the Intelligence Community’s structure made leadership difficult.
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Usama
Bin Ladin first came to the attention of the Intelligence Community in the
early
1990s, initially as a financier of terrorist activities. In 1996, as Bin
Ladin’s direct
involvement
in planning and directing terrorist acts became more evident, the DCI’s
Counterterrorist
Center (CTC) created a special unit to focus specifically on him and the
threat
he posed to the interests of the United States. Personnel within CTC recognized
as
early
as 1996 and 1997 that Usama Bin Ladin posed a grave danger to the United
States.
Following
the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, the
DCI
made combating the threat posed by Usama Bin Ladin one of the Intelligence
Community’s
highest priorities, establishing it as a “Tier 0 priority.” The DCI raised the
status
of the Bin Ladin threat still further when he announced in writing in December
1998
regarding Bin Ladin: “We are at war…I want no resources or people spared in
this
effort,
either inside the CIA or the [Intelligence] Community.” This declaration
appeared
in a memorandum from the DCI to CIA senior managers, the Deputy DCI for
Community
Management and the Assistant DCI for Military Support.
The
Intelligence Community as a whole, however, had only a limited awareness
of this
declaration. For example, some senior managers in the National Security Agency
and the
Defense Intelligence Agency say they were aware of the declaration. However, it
was
apparently not well known within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In fact,
the
Assistant
Director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division testified to the Joint Inquiry
that he
“was not specifically aware of that declaration of war.”
[Page
43]
Furthermore,
and even more disturbing, Joint Inquiry interviews of FBI field
office
personnel indicated that they were not aware of the DCI’s declaration, and some
had
only a passing familiarity with the very existence of Usama Bin Ladin and
al-Qa’ida
prior
to September 11. Neither were the Deputy Secretary of Defense or the Chairman
of
the
Joint Chiefs of Staff aware of the DCI’s declaration. This suggests a
fragmented
Intelligence
Community that was operating without a comprehensive strategy for
combating
the threat posed by Bin Ladin, and a DCI without the ability to enforce
consistent
priorities at all levels throughout the Community.
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The
Director of NSA at the time of the DCI’s 1998 declaration was Lieutenant
General
Kenneth Minihan. He acknowledged in a Joint Inquiry interview that he was
aware
of that declaration, but believed that the DCI was speaking for CIA only. In
his
experience,
he said, the DCI generally left Intelligence Community matters to the head of
the
Community Management Staff.
The
record of this Joint Inquiry indicates that the DCI did not marshal
resources
effectively
even within CIA against the threat posed by al-Qa’ida. Despite the DCI’s
declaration
to CIA officials that the Agency was at war with Bin Ladin, there is
substantial
evidence that the DCI’s Counterterrorist Center needed additional personnel
prior
to September 11, and that the lack of resources had a substantial impact on its
ability
to detect and monitor al-Qa’ida’s activities. For example:
• In a September 12, 2002 Joint Inquiry hearing, the
former Chief of CTC
testified
that he did not have enough people to counter the threat posed by Bin
Ladin’s
network: “The three concepts I would like to leave you with are
people,
the finances, and operational approvals or political authorities. We
didn’t
have enough of any of these before 9/11.”
• In the same hearing, a senior CTC manager said, “Did
we have enough
personnel
resources? No. We always needed more.”
[Page
44]
• In the same hearing, a former Chief of the CTC unit
dedicated to focusing on
Bin
Ladin explained: “We never had enough officers from the Directorate of
Operations.
The officers we had were greatly overworked….We also received
marginal
analytic support from the Directorate of Intelligence….”
• In a September 20, 2002 Joint Inquiry hearing, a CIA
officer commented on
the
reasons for the CIA’s failure to follow-up regarding the two September 11
hijackers
who came to the attention of the Intelligence Community in January
2000:
How
could these misses have occurred?… The CIA operators focused on
the
Malaysia meeting while it occurred; when it was over, they focused on
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other,
more urgent operations against threats real or assessed. Of the
many
people involved, no one detected that the data generated by this
operation
crossed a reporting threshold, or, if they did, they assumed that
the
reporting requirement had been met elsewhere…. They are the kinds
of
misses that happen when people – even very competent, dedicated
people
such as the CIA officers and FBI agents and analysts involved in
all
aspects of this story – are simply overwhelmed.
• When asked why there was no marshaling of personnel to
CTC to fight Bin
Ladin’s
network, the former Chief of CTC recalled that the CIA’s Deputy
Director
of Operations said there were not enough personnel to go around and
CTC was
already well-endowed with people as compared to other divisions in
CIA.
Almost
immediately after September 11, 2001, there was a substantial infusion of
personnel
into the CTC. No comparable shift of resources occurred in December 1998
after
the DCI’s declaration of war, in December 1999 during the Millennium crisis, or
after
the attack on USS Cole in October 2000.
In his
testimony before the Joint Inquiry on October 17, 2002, the DCI said, “In
hindsight,
I wish I had said, ‘Let’s take the whole enterprise down,’ and put 500 more
people
there sooner.” It is noteworthy that the DCI’s comments were limited to the CIA
[page
45] and did not encompass marshaling the resources of other agencies within
the
Intelligence
Community.
Despite
the DCI’s December 1998 declaration of war, other priorities continued to
detract
from the Intelligence Community’s effort against Bin Ladin. The Joint Inquiry
heard
repeatedly about intelligence priorities that competed contemporaneously with
Bin
Ladin
for personnel and funds. These included a range of regional and global issues.
The NSA
Director described the pre-September 11 situation at NSA:
We,
like everyone else at the table, were stretched thin in September. The
war
against terrorism was our number one priority. We had about five
number
one priorities. And we had to balance what we were doing against
all of
them. . . . .
[Further,
the NSA Director testified that he knew what NSA had to do to improve its
capabilities
against the modern means of communications used by Bin Ladin and other
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targets
prior to September 11, but was unable to obtain Intelligence Community support
and
resources for that effort:
Given
all the other intelligence priorities, it would have been difficult at
that
time within the [Intelligence Community] or the Department of
Defense
to accept the kind of resource decisions that would have been
necessary
to make our effort against the target more robust. NSA was
focused
heavily on [a range of regional and global issues]. Our resources,
both
human and financial, were in decline. Our efforts in 2000 to churn
money
internally were not accepted by the Community; its reliance on
[signals
intelligence] had made it reluctant to give it up].
The
inability to realign Intelligence Community resources to combat the threat
posed
by Usama Bin Ladin is a relatively direct consequence of the limited authority
of
the DCI
over major portions of the Intelligence Community. As former Senator Warren
Rudman
noted on October 8, 2002 in his testimony before the Joint Inquiry: “You have a
Director
of Central Intelligence who is also the Director of CIA; eighty-five percent of
[the
Intelligence Community’s budget] is controlled by the Department of Defense.”
[Page
46]
While
the DCI has statutory responsibility that spans the Intelligence Community,
his
actual authorities are limited to the budgets and personnel over which he
exercises
direct
control, i.e., the CIA, the Office of the DCI, and the Community Management
Staff.
As former Congressman and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Lee
Hamilton
stated in his testimony to the Joint Inquiry on October 3, 2002:
Currently,
the Director of Central Intelligence, the leading intelligence
figure,
as we all know, does not control but a small portion of his budget.
The DCI
has, as I understand it, enhanced authority after 1997, and that
permits
him to consolidate the national intelligence budget, to make some
trade-offs,
but given the overwhelming weight of the Defense Department
in the
process, that is of limited value.
. . . .
The
very phrase “Intelligence Community” is intriguing. It demonstrates
how
decentralized and fragmented our intelligence capabilities are. . . .
The
Intelligence Community is a very loose confederation. . . .
. . . .
[T]he
thing that puzzles me here is why we reject for the Intelligence
Community
the model of organization that we follow in every other
enterprise
in this country. We have someone at the head who has
responsibility
and accountability. We accept that. But for some reason we
reject
it when it comes to the Intelligence Community.
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Further
evidence of the absence of authoritative leadership and a comprehensive
counterterrorist
strategy can be found in what the DCI referred to in his Joint Inquiry
testimony
on October 17, 2002 as “The Plan.” In his testimony, the DCI said:
In
spring of 1999, we produced a new comprehensive operational plan of
attack
against [Usama Bin Ladin] and al Qaeda inside and outside of
Afghanistan.
The strategy was previewed to senior CIA management by
the end
of July of 1999. By mid-September it had been briefed to the CIA
operational
level personnel, to NSA, to the FBI and other partners. The
CIA
began to put in place the elements of this operational strategy which
structured
the agency’s counterterrorism activity until September 11 of
2001.
[According
to documents reviewed by the Joint Inquiry, “The Plan” of 1999
consisted
primarily of a variety of CIA covert action efforts directed against Usama Bin
Ladin.
Later, “The Plan” also included [
].
Thus,
“The Plan” was focused principally on CIA, Afghanistan, covert action, and
technical
collection aimed at Usama Bin Ladin].
From a
broader perspective, “The Plan” was significant for what it did not
include:
• An Intelligence Community-wide estimate of the threat
posed by Usama Bin
Ladin’s
network to the United States and to U.S. interests overseas;
• Significant participation by other elements of the
Intelligence Community;
• A delineation of the resources required to execute
“The Plan;”
• Any decisions to downgrade other Intelligence
Community priorities to
accommodate
the priority of “The Plan;”
• Any attention to the threat to and vulnerabilities of
the U.S. homeland; and
• Any FBI involvement.
The
absence of involvement by agencies other than CIA in “The Plan” is
particularly
troubling, given gaps that existed in the efforts by other agencies to address
Bin
Ladin. While the CIA was putting significant effort and attention into Usama
Bin
Ladin,
covert action, and Afghanistan, the FBI, for example, was focused on other
issues.
Although
FBI leadership recognized after the Embassy bombings in August 1998 that al-
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Qa’ida
posed an increasing threat to United States interests, investigations in the
United
States
of those who raised funds for other terrorist groups continued to consume
considerable
field resources and attention prior to September 11.
While
the FBI devoted considerable resources to the criminal investigations of the
terrorist
attacks overseas, substantial efforts to prevent similar attacks at home were
lacking.
Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger told the Joint Inquiry: “. . . if
there
was a flood of intelligence information [on terrorism] from the CIA, there was
hardly
a trickle from the FBI.” In some FBI field offices, there was little focus on,
or
awareness
of, Usama Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida. This included the San Diego field office
where
FBI agents would discover, after September 11, that there had been numerous
local
connections to at least two of the hijackers.
[Page
48]
The
Executive Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division testified
to the
Joint Inquiry that the FBI had no war plan against Bin Ladin: “Did we have a
war
plan, a
five-paragraph ops order issued on Usama Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida? Absolutely,
we did
not at that time.” When asked how the FBI's counterterrorism program fit into
the
overall Intelligence Community counterterrorism program, the same Assistant
Director
replied: “I am not sure if I know the answer to that. I talked to [the DCI]
briefly
about
this. I have talked to [the CTC Chief] prior to -- the answer to your question
is, I
don't
know the answer.” Without a comprehensive strategy in place for the whole
Intelligence
Community, there was no assurance that agencies like the FBI were focused
on the
DCI’s “war” effort.
Consistent
with the absence of any comprehensive strategy, a recent Department of
Justice
Inspector General (IG) report found that: “The FBI has never performed a
comprehensive
written assessment of the risk of the terrorist threat facing the United
States."
As the
IG report explained: "Such an assessment would be useful not only to
define the nature,
likelihood,
and severity of the threat but also to identify intelligence gaps that need to
be
addressed.
Moreover, we believe that comprehensive threat and risk assessments would be
useful
in determining where to allocate attention and resources...on programs and
initiatives to
combat
terrorism." This kind of assessment still had not been completed as
recently as
Director
Mueller’s testimony on October 17, 2002. Nor did the DCI’s National
Intelligence
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Council
ever produce a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) regarding the threat to the
United
States
posed by al-Qa’ida or Usama Bin Ladin.
Without
the support of a comprehensive strategy or credible domestic threat
assessment,
DCI resource requests were often unsuccessful. In response to questions
about
his own efforts to obtain additional counterterrorism resources, the DCI
described
to the
Joint Inquiry hearing on June 18, 2002 his inability, prior to September 11, to
generate
necessary support within the Executive Branch:
[I
would ask e]very year in [the] budget submission. [Page 49]
. . . .
I'm not
talking about the Committee. I'm talking about the front end at
OMB and
the hurdle you have to get through to fully fund what we
thought
we needed to do the job. Senator Kyl once asked me a question in
Senator
Shelby's Committee and said, how much money are you short. I'm
short
$900 million to $1 billion every year for the next five years, is what I
answered.
And we told that to everybody downtown for as long as
anybody
would listen and never got to first base. So you get what you pay
for in
terms of our ability to be as big and robust as people - and when I
became
Director, we had [ ] case officers around the world. Now
we're
up to about [ ] and the President's given us the ability to
grow
that by another [ ]. And everybody wonders why you can't
do all
the things people say you need to do. Well, if you don't pay at the
front
end, it ain't going to be there at the back end. Having said that, I
think
we made an enormous amount of progress against this target. That
would
be my view].
3.
Finding: Between the end of the Cold War and September 11, 2001, overall
Intelligence
Community funding fell or remained even in constant dollars, while
funding
for the Community’s counterterrorism efforts increased considerably.
Despite
those increases, the accumulation of intelligence priorities, a burdensome
requirements
process, the overall decline in Intelligence Community funding, and
reliance
on supplemental appropriations made it difficult to allocate Community
resources
effectively against an evolving terrorist threat. Inefficiencies in the
resource
and requirements process were compounded by problems in Intelligence
Community
budgeting practices and procedures.
Discussion:
[Throughout the Joint Inquiry, numerous officials at CIA, NSA and
the FBI
testified that the greatest constraint in their effort against al-Qa’ida was
the
availability
of too few resources, compounded by too many requirements and priorities.
Regional
and global issues were identified as some of the other important issues that
competed
with counterterrorism and made heavy resource demands].
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These
other policy priorities demanded the support of the Intelligence Community
and
made it difficult to transfer people or funds to counterterrorism. DCI Tenet
testified
that:
As I
‘declared war’ against al-Qa’ida in 1998 – in the aftermath of the East
Africa
embassy bombings – we were in our fifth year of round-the-clock
support
to Operation Southern Watch in Iraq. Just three months earlier,
we were
embroiled in answering questions on the India and Pakistan
nuclear
tests and trying to determine how we could surge more people to
understanding
and countering [page 50] weapons of mass destruction
proliferation.
In early 1999, we surged more than 800 analysts and
redirected
collection assets from across the Intelligence Community to
support
the NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia.
[Similarly,
NSA Director Hayden testified that NSA was focused heavily on
several
other high priority intelligence targets. An FBI budget official told the Joint
Inquiry
that counterterrorism was not a priority for Attorney General Ashcroft before
September
11, and the FBI faced pressure to make cuts in counterterrorism to satisfy his
other
priorities].
The
Joint Inquiry’s review of available budget and resource data confirmed that,
overall,
the Intelligence Community budget peaked in fiscal year 1992 and thereafter
fell
or
remained even in constant dollars. The FBI is an exception to the overall
resource
picture.
Its overall funding increased for much of the 1990s, though most of this went
to
the
Bureau’s non-intelligence programs.
[In
all, however, Intelligence Community capabilities declined over time. At the
CIA,
for example, the Directorate of Operations cut the number of its personnel
deployed
overseas
by almost [ ] and closed down a portion of facilities in one part of the
world –
where much information relating to terrorism could likely have been available.
In
addition, the necessary support “tail” for counterterrorism, such as
communications
and
training, suffered from the decline in resources].
Specific
funding for counterterrorism was, however, at least one exception to the
overall
budget decline. Within existing budgets, counterterrorism spending generally
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increased
while funding for other issues generally fell or remained steady. The
counterterrorism
component of the overall Intelligence Community budget, for example,
at
least doubled at most agencies. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger
emphasized
the added funding that was provided for counterterrorism: [page
51]
. . .
the Clinton Administration more than doubled the federal
government’s
counterterrorism spending from $5 billion in FY [Fiscal
Year]
1996 to over $11 billion in FY 2000) at a time of strong bipartisan
effort
to achieve balanced budgets that resulted in highly constrained
spending
for most programs. . . [T]he FBI’s counterterrorism staff budget
increased
by 250% and their counterterrorism budget increased by nearly
350%.
Similar increases were made in the CIA counterterrorism budget.
In
general, personnel allocated to counterterrorism also increased. Although
specifics
are imprecise, this Inquiry’s review and estimates provided by various agencies
indicate
that the number of personnel working on terrorism steadily increased despite
overall
decreases in Intelligence Community staffing. Nevertheless, the number of
counterterrorism
personnel prior to September 11 generally remained small and paled by
comparison
with post-September 11 levels.
During
the course of the Joint Inquiry, Intelligence Community officials identified
a
number of factors that limited their ability to allocate greater resources for
counterterrorism,
despite the funding increases that occurred in that area. These
included,
in addition to the overall general decline in funding for intelligence,
outdated
and
unrealistic intelligence priorities, and an overburdened requirements process.
The
Intelligence Community’s current strategic-level guidance for national
security
priorities was established by Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-35 in 1995.
Former
National Security Advisor Anthony Lake described PDD-35 as follows: “It
formally
established our top intelligence priorities and placed terrorism among them,
led
only by
intelligence support for our troops in the field and a small number of states
that
posed
an immediate or potential serious threat to the United States.” In an effort to
rank
the
myriad post-Cold War threats facing the United States, PDD-35 established a
tier
system
of priorities. The tiers were broad and concentrated at the upper levels of the
scale.
For example, there were both Tier 1A and Tier 1B priorities, but the highest
priority
was assigned to Tier Zero.
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[Page
52]
However,
as several Intelligence Community officers told the Joint Inquiry, in
practice,
the lack of adequate separation between the tiers made it very difficult to
choose
between
priorities, and the intelligence prioritization process was often confusing.
Former
National Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke noted that the White
House
“…never really gave good systematic, timely guidance to the Intelligence
Community
about what priorities were at the national level.” Deputy National Security
Advisor
Steven Hadley responded to Joint Inquiry questions by stating that Bush
Administration
officials were told by Clinton Administration officials during the
transition
that “this priority-setting process [PDD-35] … was not effective for
communicating
changing priorities over time.” Joint Inquiry interviews with
Intelligence
Community officials indicate that many felt that the prioritization process
was so
broad as to be meaningless.
Moreover,
PDD-35 was never effectively adapted before September 11 to meet
the
changing nature of the threat, despite specific language in the document that
required
an
annual review. As certain threats, including terrorism, increased in the late
1990s,
none of
the “lower level” Tier 1 priorities were downgraded so that resources --money
and
people-- could be reallocated. For much of the Intelligence Community,
everything
became
a priority since its customers in the U.S. Government wanted to know everything
about
everything all the time.
The
growing inadequacy of the PDD-35 structure fueled an overburdened and
increasingly
ineffective requirements system within the Intelligence Community. At
NSA,
for example, an official described the PDD-35 requirements system as
“cumbersome.”
NSA analysts acknowledged that they had far too many broad
requirements
-- some 1500 formal requirements by September 11 -- that covered virtually
every
situation and target. Working from these 1500 formal requirements, NSA had
developed
almost 200,000 “Essential Elements of Information” that were desired by its
customers.
