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OIG findings regarding FBI�s knowledge about Mihdhar and the Malaysia meetings We discuss here our findings regarding the FBI�s knowledge of information about Mihdhar and the January 2000 Malaysia meetings, including whether the intelligence information concerning Mihdhar�s valid multiple entry U.S. visa and Hazmi�s travel to the United States in January 2000 was passed to the FBI.
Several witnesses told the OIG that Mihdhar�s possession of a U.S. visa provided a clear domestic nexus that should have triggered the passing of this information from the CIA to the FBI.
At the outset, we note that the CIA has acknowledged that it obtained information that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa and that Hazmi had traveled to the United States, and that the CIA should have placed their names on U.S. watchlists, but that this did not occur.115 The CIA OIG is reviewing this matter to determine why this failure occurred and who is responsible for it.
Formal passage of information from the CIA to the FBI As noted above, the formal method of communicating intelligence information between the CIA and the FBI was an intelligence report called a CIR.
CIA records show that between July 1999 and September 10, 2001, the Bin Laden Unit disseminated over 1,000 CIRs, most of which were sent to the FBI.
CTC employees as well as FBI detailees to Bin Laden Unit had authority to draft CIRs, and the detailees collectively drafted over 150 CIRs to the FBI during this period.
However, CIRs could only be disseminated by persons with authority to �release� the CIRs.116 In the Bin Laden Unit, only supervisors, including John and Eric as the deputy chiefs of the station, had authority to release CIRs.117 Dwight drafted a CIR in which he summarized the information that had been disseminated by the NSA about Mihdhar.
He also provided detailed information about Mihdhar�s passport, visa, and visa application indicating that New York had been his intended destination.
According to CIA records, this CIR never was disseminated to the FBI.
A desk officer�s note on the draft CIR indicated that the Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Unit, John, had instructed the draft CIR be put on hold, and Dwight contacted him through an e-mail about the disposition of the CIR a week later.
Despite this e-mail, the evidence clearly shows that the CIR never was disseminated to the FBI.
The evidence shows, however, that Dwight acted in accordance with the system that was in place at the time by drafting the CIR to formally pass the visa information to the FBI.
In accordance with Bin Laden Unit policy, Dwight was not permitted to pass the CIR to the FBI without permission.
All of the witnesses stated, however, that they did not recall the CIR or any communications about it.
Other than the note written by the desk officer, we found no documentary evidence about why the CIR was not disseminated.
Thus, we were unable to determine why it was not sent.
The information in the CIR, which was documented in the appropriate format for passage to the FBI, was potentially significant to the FBI and should have been passed to the FBI.
We believe it was a significant failure for the CIR not to be sent to the FBI.
Informal passage of information from CIA to FBI We also considered what information that James, a CIA detailee to the FBI, informally passed to FBI Headquarters and whether he informed anyone of the visa information about Mihdhar.
Based on the contemporaneous e-mails in which James documented in detail what he told FBI SSAs Bob and Ted, we concluded that he reported to the FBI the information regarding Mihdhar�s transit through Dubai, his arrival in Kuala Lumpur, his activities after his arrival, and his meeting with other suspected al Qaeda operatives.
It is far less clear, however, whether he provided Mihdhar�s passport and U.S. visa information to the FBI.
We do not believe that James briefed either Bob or Ted on Mihdhar�s passport or U.S. visa information.
First, nothing in Bob�s contemporaneous notes or Ted�s e-mail or briefing update referred to Mihdhar�s passport or visa information.
[INFORMATION REDACTED] Moreover, James wrote a detailed e-mail to document the contents of his conversations with Bob and Ted.
Since the stated purpose of James� e mail was to prevent the FBI from later claiming he had failed to brief them on some important details, he had every incentive to include all relevant details in that e-mail.
At the time he wrote this e-mail, he had read three of the CIA cables indicating that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, as well as the draft CIR.
Yet, James� e-mail contained no mention of Mihdhar�s passport or visa.
We found only one piece of evidence suggesting that the FBI was made aware in January 2000 of Mihdhar�s U.S. visa � the early January cable by the desk officer who we call Michelle which stated that Mihdhar�s travel documents, including a multiple entry U.S. visa, had been copied and passed �to the FBI for further investigation.� We could not, however, find any evidence to corroborate that this information actually had been passed to the FBI.
This cable did not state by whom or to whom the documents were passed or make any other reference to the passage of the documents.
The cable was an internal cable, which means it would not have been forwarded to or accessible to the FBI.
In addition, Michelle, the CIA desk officer who wrote the cable, had no recollection of who told her that the documents had been passed or how they had been passed.
She said that she would not have been responsible for passing the information but instead would have been told by someone else that the documents had been passed.
We were unable to locate any witness who said they remembered anything about the documents being passed to the FBI, as Michelle�s cable asserted.
Even if her cable was accurate, and she had been told by someone that the documents had been passed to the FBI, there is no evidence that such information was correct.
