Reply #23: CIA order to FBI liaison CounterTerrorism Center to withhold warningcable [View All]

[leveymg]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/10/105125/910

Perjury by CIA Counterterrorism Center Director - the Blocked Memo
by leveymg
Fri Jun 10, 2005 at 07:51:25 AM PDT
June 10, 2005. The LA Times reports that in early 2000, the CIA intentionally withheld a memo from the FBI that reported the entry of key 9/11 hijackers into the US. See:

In his testimony before the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee in September 2002, former head of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC) stated under oath that his office had inadvertently neglected to inform the FBI when it became known in early 2000 that Flight 77 hijacker, Nawaf al-Midhar, had entered the U.S. However, it was revealed yesterday that a memo informing the FBI had actually been drafted at CTC, but an order was issued blocking transmission of that information.

leveymg's diary :: ::
In this sworn testimony, Cofer Black stated that he and Agency staff had simply missed the importance of reports that know al-Qaeda terrorists had entered the US after attending an al-Qaeda planning summit. According to Black, then CTC director -- who after 9/11 was promoted by President Bush to head State Department Counterterrorism -- the CIA Center failed to pass this information on to the FBI in early 2000 because staff were distracted and overworked. For more information see:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/03/01_ ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/09/p/2 ...
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00257.htm

However, as we learned yesterday, Black's testimony to Congress was a material misrepresentation of what is the most important question that Congress had for the CIA. Why wasn't the FBI informed in a timely way of this obviously critical development in tracking known al-Qaeda terrorists?

As ranking officer at CTC, Cofer Black was in a position to know about the Center's memo that had been prepared for transmittal to the FBI at the time. He was also clearly in the chain of command that would decide to block the memo's transmission to the FBI. Nonetheless, Black told Congressional investigators something quite different, and his testimony under oath before the Joint Committee was patently false, in light of the facts that were released yesterday.

US intelligence first became aware of Nawaf Al-Midhar in 1995, when he was referenced in a telephone call from a major al-Qaeda communications center in Yemen intercepted by the NSA. That communications post was run by Nawaf's uncle. The Al-Midhar family has long been prominent within the militant Yemeni Islamic opposition. Osama bin Laden's family is originally from Yemen, which has been the center of armed opposition to westerners for many decades since the British occupied the key port city of Aden and built a huge naval base there, which in the late 1990s was again visited by US naval forces after a long absence. This was viewed as a serious provocation by local Islamic radicals. The USS Cole was blown up in Aden harbour in October, 2000 during a "refueling stop".

In January 2000, The Agency had trailed the al-Midhar and his partner, Khalid al-Hazmi, as they traveled to a meeting with top al-Qaeda planners in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. That meeting. at which 9/11 and the bombing of the USS Cole were planned, was surveilled by multiple US and allied intelligence agencies. Al-Hazmi and Al-Midhar reentered the US on the same flight from Bangkok on January 15, 2000.

Somehow -- and this has been a major gap in the record -- the CIA neglected to notify FBI of the entry.

Now we know that this failure to notify the FBI was no oversight. A command decision was taken by the CIA -- Director Tenet had been briefed on multiple occasions about al-Midhar and al-Hazmi and the Kuala Lumpur meeting. The only question that remains is, why did the CIA allow known al-Qaeda terrorists to run free across the US, and complete their mission on 9/11?

The Bush Administration must now appoint a special counsel to immediately investigate Black's apparent perjury. Any delay can be viewed as obstruction of justice, and as an impeachable offense.

Copyright 2005. Mark G. Levey




http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9108.htm

Memo on 9/11 Plotters Blocked

New disclosures show that CIA information in 2000 about two Al Qaeda operatives in San Diego was squelched before reaching the FBI.

