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But significant systemic problems, which we describe below, hindered the flow of information between the CIA and the FBI.
Use of detailees One of the most significant opportunities for the FBI to have obtained the intelligence information relating to Hazmi and Mihdhar was through the FBI detailees at the CTC.
As discussed above, the FBI detailees to the CTC had access to CIA cable traffic and could read the cables that discussed Mihdhar�s U.S. visa, the surveillance of the meetings [INFORMATION REDACTED] in Malaysia, Hazmi�s subsequent travel to the United States, and the [INFORMATION REDACTED].
Several of the FBI detailees accessed and read some of these cables.
Significantly, in January 2000, one detailee, Dwight, prepared a draft CIR to pass to the FBI the information about Mihdhar�s visa, [INFORMATION REDACTED], and his travel to Malaysia.
The FBI should have been informed of this information because of its clear domestic nexus.
However, the CIR was never sent to the FBI.
According to a note on the CIR, John, a Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Unit, directed that the CIR be placed on hold, and FBI detailees did not have authority to disseminate CTC information without approval from the CIA.
Eight days later, Dwight inquired about the disposition of the CIR through an e-mail to John asking whether anything needed to be changed on the cable.
However, this e-mail failed to prompt further action on this CIR.
The witnesses we interviewed had no recollection of the CIR and why it was not sent.
We found no further record that anything was done with regard to the CIR.
In our view, the CIA should have sent the CIR to the FBI because of the important information it contained, and the FBI detailee should have followed up to ensure that it was sent.
While we found evidence that Dwight inquired about its status at least once, there is no evidence that he took any other action to ensure that the information was sent to the FBI, including inquiring with other CTC supervisors about the need to send the cable to the FBI.
In reviewing the actions of the detailees, we found that the FBI lacked clear guidance on the role and responsibilities of FBI detailees to the CTC�s Bin Laden Unit.
This led to inconsistent expectations about what they were supposed to be doing at the CTC.
Our review of the documents and interviews with the five FBI detailees to the CTC�s Bin Laden Unit found that none of them had defined duties that were clearly understood, either by them or FBI managers.
Nor were there any memoranda of understanding (MOU) between the FBI and the CIA setting out the job duties and responsibilities of any of the detailees.192 Moreover, we asked the FBI for the performance appraisals for all five of the detailees to the Bin Laden Unit during this period, and we received appraisals for three of them.
They revealed that the FBI detailees were evaluated based on the elements for their positions at the FBI, not based on whatever they were supposed to be doing while working at the CTC.193 The FBI was unable to provide any other documents defining or outlining the roles or responsibilities of these detailees.
We also interviewed the detailees about their understanding of their roles and responsibilities at the CTC.
They stated that they were not given any specific instructions about their job duties.
They described their details at the CTC as ill-defined and with little direction.
As a result, each detailee defined the job at the CIA as he or she determined it to be, and there was significant variation in their conceptions of the job.
For example, Dwight told the OIG that he focused on leads that were related to financial components of terrorism, which he developed from various sources, such as from reviewing cable traffic, from his supervisors at the CTC, and from referrals from CIA officers at the CTC.
By contrast, Malcolm told the OIG that he thought he was the �eyes and ears� of the New York Field Office, and that his role was �to monitor� cases being worked jointly by the CIA and the New York Field Office, such as the East African embassy bombings investigation.
He said that he also would follow up on requests for information from the FBI to the CIA.
Moreover, Mary said she was not given any specific instructions about her role at the CIA, but she was eventually trained to be a CTC desk officer and that was how she operated � like other CTC desk officers with specific assignments or �accounts.� Eric, who was a Bin Laden Unit Deputy Chief, said that he was told �to fix� the relationship between the Bin Laden Unit and the FBI, but he was not given any specific instructions about how to go about accomplishing this objective.
He said that he assisted in the running of the Bin Laden Unit by directly overseeing CTC operations and that he also functioned in a liaison role between the CIA and the FBI.
He supervised the FBI detailees like he did other Bin Laden Unit employees.
He was not given any other supervisory oversight particular to the detailees.
He said that on his own initiative he tried to stay abreast of matters that might be of interest to the FBI by reading the CTC cable traffic.
However, he explained that determining what might be of interest to the FBI was very subjective because there were no criteria defining what should be brought to the attention of the FBI.
We also interviewed the highest-ranking FBI employee detailed to the CTC, who was a Deputy Chief of the CTC from 1999 through 2002.
We call him �Evan.� Evan believed that one of the FBI detailees� functions would have been to review CIA cable traffic for information of potential relevance to the FBI.