While they understood the gross priorities and worked on the requirements
that
were practicable on any given day, several NSA analysts acknowledged that the
[page
53] priority demands sometimes precluded them from delving as deeply into
certain
areas as they would have liked.
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As
counterterrorism became an increasingly important concern for senior
Intelligence
Community officials, collection and analytic efforts did not always keep pace
because
other requirements competed with terrorism for attention, and real priorities
often
were not clear. In Joint Inquiry interviews, CIA officials said that, because
overall
resources
were finite, any increased focus on counterterrorism meant that other issues
would
have to receive less attention. At the FBI, where overall funding had
increased,
officials
said that substantial efforts focused on investigating terrorist cases
overseas,
critical
infrastructure protection programs, and other priorities not directly related
to
strategic
intelligence or al-Qa’ida activity within the United States.
[The
Director of NSA testified that prior to September 11, other priorities
frustrated
his attempts to acquire capabilities to process modern communications used by
terrorists
and other intelligence targets:
It
required a significant redirection of investment for us to acquire the
capabilities
to exploit modern communications. I mentioned . . .trying to
churn .
. .within what was then a fixed top line about $200 million . . . .
And we
could only get about a third of it to stick because the people who
were
using the products we created out of traditional means were unable to
give up
those product lines to allow us to reinvest those dollars for the new
age signals
environment . . . . I was unable to move some money because
we were
going to erode our coverage of [another intelligence target] as
part of
this effort.]
Even
within the CTC, the staff and resources dedicated to counterterrorism could
not
keep pace with the amount and scope of incoming intelligence reporting. The DCI
attributed
CIA inaction on a cable pointing to al-Hazmi’s travel to the United States to
the
fact that overworked CTC personnel did not have time to read “information only”
cables
from the field:
The
cable that came in from the field at the time, sir, was labeled
"information
only," and I know that nobody read that cable. . . . Sir, we
weren't
aware of it [page 54] when it came into headquarters. We
couldn't
have
notified the [FBI]. Nobody read that cable in the March time frame. .
. . It
was an information-only cable from the field and nobody read that
information-only
cable. [In hindsight, of] course it should have been.
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Another
CIA official indicated, post-September 11: “The second thing that was
clear,
as I showed [CTC personnel] the cable from March 5, [2000] -- just the look on
their
face told me everything I needed to know. They just hadn't seen it. It passed
them
by.“ The
former CTC Chief added:
We have
asked everyone have you seen this and what action was taken. It
did not
attract appropriate attention so that they could have been
watchlisted.
I think the Director has already mentioned that that was not
done at
the time. I think that it was reasonable by certainly March 5 that we
would
have been in the position, we should have been in a position to firmly
watchlist
this. I just have to underscore that we do this hundreds of times a
month.
It should have been done. It was not. We have very good people
working
this issue. It was not done, and it was not done because of the press
of lots
of other work. We probably should have picked up on this in early
March,
but we'd gone by for two months. The delay in that, sir, was the [
], took
about six weeks to get that information to us, and in March we
should
have picked up on it. All things being equal, they should have been
watchlisted;
I think that month we watchlisted about 150 people. It should
have
been done. It wasn't. It was a fact of life. And I think what contributed
to that
was these same officers watching this operation were also doing a lot
of
other things. So it's like balls in the air. There gets to a point where you
don't
treat each one with the attention that it deserves.
There
was also a March 6, 2001 cable from the field that called attention to the
portion of
the
March 5 cable regarding al-Hazmi’s travel to the United States, but CTC
personnel
also
did not read that cable at the time.
Senior
NSA and CIA officials have acknowledged that, in hindsight, they would
have
devoted many more personnel resources to the al-Qa’ida target and expedited the
development
of certain collection capabilities. However, they testified that the operating
environment
prior to September 11 – a combination of escalating requirements and
limited
resources – limited their ability to respond to the growing terrorist threat.
[Page
55]
Those
problems were aggravated by shortcomings that existed in the Intelligence
Community’s
budgeting practices. The President annually submits to Congress an
Intelligence
Community budget for the coming fiscal year. Included in that request are
both
ongoing and new programs that are subject to long established, well understood
oversight
and accountability procedures. Supplemental appropriations usually are
granted
in reaction to unforeseen events that are not part of the President’s budget
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request.
Since it is temporary by nature, supplemental funding is not meant to pay for
additional
personnel or for structural upgrades in future years.
The
Intelligence Community received large supplemental appropriations from
1998 to
2001 to fight terrorism. These additional funds were provided by Congress
following
several major al-Qa’ida attacks and to support the effort during the Millennium
celebrations.
In particular, most of CIA’s and some of NSA’s efforts against al-Qa’ida in
the
late 1990’s were funded from supplemental appropriations.
In
Joint Inquiry interviews, Intelligence Community officials were critical of
this
reliance
on supplementals for counterterrorism programs. A former CTC Chief, for
example,
told the Joint Inquiry that reliance on supplementals made it hard to create a
stable
counterterrorism program. He noted that it is far more difficult to develop
plans
for
hiring and training personnel and to pursue long-term technical programs that
require
years
to develop without a stable year-to-year funding basis.
Despite
such limitations, the Intelligence Community agencies sought additional
supplemental
appropriations to sustain its counterterrorism effort rather than alter the
President’s
budget request to provide annual counterterrorism funding. This is because
altering
the annual budget request would have required the Intelligence Community
agencies
to make substantial reductions in other programs, a course they were reluctant
to
follow
because of the many other intelligence priorities for which they were
responsible.
Certain
other Intelligence Community budgeting practices and procedures further
impeded
efforts to ensure an effective allocation of resources to counterterrorism. A
lack
[page
56] of transparency in agency budgets made it very difficult to determine
whether
the
counterterrorism mission was properly funded because counterterrorism is not an
explicit
Intelligence Community budget category. Instead, each Intelligence Community
agency
budget consists of a compilation of funding levels desired for specific
capabilities,
such as the cost of a particular number of intelligence officers or satellites.
Many of
these capabilities are useful for more than one mission. For example, a CIA
operations
officer may collect intelligence on the internal politics of a country, a
weapons
shipment,
and terrorism. The CIA considered having its personnel record the time they
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expend
on various missions, as do FBI field officers, but this was rejected due to the
perceived
administrative burden it would impose.
This
makes it very difficult to measure the amount of resources that the
Intelligence
Community allocates to a particular mission such as counterterrorism. As a
result
of this ambiguity, the Intelligence Community often does not know how much it
spends
on different issues and, therefore, is unable to compare the funding levels it
is
devoting
to one mission versus another. For example, the CIA had great difficulty
determining
for this Inquiry precisely how many of its personnel worked on al-Qa’ida in
recent
years.
Moreover,
different components of the Intelligence Community use different
measures
when they do try to determine how much they spend on missions such as
counterterrorism.
To further complicate matters, there is no agreed-upon way to measure
the
level of indirect costs, such as communications, that is devoted to
counterterrorism
versus
other mission areas. Congressional overseers as well as senior Intelligence
Community
managers thus find it difficult to judge whether agency resource allocations
reflect
overall intelligence priorities.
In
Fiscal Year 1999, the Office of Management and Budget began to require that
the
Intelligence Community identify counterterrorism spending in each agency.
However,
this information is gathered after money is spent, rather than as a planning
and
accountability
tool for Intelligence Community managers. In addition, the information is
[page
57] collected manually, is not subject to systematic controls and does not
constitute
much
more than an educated estimate.
Finally,
the Joint Inquiry confirmed through interviews that several other budgetrelated
problems
hindered Intelligence Community efforts to satisfy counterterrorism
priorities
and requirements:
• The DCI’s Community Management Staff has little
authority to ensure
compliance
with the DCI’s priorities. It cannot withhold funding from the
Intelligence
Community agencies if they do not comply with those priorities;
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• Managers within the CIA often found the budget
planning and execution process
confusing,
making it harder for them to articulate their needs; and
• Intelligence Community officials complained that
reprogramming money is
difficult
due to a slow Congressional approval process for even small changes.
4.
Finding: While technology remains one of this nation’s greatest advantages, it
has not
been fully and most effectively applied in support of U.S. counterterrorism
efforts.
Persistent problems in this area included a lack of collaboration between
Intelligence
Community agencies, a reluctance to develop and implement new
technical
capabilities aggressively, the FBI’s reliance on outdated and insufficient
technical
systems, and the absence of a central counterterrorism database.
Discussion:
The Joint Inquiry confirmed that the Intelligence Community had not
yet
fully incorporated the benefits of technology in the war against terrorism.
Lack of
agency
collaboration in the areas of technical collection and systems development was
one
contributing factor. While CIA and NSA have had many successful joint
counterterrorism
technical operations, the Inquiry was told that overlapping targets and
greater
use of similar technologies caused friction between the two agencies in some
instances.
Disputes emerged regarding which agency should be in charge of developing
and
using such technologies against which targets. The Director of NSA explained to
the
Joint
Inquiry that “the old divisions of labor are impractical – the new electronic
universe
[page
58] requires more and more cooperation.” He added that he “would not be
surprised
if someday the closeness of this relationship would require organizational
changes.”
In
Joint Inquiry interviews, agency personnel stated that, while individual
relationships
and cooperation between CIA and NSA at the working level had often been
very
good, relationships at the mid- and upper-management levels of those agencies
were
often
strained. CIA perceived NSA as wanting to control technology use and
development,
while NSA was concerned that CIA was engaged in operations that were
NSA’s
responsibility.
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As a
result, significant agency resources were devoted to documenting authorities
and
responsibilities. For example, no less than seven executive-level memoranda
(including
one from the President) have been necessary to reach agreement and define the
responsibilities
and authorities of CIA and NSA in one counterterrorism effort. The
agencies
also established a Senior Partnership Advisory Group to continue to deal with
these
issues and CIA assigned several officers to NSA to enhance technology
development.
Prior
to September 11, the Director of NSA publicly acknowledged the challenge
posed
by Usama Bin Ladin’s access to the modern communications technology
developed
by a three trillion dollar industry. Despite this recognition, NSA failed to
focus
its efforts against al-Qa’ida’s use of certain forms of this technology, [
]. NSA
also had not adapted technology fully to the challenge of transnational
threats
such as terrorism. These present much different challenges than those posed by
state
actors, such as the former Soviet Union, that were NSA’s primary targets in the
1980’s.
As a result, prior to September 11, NSA provided little counterterrorism
intelligence
from certain important technical sources. More critically, NSA has not been
able to
describe to the Joint Inquiry its plans to address this technical problem on a
larger
scale.
[Page
59]
Similarly,
NSA could not demonstrate its current analytic tools to the Joint
Inquiry
and could not identify upgrades that will assist NSA analysts in identifying
critical
intelligence amidst the large volumes of information it collects. In the
absence of
such
tools, NSA language analysts must still conduct the bulk of their work with
pencil
and
paper. Many develop their own personal “databases” on index cards that cannot
be
made
readily available to counterterrorism analysts at other agencies. NSA’s highly
publicized
TRAILBLAZER program was often cited by NSA officials as the solution to
many of
these problems, but the implementation of those solutions is three to five
years
away
and confusion still exists at NSA as to what will actually be provided by that
program.
The
FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Analysis testified to
the
Joint Inquiry that “one of the FBI’s major deficiencies was that the FBI
confronted a
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variety
of problems in sharing information, not only with other agencies but within the
Bureau
itself. This was and is largely attributable to inadequate information
technology.”
Likewise,
Director Mueller acknowledged to the Joint Inquiry that “[o]ver the years, [the
FBI]
failed to develop a sufficient capacity to collect, store, search, retrieve,
analyze, and
share
information.”
In
their testimony, FBI field agents from Phoenix, Minneapolis and New York all
cited
the FBI’s technology problems as among the top three things they would like to
see
addressed
in terms of the counterterrorism effort. As a New York agent explained:
The
technology, number one. The FBI is a member of the Intelligence
Community.
We have to be able to communicate with them. We have to
be able
to have databases that can be integrated with them, and right now
we do
not. It is a major problem. It is a major problem for our analysis.
The FBI
deployed its Automated Case System (ACS) in 1995 to replace a system
of
written reports and indices. The ACS was supposed to enable agents to send
leads to
other
FBI offices and units and to have access to a vast array of data
electronically.
[Page
60] However, study after study has concluded that ACS is limited in its
search
capacity,
difficult to use, and unreliable.
The
Chief of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU) testified that ACS
remains
unfriendly, unreliable and unworkable, and that, instead of using ACS to manage
cases,
many agents rely on e-mail and paper copies to transmit important data. In
interviews,
some FBI personnel conceded that “routine” leads, on which there were no
automated
communications, might have “fallen through the cracks.” Despite the priority
given
to the war against terrorism since September 11, the Joint Inquiry heard
testimony
that,
at least as of the end of September 26, 2002, there were still 68,000
outstanding,
unassigned
leads directed to the Counterterrorism Division, dating back to 1995.
Because
many FBI personnel did not use ACS to track outstanding leads, the FBI has
been
unable to determine how many of these leads have been completed. As the RFU
Chief
explained:
I think
we need to make it very clear, though, because there is [sic] 68,000
leads
outstanding on that point, that does not mean that those leads were
not
handled.... [E]ven though the lead is shown in the computer as not
covered
by the Counterterrorism Division, it is covered by the operational
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unit.
So there is a lot of duplication. . . .[T]he system is very cumbersome,
and
people unfortunately have just become very frustrated with it, to the
point
where . . . [w]hat will frequently happen, for example, is even
though
a field division sends a lead to headquarters and ACS, they are also
e-mailing
that communication to the particular FBI headquarters
[supervisory
special agent]. So they are getting it and working on it via
the e-mail
but not necessarily within the ACS system. . . . Even though a
couple
of years ago . . . there was a directive that went out to the field
telling
them to stop sending hard copies to headquarters because they
should
be retrieved electronically, it was well known, both in the field and
at
headquarters, that you wouldn’t get the communication or there was a
good
chance that you weren’t going to get it. As such, the field would
routinely
still send hard copy.
ACS
requires that FBI analysts search for information relevant to their analytical
responsibilities.
This is in stark contrast to the CIA’s automated system, which
automatically
routes communications to analysts that are relevant to their interests.
Before
September 11, 2001, many FBI field agents did not include sensitive information
in ACS
because they believed the system was not secure. In addition, many agents who
did
include information in ACS blocked access to it in order to limit the number of
FBI
[page
61] personnel who could obtain the information. Given these limitations, ACS
does
not provide assured retrieval of complete, authoritative information on any
subject.
The
fact that many FBI personnel do not understand how to make maximum use of the
limited
capabilities of ACS and the FBI’s other databases compounds the problem.
Because
of its limitations, many agents simply did not use ACS as a research or
case
management tool. When the Phoenix FBI field office agent was drafting his July
2001
Electronic Communication, he had no easy or reliable way of querying a central
FBI
system to determine whether there were other reports on radical fundamentalists
taking
flight training or whether other FBI field offices were investigating similar
cases.
As a
result, the agent did not know that another FBI field office had voiced concern
about
Middle
Eastern men taking flight lessons in 1998 or that an operational unit in the
Counterterrorism
Section at FBI Headquarters had directed twenty-four field offices
(including
Phoenix) to pay close attention to certain Islamic students engaged in aviation
training
in 1999.
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In
addition, because of the limitations of ACS, a number of addressees on the
Phoenix
communication, including the Chief of the FBI Headquarters Radical
Fundamentalist
Unit, were not aware of the communication before September 11.
Further,
even though that Unit handled both the Phoenix communication and the
exchanges
with the Minneapolis FBI field office in connection with the Moussaoui
investigation,
no one connected the two matters. Likewise, the Minneapolis FBI field
office
agents investigating Moussaoui had no reliable way of determining whether there
was
information in FBI files about threats to aviation or terrorist plots to hijack
planes
and,
therefore, did not know about the Phoenix communication and other concerns
about
Middle
Eastern men taking flight lessons.
While
ACS and most other FBI databases are classified at the Secret level, a large
percentage
of the information disseminated throughout the Intelligence Community is
classified
Top Secret and, therefore, cannot be maintained on ACS. The information is
instead
maintained on a separate database to which FBI counterterrorism personnel do
[page
62] not have access at their desks. Further, the CIA places human intelligence
information
in a special compartment at the Secret level and that information also cannot
be
shared within the FBI’s databases.
The
Chief of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit described the FBI’s situation
in
September 24, 2002 testimony to the Joint Inquiry:
. . .
[C]ommunications coming into our building from NSA, from CIA
cannot
be integrated into our existing databases. So if an analyst is
working,
say, on a subject in Phoenix division and they run that person's
name
through our databases, they will not retrieve information on that
person
that other agencies may also have. It is required of them to get up,
walk
over to a different set of--or a different computer that has access to a
different
database and search that name in that database; and the two
databases
will never come together and be integrated. So it is a setup for
failure
in terms of keeping a strategic picture of what we are up against.
Although
some FBI personnel have access to separate Top Secret Intelligence
Community
networks, the FBI’s computer systems are not linked to Intelligence
Community
systems or even to the Department of Justice.
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5.
Finding: Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community’s understanding of
al-Qa’ida
was hampered by insufficient analytic focus and quality, particularly in
terms
of strategic analysis. Analysis and analysts were not always used effectively
because
of the perception in some quarters of the Intelligence Community that they
were
less important to agency counterterrorism missions than were operations
personnel.
The quality of counterterrorism analysis was inconsistent, and many
analysts
were inexperienced, unqualified, under-trained, and without access to
critical
information. As a result, there was a dearth of creative, aggressive analysis
targeting
Bin Ladin and a persistent inability to comprehend the collective
significance
of individual pieces of intelligence. These analytic deficiencies seriously
undercut
the ability of U.S. policymakers to understand the full nature of the threat,
and to
make fully informed decisions.
Discussion:
Despite the recognition of the increased threat posed to the United
States
by al-Qa’ida, the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analytic focus on al-Qa’ida was
woefully
inadequate prior to the September 11 attacks. At the CTC, for example, there
were
only three analysts assigned to work on al-Qa’ida full time between 1998 and
2000,
[page
63] and five between 2000 and September 11, 2001. Including analysts from
elsewhere
in CIA who were in some part attentive to al-Qa’ida, the total was fewer than
forty.
[In
terms of “work years,” the equivalent of nine analyst work years was
expended
on al-Qa’ida within CTC’s Assessments and Information Group in September
1998.
According to CIA, nine CTC analysts and eight analysts in the Directorate of
Intelligence
were assigned to UBL in 1999. This was only a fraction of the analytic
effort
that was to be devoted to al-Qa’ida in July 2002].
DCI
Tenet acknowledged at the June 19, 2002 Joint Inquiry hearing that:
I think
that is correct. I think [the number of analysts in the CTC analytic
unit
working on Usama Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida] was too small. . . . I
think
one of the things I would say is from a strategic analytical
perspective
we should have had more analysts than we did. . . .
[At the
FBI, there were fewer than ten tactical analysts and only one strategic
analyst
assigned to al-Qa’ida prior to September 11, 2001. The NSA had only a limited
number
of Arabic linguists, on whom analysis depends, and, prior to September 11, few
were
dedicated full-time to targeting al-Qa’ida. At the time, NSA’s Arabic linguists
were
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also
being used to support other high priority targets in the region and to
translate
intelligence
originating in the region and elsewhere].