The CIA and FBI witnesses we interviewed described this period as very hectic and said they were flooded with information.
Several witnesses suggested that these hectic circumstances could have created an environment where unintentional misunderstandings might have occurred about whether information was actually passed to other Intelligence Community agencies.
We also searched ACS for any FBI record of the travel documents having been provided to the FBI, since this cable indicated that a physical copy of the documents, not merely information about the documents, was passed.
We found no reference to the documents.
Aside from this cable, we found no other evidence that the information or documents about Mihdhar�s passport or visa information was in fact provided to the FBI during this time period.
FBI detailees� handling of information on Mihdhar As discussed above, five FBI employees were detailed to the CTC to work on Bin Laden matters during 2000 and 2001, and all had access at their desks to CIA internal cable traffic.
Four of those employees � the supervisor who we call Eric, the IOS who we call Mary, and the agents who we call Dwight and Malcolm � were at the Bin Laden Unit in January 2000 when the Malaysia meetings occurred.118 We considered how each handled the intelligence information concerning Mihdhar during this period.
After reading two of the cables indicating that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, Dwight prepared a draft CIR to officially notify the FBI about that information, since the U.S. visa presented a nexus between Mihdhar and the United States.
But the CIR was not provided to the FBI.
However, we also examined whether any of the detailees took any other action to notify FBI Headquarters or, in Malcolm�s case, the New York Field Office, about the information concerning Mihdhar.
The evidence shows that each FBI detailee reviewed some of the cables about Mihdhar�s U.S. visa.
Dwight accessed several of the cables that indicated Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, such as the cables stating that Mihdhar had transited through Dubai and had a U.S. visa, the cable stating that Mihdhar�s visa application listed New York as his intended destination in May 1999, and the cable stating that based on a review of Mihdhar�s visa, it did not appear that he had actually traveled to the United States.
Malcolm also accessed the cable stating that Mihdhar�s visa application listed New York as his intended destination in May 1999, and the cable stating that it did not appear that Mihdhar had actually traveled to the United States.
Malcolm also accessed the two cables stating that Mihdhar had arrived in Kuala Lumpur and that surveillance photos showed him meeting with others in Malaysia.
Malcolm also accessed Dwight�s draft CIR indicating passage of the visa information to the FBI, including the New York Field Office.
Mary accessed the January cable stating that Mihdhar�s travel documents, including a multiple-entry U.S. visa, had been passed to the FBI, but she did not access the previous cables reflecting the visa information or Dwight�s CIR.
She also accessed the two cables stating that Mihdhar had arrived in Kuala Lumpur and that surveillance photos showed him meeting with others in Malaysia.
Eric did not access these cables, but he accessed Dwight�s draft CIR which detailed Mihdhar�s visa information and which summarized the NSA information.
However, Dwight, Malcolm, Mary, and Eric all told the OIG that they did not recall anyone from the CIA bringing to their attention the fact that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa.119 In addition, despite the records of their access to the cable traffic or the CIR, they all told the OIG that they did not recall discovering at the time � such as by reading a cable � that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa.
As discussed above, Dwight told the OIG that he did not even recall writing the CIR or even being aware of the Malaysia meetings or of the fact that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa.
Eric told the OIG that his CIA counterpart � John, the CIA Bin Laden Unit Deputy Chief � mentioned the Malaysia meetings and that surveillance photos had been taken, but Eric did not recall ever hearing anything about Mihdhar having a U.S. visa.
Mary told the OIG that she did not recall even being contemporaneously aware of the Malaysia meetings.120 Mary explained that she did not have reason to be made aware of the Malaysia meetings at the time because the matter had been assigned to another CIA desk officer � Michelle (the one who wrote the cable indicating that Mihdhar�s travel documents had been passed to the FBI).
Malcolm said he was not aware of the fact that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa until after September 11.
He stated that he recalled being shown the Kuala Lumpur photos, but he could not remember whether that was before or after September 11.
He said that it was not until he was shown the Kuala Lumpur photos that he became aware of the Malaysia meetings.
Yet, the evidence shows that all had accessed contemporaneously cables indicating that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, which was important intelligence information that was never provided to FBI Headquarters.
They did not violate any specific policy or procedure in their handling of the information, and they did not have the authority to unilaterally pass CTC information to the FBI without permission.
This restriction included any informal passage of the information, such as by telephone call or in-person discussions.
However, none of them, particularly Dwight, ensured that the information was provided to the FBI.
Dwight drafted a CIR that would have provided the FBI with the important information about Mihdhar, but the CIR was not released by the CIA.
Although Dwight followed up a few days later to ask whether the cable was going to be sent or whether he should remake it in some other way, there is no record of a response to his request, and no one could explain why the cable was not sent.
We believe it was critical that the information be sent.
We found no indication that this ever happened.