By Josh Meyer
Times Staff Writer

06/10/05 "Los Angeles Times"- - WASHINGTON — A chilling new detail of U.S. intelligence failures emerged Thursday, when the Justice Department disclosed that about 20 months before the Sept. 11 attacks, a CIA official had blocked a memo intended to alert the FBI that two known Al Qaeda operatives had entered the country.

The two men were among the 19 hijackers who crashed airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

If the FBI had received the official communique from the CIA's special Osama bin Laden unit when it was ready for transmittal in January 2000, its agents likely could have tracked down the men, according to U.S. intelligence officials familiar with a newly declassified report of the Justice Department's inspector general.

Officials involved in the case of alleged would-be hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui had attempted to block release of the report, asserting that it would compromise the outcome of his case. But Inspector General Glenn A. Fine went to court and won release of the report after deleting the section on Moussaoui.

The report does not draw major new conclusions or disclose significant new episodes about the months and years leading up to Sept. 11. Rather, it fills in blanks and provides new details about previously known matters — notably the failure to learn sooner about Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, the so-called San Diego hijackers.

An 18-month delay in the CIA's handing over of information about the two hijackers to the FBI and other domestic law enforcement agencies had been well-publicized. But the report's conclusion that an agent had written a memo specifically designed for transmittal to the FBI to alert the bureau to the men's presence — and that a supervisor deliberately had prevented it from being sent — is new.

The reason the CIA official, identified by the fictitious name "John," put a hold on the communique remains a mystery, the report said. It said the officials involved didn't recall the incident. Even when the author of the memo followed up a week later with an e-mail asking if it had been sent to the FBI, nothing was done.

The memo was written by an FBI agent on assignment to the CIA's special Bin Laden unit. According to the report, rather than send his memo directly to the FBI, he sent it to the deputy chief of the CIA unit because only supervisors were authorized to send such memos to the FBI.

Fine's report contains extensive new detail about that incident, as well as several already reported missed opportunities by the FBI to track down the two men.


SNIP


Days after a meeting of Al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia in January 2000, the CIA's Bin Laden specialists drafted a flurry of memos about the two men, their suspected terrorist connections and Almihdhar's possible ties to the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. Some of the memos were based in part on intelligence provided by the National Security Agency. The CIA was also in possession of a photocopy of Almihdhar's Saudi passport and valid multi-entry visa to the U.S.

Several cables from the CIA's Bin Laden desk disseminated the information to agency officials around the world — including to one of the unit's special agents detailed to the FBI's Washington field office, according to Fine's report.

That employee, "Dwight," began drafting a memo addressed to the FBI's Bin Laden unit chief at bureau headquarters and to its New York field office. The memo contained virtually all of the details known to the agency, including Almihdhar's passport and visa information, which listed his intention to stay in New York.

But at 4 p.m. that day, another CIA Bin Laden desk officer, "Michelle," added a note to the memo: "pls hold off on for now per ."

Eight days later, in mid-January, "Dwight" sent an e-mail to "John," asking why it hadn't been sent: "Is this a no go, or should I remake it in some way."

The CIA was unable to locate a response to the e-mail. Fine's report concludes that the CIA didn't turn over documentation of the electronic memo until Fine's investigators came across a reference and specifically asked for it in February 2004. That came so late in the investigation that it delayed release of the report and caused many more CIA and FBI officials to be interviewed, the report says.

Ultimately, Fine's investigators gave up trying to find an explanation.

Records show that the CIA didn't forward the information about Almihdhar and Alhazmi to domestic law enforcement officials until late August 2001, when it asked that the men be put on watch lists.





Also, see

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/fbi-911/index.html

A Review of
the FBI's Handling of Intelligence Information
Related to the September 11 Attacks
Office of the Inspector General
U.S. Department of Justice

Unclassified Version
June 19, 2006
This report is an unclassified version of the full report that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) completed in 2004 and provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Justice, the Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The OIG's full report is classified at the Top Secret/SCI level.

SNIP

CHAPTER 5 (PDF file) http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/fbi-911/index.html