Elsewhere
in the Intelligence Community, other agencies dedicated varying
numbers
of analysts to the al-Qa’ida issue prior to September 11, 2001. The other two
primary
all-source analysis centers, DIA’s Joint Intelligence Task Force, Combating
Terrorism,
and State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence Research (INR) focused on
anti-terrorism
and force protection analysis to protect overseas equities. INR dedicated
one
analyst solely to al Qa’ida, and, at Secretary of State direction, provided a
daily
summary
of intelligence relating to Usama bin Ladin and his activities. DIA devoted 30
analysts
to Sunni Extremism and, on any given day, several of them – augmented by
Reservists
– would be involved with Usama bin Ladin-related issues.
[Page
64]
Other
agencies and organizations maintained at least an awareness of al-Qa’ida
and
performed roles such as financial tracking and training camp observation
consistent
with
their charters. One non-Intelligence Community organization, the FAA, dedicated
as many
as five analysts at any one time to al Qa’ida. In late 2000, according to FAA
officials,
FAA offered CTC Chief Cofer Black the support of its nearly two-dozen
analysts
regarding transportation security issues in exchange for broader information
sharing,
but this offer was not accepted because of CTC concerns about protecting its
sources
and methods. The Joint Inquiry was told that a similar offer of analytic
support
was
made to CTC Chief Black by DIA in 2000, but with similar results. FAA and DIA
are both
represented at CTC.
The
Intelligence Community’s focus was also far more oriented toward tactical
analysis
of al-Qa’ida in support of operations than on the strategic analysis needed to
develop
a broader understanding of the threat and the organization. For example, as
mentioned
earlier, the DCI’s National Intelligence Council never produced a National
Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) on the threat to the United States posed by al-Qa’ida and
Usama
Bin Ladin. Active analytic efforts to identify the scope and nature of the
threat,
particularly
in the domestic United States, were clearly inadequate.
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As
noted in an August 2001 CIA Inspector General report, analysts assigned to
CTC
only had time to focus on crises or short-term demands, and “did not have the
time
to spot
trends or to knit together the threads from the flood of information.” These
shortcomings,
unfortunately, had an impact on areas that were directly relevant to the
September
11 attacks. The Joint Inquiry record confirms, for example, that the
Intelligence
Community had devoted little or no analytic focus prior to September 11 to
the
terrorist use of aircraft as weapons or to the significant role in al-Qa’ida
that was
played
by Khalid Shaykh Mohammed.
This
review also confirms that the FBI was performing little, if any, strategic
analysis
against al-Qa’ida prior to the September 11 attacks. The Chief of the FBI’s
National
Security Intelligence Section testified that the FBI had “no analysts”
dedicated
[page
65] to strategic analysis prior to September 11. In fact, as of that date,
the FBI had
only
one strategic analyst working on al-Qa’ida matters. FBI Assistant Director for
Counterterrorism
Dale Watson testified that he could not recall any instance where the
FBI
Headquarters terrorism analytical unit produced “an actual product that helped
out.”
When
the FBI did complete analytic products, the quality was inadequate. During
the
summer of 2001, the U.S. Intelligence Community was in a state of heightened
alert,
due to
concern about an imminent al-Qa’ida attack. However, this concern was not
reflected
in the FBI’s National Law Enforcement Threat System (NLETS) reports, which
are the
means through which the FBI communicated terrorist threat information with
state
and
local law enforcement entities. In a May 2001 NLETS report, for example, the
FBI
assessed
the risk of terrorism as “low,” and, in a July 2, 2001 NLETS report, stated
that
the FBI
had no information indicating a credible threat of terrorist attack in the
United
States,
although the possibility of such an attack could not be discounted. Additional
FBI
notices
that were issued later in July 2001 indicated that there was a potential for
attacks
against
U.S. interests abroad, but again that the possibility of an attack in the
United
States
could not be discounted.
More
focus on strategic analysis by the FBI and the CIA would have helped
crystallize
the threat, particularly within the United States, and perhaps spurred more
immediate
defensive action by U.S. Government policymakers. The Intelligence
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Community
was not, however, poised or equipped to deliver the kind of analytic products
needed.
The FBI, for example, was not even aware of the collective significance of
information
pertaining to al-Qa’ida that was contained within its own files. This fact is
underscored
by its failure to connect available information on al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi,
Zacarias
Moussaoui, and the FBI Phoenix field office agent’s Electronic Communication
in the
summer of 2001. The FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism
Analysis,
recently detailed from CIA to improve the FBI’s analytic capability, testified
that
the Bureau “didn’t have analysts dedicated to sort of looking at the big
picture and
trying
to connect the dots, say between the Phoenix memo and Moussaoui and some
[page
66] other information that might have come in that might have suggested that
there
were
individuals there who might be preparing to hijack aircraft.”
One of
the primary reasons that there was so little focus on strategic analysis in
the
Intelligence Community may have been the perception that operational personnel
and
matters
were more important to agency counterterrorism missions and operations than
analysis
and analytic personnel. Consistent with its traditional law enforcement
mission,
the FBI
was, prior to September 11, a reactive, operationally driven organization that
did
not
value strategic analysis. While FBI personnel appreciated case specific
analysis, for
example,
most viewed strategic analytic products as academic and of little use in
ongoing
operations.
The FBI’s Assistant Director for Counterterrorism acknowledged in
Joint
Inquiry testimony that the reactive nature of the FBI was not conducive to
success
in
counterterrorism:
No one
was thinking about the counterterrorism program what the threat
was and
what we were trying to do about it. And when that light came on,
I
realized that, hey, we are a reactive bunch of people, and reactive will
never
get us to a prevention and what we do. . . .Is there anybody thinking
and
where’s al-Qa’ida’s next target? And no one was really looking at
that.
He also
testified about the difficulty of going beyond the FBI’s traditional
case-oriented
approach:
We will
never move away from being reactive. We understand that. And
that’s
what people want to talk about most of the time is how’s that case
going
in East Africa, or how’s the USS Cole investigation going? But if
you
step back and look at it strategically you need to have people thinking
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beyond
the horizon and that’s very difficult for all of us. It’s particularly
difficult
for law enforcement people.
Other
FBI executives acknowledged the FBI’s pre-September 11 analytic failings.
Director
Mueller testified that:
I would
be the first to concede that we have not done a good job in
analysis.
We have not had either the technology nor the analytical cadre of
individuals
that we have needed to perform strategic analysis.
In
Joint Inquiry testimony, the FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director for
Counterterrorism
Analysis
referred to strategic analysis as the FBI’s “poor stepchild” prior to September
11,
2001. As a result, our review confirmed that strategic analysts were often
marginalized
by the operational units and rarely, if ever, received requests from
operational
sections for analytical assessments of pending al-Qa’ida’s cases.
In
2000, FBI management aggravated this situation by transferring five strategic
analysts
who had been working on al-Qa’ida matters to FBI operational units to assist
with
ongoing cases. According to a former Chief of the International Terrorism
Analytic
Unit,
this “gutted” the analytic unit’s al-Qa’ida-related expertise and left the unit
with
little
ability to perform strategic analysis.
Concerns
about protecting criminal prosecutions also limited the FBI’s ability to
utilize
strategic analytic products. In interviews, some analysts said they frequently
were
told
not to produce written analyses, lest the analyses be included in discovery
during
criminal
prosecutions. FBI analysts were further hindered because of the limitations of
the
FBI’s information technology.
Due in
large part to these cultural and practical issues, the Bureau has had little
success
in building a strategic analytic capability, despite numerous attempts before
September
11 to do so. For example, in 1996, the FBI hired approximately fifty strategic
analysts
for counterterrorism purposes, many with advanced degrees. According to both
current
and former FBI analytic personnel and supervisors, most of those analysts left
the
Bureau
within two years because they were dissatisfied with the role of strategic
analysis
at the
FBI.
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The
lack of emphasis on strategic counterterrorism analysis was also an issue at
the
CIA. The former Chief of CTC testified that, at the CTC:
We have
under-invested in the strategic only because we’ve had such
near-term
threats. The trend is always toward the tactical. . . . The tactical
is
where lives are saved. [Page 68] And it is not
necessarily commonly
accepted,
but strategic analysis does not . . . get you to saving lives.
Analysts
in the CTC also expressed concern to the Joint Inquiry that their
opinions
were not given sufficient weight. A manager in the CTC confirmed to the Staff
that
CIA operations officers in the field resented being tasked by analysts because
they
did not
like “to take direction from the ladies from the Directorate of Intelligence.”
Despite
the need for increased analytic capability, CTC reportedly refused to accept
analytic
support offered by at least two other agencies prior to September 11, 2001. As
mentioned
earlier, representatives of both FAA and DIA informed the Inquiry that CTC
management
rebuffed their offers of analytic assistance in 2000 because those agencies
wanted
greater access to CTC information in return, and this raised CTC concerns
regarding
protection of its intelligence sources and methods.
Analysts
at NSA commented to the Joint Inquiry that CTC viewed them as
subordinate
– “like an ATM for signals intelligence.” NSA analysts say they attempted
to
accommodate CTC preferences by focusing on short-term operational requirements
–
sometimes
at the expense of more thorough analysis -- and even altered NSA reporting
formats
because CTC did not like including NSA analyst comments in the text of signals
intelligence
reports. Several NSA analysts also described a definite perception that the
DCI
would always side with CIA and CTC operational personnel in any disagreements
between
NSA and CTC.
Some of
the shortcomings in analytical capability can be traced to the fact that
analysts
were often inexperienced, under-trained, and, in some cases, unqualified for
the
responsibilities
they were given. At the CTC, the analysts were a relatively junior group
prior
to September 11 since CTC had traditionally relied on rotational assignments.
An
analytic
career service was not created in CTC until about 1997. The average CTC
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analyst
had three years of analytic experience, versus the eight years for analysts in
the
CIA’s
Directorate of Intelligence.
[Page
69]
A
former counterterrorism analyst at DIA explained to the Joint Inquiry the
consequences
for analytic perspective of this shortfall in experience and knowledge:
Coupled
with this issue of experience comes the ability to place current
intelligence
reporting in the context of historical perspectives. In the
period
leading up to the 1998 East Africa bombings and the 2000 attack
against
the USS Cole in Yemen, terrorism analysts nearly across the board
incorrectly
assessed that a group would not conduct an attack in an area
where
it was able to operate with relative ease. Additionally, there
appears
to be a continued reluctance to correctly assess and evaluate the
nature
of cooperation between many [ ] and [ ]
Islamic
extremist groups. Both of these examples, and there are certainly
others,
occurred despite over a decade of credible reporting to the
contrary.
At the
FBI, a January 2002 internal study found that 66% of the FBI’s 1200
“Intelligence
Research Specialists” (strategic analysts) were unqualified. This problem
was
compounded by the fact that newly-assigned strategic and operational analysts
received
little counterterrorism training upon assuming their positions. As the Chief of
the
FBI’s National Security Intelligence Section testified:
While
there was no standardized training regimen, other than a two-week
basic
analytical course, training was available on an ad hoc basis and
guidance
was provided by both the unit chiefs of the analytical units and
the
FBI's Administrative Services Division. The development of a
standardized
curriculum, linked to job skills, and career advancement was
being
planned . . . , but it was never implemented.
The
quality of Intelligence Community counterterrorism analysis also suffered as
a
result of the fact that agency analysts often did not have access to important
information
residing
at other agencies. DIA’s Associate Director for Intelligence at the Joint
Chiefs
of
Staff testified about the extent of these problems:
In my
opinion, one of the most prolonged and troubling trends in the
Intelligence
Community is the degree to which analysts, while being
expected
to incorporate all sources of information into their assessments,
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have
been systematically separated from the raw material of their trade….
At
least for a few highly complex high stakes issues, such as terrorism,
where
information by its nature is fragmentary, ambiguous and episodic,
we need
to find ways to emphatically put the “all” back in the discipline of
all-source
analysis.
[Page
70]
Intelligence
Community analysts had particularly limited access to “raw material”
contained
in the FBI’s counterterrorism investigations, including Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance
Act (FISA)-derived information, and to unpublished NSA information. The
former
acting head of the FBI’s Usama Bin Ladin Unit informed the Joint Inquiry that,
prior
to September 11, the FBI would generally only provide the CIA with FISA-derived
information
when the FBI wanted it passed to a foreign government. Primarily due to the
FBI’s
technological problems, the FBI’s analysts did not even have access to all
relevant
FBI
information. The FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Analysis
testified
that “the FBI lacked effective data mining capabilities and analytical tools,
it has
often
been unable to retrieve key information and analyze it in a timely manner—and a
lot has
probably slipped through the cracks as a result.”
There
also was, and apparently continues to be, a reluctance at CIA to provide
raw
data to analysts outside the Agency. DCI Tenet testified that even analysts at
the
Department
of Homeland Security will not be allowed access to CIA raw data:
There
was a headline today that said raw data provided. Well, actually
that's
not what's envisioned. They will get all of the finished product, the
finished
analytical product, the finished intelligence that NSA, CIA and
FBI
issues, and on a case-by-case basis, depending on what kind of an
environment
we're in, we actually may give them a piece of raw data.
Discussions
of access to “raw data” or “raw traffic” raise objections from CIA,
since
it immediately equates the term to internal operational traffic, and from NSA.
Both
agencies
are concerned with protecting the sources and methods they use to collect
intelligence,
a responsibility that has been specifically placed upon the DCI by the
National
Security Act, and NSA is also concerned about its legal responsibilities to
“minimize”
U.S. person data in the information it collects.
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A
significant portion of the communications collected by NSA involves U.S.
persons
as parties or contains information about U.S. persons. NSA is responsible under
law and
Attorney General procedures for ensuring that information of this type that
does
[page
71] not have intelligence value is eliminated before intelligence is
disseminated to
persons
outside the NSA production chain. NSA does allow analysts from other agencies
to have
access to raw intercepts on a case-by-case basis, typically at NSA and after
the
analysts
have been trained in the minimization rules.
Analysts,
for their part, maintain that there is intelligence information of potential
significance
embedded in the raw CIA and NSA data. Much of this, they believe, is
filtered
out during the CIA and NSA processes that determine what information analysts
receive
in disseminated form. The CIA has implicitly recognized this by integrating its
counterterrorism
analysts into CTC where they have full access to raw traffic, an access
that
most CIA analysts do not routinely enjoy.
[As an
example, the Joint Inquiry found numerous operational cables relating to
the
meeting in Malaysia that was attended by al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar in January
2000
containing
information that could have enabled all-source analysts to assess that meeting
more
completely. DIA identified four specific leads its terrorism analysts could
have
pursued
had this information been shared with it in early 2000, and three leads in the
critical
August 2001 timeframe that DIA believes would have allowed additional action
to be
taken concerning the arrest of Moussaoui and the watchlisting of Al-Mihdhar and
al-Hazmi.
However, DIA did not learn of this operational traffic until informed of it in
the
course of the Joint Inquiry in April 2002].
Intelligence
analytical personnel told the Joint Inquiry that they are not seeking
access
to operational details or the identification of sources and methods. The DIA
Director,
for example, observed that he has tried to convince CTC that DIA does not
want
operational details, but only important intelligence buried in the operational
traffic.
The
inadequate quality of the Intelligence Community counterterrorism analysis
impacted
not only the Intelligence Community’s strategy and operations, but also the
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ability
of the U.S. Government’s policymakers to understand the threat and to make
informed
decisions. Several current and former U.S. government policymakers provided
[page
72] testimony to this effect before these Committees. For example, Richard
Clarke,
the former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure and
Counterterrorism
at the
National Security Council (“National Counterterrorism Coordinator”) explained
to
the
Joint Inquiry that:
FBI did
not provide analysis. FBI, as far as I could tell, didn't have an
analytical
shop. They never provided analysis to us, even when we asked
for it,
and I don't think that throughout that 10-year period we really had
an
analytical capability of what was going on in this country.
Richard
Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State complained that Intelligence
Community
analysis tends to provide policymakers with only one view, and that
dissenting
opinions are rarely expressed:
I am
the consumer. It’s very rare that we get the one off voice or the
dissident
voice . . . . For a policy maker, the dissident voice is very
helpful
to either confirm what you think or really open up a new area, and
this is
not generally done. If I had to say the one biggest weakness in the
analysis
area, I would say that’s it. Second, it’s the way analysis in the
Intelligence
Community is generally put forth, and it’s related, and that is
consensus…I
really would just enforce this observation about the need to
get
alternative views up, because almost everything that’s important here
is
shrouded in ambiguity and uncertainty. There is a tendency to want to
get
things scrubbed out to get the differences eliminated.
Former
National Security Advisor Sandy Berger implied in his testimony that the
U.S.
Government has often relied too heavily on analytic expertise within the U.S.
Government,
and that he believes that the best analytic expertise is often found
elsewhere:
I think
we live in a world . . .in which expertise increasingly does not exist
in the
government. It’s a very complicated world. And the five people
who
know Afghanistan the best or Sierra Leone the best are probably
located
either in academia, think tanks or in companies, not to devalue the
people
of the government. So we have to find a way in my judgment to
integrate
the expertise that exists on the outside with the information that
exists
on the inside.
A
former DIA counterterrorism analyst told the Joint Inquiry hearing on October
8,
2002: [page 73]
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The
single most important issue that will affect future performance is the
experience
level of the analyst. While this certainly applies to all
intelligence
analysts regardless of subject area, it is even more critical for
those
trying to prevent the next terrorist attack. In the case of an analyst
responsible
for tracking a Middle Eastern terrorist group, this person will
need to
have an expertise or at least a good working knowledge of
terrorism
itself, the group that they have for an account, regional and
country
issues present in the group's operating area, which can be quite
extensive,
and Islamic history, culture and the sects thereof. This . . .
required
level of expertise is rarely going to be found outside the
Intelligence
Community and is instead going to be recruited from
academia
and then developed in-house through training programs and
mentors.
Former
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Lee Hamilton noted in his
testimony
to the Joint Inquiry on October 3, 2002 that the Hart-Rudman Commission had
concluded
that the U.S. Government’s personnel system has become a national security
issue.
As he stated:
There
is too much rigidity in the system. There is not enough allowance
for
incentive. And it is an exceedingly serious problem in our government.
And it
has national security consequences. We've got to work through this
matter
so that managers can manage more effectively. . . . . I would
absolutely
assure you . . . that you would not tolerate in your office the
kind of
management restrictions that operate today in the federal
government.
. . . Now I know the importance of this to employees, so it's
a tough
problem, but the only thing I want to say here, Senator, when you
talk
about personnel we are now approaching this national security review
and we
have to look at the civil service system and we have to find ways
and
means of getting more flexibility into it. If we don't, we're going to
choke
ourselves to death.
During
the same hearing, former CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz discussed a
number
of actions that might be taken to enhance the quality of the personnel employed
by the
Intelligence Community agencies. These included the idea of establishing an
intelligence
reserve corps that could be activated at a time of particular need, an
intelligence
reserve officer training corps, and more internships to introduce young
people
into the agencies. While he recognized that some of these ideas are not new, he
did not
believe they had been vigorously pursued.