This failure to send the information to the FBI, in our view, was also attributable to problems in how the detailees were instructed and supervised, and that these problems significantly impeded the flow of information between the CIA and the FBI.
We discuss these systemic problems in detail in our analysis section later in this chapter.
OIG conclusion In sum, the evidence shows that in January and March 2000, the CIA uncovered important intelligence information about Mihdhar and Hazmi: [INFORMATION REDACTED]; They traveled to Bangkok with a third person; Mihdhar had a valid, multiple-entry U.S. visa; and Hazmi had traveled to Los Angeles in January 2000.
Yet, we found that the CIA did not share significant pieces of this information with the FBI � that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa and that Hazmi had traveled to Los Angeles.
An FBI detailee at the CIA drafted a CIR to share this information with the FBI, but that information was not released by the CIA to the FBI.
We were unable to determine why this did not occur.
No one we interviewed said they remembered the CIR or why it was not sent to the FBI.
We consider it a significant failure for this CIR not to be sent to the FBI.
In addition, the evidence shows that the limited information that was provided to FBI Headquarters � that Mihdhar traveled [INFORMATION REDACTED] was never documented by the FBI in any system that was retrievable or searchable, thus limiting the usefulness of the information that was shared.
The FBI�s only official record of having received this information was in the hard copies of the January 5 threat update, which was attached to the January 6 executive briefing, and Ted�s e-mail summarizing information from his discussion with the CIA employee.
We discuss this and other systemic problems in our analysis section below.
Hazmi and Mihdhar in San Diego Introduction The second set of events that may have led the FBI to discover Mihdhar and Hazmi�s presence in the United States related to their stay in San Diego.
As noted above, on January 15, 2000, Mihdhar and Hazmi boarded a flight in Bangkok, Thailand, for Los Angeles.
They were admitted to the United States on non-immigrant visitor visas and authorized to remain in the U.S. until July 14, 2000.
Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, they traveled to San Diego, California, where they were aided in finding a place to stay by Omar al Bayoumi.
Bayoumi had been the subject of an FBI preliminary intelligence investigation that had been closed.
In late May 2000, Hazmi and Mihdhar rented a room in the residence of an FBI asset.121 Mihdhar remained in San Diego until June 10, 2000, when he left the United States.122 Hazmi remained in the San Diego area until approximately December 2000, when he moved to the Phoenix, Arizona area.
In Phoenix, Hazmi lived for approximately three months with another September 11 hijacker, Hani Hanjour.
In April 2001, Hazmi and Hanjour moved to New Jersey and remained on the East Coast until September 11.
While residing in San Diego in 2000, Mihdhar and Hazmi did not act in an unusual manner that would draw attention, but they did not attempt to hide their identities.
Using the same names contained in their travel documents and known to at least some in the Intelligence Community, they rented an apartment, obtained driver�s licenses from the state of California Department of Motor Vehicles, opened bank accounts and received bank credit cards, purchased a used vehicle and automotive insurance, took flying lessons at a local flying school, and obtained local phone service that included Hazmi�s listing in the local telephone directory.
Although Hazmi and Mihdhar were in San Diego for a significant period of time, the FBI did not learn of their presence there until after September 11, 2001.
After September 11, much would be learned about Hazmi and Mihdhar�s time in San Diego and the Intelligence Community�s missed opportunities to find and investigate them before the terrorist attacks in which they participated.
In this section, we describe the facts surrounding Hazmi and Mihdhar�s residence in San Diego, including their associations with two persons known to the FBI.
Hazmi and Mihdhar�s association with Bayoumi Omar al-Bayoumi is a Saudi Arabian national who came to the United States in 1993.
In early 2000 he had been living with his wife and four children in San Diego for at least four years.
Although he described himself to others in San Diego as a graduate student in business administration, he took classes intermittently and was not enrolled in a program of study.
He did not work in the United States and received a monthly stipend of $4,000 plus �other allowances,� ranging from $465 to $3,800 each month, from Dallah/Avco, a Saudi contractor to the Presidency of Civil Aviation.123 Bayoumi was active in the San Diego Muslim community and was involved in the establishment of several mosques in the United States.
In September 1998, the FBI�s San Diego Field Office opened a preliminary inquiry on Bayoumi based on allegations raised by the manager in the apartment complex where he was living at the time.
The manager alleged that Bayoumi had received a suspicious package from the Middle East, and the maintenance worker for the apartment complex had noted strange wires in Bayoumi�s bathroom.
In addition, the manager reported frequent gatherings of young Middle Eastern males at Bayoumi�s apartment on weekend nights.
The FBI case agent conducted a limited investigation of Bayoumi, but the preliminary inquiry was closed in June 1999 and was not converted to a full field investigation.124 As a result, the FBI was no longer investigating Bayoumi at the time that Hazmi and Mihdhar met Bayoumi in February 2000.
However, the following paragraphs describe what was later learned about Bayoumi�s interactions with Hazmi and Mihdhar.