In sum,
prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community’s analytic components
failed
to understand the collective significance of the information in their
possession.
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This
failure is attributable not only to the factors discussed above, but also to a
basic lack
of
creativity and imagination in evaluating the intelligence that was at hand.
Ironically,
the
best example of the creative, imaginative and aggressive analysis of relevant [page
74] intelligence
that this review has found was not a product of Intelligence Community
analysts,
but, instead, of an FBI field agent in Phoenix. The Phoenix agent, in reviewing
his
office’s case files, went beyond the facts of those individual cases to focus
on a larger,
and far
more serious, picture of the potential, long-term threat. By putting together
various
pieces of information, he became convinced that Usama Bin Ladin was sending
individuals
to aviation-related training in order to put al-Qa’ida in a position to target
civil
aviation. His July 2001 Electronic Communication to FBI Headquarters was a
strategic
analytic product that correctly identified at least one critical element that
was to
be used
in the plot that unfolded on September 11, an element that apparently eluded
far
more
seasoned analysts elsewhere in the Intelligence Community.
6. Finding:
Prior to September 11, The Intelligence Community was not prepared
to
handle the challenge it faced in translating the volumes of foreign language
counterterrorism
intelligence it collected. Agencies within the Intelligence
Community
experienced backlogs in material awaiting translation, a shortage of
language
specialists and language-qualified field officers, and a readiness level of
only
30% in the most critical terrorism-related languages.
Discussion:
The language problem has been one of the Intelligence Community’s
perennial
shortfalls. Prior to September 11, the shortage of language specialists who
would
be qualified to process large amounts of foreign language data in general, and
Arabic
in particular, was one of the most serious issues limiting the Intelligence
Community’s
ability to analyze, discern, and report on terrorist activities in a timely
fashion.
According to a senior NSA official, [
].
These are promptly scanned for
intelligence
value, and only the most important – [ ] -- are then
translated
into English. Yet, prior to September 11, NSA had [ ] personnel assigned
to this
task.
[Analyzing,
processing, translating, and reporting al-Qa’ida-related [
]
communications requires the highest levels of language and target
knowledge
expertise that exist at the National Security Agency. The large number of
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communicants
whose native origins cover all of the major Arabic dialects makes this
[page
75] analysis linguistically and analytically difficult. The target lives in
and
understands
life in a thoroughly Islamic milieu, a milieu that is often reflected in the
target’s
communications].
Evaluating
these communications requires considerable subject matter expertise
in
Islam in general and Islamic extremism in particular in order to ensure the
best
possible
interpretations. Very few Arabic language analysts at NSA have done any
graduate
work in Islamic Studies and the vast majority of these linguists [
].
The NSA
Senior Language Authority explained to the Joint Inquiry that the
Language
Readiness Index for NSA language personnel working in the counterterrorism
“campaign
languages” is currently around 30%. This Index is based on the percentage of
the
mission that is being performed by qualified language analysts. The current low
level
of the
Index is due in part to the fact that NSA has moved roughly [ ] language
personnel
since September 11 from areas in which they were performing quite well to
counterterrorism,
where they must gain experience and expertise before their
performance
can improve.
[According
to the Chief of the FBI’s Language Services Division, prior to
September
11, the Bureau employed [ ] Arabic speakers and was experiencing a
translation
backlog. As a result, 35% of Arabic language materials derived from Foreign
Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) collection were not reviewed or translated. If the
number
of Arabic speakers were to remain at [ ], the projected backlog would rise to
41% in
2003.]
The
Director of the CIA Language School testified that, given the CIA’s language
requirements,
the CIA Directorate of Operations is not fully prepared to fight a world-
[page
76] wide war on terrorism and at the same time carry out its traditional
agent
recruitment
and intelligence collection mission. She also added that there is no strategic
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plan in
place with regard to linguistic skills at the Agency. When asked about the
language
ability of CIA field officers, the Language School Director stated:
[Traditionally
we have had an adequate number of Arabic speakers to
conduct
their business in [
].
Level of language required to use with a volunteer
or for
a thorough debriefing is very different than the level of language
you
need to socially chit-chat with somebody or to even recruit someone.
And
that is where the bar has been raised much higher, and that's why we
must
now have a cadre of language speakers, [ ] who indeed can
debrief
and write up reports with these volunteers].
The
Director of the CIA Language School explained that CIA should have a pool
of
interpreters to meet language support needs at home and abroad, but that this
is not
easy to
achieve. She stated that: “With the progress of technology, we keep on getting
more
material – [ ]. These things need
translation,
we don’t have that capability.” In her view, CIA field officers are typically
generalists,
and this has been important to their career progression culture since the mid-
1970s.
Now, however, it is an absolute must that these officers possess expertise
rather
than
mastery of “one little dab here and one little dab there.” Her recommendation
was
that
either a culture change within CIA is called for or that a cadre of specialists
be
developed
and not penalized.
7.
Finding: [Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community’s ability to produce
significant
and timely signals intelligence on counterterrorism was limited by NSA’s
failure
to address modern communications technology aggressively, continuing
conflict
between Intelligence Community agencies, NSA’s cautious approach to any
collection
of intelligence relating to activities in the United States, and insufficient
collaboration
between NSA and the FBI regarding the potential for terrorist attacks
within
the United States].
Discussion:
While one of the Intelligence Community’s greatest strengths is its
ability
to rely on its advanced technical collection capabilities, the Joint Inquiry
confirmed
that the Community did not, prior to September 11, fully exploit those
[page
77] capabilities in the effort against Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida. Pre-September
11, [
].
Post-September 11, this increased to [
].
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It
became very clear after September 11 [
]. In
testimony before the Joint Inquiry, the NSA
Director
acknowledged that “little was known prior to 11 September of how al-Qa’ida
used [
] communications. . . .We continue to attack key gaps that
remain
in our . . . [ ] exploitation capabilities.”
Similarly,
NSA has long had a program to use [
], but
again little was known about al-
Qa’ida
targets and few such operations were mounted before September 11. After
September
11, this changed and the NSA Director was able to testify that: “[
].”
The
inability to bring technical collection capabilities to bear in the
counterterrorism
area was particularly apparent in regard to signals intelligence that could
have
shed greater light on the potential for terrorist activity within the domestic
United
States.
Both the NSA and the FBI have the authority, in certain circumstances, to
intercept
international communications, to include communications that have one
communicant
in the United States and one in a foreign country, for foreign intelligence
purposes.
While those authorities were intended to insure a seamless transition between
U.S.
foreign and domestic intelligence capabilities, significant gaps between those
two
spheres
of intelligence coverage persisted and impeded domestic counterterrorist
efforts.
[Page
78]
Before
September 11, it was NSA policy not to target terrorists in the United
States,
even though it could have obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
order
authorizing such collection. NSA Director Hayden testified that it was more
appropriate
for the FBI to conduct such surveillance because NSA does not want to be
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perceived
as targeting individuals in this country and because the intelligence produced
about
communicants in the United States is likely to be about their domestic
activities.
[As a
result, NSA regularly provided information about these targets to the FBI –
both in
its regular reporting and in response to specific requests from the FBI – [
] that
NSA acquired in the
course
of its collection operations. The FBI used this information in its
investigations
and
obtained FISA Court authorization for electronic surveillance [
] when
FBI officials determined that such surveillance
was
necessary to assist one of its intelligence or law enforcement investigations].
[One
collection capability that was used by both NSA and FBI under approval of
the
FISA Court (the “FISA Court technique”) had a [ ] probability of collecting
[ ]
communications between individuals in the United States and foreign
countries.
NSA did not use the FISA Court technique against [ ],
however,
precisely because of this [ ] probability].
As NSA
Director Hayden has testified to the Joint Inquiry, NSA believed it was
the
FBI’s responsibility to collect communications of individuals in the United
States.
General
Hayden stated two reasons for this position. One is that, since the individual
is
in the
United States, the information obtained is most likely to relate to domestic
activity
that is
of primary interest to the FBI. The second reason is that NSA does not want to
be
viewed
as targeting persons in the United States. Joint Inquiry interviews of a wide
range
of NSA
personnel, from the Director down to analysts, revealed the consistent theme
that
NSA did
not target individuals in the United States. This is so ingrained at NSA that
one
counterterrorism
supervisor at NSA admitted that she had never even thought about using
this technique
against [ ].
[Page
79]
Despite
the NSA view that this category of intelligence collection was the FBI’s
responsibility,
NSA and the FBI did not develop any plan to ensure that the Bureau made
an
informed decision about whether to use the FISA Court technique to collect
communications
between the United States and foreign countries that NSA was not
covering.
Thus, a gap developed between the level of coverage of communications
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between
the United States and foreign countries that was technically and legally
available
to the
Intelligence Community and the actual use of that surveillance capability].
[This
gap was potentially very damaging in the case of Khalid al-Mihdhar during
the
period in early 2000 when he was in the United States. [
]. His
presence in the United States was not determined by
the
Intelligence Community at the time. [
].
[NSA
and CIA officers often worked closely together in [ ] collection
efforts
against al-Qa’ida. The two agencies conducted [ ] operations,
And
these operations often met with some success. However, one type of these
operations
– [
] –
caused much friction between NSA and CIA. This was especially true at
the
mid- and upper-management levels where struggles developed regarding which
agency
was in charge of developing and using such technology when human intelligence
and
signals intelligence targets overlapped. CIA perceived NSA as wanting to
control
technology
deployment and development, while [page 80] NSA was
concerned that CIA
was
conducting NSA-type operations. The NSA Chief of Data Acquisition noted to the
Inquiry
that this has been an issue during his entire tour of almost three years. These
frictions
persisted even after the September 11 attacks. In the first six months of 2002,
for
example, no less than seven executive-level memoranda (including one from the
President)
were issued in attempts to delineate CIA and NSA responsibilities and
authorities
in this collection area].
The
Chief of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate acknowledged these frictions
in a
Joint Inquiry interview, but cited the executive memoranda as evidence that the
situation
is improving. NSA Director Hayden, told the Joint Inquiry that “the old
divisions
of labor are impractical; the new electronic universe requires more and more
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cooperation.
” He also added that he “would not be surprised if someday the closeness of
this
relationship would require organizational changes.”
8.
Finding: The continuing erosion of NSA’s program management expertise and
experience
has hindered its contribution to the fight against terrorism. NSA
continues
to have mixed results in providing timely technical solutions to modern
intelligence
collection, analysis, and information sharing problems.
Discussion:
One of the side effects of NSA’s downsizing, outsourcing, and
transformation
has been the loss of critical program management expertise, systems
engineering,
and requirements definition skills. These skills were devalued by NSA
during
the 1990s when most technical development was done within the agency, and the
impact
of their loss was evident in NSA’s response to the Joint Inquiry’s attempts to
gather
information concerning NSA’s plans for developing solutions to its current
technology
gaps in areas of particular importance to counterterrorism. [
]. NSA
was able to provide little more than very
high-level
and general vision statements.
The
impact of this lack of program management was evident during interviews
with
analysts who expressed frustration regarding their current working environment.
[page
81] For example, they must now write three versions of reports in order to
accommodate
the demands of various customers and uses. The TRAILBLAZER
program,
which the NSA Director has described as NSA’s “effort to revolutionize how
we
produce SIGINT in a digital age,” is now not expected to produce such results
until
2004 at
the earliest and confusion still exists as to what those results will actually
be. In
the
meantime, none of the analysts were aware of any near term efforts to alleviate
their
current
system’s technical limitations.
NSA
personnel also stated that NSA’s efforts to collect [
],
reveals a critical deficiency in its
capabilities.
The solution to this deficiency is well understood and estimated to cost less
than $1
million to implement. However, the project manager is still struggling for
funds
to pay
for an upgrade that would not be completed until 2004.
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The
Joint Inquiry also found a high level of frustration among contractors who do
business
with the NSA. Common themes repeated to the Joint Inquiry concern the
extremely
poor quality of solicitation packages and acquisition expertise on the part of
NSA
employees and the inability of program managers to speak with consistency and
authority
on future contract opportunities. NSA also lacks a formal Contracting Officer
Technical
Representative certification program. This is of special concern as NSA
continues
to increase its reliance on contractors. In testimony to the Joint Inquiry in
October
2002, the NSA Director stated that NSA “spent about a third of our SIGINT
development
money this year making things ourselves. Next year the number will be
[dropping
to] 17%.”
The
Chief of Staff for NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID) told the Joint
Inquiry
he fears that “SID has lost its business acumen…and [he] worries greatly about
the
lack of acquisition experience and program planning, especially in light of
NSA’s
huge
budget increase.” He also told the Joint Inquiry that he has worked actively on
this
issue,
especially in providing program management training to frontline workers.
[Page
82]
9.
Finding: The U.S. Government does not presently bring together in one place all
terrorism-related
information from all sources. While CTC does manage overseas
operations
and has access to most Intelligence Community information, it does not
collect
terrorism-related information from all sources, domestic and foreign.
Within
the Intelligence Community, agencies did not adequately share relevant
counterterrorism
information, prior to September 11. This breakdown in
communications
was the result of a number of factors, including differences in the
agencies’
missions, legal authorities and cultures. Information was not sufficiently
shared,
not only between different Intelligence Community agencies, but also within
individual
agencies, and between the intelligence and the law enforcement agencies.
Discussion:
Counterterrorism, like other transnational threats such as drug
trafficking,
requires close coordination and information sharing among and within the
Intelligence
Community agencies. Despite some improvement, significant problems
remained
in the sharing of information within the Intelligence Community, prior to
September
11. As a result, the Community was unable to exploit the full range of
capabilities
and expertise in the counterterrorist effort.
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Each of
the principal collectors and analyzers of counterterrorism intelligence --
the
FBI, CIA, NSA, and DIA -- has its own distinct missions, sets of legal
authorities and
restraints,
and cultures. Unfortunately, these factors, while serving many other legitimate
purposes,
often hinder collaboration and willingness to share information. In his
testimony,
former Congressman and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Lee
Hamilton
described the problem:
The
very phrase “Intelligence Community” is intriguing. It demonstrates
how
decentralized and fragmented our intelligence capabilities are. . . .
The
Intelligence Community is a very loose confederation. There is a
redundancy
of effort, an imbalance between collection and analysis, and
problems,
as we have repeatedly heard in recent weeks, of coordination
and
sharing.
While
DCI George Tenet and former FBI Director Louis Freeh testified that
collaboration
and information sharing in the Intelligence Community have markedly
improved
in recent years, this Inquiry found that the agencies still act too often and
at too
many
levels as a loose collection of entities. The Joint Inquiry heard testimony that
confirmed
problems in sharing information between different Intelligence Community
agencies,
within individual Intelligence Community agencies, and between law [page
83]
enforcement
and intelligence agencies.
For
example, the former FBI agent who had handled the San Diego informant
testified
about his personal experience with information sharing between the FBI and the
CIA:
Ms.
Hill: You also [said] that, in your opinion, information sharing
between
the FBI and the CIA prior to 9/ll was almost nonexistent.
Former
FBI Agent: It was bad. Well, it’s not nonexistent, but . . . if you
have a
case that has a common mission and everybody can benefit from it,
you’re
going to get their assistance. But if you don’t have that, asking
them
for something, it’s very, very difficult.
. . . .
Former
FBI Agent: If I had to rate it on a ten-point scale, I’d give them
about a
2 or a 1.5 in terms of sharing information.
Ms.
Hill: Well, could you tell us what your experience was? Why do you
say
that?
Former
FBI Agent: [P]art of the problem here, I think, is being able to
communicate
with them. . . .
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Ms.
Hill: By “them,” you mean the CIA?
Former
FBI Agent: With the CIA. Everything’s got to go through
headquarters,
usually.
Ms.
Hill: Through your headquarters, or through CIA?
Former
FBI Agent: Through [FBI] headquarters. Normally, . . . you have
some
information you want the Agency to check on. You end up writing it
up,
sending it back through electronic communication or teletype, . . . or
memo. .
. . And then the Bureau, FBI headquarters, runs it across the street
to the
Agency. And then, maybe six months, eight months, a year later,
you
might get some sort of response.
Even
after the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, the Millennium plot, and
attacks
against U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 revealed that global Islamic
extremists
were capable of reaching into the United States, there was little sustained
effort
by the FBI, NSA, and CIA to work together to collect and share information
about
contacts
between foreign persons in the United States and those abroad. For example,
while a
great amount of information that NSA collects is routinely transmitted
electronically
into CTC databases at CIA, this is not true of terrorist information collected
domestically
by the FBI.
The
Acting Chief of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit, told the Joint Inquiry
in an
interview that, prior to September 11, the FBI would primarily think to provide
the
[Page
84] CIA with information obtained through FISA surveillance only when it was
also
being passed to a foreign government. The FBI did not share such information
with
CTC on
a routine basis, partly due to the FBI’s inadequate information technology, but
also
because they believed that sharing information with intelligence agencies
raised
legal
concerns relating to the traditional separation between law enforcement and
intelligence
operations. As a consequence, gaps occurred in the collection and analysis
of
information about individuals and groups operating in the United States and
abroad.
The FBI
has traditionally viewed intelligence primarily as a tool for developing
evidence
to be used in FBI cases, rather than as the basis for valuable strategic
analysis
for the
FBI or other intelligence agencies. As Director Mueller noted to the Joint
Inquiry:
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. . .
one of the things that we have to do, and I think is changing since
September
11, is for agents who are very good in the criminal sphere to
look at
a piece of information and not run it through the sifting that you do
to
determine whether it would be admissible in court. In other words, is it
hearsay?
Well, I am going to thrust it aside. Do I have lack of foundation?
Therefore,
I am going to disregard that.
Prior
to September 11, FBI personnel were not trained or equipped to share
intelligence
developed during FBI counterterrorism investigations with the Intelligence
Community
or even with other units within the FBI on a regular basis. For example, after
receiving
the Electronic Communication from the Phoenix field office in July 2001
indicating
that al-Qa’ida might be sending operatives to the United States for flight
training,
a Headquarters Intelligence Operations Specialist (IOS) did not send it to the
FBI’s
analytic unit or to the CIA. Instead, the IOS forwarded it to the FBI field
office in
Portland,
Oregon, primarily because of possible connections to an individual case there.
The
Joint Inquiry’s review of a July 2002 CIA cable that it found within a local
FBI
field office’s investigative files provides another example of information
sharing
problems
within the FBI. A CIA officer assigned to a Joint Terrorism Task Force in
California
sent a cable to CIA Headquarters after analyzing information gleaned
primarily
from a review of the local FBI field office’s investigative files. He also
[Page
85] provided a copy to the local FBI agent who was responsible for those
files.
The
cable sets forth the CIA officer’s concerns regarding indications that persons
associated
with a foreign government may have provided financial support to some of the
September
11 hijackers while they were living in the United States. Those indications,
addressed
in greater detail elsewhere in this report, obviously raise issues with serious
national
implications. Nevertheless, the FBI agent to whom he provided a copy viewed it
only in
relation to ongoing investigations and did not consider its possible value for
other
cases
or the FBI’s national counterterrorism strategy. Thus, the FBI agent placed the
cable
in only one case file and did not forward a copy to FBI Headquarters.
Similarly,
the FBI typically used information obtained through the Foreign
Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) only in connection with the cases in which it was
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obtained
and would not routinely disseminate it within the FBI or to other members of
the
Intelligence Community. FBI personnel advised the Joint Inquiry that FISA
information
was not included in the FBI’s Automated Case System (ACS) because both
criminal
and intelligence agents had access to that system.
Culture
and policy issues also limited the extent to which CIA shared
counterterrorism
information within the Intelligence Community. As noted earlier, a lack
of
focus on the domestic terrorist threat, which was viewed as an FBI, rather than
CIA,
mission,
accounted for some information sharing problems. For example, the DCI
acknowledged
in his testimony that CIA was not sufficiently focused on advising the
State
Department to watchlist all terrorist operatives who might be traveling to the
United
States,
even though this would provide valuable information to domestic agencies in
targeting
these persons at ports of entry. On at least three occasions between January
2000
and August 2001, there were opportunities to watchlist future hijackers Nawaf
al-
Hazmi
and Khalid al-Mihdhar, but the CIA failed to do so. In his testimony on October
17,
2002, the DCI admitted this failure, attributing it to:
. .
.uneven practices, bad training and a lack of redundancy. The fact that
[CTC
personnel] were swamped does not mitigate the fact that we didn’t
overcome
that [with] a separate unit or better training for those people.
[Page
86]
Aside
from the formal watchlist procedure, the record strongly suggests that,
despite
numerous related contacts with the FBI during the period, no one at CIA advised
the FBI
about al-Mihdhar’s U.S. visa and the fact that al-Hazmi had traveled to the
United
States. Ironically, this occurred despite the fact that both CIA and FBI
personnel
were at
the time working in CTC where the information was received. The CIA
employee
who briefed FBI personnel about al-Mihdhar on January 6, 2000, but did not
mention
any information about al-Mihdhar’s visa and potential travel to the United
States,
indicated in an e-mail to a colleague at CIA that same day: “In case FBI starts
to
complain
later . . . below is exactly what I briefed them on.” This CIA employee told
the
Joint
Inquiry that he had, at the time, been assigned to work at the FBI Strategic
Information
Operations Center specifically to fix problems “in communicating between
the CIA
and the FBI.” Obviously, such problems remained.
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The
Joint Inquiry also heard from many different agencies within the Intelligence
Community,
most notably the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), that the perception
that
collecting agencies have “ownership” of the intelligence they acquire impedes
the
free
flow of information. In a Joint Inquiry interview, one DIA official complained
that
analysts
were often denied access to critical intelligence held in other Intelligence
Community
agencies:
We have
to get raw data to the analysts. The analysts have been separated
from
source-generated data that is important. There is excessive, filtering,
packaging
and selective product reporting that is not helpful. Some
problems
are so important that the U.S. Government cannot afford any
longer
to filter.
In his
testimony, the DCI confirmed that this filtering will continue when he noted
that
even all-source analysts within the new Department of Homeland Security will
not
have
access to all raw intelligence on anything like a routine basis. This tendency
to
ownership,
in its simplest form, means that the originating agency is free to edit and
otherwise
truncate the information it collects before it disseminates it to other
agencies.
On the
other hand, analysts frequently argued that, in the world of counterterrorism,
there
is
information in this filtered data that the collecting agency may not recognize
as having
significance
in the aggregate to analysts elsewhere. In interviews, DIA officials [page
87] emphasized
that they always received threat information from other Intelligence
Community
agencies, but did not always have access to the background information
necessary
to understand the nature of the threat reporting fully. A senior DIA analytical
official
testified that:
Senior
[Defense Department] officials received information that his
analysts
did not receive. However, to extract meaning from that data, to
perform
the true analytic function, we need to get that information into the
hands
and the brains of analysts who are paid to fill in the gaps of missing
information
to compensate for absent evidence and to turn information
into
knowledge. That’s what we pay them to do. They don’t have the
information,
they can’t do that.
In a
written statement to the Joint Inquiry, the new Director of the DIA noted: “ In
my
opinion, one of the most prolonged and troubling trends in the Intelligence
Community
is the degree to which analysts – while being expected to incorporate the full
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range
of source information into their assessments – have been systematically
separated
from
the raw material of their trade. “
Information
sharing is also limited by the longstanding Intelligence Community
practices
of narrowly limiting disclosures of intelligence information outside normal
channels
in order to protect sources and methods. Disclosures to criminal investigators
and
prosecutors were intentionally limited to avoid having intelligence become
entangled
in
criminal prosecutions. In deference to those kinds of restrictions, CIA did not
provide
the FBI
New York field office criminal agents who were investigating the USS Cole
bombing
information regarding the al-Qa’ida meeting in Malaysia that was attended by
hijackers-to-be
al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.
A 1995
Department of Justice policy that established procedures -- often referred
to as
the “wall” -- governing FBI sharing of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA)-derived
intelligence information with investigators handling parallel criminal
investigations
also prevented sharing of important intelligence. Under this policy, the
FBI
could share information from FISA surveillances with criminal investigators if
the
information
was relevant to a crime under investigation and an attorney in an FBI field
office
or in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) at the Department of
[page
88] Justice authorized its release. In al-Qa’ida FISA cases, the FISA Court
directed
that
the Court itself act as the “wall” and determine whether the information in
question
was
relevant to a criminal investigation and, thus, could be shared.
Unfortunately,
the Inquiry confirmed that the Intelligence Community agencies,
perhaps
overly “risk averse” in dealing with FISA-related matters, restricted the use
of
information
far beyond what was required. The majority of FBI personnel interviewed in
the
course of the Inquiry incorrectly believed that the FBI could not share
FISA-derived
information
with criminal investigators at all or that an impossibly high standard had to
be met
before the information could be shared. Most did not know that FISA-derived
information
could be shared with criminal investigators if it was simply relevant to the
criminal
investigation. Because of these misunderstandings, FBI intelligence
investigators
rarely sought approval to pass FISA-derived information to FBI criminal
investigators.
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Further,
as a result of the FISA Court decision, NSA placed a caveat on all its [
]
terrorism intelligence products requiring OIPR approval before information
could
be shared with criminal investigators. This stemmed from NSA’s concern that it
could
not determine which of its intelligence reports were the result of information
obtained
through FBI-conducted FISA surveillances (and therefore subject to the “wall”
requirements)
and which were not. The effect of this NSA effort to comply with the
FISA
Court’s decision was an unnecessary restriction on the sharing of NSA-acquired
intelligence
information with criminal investigators.
In
August 2001, when the FBI was attempting to locate al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar
in the
United States, an FBI Headquarters e-mail prohibited New York field office
criminal
agents from participating in the search because the information had originated
in
intelligence
channels. However, because this information was not derived from a FISA
surveillance,
there was no reason it could not be shared with FBI criminal agents.
Expressing
his utter frustration with the system, a New York FBI agent responded by email:
[page
89]
Whatever
has happened to this - 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
[FBI’s]
National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then,
especially
since the biggest threat to us now, UBL, is getting the most
“protection.”
10.
Finding: Serious problems in information sharing also persisted, prior to
September
11, between the Intelligence Community and relevant non-Intelligence
Community
agencies. This included other federal agencies as well as state and local
authorities.
This lack of communication and collaboration deprived those other
entities,
as well as the Intelligence Community, of access to potentially valuable
information
in the “war” against Bin Ladin. The Inquiry’s focus on the Intelligence
Community
limited the extent to which it explored these issues, and this is an area
that
should be reviewed further.
Discussion:
This Inquiry confirmed that, prior to September 11, problems in
information
sharing reached beyond the boundaries of the Intelligence Community to
encumber
the flow of information to and from various other entities. At each level,
communications
with potentially valuable partners in the war against terrorism – other
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federal
agencies, state and local authorities -- were restricted. Witnesses testified
that
these
restrictions on information flow occurred at great cost to the counterterrorism
effort.
Officials
in the Departments of Treasury, Transportation, and State told the Joint
Inquiry
that, although they receive threat information from the Intelligence Community,
they do
not always receive the information that adds context to the threat warnings. In
many
instances, officials told the Joint Inquiry, this lack of context prevents them
from
properly
estimating the value of the threat information and taking preventive actions.
The
Joint Inquiry was also told that not all threat information in the possession
of the
Intelligence
Community is shared with non-Intelligence Community entities that need it
the
most in order to counter the threats.
For
example, DCI Tenet testified that: “The documents we’ve provided show
some 12
reports spread over seven years which pertain to possible use of aircraft as
terrorist
weapons. We disseminated those reports to the appropriate agencies, such as the
[page
90] FAA, the Department of Transportation and the FBI as they came in.”
Subsequently,
the Transportation Security Intelligence Service (TSIS) -- which formerly
was the
Intelligence Office at FAA -- researched the 12 reports mentioned by DCI Tenet
to
determine what actions had been taken as a result. TSIS reported to the Joint
Inquiry
that it
had no record of having received three of those reports, two others had been
derived
from State Department cables, and one report was not received at all by FAA
until
after September 11, 2001. A TSIS official also testified that, despite its
clear
relevance
to civil aviation, the FAA was not provided a copy of the FBI's July 1, 2001
Phoenix
communication until its existence was made known to officials there by the
Joint
Inquiry
in early 2002.
In a
similar vein, the FAA had certain intelligence information in its possession
prior
to September 11 regarding the terrorist who was apprehended on his way from
Canada
to the Los Angeles Airport at the time of the Millennium. It also had conducted
a
detailed
analysis of the bomb materials that were seized with him, and connected them to
the
Bojinka Plot to blow up commercial airliners over the Pacific that had been
discovered
in the Philippines in 1995. In testimony to the Joint Inquiry, a TSIS official
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indicated
uncertainty regarding whether or not these findings had been formally
communicated
to the CIA.
The CIA
and NSA had sufficient information available concerning future
hijackers
al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi to connect them to Usama Bin Ladin, the East Africa
embassy
bombings, and the USS Cole attack by late 2000, and there were at least
three
different
occasions when these individuals should have been placed on the State
Department’s
TIPOFF watchlist and the INS and Customs watchlists. Nonetheless, this
was not
done, nor was the FBI notified of their potential presence in the United States
until
late August 2001.
The CIA
also did not provide the Department of State with almost 1500 terrorismrelated
intelligence
reports until shortly after September 11, 2001. These reports led to
the
addition of almost 60 names of terrorist suspects to the State watchlist. Also,
due to a
[page
91] lack of awareness of watchlisting policies and procedures among CIA
personnel
before September 11, this information was not provided to the watchlists at
INS,
and Customs. Intelligence officers at the Departments of Energy and
Transportation
also
did not have access to FBI data, CIA reports, and names on the watchlists.
The FBI
did not advise the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service of
the
reasons for its inquiries regarding al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi’s visa information
in
August
2001 when it was engaged in efforts to find the two individuals in the United
States.
Neither was INS asked by the FBI to use means available to it, including a search
of the
Law Enforcement Support Center’s database, to locate al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi
when
the FBI was looking for them in the United States in August 2001. INS and FAA
officials
who testified at the Joint Inquiry’s October 1, 2002 hearing asserted that their
agencies
might have been able to assist the FBI in locating the two if the FBI had told
them of
the purpose and importance of the search.
Officials
from the Departments of Transportation, State, Energy, Defense, and
Treasury
stated to the Joint Inquiry that, unless information is shared by the
Intelligence
Community
on a timely basis, they are unable to include dangerous individuals on
various
watchlists to either deny them entry into the United States or apprehend them
in
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the
United States. The Transportation Security Administration Assistant Under
Secretary
of
Intelligence testified that, had he received the July 2001 FBI Phoenix field
office
agent’s
Electronic Communication, for example, he would have “…started to ask a lot
more
probing questions of the FBI as to what this was all about…what connections
these
people
may have had to flight schools, by going back to the Airmen Registry in
Oklahoma
City that is maintained by the FAA to try to identify additional people.”
The INS
also was not privy to the presence of two known terrorists inside the
United
States. The INS Deputy Executive Associate Commissioner testified to the Joint
Inquiry
hearing on October 1, 2002 that “there is a likelihood” that INS agents would
have
been able to stop al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi in August 2001. The INS Law
Enforcement
Support Center (LESC) has been in operation for more than ten years. It is
[page
92] capable of querying every INS database and is available on a 24 hour per
day,
seven-day
per week basis. The LESC reportedly can provide information in about seven
minutes
on the legal status of individuals in the United States.
In
their testimony before the Joint Inquiry hearing, state and local government
witnesses
were adamant about the necessity of the intelligence and law enforcement
agencies
sharing terrorist information with state and local authorities. Former Virginia
Governor
James Gilmore stated that, in his entire four-year term, he never received any
intelligence
or law enforcement information regarding terrorists. Governor Gilmore also
testified
that:
. . .
to the extent that there has been intelligence sharing, it has been ad
hoc. It
has been without a real systematic approach. And what would you
expect.
With the Intelligence Comnunity, it is not within the culture if not
within
the statute that you don't share information. If you do, you are even
subject
to criminal penalties not to mention the danger of sharing
information
and to the danger of people who provide it. And the capacities
of the
United States in order to gather it.
In
addition, he explained that he was not even given a security clearance while he
was
Governor
that would have allowed him to be briefed on possible terrorist plots.
The
Police Commissioner of Baltimore stated at the same hearing that he does not
receive
intelligence information about suspected terrorists living in his jurisdiction
even
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though
some may have been associated with the September 11 hijackers. He also cited
the
fact that there are 650,000 law enforcement officers nationwide and they should
be
viewed
by the federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies as force-multipliers.
However,
this can only happen if information flows in both directions. The Police
Commissioner
also testified that, domestically, the local police force is the “biggest
collector”
of information, not the federal government. To illustrate his point that
information
must flow in both directions, he added, “we can tell when people move from
one
cave to another in Afghanistan, but we can’t tell when they move from one row
house
to another in Baltimore.”
By
contrast, former FBI Director Louis Freeh testified that information sharing
with
federal, state and local authorities was a priority for the FBI. In his Joint Inquiry
testimony
on October 8, 2002, he said: [page 93]
We
doubled and tripled the number of Joint Terrorism Task Forces
[JTTFs]
around the United States so we could multiply our forces and
coordinate
intelligence and counterterrorism operations with the FBI's
federal,
state, and local law enforcement partners. Thirty-four of these
JTTFs
were in operation by 2001. . . . We were also tasked to set up the
National
Domestic Preparedness Office to counter terrorist threats and to
enhance
homeland security.
Mr. Freeh
added that counterterrorism was such a high priority that the FBI instituted a
national
threat warning system in order to disseminate terrorism related information to
state
and local authorities around the country and organized national, regional and
local
practice
exercises to help the country prepare for terrorist attacks.
Further,
FBI Director Mueller explained in his October 17, 2002 testimony before
the
Joint Inquiry the changes that had been made in this regard by the FBI since
September
11, and added that:
As a
result of these initiatives and despite some of the testimony that this
[Inquiry]
has heard, we have received numerous letters of support and
gratitude
from state and local officials and most particularly from the
International
Association of Chiefs of Police [IACP]. . . . Our agents must
work
closely with our local and state law enforcement partners. . . . I don't
believe
that [the testimony of the Baltimore Police Commissioner] is
representative
of the feeling in the field. Does his testimony surprise me? I
would
say probably not. But I will tell you every time that I have . . .
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.seen,
either publicly or in testimony before this committee or another
committee,
that there is a police chief who is not getting what he or she
wants,
I have called, picked up the phone and called them to try to address
those
concerns.
. . . .
[A]
letter from William Berger, the President of the IACP. . . . praises us
for the
changes we have made to address this particular problem. I will
just
read one paragraph:
It is
my belief that the steps you have taken have been very
responsive
to these concerns and clearly demonstrate the FBI's
commitment
to enhancing its relationship with State and local law
enforcement
in improving our ability to combat not only terrorism,
but all
crime.
I was
at the IACP two weeks ago. I talked to the hierarchy, and I believe
that
they are supportive. There are isolated individuals throughout the
United
States who do not believe we are doing enough, and there are areas
where
we still have a ways to go, getting clearances for chiefs of police,
exchange
of information all the [page 94] way down and
getting it back
up. We
have a number of [JTTFs] that are working exceptionally well
around
the country. I think if you went to 9 or 10, or 99 out of 100, or 55
out of
56 you will find that State and local police are very supportive of
the
relationship. There will always be one, there will always be two, and
we try
to address them as we come along.
Following
the events of September 11, 2001, the IACP President did indeed write
to FBI
Director Mueller to express his appreciation for the steps the FBI has taken,
including
the creation of the State and Local Law Enforcement Advisory Panel and the
Office
of Law Enforcement Coordination. Subsequently, however, the IACP President
was
quoted on September 19, 2002 that:
[Federal
communications with state and local police] didn’t work
again…Most
local police in New England were informed by the FBI
office
in that area…about an hour before the public, but police in other
regions
didn’t know about the change until Attorney General John
Ashcroft
and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge announced it at a
press
conference.
The
Inquiry found that the FBI’s establishment of JTTFs in many FBI field
offices
had begun to correct some information sharing problems by encouraging
coordination
between federal, state, and local agencies prior to September 11. These
efforts
did result in some successes. For example, in the Moussaoui investigation, the
INS
representative on the Minneapolis JTTF was able to use the INS database to
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determine
Moussaoui’s immigration status quickly. The INS and FBI
representatives
then
approached Moussaoui together and he was taken into INS custody at an INS
facility
and
questioned by the FBI.
However,
a variety of shortcomings in the JTTF program limited its effectiveness
prior
to September 11. First, not all of the FBI field office had JTTFs. Further,
some of
the
JTTFs were hampered by a lack of analytic personnel, limited participation by
local
law
enforcement organizations, incomplete access to information by some of the
participants,
and the absence of CIA detailees.
Prior
to September 11, only 35 FBI field offices had JTTFs and only six JTTFs
had CIA
representatives. This might help explain why [page 95] the CIA
did not receive
a copy
of the July 2001 Phoenix communication until well after September 11. The
Gilmore
Advisory Panel reported anecdotal evidence suggesting that the JTTF and other
similar
efforts, while well intentioned, continue to be confusing, duplicative,
non-routine,
and
bifurcated in both structure and implementation.
11.
Finding: Prior to September 11, 2001, the Intelligence Community did not
effectively
develop and use human sources to penetrate the al-Qa’ida inner circle.
This
lack of reliable and knowledgeable human sources significantly limited the
Community’s
ability to acquire intelligence that could be acted upon before the
September
11 attacks. In part, at least, the lack of unilateral (i.e., U.S. –recruited)
counterterrorism
sources was a product of an excessive reliance on foreign liaison
services.
Discussion:
The U.S. Intelligence Community was not able to penetrate al-
Qa’ida’s
inner circle successfully before September 11, despite the fact that human
penetration
of that organization was considered a priority. Richard Clarke, the former
National
Counterterrorism Coordinator, described the problem as well as the impact that
it had
on policymakers:
[It was
not until 1999 that the Counterterrorism Center began to have
some
success in developing penetrations of al-Qa’ida. A new Director. .
.took
over the Counterterrorism Center and was instructed by George
Tenet
to get human penetrations of al-Qa’ida, and they did have some
success
in the succeeding years, although none of them very high level.
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. . . .
. . . .
[
] never
had anyone in
position
to tell us what was going to happen in advance, or even where
Bin
Ladin was going to be in advance [
] we
never knew where
he was
going to be in advance, And usually we were only informed about
his –
where he was after the fact. . . . And [ ]
where
they were able to tell us where they thought he was at the moment,
[ ] the
CIA itself recommended against
action,
because they said their sources were not very good, or not good
enough
to recommend military action].
[Page
96]
Former
Director Louis Freeh emphasized the critical difference that human
sources
and adequate “infiltration” of terrorist organizations could have made in the
context
of the September 11 attacks:
If one
of those 19 hijackers had spoken – maybe they did, maybe we don’t
know
about it yet – incautiously or imprudently to someone in some place
where
that information could have been captured, we could have had a day
of
terror prevented instead of September 11th.
There’s all kinds of
possibilities
there. So, infiltration. We need to have our agents sitting
around
wherever they were sitting around in Hamburg and the U.A.E. and
other
places, as well as in the caves over in Afghanistan so we can know
what is
going on.
[Lacking
access to senior, high level al-Qa’ida leadership, the Community relied on
secondhand,
fragmented and often questionable human intelligence information, a great
deal of
which was obtained from volunteers or sources obtained through the efforts of
foreign
liaison].
[According
to senior CTC officials, CIA had no penetrations of al-Qa’ida’s
leadership
and never obtained intelligence that was sufficient for action against Usama
Bin
Ladin from anyone. A large number of current and former CTC officers indicated
that
CTC had numerous unilateral sources outside the leadership who were reporting
on
al-Qa’ida,
and a larger number who were being developed for recruitment, prior to
September
11. The best source was handled jointly by CIA and the FBI. In addition,
CIA
managed a network of [ ] in Afghanistan that often reported
information
regarding Bin Ladin issues and relations with the Taliban. They occasionally
provided
threat information as well, but had no access to al-Qa’ida’s leadership].
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[Especially
after the East Africa U.S. embassy bombings in 1998, CIA also tried
many
avenues in an effort to obtain access to Bin Ladin and his inner circle. [
]
[page
97] [
].
Despite
these creative
attempts, according to former senior officials of CTC, CIA had no
penetrations
of al-Qa’ida’s leadership, and the Agency never acquired intelligence from
anyone
that could be acted upon, prior to September 11].
[Numerous
sources were being handled by foreign intelligence services. Most
disruptions
of al-Qa’ida activities abroad before September 11 were the result of joint
initiatives
with foreign governments. However, relying
on foreign services [
] meant
that very little counterterrorism intelligence was obtained by
CIA in
some parts of the world [ ].
[There
was a surge in volunteer sources after the 1998 East African embassy
bombings,
another surge on the anniversary of those bombings in 1999, and a third after
the
December 1999 disruption of the Jordanian Millennium plot. [
]. One
of these was very good and provided information that was used to
thwart
attacks on U.S. interests in Europe. Several of these volunteers continue to
act as
CIA
sources. [
]. The
negative
considerations were that most volunteer information was considered bogus by
CTC,
some volunteers were suspected of being al-Qa’ida provocations, and some were
believed
to have cooperated with terrorist groups].
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The
inability to develop reliable human sources effectively stemmed, in part, from
the
difficult nature of the target. Members of Usama Bin Ladin’s inner circle have
close
bonds
established by kinship, wartime experience, and long-term association. [Page
99]
Information
about major terrorist plots was not widely shared within al-Qa’ida, and many
of Bin
Ladin’s closest associates lived in war-torn Afghanistan. The United States had
no
official
presence in that country and did not formally recognize the Taliban regime,
which
viewed foreigners with suspicion. Pakistan is the principal access point to
southern
Afghanistan, where al-Qa’ida was particularly active, but U.S.-Pakistani
relations
were strained by Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998 and a military coup in 1999.
While
attempts to penetrate al-Qa’ida cells outside Afghanistan may have
presented
fewer obstacles, other factors limited CIA efforts to do so. [
]. This
meant as a practical matter that CIA did not focus as
heavily
as would otherwise have been the case on recruiting human sources of
counterterrorism
intelligence in other locations such as [ ].
CTC
personnel said they did not view guidelines issued by former DCI John
Deutch
in 1996 concerning CIA recruitment of human sources with poor human rights
records
as an impediment to the pursuit of terrorist recruitments in al-Qa’ida, and
none of
the CTC
officers interviewed by the Joint Inquiry attributed the lack of penetration of
the
al-Qa’ida
inner circle to the Deutch guidelines. In fact, the effort to recruit such
penetrations
became increasingly aggressive with respect to Bin Ladin's network
beginning
in 1999. These responses should be balanced against the examination of the
effect
of the Deutch guidelines that was conducted by the House Permanent Select
Committee
on Intelligence (HPSCI) Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security.
Its
July 2002 report stated in this regard: [page 99]
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. . .
Many CIA managers at headquarters posited that the guidelines did not
present
a problem and that no extra labor [was] required on the part of
field
officers as a result of the guidelines. Many others, including CIA
officers
in the field who brought their concerns to the attention of HPSCI
members
and staff, had a different view . . . . Their concerns were not that
waivers
were denied, but that they were not career enhancing and that the
process
by which requests were brought forward was cumbersome and
resulted
in disincentive to work to recruit anyone who might have been
involved
in proscribed acts. . . .
Prior
to September 11, the FBI also attempted, but with only limited success, to
develop
human sources regarding the activities of al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups
within
the United States. Again, the difficult nature of the target, as well as FBI
and
Department
of Justice policies and practices, may have hampered the FBI’s coverage of
the
radical fundamentalist community in this country.
Recruiting
sources in fundamentalist communities within the United States may
have
been more difficult than such recruitments abroad. The FBI advised the Joint
Inquiry
that, for example, only 21 FBI agents possess the Arabic language skills that
would
be expected to be important in pursuing such recruitments.
However,
even those FBI agents who were skilled at developing such sources
faced a
number of difficulties that may have hampered the FBI’s ability to gather
intelligence
on terrorist activities in the United States. According to several FBI agents,
for
example, FBI Headquarters and field managers were often unwilling to approve
potentially
controversial activity involving human sources who were in a position to
provide
counterterrorism intelligence. The 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty
Act specifically outlawed providing material support to terrorism. If an FBI
source
was involved in illegal funding or in terrorist training, the agent responsible
for
the
source had to obtain approval from FBI Headquarters and the Department of
Justice
to
allow the source to engage in the illegal activity. According to FBI personnel,
this was
a
difficult process that sometimes took as long as six months. Because terrorist
sources
frequently
engaged in activity that violated the 1996 Act, the cumbersome approval
process
often discouraged aggressive recruitment of these sources in the field.
[page
100]
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FBI
agents also cited to the Joint Inquiry the requirement for prior DCI approval
of FBI
source travel abroad as a roadblock to sending sources overseas for operational
purposes.
Several FBI agents expressed the opinion to the Joint Inquiry that the CIA took
advantage
of this requirement to prevent FBI sources from operating overseas. Another
FBI
agent complained that FBI Headquarters management did not readily approve
overseas
travel for sources because of its belief that the FBI should focus on activity
within
the United States. When FBI management did approve overseas travel for assets,
it
often declined to allow the responsible agents to accompany the sources during
such
travel.
These decisions, according to FBI agents in Joint Inquiry interviews,
significantly
diminished
the quality of the operations
The FBI
also apparently did not use those counterterrorism sources that had been
identified
in the most effective and coordinated manner. The FBI generally focused
source
reporting on cases and subjects within the jurisdiction of specific field
offices and
did not
adequately use sources to support a national counterterrorism intelligence
program.
For example, the FBI received intelligence in 1999 that a terrorist
organization
was
planning to send students to the United States for aviation training. While an
operational
unit at FBI Headquarters instructed twenty-four field offices to “task sources”
for
information, it appears that no FBI sources were in fact asked about the
matter.
In
addition, when the Phoenix FBI agent reported to FBI Headquarters in July
2001
his concern that Middle Eastern students were coming to the United States for
civil
aviation-related
training, there was no effort by either FBI Headquarters or the field
office
that was advised of his concern by FBI Headquarters to task counterterrorism
sources
for any relevant information. Similarly, when Minneapolis FBI field office
agents
detained Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001, they were concerned that he might
be part
of a larger conspiracy. Nonetheless, neither the Minneapolis field office nor
FBI
Headquarters
asked any FBI sources whether they knew anything about Moussaoui or the
existence
of any larger plot.
[Page
101]
[Finally,
in August 2001, the FBI learned from the CIA that terrorist suspects
Nawaf
al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar were in the United States. Neither the FBI field
offices
that were involved in the search nor FBI Headquarters thought to ask FBI field
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offices
to ask their sources whether they were aware of the whereabouts of the two
individuals,
who later took part in the September 11 attacks. As one result, the San
Diego
counterterrorism informant who had numerous contacts with those two individuals
during
2000 was never asked to help the FBI locate them in the last weeks before
September
11].
12.
Finding: During the summer of 2001, when the Intelligence Community was
bracing
for an imminent al-Qa’ida attack, difficulties with FBI applications for
Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance and the FISA process led
to a
diminished level of coverage of suspected al-Qa’ida operatives in the United
States.
The effect of these difficulties was compounded by the perception that
spread
among FBI personnel at Headquarters and the field offices that the FISA
process
was lengthy and fraught with peril.
Discussion:
In the summer of 2000, during preparation for the trial in New York
of
those involved in the bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa, prosecutors
discovered
factual errors in applications for FISA orders sanctioning electronic
surveillance.
The FISA Court found that these errors included an erroneous statement
that a
FISA target was not under criminal investigation, erroneous statements
concerning
overlapping
intelligence and criminal investigations, and unauthorized sharing of FISA
information
with criminal investigators and prosecutors.
The
FISA Court also determined that these errors called into question the
certifications
that had been made by senior officials that the FISA surveillances requested
by the
applications had as their purpose the gathering of foreign intelligence, rather
than
criminal-related
information, as required by FISA. After being informed of additional
errors
in subsequent months, the FISA Court barred an FBI agent who had prepared one
of the
erroneous applications from appearing before the Court again.
The FBI
and the Department of Justice’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review
(OIPR)
began a systematic review of the FISA application process in September 2000 to
[page
102] ensure the accuracy of FISA Court filings. Some FISA surveillances
targeting
al-Qa’ida
agents were allowed to expire while OIPR and the FBI investigated how the
errors
had occurred. These orders were not renewed until after the attack on USS
Cole in
October
2000. In April 2001, the Bureau promulgated procedures for the review of draft
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FISA
declarations and the submission of FISA applications to the Court. OIPR also
revised
the standard al-Qa’ida FISA application to reduce the amount of extraneous
information
that was required and that increased the likelihood of factual errors.
During
this process, many FISA surveillances of suspected al-Qa’ida agents
expired
because the FBI and OIPR were not willing to apply for application renewals
when
they were not completely confident of their accuracy. Most of the FISA orders
targeting
al-Qa’ida that expired after March 2001 were not renewed before September 11.
The
Joint Inquiry received inconsistent figures regarding the specific number of
FISA
orders
that were allowed to expire during the summer of 2001. One FBI manager stated
that no
FISA orders targeted against al-Qa’ida existed in 2001, others interviewed said
there
were up to [ ] al-Qa’ida orders at that time, and an OIPR official explained
that
approximately
two-thirds of the number of FISA orders targeted against al-Qa’ida had
expired
in 2001.
Several
organizations played a role in the breakdown of the FISA process in the
year
before the September 11 attacks. According to FBI personnel, OIPR and the FISA
Court
erred by requiring much extraneous information in FISA applications, thus
increasing
the likelihood of mistakes. Bureau agents frequently could not or did not
verify
the accuracy of information in the FISA applications. The FISA Court’s order
prohibiting
an FBI agent from appearing before the Court also apparently had a chilling
effect
on FBI agents, and they became increasingly unwilling to confirm the veracity
of
FISA
applications.
13.
Finding: [
[page
103]
].
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Discussion:
[During his tenure, President Clinton signed documents authorizing
CIA
covert action against Usama Bin Ladin and his principal lieutenants. [
].
[
]:
• [
].
• [
].
[
] [page
104] [ ].
[Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger
testified
to the Joint Inquiry on September 19, 2002 that, from the time of the East
Africa
U. S.
Embassy bombings in 1998, the U. S. Government was:
. . .
embarked [on] an very intense effort to get Bin Ladin, to get his
lieutenants,
through both overt and covert means. . . . We were involved –
at that
point, our intense focus was to get Bin Ladin, to get his key
lieutenants.
The President conferred a number of authorities on the
Intelligence
Community for that purpose.
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Senator
Shelby: By “get him,” that meant kill him if you had to, capture
him or
kill him?
Mr.
Berger: I don’t know what I can say in this hearing, but capture and
kill. .
. . There was no question that the cruise missiles were not trying to
capture
him. They were not law enforcement techniques. . . .”]
[
].
[
].” As
former National Security Advisor
Berger
noted in his Joint Inquiry interview, “We do not have a rogue CIA.”
[
].”
In his
June 11, 2002 briefing to the Joint Inquiry, Mr. Clarke reiterated this point
when he
said: [page 105]
I think
if you look at the 1980s and 1970s, the individuals who held the
job of
[DDO], one after another of them was either fired or indicted or
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condemned
by a Senate committee. I think under those circumstances, if
you
become Director of Operations, you would want to be a little careful
not to
launch off on covert operations that will get you personally in
trouble
and will also hurt the institution. The history of covert operations
in the
1950s and 1960s and 1970s was not a happy one, and I think that
lesson
got over-learned by people who at the time were probably in their
twenties
and thirties, but by the time they became in their fifties, and they
were
managers in the [Directorate of Operations], I think that they
institutionalized
a sense of covert action is risky and is likely to blow up in
your
face. And the wise guys at the White House who are pushing you to
do
covert action will be nowhere to be found when the Senate Select
Committee
on Intelligence calls you up to explain the mess that the covert
action
became.
Mr.
Clarke went on to say: “I think it is changed because of 9/11. I think it is
changed
because
George Tenet has been pushing them to change it.”
In a
July 26, 2002 Joint Inquiry interview, a former Chief of CTC made a similar
point
when he implicitly acknowledged that he pushed whenever possible for clarity in
the
covert action authorities [
].”
The
policy makers’ reluctance [ ] limited the scope of
CIA
operations against Bin Ladin. [ ] [Page
106] [
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].”
[
]:
[
].
In any
event, the differing perceptions about the scope of the authorizations
shaped
the types of covert action the CIA was willing to direct against Bin Ladin
prior to
September
11, 2001 and, therefore, its ultimate effectiveness. [
].
[
] [Page
107] [
].
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SECRET 101
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The
CIA’s actual efforts to carry out covert action against Bin Ladin in
Afghanistan
prior to September 11, 2001 were limited and do not appear to have
significantly
hindered al-Qa’ida’s ability to operate. [ ]:
• [
];
• [
];”
• [
];
• [
];”
[Page
108]
• [
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];
• [
]; and,
• [
].
Many of
these efforts were key elements in “the Plan” – initially developed in
1999
and subsequently modified -- that the DCI described in his testimony before the
Joint
Inquiry on October 17, 2002. “The Plan” did not, however, feature elements
commonly
associated with war plans or contingency plans, such as a mission statement,
strategic
goals or objectives, a statement of commander’s intent, a delineation of the
resources
that would be required or are available for the operation, or the measures by
which
operational success might be measured. Although a covert action plan might not
be
expected to contain all of the elements of a war plan, the absence of all these
elements
suggests
an absence of rigor in the planning process.
[
]
[Page
109] [
].
The
Joint Inquiry heard testimony on September 12 and September 19, 2002 that,
between
March 2001 and September 2001, the Bush Administration was engaged in a
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review
of counterterrorism policy.
].
[
].
[Deputy Secretary of State Armitage testified that the Bush
Administration
was considering, among other things, “increased authorities for the
Central
Intelligence Agency” in the summer of 2001 and was close to final agreement on
a more
aggressive strategy against Bin Ladin and his followers by September 11, 2001:
The
National Security Council . . . called for new proposals [in March
2001]
on a strategy that would be more aggressive against al-Qa’ida. The
first
deputies meeting, which is the first decision making body in the
administration,
met on the 30th of April and set off on a trail of
initiatives
to
include financing, getting at financing, to get at increased authorities for
the
Central Intelligence Agency, sharp end things that the military was
asked
to do. . . . So, from March through about August, we were preparing
a
national security Presidential directive, and it was distributed on August
13 to
the principals for their final comments. And then, of course, we had
the
events of September 11. . . .]
14.
Finding: [Senior U.S. military officials were reluctant to use U.S. military
assets
to
conduct offensive counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan, or to support or
participate
in CIA operations directed against al-Qa’ida prior to September 11. At
least
part of this reluctance was driven by the military’s view that the Intelligence
Community
was unable to provide the intelligence needed to support military
operations.
Although the U.S. military did participate in [ ] counterterrorism
efforts
to counter Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network prior to September 11, 2001,
most of
the military’s focus was on force protection].
Discussion:
National Security Council officials, CIA officers in the CTC, and
senior
U.S. military officers differ regarding the U.S. military’s willingness to
conduct
operations
against Usama Bin Ladin prior to September 11, 2001. In general, however,
[page
110] these officials indicate that senior military leaders were reluctant to
have the
military
play a major role in offensive counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan prior
to
September
11:
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• In his June 11, 2002 remarks, former National
Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Richard
Clarke said, “the overwhelming message to the White House from the
uniformed
military leadership was ‘we don’t want to do this,’ [
].
Later in that same briefing, he said: “The
military
repeatedly came back with recommendations that their capability not be
utilized
[ ] in Afghanistan.”
• In a written response to the Joint Inquiry, former
National Security Advisor Sandy
Berger
said:
President
Clinton’s top military advisers examined [military options].
They
advised us that there would be a low probability of success for such
operations
in Afghanistan (before 9/11 when we did not have the
cooperation
of Pakistan and other bordering nations) in the absence of
substantial
lead-time actionable intelligence (i.e., specific advanced
knowledge
of where bin Ladin would be at a specific time and place).
There
were many obstacles to deploying ground troops into Afghanistan
from
staging areas at some distance, including a serious possibility of
detection,
difficulty of basing back-up forces nearby and logistical
difficulties.
• Interviews of officials at the CTC and a review of CTC
documents support the
finding
that the military did not seek an active role in offensive counterterrorism
operations.
For example,
].” In
the CTC’s view,
although
there was “lots of desire at the working level,” there was “reluctance at
the
political level,” and it was “unlikely that JSOC will ever deploy under current
circumstances.”
[Page
111]
• On September 12, 2002, a former Chief of CTC said:
“You know, [the U.S.
military]
– they have their own views on their willingness to take casualties and
take
risky operations… For them to go, they are more exacting in their
requirements,
in terms of intelligence certainly, before they engage.”
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• Another former Chief of CTC testified:
Actually
it was discussed… turning the ball over to [the military], but
having
them do it themselves. They declined, as I recall, as best I recall,
because
they lacked the covert action authorities to work in that
environment.
Since there wasn’t an official declaration of war, there
wasn’t
fighting, they didn’t think they had the authorities to go in and do it
themselves.
They were willing to help… but they couldn’t put boots on
the
ground themselves.
• The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
stated that the U.S. military
primarily
thought about the threat posed by Usama Bin Ladin's network in terms
of
protecting U.S. forces deployed overseas from terrorist attack. He also stated
his
belief that the CIA and FBI should have the lead roles in countering terrorism,
and
that military tools should be viewed as an extension and supplement to the
leading
roles played by the CIA and FBI. In discussing offensive
counterterrorism
operations in Afghanistan, the former Chairman cited the lack of
actionable
intelligence, noting “Look at the risk associated with swooping in.”
With
regard to using U.S. military forces in clandestine operations, the former
Chairman
said: “you don’t put U.S. armed forces in another country if the
President
doesn’t declare war, unless you declare war on the Taliban.” He said he
never
received a tasker to put boots on the ground to obtain actionable
intelligence,
noting "the military does what it is told to do."
• The Joint Chief of Staff’s Director of Operations
indicated that options developed
by the
military for the White House in 2000 were in part aimed at “educating” the
National
Security Advisor on the complexities of operations in Afghanistan
involving
“U.S. boots on the ground.”
[Page
112]
In
Joint Inquiry interviews, senior and retired U.S. military officers cited the
lack
of
precise, actionable intelligence as a primary obstacle to the military
conducting its own
operations
against Bin Ladin. The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff stated,
for
example: “. . . you can develop military operations until hell freezes over,
but they are
worthless
without intelligence.”
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However,
according to CIA officers in the CTC who testified before the Joint
Inquiry
on September 12, 2002, the U.S. military often levied so many requirements for
highly
detailed, actionable intelligence prior to conducting an operation – far beyond
what
the Intelligence Community was ever likely to obtain – that U.S. military units
were
effectively
precluded from conducting operations against Bin Ladin’s organization on the
ground
in Afghanistan or elsewhere prior to September 11. A former Chief of CTC's
special
Bin Ladin unit said:
[the
military's] requirements, before they operate, are absolutely
impossible
for us to collect in most instances. [
]. And
the requirements they sent us included items
like,
which side of the door are the hinges on, do the windows
open
out or go up and down. And it is just not the kind of
intelligence
we can provide on anything resembling a regular basis.
The
Department of Defense did ask the Defense HUMINT [Human Intelligence]
Service
to determine whether it could obtain information regarding Bin Ladin’s
whereabouts.
However, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff indicated that
the
U.S. military did not undertake any independent efforts, utilizing U.S.
military forces,
to
determine Bin Ladin’s location.
Lower-level
military officers appeared to be more enthusiastic than senior
military
officials about active military participation in counterterrorism efforts.
Senior
CIA
officers, CIA documents, and at least one former special operations forces
[page
113] commander indicated, in interviews and testimony, that military operators
were
both capable and interested in conducting a special operations mission against
Bin
Ladin
in Afghanistan prior to September 11. A former JSOC commander told the Joint
Inquiry
that his units did have the ability to put small teams into Afghanistan. A CIA
document
commenting on the prospects of Joint Special Operations Command units
participating
in an operation to capture Bin Ladin said: “lots of desire at the [military]
working
level,” but there was “reluctance at the political level.”
Despite
senior officers’ reluctance to play a major role, military personnel and
assets
did contribute to several counterterrorism efforts in addition to force
protection.
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The
Joint Inquiry has identified [ ] major types of military participation in, or
support
for, operations to counter Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network prior to
September
11:
• On August 20, 1998, following the bombings of two U.S.
embassies in East
Africa,
the U.S. military, acting on President Clinton’s orders, launched cruise
missiles
at Usama Bin Ladin-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. One of
the
objectives of those strikes was to kill Usama Bin Ladin. As former National
Security
Advisor Sandy Berger testified: “we [were] trying to kill Bin Ladin, we
dropped
cruise missiles on him;”
• Between 1999 and 2001, the U.S. military positioned a
number of Navy ships and
submarines
armed with cruise missiles in the North Arabian Sea to launch
additional
cruise missile strikes at Bin Ladin in the event the Intelligence
Community
was able to obtain precise information on his whereabouts in
Afghanistan;
and
• [In 2000 and 2001, the Joint Staff and U.S. Air Force
provided technical
assistance
in the development of the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle as a [Page
114] second
source of intelligence on Usama Bin Ladin’s precise whereabouts in
Afghanistan.
Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger told the Joint
Inquiry
that:
The
Clinton Administration was engaged in an active strategy against Bin
Ladin
and was continuously examining new initiatives for defeating Bin
Ladin
and al-Qa’ida, given what was known and the allies available at the
time.
For example, in 2000, we developed the Predator program, which
was
successfully tested in late 2000 and was available to be
operationalized
as a critical intelligence platform to confirm intelligence
on his
whereabouts when the weather cleared in the Spring of 2001].
In
general, however, the CIA and U.S. military did not engage in joint operations,
pool
their assets, or develop joint plans against Usama Bin Ladin in Afghanistan
prior to
September
11, 2001 – despite interest in such joint operations at the CIA. Commenting
on the
idea of the CIA and U.S. military engaging in joint operations, a former Chief
of
CTC
testified:
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I think
it is absolutely great [idea]. This is something we have been
advocating
for a long time. If you want to go to war, you take the CIA, its
clandestinity,
its authorities, and you match it up with special operations
forces
of the U.S. military, you can really – you can really do some
damage.…
This is something that we have tried to advocate at the
working
level, and we haven’t made much progress. But, if this is
something
that [the Congress] would like to look into, it would be great
for the
United States.
Similarly,
a former Chief of CTC's special Bin Ladin unit said: “As someone who
served
[ ] and worked with special forces, they want to work with us and we want
to work
with them. History was made between the CIA and special forces. We need to
do
that.” However, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Joint
Inquiry
that he did not believe in joint operations with the CIA. He said, “I want to
make
sure
the military piece of the plan is under military control, and not predicated on
the
CIA’s
piece being successful.”
15.
Finding: The Intelligence Community depended heavily on foreign intelligence
and law
enforcement services for the collection of counterterrorism intelligence and
the
conduct of other counterterrorism activities. The results were mixed in terms
of
productive
intelligence, reflecting vast differences in the ability and willingness of
the
various foreign services to target the Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida network.
Intelligence
Community agencies sometimes failed to coordinate their relationships
with
foreign services adequately, either within the Intelligence Community or with
broader
U.S. Government liaison and foreign policy efforts. This reliance on
foreign
liaison services also resulted in a lack of focus on the development of
unilateral
human sources.
[Page
115]
Discussion:
[In the mid-1990s, CIA counterterrorism officials decided that
unilateral
operations alone were of limited value in penetrating al-Qa’ida and that
foreign
liaison
services could serve as a force multiplier. Foreign intelligence and security
services
often had excellent local knowledge and capabilities; [
].
Therefore, CIA, FBI, NSA, and other Intelligence Community
agencies
strengthened their liaison relationships with existing foreign partners and
forged
new
relationships to fight al-Qa’ida and other radical groups. For example, the CIA
[
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]. The
FBI expanded its Legal
Attache
(Legat) program].
[Despite
those efforts, many weaknesses in foreign liaison relationships were
apparent
before the September 11 attacks. These weaknesses limited the amount and
quality
of the counterterrorism intelligence received as a result of those
relationships. For
example,
individuals in some liaison services organization are believed to have
cooperated
with terrorist groups].
[Regarding
Saudi Arabia, former FBI Director Louis Freeh testified that,
following
the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, the FBI “was able to forge an effective
working
relationship with the Saudi police and Interior Ministry.” A considerable
amount
of personal effort by Director Freeh helped to secure what he described as
“unprecedented
and invaluable” assistance in the Khobar Towers bombing investigation
from
the Saudi Ambassador to the United States and the Saudi Interior Minister. By
contrast,
the Committees heard testimony from U.S. Government personnel that Saudi
officials
had been uncooperative and often did not act on information implicating Saudi
nationals].
[Page
116]
[According
to a U. S. Government official, it was clear from about 1996 that the
Saudi
Government would not cooperate with the United States on matters relating to
Usama
Bin Ladin. [[According to a U. S. Government official, it was clear from about
1996 that the
Saudi
Government would not cooperate with the United States on matters relating to
Usama
Bin Ladin. [
],
reemphasized the lack of Saudi cooperation and stated that there was
little
prospect of future cooperation regarding Bin Ladin. [
] told
the Joint Inquiry that he believed the U.S. Government’s hope of eventually
obtaining
Saudi cooperation was unrealistic because Saudi assistance to the U.S.
Government
on this matter is contrary to Saudi national interests].
[A U.
S. Government official testified to the Joint Inquiry on this issue [
] as
follows:
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[
]….[F]or
the most part it was a very troubled relationship where
the
Saudis were not providing us quickly or very vigorously with response
to it.
Sometimes they did, many times they didn’t. It was just very slow
in
coming.
The
Treasury Department General Counsel testified at the July 23, 2002 hearing
about
the lack of Saudi cooperation:
There
is an almost intuitive sense, however, that things are not being
volunteered.
So I want to fully inform you about it, that we have to ask
and we
have to seek and we have to strive. I will give you one-and-a-half
examples.
The first is, after some period, the Saudis have agreed to the
designation
of a man named Julaydin, who is notoriously involved in all of
this;
and his designation will be public within the next 10 days. They
came
forward to us two weeks ago and said, okay, we think we should go
forward
with the designation and a freeze order against Mr. Julaydin. We
asked,
what do you have on him? Because they certainly know what we
have on
him, because we shared it as we tried to convince them that they
ought
to join us. The answer back was, nothing new.
. . . .
. . . I
think that taxes credulity, or there is another motive we are not being
told.
[Page
117]
[A
number of U. S. Government officials complained to the Joint Inquiry about a
lack of
Saudi cooperation in terrorism investigations both before and after the
September
11
attacks.
]. A
high-level U. S. Government officer cited greater Saudi
cooperation
when asked how the September 11 attacks might have been prevented. In
May
2001, the U.S. Government became aware that an individual in Saudi Arabia was
in
contact
with a senior al-Qa’ida operative and was most likely aware of an upcoming al-
Qa’ida
operation. [
].
[
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].
Several
other Arab governments hesitated to share information gleaned from
arrests
of suspects in the USS Cole bombing and other attacks. Even several
European
governments
were described to the Joint Inquiry as indifferent to the threat al-Qa’ida
posed
prior to September 11, while others faced legal restrictions that impeded their
ability
to share intelligence with the United States or to disrupt terrorist cells.
Prior to
September
11, for example, [ ], despite repeated requests from CIA,
[Page
118] provided little helpful information [ ]. A CIA
representative
described the situation in his testimony before the Joint Inquiry:
We had
passed [ ] a great number of leads about al-Qa’ida
members.
We passed [them] a great deal of leads on al-Qa’ida members,
including
some of the people you see in the press now, like [
], and
we had really given them a lot of names to track after
September
11. The arrests they made [after September 11, 2001] showed
that
they had in fact been following them and monitoring them to some
extent.
But the CIA did not get information back [
] on it
to any measurable extent that would help us with our efforts.
[CIA’s
liaison partners vary in competence and commitment. [
].
However, the Agency still had to rely heavily on liaison partners in
several
countries in order to acquire counterterrorism intelligence for the conduct of
other
counterterrorism
activities].
There
were also missteps in the efforts of various Intelligence Community
agencies
to develop foreign liaison relationships. [
].
However, significant problems arose because liaison on
counterterrorism
was not always well integrated into overall U.S. regional goals and
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liaison
relations. As a result, other issues, albeit important, sometimes diverted
attention
from
counterterrorism.
The
many channels for contact between U.S. and foreign intelligence services
also led
to a lack of coordination at times. Former National Security Advisor Sandy
Berger
noted that many U.S. agencies, ranging from the CIA and FBI to the Agriculture
Department,
develop liaison service relations and that, in some countries, there are now a
dozen
or more of these kinds of relationships. Often, U.S. ambassadors were not able
to
control
these interactions, and, as a result, the U.S. Government did not always place
[page
119] proper priorities on what it asked of foreign governments. In his testimony,
Mr.
Berger recommended giving “the DCI authority to coordinate all intelligence
cooperation
with other countries.”
Finally,
the capabilities of FBI Legats were not always incorporated within the
overall
intelligence relationship with a foreign country. Thus, other members of the
U.S.
Intelligence
Community did not always utilize relationships developed by the Legats to
their
full advantage.
16.
Finding: [The activities of the September 11 hijackers in the United States
appear
to have been financed, in large part, from monies sent to them from abroad
and
also brought in on their persons. Prior to September 11, there was no
coordinated
U.S. Government-wide strategy to track terrorist funding and close
down
their financial support networks. There was also a reluctance in some parts of
the
U.S. Government to track terrorist funding and close down their financial
support
networks. As a result, the U.S. Government was unable to disrupt financial
support
for Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist activities effectively].
Discussion:
[Tracking terrorist funds can be an especially effective means of
identifying
terrorists and terrorist organizations, unraveling and disrupting terrorist
plots,
and
targeting terrorist financial assets for sanctions, seizures, and account closures.
As
with
organized criminal activity, financial support is critically important to
terrorist
networks
like al-Qa’ida. Prior to September 11, 2001, however, no single U.S.
Government
agency was responsible for tracking terrorist funds, prioritizing and
coordinating
government-wide efforts, and seeking international collaboration in that
effort.
Some tracking of terrorist funds was undertaken before September 11. For the
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most
part, however, these efforts were unorganized and ad-hoc, and there was a
reluctance
to take actions such as seizures of assets and bank accounts and arrests of
those
involved in the funding. A U.S. Government official testified before the Joint
Inquiry,
for example, that this reluctance hindered counterterrorist efforts against Bin
Ladin:
“Treasury was concerned about any activity that could adversely affect the
international
financial system . . . ].”
Treasury
Department General Counsel David Aufhauser testified to the Joint
inquiry
on July 23, 2002 that, prior to September 11, the financial war on terrorism
was
“ad-hoc-ism”,
episodic, and informal without any orthodox mechanism for the exchange
[page
120] of information or setting of priorities. He stated that, prior to
September 11,
the DCI
never asked Treasury to perform an analysis of Bin Ladin, al-Qa’ida, or
associated
terrorist financing.
At the
same hearing, the Chief of the FBI’s Financial Review Group also testified
to the
lack of an overall financial strategy against terrorist funding. He stated that
the
FBI’s
financial investigations prior to September 11 were inconsistent, done on a
caseby-
case
basis, and not supervised by a specialized unit at FBI Headquarters.
Given
this lack of focus on terrorist financing, the Intelligence Community was
unable,
prior to September 11, to identify and attack the full range of Bin Ladin’s
financial
support network. Former National Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard
Clarke
described for the Joint Inquiry his pre-September 11 frustration with the
Intelligence
Community’s lack of focus in this regard:
[
].
. . . .
Whenever
we pressed the various agencies to do more on finding Bin
Ladin’s
money, we would hear that they didn’t consider it as important as
the
White House did for the reason you specified, that you were able to
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stage
an operation for a small amount of money. My view was that it may
have
been true that you could stage an operation for a small amount of
money,
but you couldn’t run al-Qa’ida for a small amount of money. Al-
Qa’ida was
a vast worldwide organization that was creating terrorist
groups
in various countries that would not be called a-Qa’ida, but would
be
called names associated with that particular country. But they were
creating
terrorist groups, they were funding them from the start. They
were
taking preexisting terrorist groups and buying their allegiance and
buying
them additional capability. It seemed to me it must have cost a
great
deal of money to be al-Qa’ida, but I was never able to get the
Intelligence
Community to tell me within any range of magnitude how
much
money the annual operating budget of al-Qa’ida may have been.
[Page
121]
Prior
to September 11, there was also some reluctance to use available financial
databases
to track suspected terrorists. The Chief of the FBI’s Financial Review Group –
which
had been only a section in the FBI’s White Collar Crime Unit before September
11
-- and
the Director of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
(FinCEN)
both testified before the Joint Inquiry that, prior to September 11, they had
capabilities
to develop leads on terrorist suspects and link them to other terrorists and to
terrorist
funding sources. They both agreed that they would have been able to locate
Nawaf
al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in the United States in August 2001, if asked,
through
credit card and bank information. The use of these capabilities in the first
weeks
after
September 11 enabled the FBI, with assistance from the Secret Service, to
connect
almost
all of the 19 hijackers to each other very quickly by linking bank accounts,
credit
cards,
debit cards, address checks, and telephones. Despite the existence of
those
capabilities,
the FBI did not seek their assistance in the search for al-Hazmi and al-
Mihdhar
in late August 2001.
FinCEN
was involved in tracking terrorist funds prior to September 11 and
experienced
some success. FinCEN began doing linkage analysis of terrorist financing in
October
1999 and first identified a specific account with a direct link to al-Qa’ida in
February
2001. It has the advantage of being able to work with both law enforcement
and
intelligence information, and to combine that information with Bank Secrecy Act
and
commercial
data to assist the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC)
and others in the seizure, blocking, and freezing of terrorist assets. FinCEN’s
capabilities
have been made available to federal, state, and local law enforcement
agencies
for lead purposes since before September 11.
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The FBI
did some tracking of terrorist funds prior to September 11, but this was
mostly
done on an episodic basis, primarily directed at money laundering activity, in
the
context
of field office investigations with no national or international coordination,
and
with
very limited cooperation with the Treasury Department. The Joint Inquiry was
informed
that the FBI’s newly-formed Financial Review Group is developing what did
not
exist pre-September 11, a national strategy for a coordinated U.S.
Government-wide
[page
122] effort to track terrorist funds, mine financial data from a common
database,
investigate,
disrupt, arrest, and prosecute.
International
cooperation in tracking terrorist funds was also not easy to achieve
prior
to September 11. For example, the Director of OFAC at the Treasury Department
testified
that he made two trips to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and
Kuwait
in 1999 and 2000 to request their cooperation in tracking and restricting Bin
Ladin
and al-Qa’ida funds, but only achieved limited results. Pre-September 11, OFAC
did
take some actions, such as trade sanctions and an asset freeze against the
Taliban for
harboring
Bin Ladin, that achieved a modicum of success.
On
September 24, 2001, President Bush gave a new priority to the tracking of
terrorist
funds when he stated: “We will direct every resource at our command to win the
war
against terrorists, every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every
instrument
of law enforcement, every financial influence. We will starve the terrorists
of
funding.”
(Emphasis added.) The President made this statement four days after signing
an
executive order to block the funds of terrorists and their associates.
Substantial
actions
have been taken by the U.S. Government in this area since September 11,
including
blocking terrorist-related assets; seizing assets and smuggled bulk cash;
arresting
terrorist financiers and indicting them; and, shutting down front companies,
charities,
banks, and hawala conglomerates that served as financial support networks for
al-Qa’ida
and Bin Ladin.
New
authorities that have been granted since September 11 have also been
instrumental
in making these seizure and arrest actions successful. For example, OFAC
at
Treasury requested and received in the October 2001 USA PATRIOT Act explicit
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authorities
to block assets while an investigation is in progress and to use classified
information
as evidence in order to place additional names on the list for freezing and
blocking
assets. The challenge facing the Intelligence Community is to maintain, expand
and
adapt the use of these capabilities to combat future terrorist threats
effectively.
Despite
improvements since September 11, former National Counterterrorism [page
123]
Coordinator
Richard Clarke told the Joint Inquiry that, as of June 2002, there were still
many
unanswered questions about Bin Ladin’s finances:
We
asked [CIA] in particular [ ], because initially
–
because he was said to be a financier. They were unable to do that, [
].CIA
was [ ] unable to tell
us what
it cost to be Bin Ladin, what it cost to be al-Qa’ida, how much
was
their annual operating budget within some parameters, where did the
money
come from, where did it stay when it wasn’t being used, how it was
transmitted.
They were unable to find answers to those questions.
Part of
the challenge for the Intelligence Community, and particularly the FBI, is
the
difference between terrorist financing and other forms of organized criminal
money
laundering.
Strategies and tactics that were effective in countering money laundering
must be
reexamined in order to assure their effectiveness in regard to terrorist
financing.
The
Treasury Department’s General Counsel was in England at a money laundering
conference
on September 11, 2001 and explained to the Joint Inquiry how his perception
of the
problem shifted as he watched the two World Trade Center towers disintegrate:
It was
as if we had been looking at the world through the wrong end of a
telescope.
. . . Money had been spirited around the globe by means and
measures
and in denominations that mocked all of our detection. . . . The
most
serious threat to our well being was now clean money intended to
kill,
not dirty money seeking to be rinsed in a place of hiding.
D.
RELATED FINDINGS
During
the course of this Joint Inquiry, testimony and information were received
that
pertained to several issues involving broader, policy questions that reach
beyond the
boundaries
of the Intelligence Community. In the three areas described below, the Inquiry
finds
that policy issues were relevant to our examination of the events of September
11.
[Page
124]
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17.
Finding: Despite intelligence reporting from 1998 through the summer of 2001
indicating
that Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network intended to strike inside the
United
States, the United States Government did not undertake a comprehensive
effort
to implement defensive measures in the United States.
Discussion:
As noted earlier, the Joint Inquiry has established that the
Intelligence
Community acquired and disseminated from 1998 through the summer of
2001
intelligence reports indicating in broad terms that Usama Bin Ladin’s network
intended
to carry out terrorist attacks inside the United States. This information
encompassed,
for example, indications of plots for attacks within the United States that
would
include:
• attacks on civil aviation;
• assassinations of U.S. public officials;
• use of high explosives;
• attacks on Washington, D.C., New York City, and cities
on the West Coast;
• crashing aircraft into buildings as weapons; and
• using weapons of mass destruction.
The
intelligence that was acquired and shared by the Intelligence Community was
not
specific as to time and place, but should have been sufficient to prompt action
to
insure
a heightened sense of alert and implementation of additional defensive
measures.
Such
actions could have included: strengthened civil aviation security measures;
increased
attention to watchlisting suspected terrorists so as to keep them out of the
United
States; greater collaboration with state and local law enforcement authorities
concerning
the scope and nature of the potential threat; a sustained national effort to
inform
and alert the American public to the growing danger; and improved capabilities
to
deal
with the consequences of attacks involving mass destruction and casualties. The
U.S.
Government did take some steps in regard to detecting and preventing the use of
weapons
of mass destruction, but did not pursue a broad program of additional domestic
defensive
measures or public awareness.
[Page
125]
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Both
the DCI and the FBI Director discussed the important role that defensive
measures
could have played. According to the DCI’s ’s testimony, looking back at the
September
11 attacks:
. . .
since now we understand and possibly have understood the basis of the
history
of specific reporting with regard to specific targets, and the context
was we
raced from threat period to threat period, from target to target, and
once we
resolved them we never thought about the fact that the security
that
was protecting, whether it's a plane or an infrastructure or a bridge, is
poor to
begin and somebody will come back to the same target that they've
planned
against. Unless they see a security profile and a deterrent posture
that's
different, there's nothing to stop them from doing that, because
essentially
we all believed that it would never happen here. That's the
point.
. . . .
. . . I
posit a theory that we were so busy overseas in terms of what we
were
doing at the time that, you know, they were looking here the whole
time
and steadily planning in terms of what they were doing. So they
were
operating on two fronts.
FBI
Director Mueller added:
I think
you can look at what happened September 11 and I think both of us
would
say there are things we did right and things we missed and did
wrong.
But you look at it from the perspective of could we have prevented
these
individuals, identified these individuals and prevented them from
undertaking
this multi-plane undertaking, and I guess I would say I think
it's
speculation, but in looking at each of the areas that we could have done
better,
I'm not certain you get to the point where we stop these individuals.
On the
other hand, looking at the concept of hijacking planes and taking
them
over, as a country one could look back and say with reports of
hijackings
over a period of time, perhaps we as a country should have
looked
at changing the way we protect our planes, which means doing
what we
are doing now in terms of hardening the cockpit, understanding
that
the threat of a hijacking is not for a person to hijack a plane and get it
to the
ground, utilizing the passengers as hostages, but the concept of
using a
plane as a weapon. Had we, as a country, reached the position
where
the attacks were such and the possibilities such that we would
change
what we did in our airline industry to harden cockpits and train
pilots
to resist being taken over, that's another avenue that I think might
have
made a difference. But that's speculation.
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18.
Finding: Between 1996 and September 2001, the counterterrorism strategy
adopted
by the U. S. Government did not succeed in eliminating Afghanistan as a
sanctuary
and training ground for Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network. A range
of
instruments was used to counter al-Qa’ida, with law enforcement often emerging
[pge
126] as a leading tool because other means were deemed not to be feasible or
failed
to produce results. Although numerous successful prosecutions were
generated,
law enforcement efforts were not adequate by themselves to target or
eliminate
Bin Ladin’s sanctuary. While the United States persisted in observing the
rule of
law and accepted norms of international behavior, Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida
recognized
no rules and thrived in the safehaven provided by Afghanistan.
Discussion:
Between 1996 and September 2001, the United States worked with
dozens
of cooperating foreign governments to disrupt al-Qa’ida activities, arrest and
interrogate
operatives, and otherwise prevent terrorist attacks. Throughout that period of
time,
however, Afghanistan was largely a terrorist “safe haven.” In its Afghan
sanctuary,
al-Qa’ida
built a network for planning attacks, training and vetting recruits, indoctrinating
potential
radicals, and creating a terrorist army with little interference from the
United
States.
Some
CIA analysts and operators have told the Joint Inquiry that they recognized
as
early as 1997 or 1998 that, as long as the Taliban continued to grant Bin
Ladin’s
terrorist
organization sanctuary in Afghanistan, it would continue to train a large cadre
of
Islamic
extremists and generate numerous terrorist operations. In 1999, senior
officials at
the CIA
and the State Department began to focus on the Taliban as an integral part of
the
terrorist
problem. In 1999 and 2000, the State Department worked with the United
Nations
Security Council to obtain resolutions rebuking the Taliban for harboring Bin
Ladin
and allowing terrorist training. The Defense Department began to focus on this
issue
in late 2000, after the USS Cole bombing. A State Department demarche to
Taliban
representatives
in Pakistan, on June 26, 2001, specifically noted the threats to Americans
emanating
from Afghanistan and stated that the United States would hold the Taliban
regime
directly responsible for any actions taken by terrorists harbored by the
Taliban.
Former
National Security Advisor Berger noted in a statement to the Joint Inquiry
that
“In fact, there was a concerted military, economic, and diplomatic pressure on
the
Afghanistan
and the Taliban….” Mr. Berger also explained that Saudi Arabia and
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Pakistan
were pressed to cut support for the Taliban and that covert and military
measures
were taken to disrupt al-Qa’ida activities in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the
[page
127] Joint Inquiry found that none of these actions were effective in
hindering
terrorist
training or al-Qa’ida’s ability to operate from Afghanistan.
[Despite
the Intelligence Community’s growing recognition that Afghanistan was
churning
out thousands of radicals, the U.S. government did not integrate all the
instruments
of national power and policy – diplomatic, intelligence, economic, and
military
– to address this problem. [
].
Prior to September 11, military force was
used
only in the August 20, 1998 cruise missile strikes on targets in Afghanistan
and the
Sudan.
Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger testified to the Joint Inquiry
that
massive
military strikes on Afghanistan would have had little public or Congressional
support
before September 11, 2001. Moreover, as Mr. Berger noted to the Joint Inquiry,
a lack
of intelligence on which to base action hindered efforts to use military force
in
Afghanistan].
Permitting
the sanctuary in Afghanistan to exist for as long as it did allowed Bin
Ladin’s
key operatives to meet, plan operations, train recruits, identify particularly
capable
recruits or those with specialized skills, and ensure that al-Qa’ida’s
masterminds
remained
beyond the reach of international justice. In his testimony before the Joint
Committee
on October 17, 2002, the DCI responded to a question about what he would
do
differently prior to September 11, 2001, saying:
[H]indsight
is perfect, we should have taken down that sanctuary a lot
sooner.
The circumstances at the time may have not warranted, the
regional
situation may have been different, and after [September] 11 all I
can
tell you is we let a sanctuary fester, we let him build capability. And
there
may have been lots of good reasons why in hindsight it couldn't have
been
done earlier or sooner. I am not challenging it, because hindsight is
always
perfect, but we let him operate with impunity for a long time
without
putting the full force and muscle of the United States against it.
As an
adjunct to covert and military efforts to eliminate Bin Ladin’s sanctuary in
Afghanistan,
the United States Government relied heavily on law enforcement to counter
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[page
128] terrorism. The origins of this emphasis on prosecutions can be traced
back to
the
1980s, when Congress and President Reagan gave the FBI an important role in
countering
international terrorism, including events overseas. More recently, the
successful
prosecutions of individuals involved in the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing,
the plot to attack New York City landmarks, and the 1998 bombings of two
U.S.
Embassies in East Africa added to the emphasis on law enforcement as a
counterterrorism
measure.
Senior
Department of Justice officials, including former U.S. Attorney for the
Southern
District of New York Mary Jo White, who prosecuted many of the most
important
cases against al-Qa’ida, point out that they saw their efforts as an adjunct to
other
means of fighting terrorism. Prosecutions do have several advantages in the
fight
against
terrorism. As Ms. White noted to the Joint Inquiry, prosecutions take
terrorists
off the
street. She acknowledged that this does not shut down an entire group, but some
bombs
do not go off as a result of the arrests. In addition, critical intelligence
often
comes
from the investigative process, as individual terrorists confess or reveal
associates
through
their personal effects and communications. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh
pointed
out to the Joint Inquiry, “you can’t divorce arrest from prevention.” Ms. White
also
contends that the prosecutions may deter some, though admittedly not all,
individuals
from using violence. Finally, the threat of a jail sentence often induces
terrorists
to cooperate with investigators and provide information.
Heavy
reliance on law enforcement had limits, however. As Paul Pillar, National
Intelligence
Officer for the Near East and Asia, explained to the Joint Inquiry, it is
easier
to
arrest underlings than masterminds. Those who organize and plan attacks,
particularly
the
ultimate decision makers who authorize them, are often thousands of miles away
when an
attack is carried out. In addition, the deterrent effect of imprisonment is
often
minimal,
particularly for highly motivated terrorists such as those in al-Qa’ida.
Moreover,
law enforcement is time-consuming. The CIA and the FBI expended
considerable
resources supporting investigations in Africa and in Yemen regarding the
Embassies
and USS Cole attacks, a drain on scarce manpower and resources that
could
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[page
129] have been used to gather information and disrupt future attacks.
Further, there
were no
established mechanisms for law enforcement officials to share foreign
intelligence
developed in these investigations with the Intelligence Community, and they
did not
always recognize it, prior to September 11. Finally, law enforcement standards
of
evidence
are high, and meeting these standards often requires unattainable intelligence
or
the
compromise of sensitive intelligence sources or methods.
At
times, law enforcement and intelligence have competing interests. The former
head of
the FBI’s International Terrorism Division noted to the Joint Inquiry that
Attorney
General Janet Reno leaned toward closing down Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance
Act-based collection activities if they seemed to hinder criminal cases. Ms.
White,
however, said that the need for intelligence was balanced with the effort to
arrest
and
prosecute terrorists.
The
reliance on law enforcement when individuals can operate from a hostile
country
such as the Taliban’s Afghanistan appears particularly ineffective, as the
masterminds
are often beyond the reach of justice. One FBI agent, in a Joint inquiry
interview,
scorned the idea of using the Bureau to take the lead in countering al-Qa’ida.
He
noted that the FBI can only arrest and support prosecution and cannot shut down
training
camps in hostile countries. He added that, “[it] is like telling the FBI after
Pearl
Harbor,
‘go to Tokyo and arrest the Emperor.’” In his opinion, a military solution was
necessary
because, “[t]he Southern District [of New York] doesn’t have any cruise
missiles.”
As the DCI testified to the Joint Inquiry on June 19, 2002:
The
fact that you went into the sanctuary and took it down is the single
most
important thing that occurred [after September 11], because they no
longer
operated with impunity in terms of their training and financing and
all the
things they were doing. And that opportunistically has changed the
game.
So the policy question I would answer first is, the longer you wait
when
you see this kind of thing, the longer you wait to intervene, the
longer
you wait to allow evidence to manifest behavior, I guarantee you
will be
surprised and hurt.
19.
Finding: Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community and the U.S.
Government
labored to prevent attacks by Usama Bin Ladin and his terrorist
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[page
130] network against the United States, but largely without
the benefit of an
alert,
mobilized and committed American public. Despite intelligence information
on the
immediacy of the threat level in the spring and summer of 2001, the
assumption
prevailed in the U.S. Government that attacks of the magnitude of
September
11 could not happen here. As a result, there was insufficient effort to
alert
the American public to the reality and gravity of the threat.
Discussion:
The record of this Joint Inquiry indicates that, prior to September 11,
2001,
the U.S. Intelligence Community was involved in fighting a “war” against Bin
Ladin
largely without the benefit of what some would call its most potent weapon in
that
effort:
an alert and committed American public. Senior levels of the Intelligence
Community,
as well as senior U.S. Government policymakers, were aware of the danger
posed
by Bin Ladin. Information that was shared with senior U.S. Government
officials,
but was
not made available to the American public because of its national security
classification,
was explicit about the gravity and immediacy of the threat posed by Bin
Ladin.
For example:
• In December 1998, as noted earlier, the DCI wrote: “We
must now enter a
new
phase in our effort against Bin Ladin…We are at war…I want no
resources
or people spared in this effort, either inside CIA or the [Intelligence]
Community.”
• A classified document signed by the President in
December 1998 read in part:
“The
Intelligence Community has strong indications that Bin Ladin intends to
conduct
or sponsor attacks inside the United States”; and
• A classified document signed by the President in July
1999 characterized a
February
1998 statement by Bin Ladin statement as a “de facto declaration of
war” on
the United States.
In
addition, numerous classified intelligence reports were produced and
disseminated
by the Intelligence Community prior to September 11, based upon
information
obtained from a variety of sources, about possible terrorist attacks being
planned
by Usama Bin Ladin’s terrorist network. Some of this information was
summarized
and released, in declassified form, in the Joint Inquiry’s September 18, 2002
hearing,
including: [page 131]
• In June 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained
information from several
sources
that Usama Bin Ladin was considering attacks in the United States,
including
against Washington, D. C. and New York;
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• In August 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained
information that a
group
of unidentified Arabs planned to crash an explosive-laden plane from a
foreign
country into the World Trade Center;
• In September 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained
information that
Usama
Bin Ladin’s next operation could possibly involve flying an aircraft
loaded
with explosives into a U.S. airport;
• In October 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained
information that al-
Qa’ida
was trying to establish an operative cell within the United States, and
that
there might be an effort underway to recruit U.S. citizen- Islamists and
U.S.-based
expatriates from the Middle East and North Africa;
• In September 1999, the Intelligence Community obtained
information that
Usama
Bin Ladin and others were planning a terrorist act in the United States,
possibly
against specific landmarks in California and New York City; and
• In late 1999, the Intelligence Community obtained
information regarding the
Bin
Ladin network’s possible plans to attack targets in Washington, D. C. and
New
York City during the New Year’s Millennium celebrations.
There
is little indication of any sustained and successful national effort to
mobilize
public awareness about the gravity and immediacy of the threat prior to
September
11, however. Specifically citing speeches by President Clinton at the United
Nations
in 1995 and at George Washington University in1996 regarding the fight against
terrorism,
former national Security Advisor Sandy Berger told the Inquiry that the
President:
“continuously attempted to raise public awareness of the terrorist threat, as a
central
challenge to our country and our future, [and] including in every State of the
Union
address for eight years.”
Clearly,
there were Presidential remarks regarding terrorism in the years before
September
11, 2001, including references to the threat that Bin Ladin’s network posed to
the
interests of the United States. There were also periodic statements and
references to
[page
132] the threat from terrorism and Bin Ladin in Congressional testimony and
elsewhere
by both the DCI and the FBI Director.
In an
interview, Richard Clarke, the former National Counterterrorism
Coordinator
under President Clinton, pointed to background briefings to the press by his
office
immediately after the Millennium crisis in January-February 2000 and the
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Administration’s
cooperation with the New York Times in December 2000 and with
CBS’s 60
Minutes on stories about terrorism as efforts to inform the American people
of
the
growing terrorist threat.
These
efforts were, however, largely sporadic and, given the classified nature of
intelligence,
limited in terms of the specifics that could be shared with the public about
the
immediacy and gravity of the threat. They were not sufficient to mobilize and
sustain
heightened
public awareness about the danger of a domestic attack.
By
comparison to what has occurred since September 11, the American public
was not
focused on and was not on heightened alert regarding Bin Ladin, his fatwa
against
the United States, and the immediate likelihood of a terrorist attack on
American
soil.
In the aftermath of September 11, two incidents illustrate the difference that
an
alerted
American public can, and does, make:
• On September 11, 2001, passengers aboard Flight 93,
aware that two aircraft
had
been flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York City,
attempted
to retake control of their hijacked aircraft and, it is widely believed,
saved
further loss of life and destruction; and
• On December 22, 2001, an alert flight attendant on
board an American
Airlines
flight from Paris to Miami noticed passenger Richard Reid attempting
to
light a fuse in his shoe. Reid was subsequently subdued by a number of
passengers
and has pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to blow up the
aircraft.
[Page
133]
Kristen
Breitweiser, speaking on behalf of the families of the victims of the
September
11 attacks, reminded the Joint Inquiry of the importance of an alert and
involved
American public in the war against terrorism. In her testimony, she emphasized
the
potential importance of information that was not shared with the public before
September
11, 2001:
One
thing remains clear from history. Our intelligence agencies were
acutely
aware of an impending domestic risk posed by Al Qaeda. A
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question
that remains unclear is how many lives could have been saved
had
this information been made more public.
. . . .
How
many victims may have taken notice of these Middle Eastern men
while
they were boarding their plane? Could these men have been
stopped?
Going further, how many vigilant employees would have chosen
to
immediately flee Tower 2 after they witnessed the blazing inferno in
Tower
1, if only they had known that an Al Qaeda terrorist attack was
imminent?
Could
the devastation of September 11 been diminished in any degree had
the
government’s information been made public in the summer of 2001?
20.
Finding: Located in Part Four Entitled “Finding, Discussion and Narrative
Regarding
Certain Sensitive National Security Matters.”
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