Yet, the detailees told the OIG that while reviewing CIA cable traffic was part of their jobs, it was not their function to review cable traffic for items of interest to the FBI, and they did not review all of the cable traffic on a daily basis.
They said they did not think they were acting as backstops to ensure that anything that might be relevant to the FBI was brought to the FBI�s attention.194 The detailees asserted emphatically that their function did not entail scouring CIA cable traffic for the FBI, and their efficacy would be limited if they were perceived by CIA personnel merely as moles for the FBI.195 They also explained that even if this had been their role, it would have been difficult to do because of the volume of cables, especially during the chaotic Millennium period.
The two FBI employees who held similar supervisory positions � one as a deputy chief in the Bin Laden Unit and the other as a deputy chief in another unit that later housed the Bin Laden Unit � also had differing views on their responsibility for reviewing cable traffic.
Both agreed that their role was not merely to review cable traffic for items of interest to the FBI.
Eric told the OIG that while he tried to review the traffic in order to stay abreast of the information in the CTC, it was too much for one person to manage effectively.
By contrast, Craig, who followed Eric as a manager detailed to the CTC, told the OIG that he did not even attempt to review the cable traffic but only focused on those cables that required action on his part.
In addition to failing to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the detailees, the FBI did not provide oversight of the detailees.
Eric acted as one of two deputy chiefs within the Bin Laden Unit.
After Eric left the CTC, Craig was a deputy chief in a much larger unit that included the Bin Laden Unit.
Both said that they performed day-to-day supervision of the detailees in the same manner in which they supervised the other CTC employees assigned to their groups.196 According to Eric and Craig, they did not focus specifically on the role of FBI detailees.
Evan told the OIG that he did not supervise any of the detailees, and he had no authority to oversee their duties or direct their activities, except by virtue of his position as a senior manager within the FBI.
He said that they were evaluated by their chain of command in the FBI office from which they had been assigned, which is supported by the limited documents we reviewed.
We found that there was no oversight by the FBI of the detailees based on their function as detailees.
The FBI�s failure to adequately oversee the detailees is illustrated by the role of Mary, the only FBI analyst detailed to the Bin Laden Unit.
She has been detailed to the CIA since 1998.
Mary had the opportunity to learn valuable analyst skills by working alongside CTC personnel and then use those skills at the FBI.
Additionally, the detail provided an opportunity to learn about the CIA infrastructure and establish liaison contacts at the CIA.
Mary told us that she operated as a full-fledged CIA desk officer, and that she has worked with FBI personnel during her detail but from the position of a CIA employee, not an FBI employee.
We believe there needs to be a review of the duration of these details to ensure the value of these details is maximized.
At a time when the FBI is concerned about the shortage of qualified analysts to do the work it has, a 5-year detail of an FBI analyst working as a CTC employee warrants review by the FBI.197 The same lack of oversight and direction was evident regarding the work of Malcolm, the FBI New York Field office detailee to the CTC.
He had been traveling to the CTC from New York on a weekly basis for four years, until January 2003.
On Mondays he traveled from New York to the CTC, stopping by FBI Headquarters.
On Fridays he stopped by FBI Headquarters on his way back to New York.
After the bombing of the Cole, he spent at least half of his days in Washington, D.C. at FBI Headquarters.
Thus, he was frequently away from the CTC and not in a position to maximize his potential for obtaining information at the CTC.
This also left the perception with other CTC employees that he was not fully integrated into the CTC.
We found that that the FBI lacked a systematic approach to its use of detailees at CTC�s Bin Laden Unit.
The detailees could have functioned in one of three ways � as fully integrated members of the CTC working unilaterally on CTC matters, as backstops ensuring all pertinent CTC information was forwarded to the FBI, or in some combination thereof.
While there are potential benefits to using the detailees in any of these functions, the potential benefits were not maximized because there was no clear understanding of the detailees� roles and no system to ensure that any objectives were met.
The lack of oversight over FBI detailees to the CTC resulted in squandering critical opportunities for information sharing between the CIA and FBI.
We also found significant misunderstandings between employees of these two agencies regarding their respective responsibilities for information sharing.
First, as noted above, we found that some CIA employees believed that FBI detailees had more responsibility for reviewing the CIA cable traffic than the FBI detailees believed that they had.
One CIA Bin Laden Unit employee told the OIG that the CIA was not going to �spoon feed� information to the FBI and that the FBI personnel at the Bin Laden Unit had access to all of the CIA cable traffic.
She stated that while the CTC provided to the FBI intelligence information that contained a domestic nexus, she did not believe it was the CIA�s responsibility to provide all of the predicating material, since the FBI detailees also had access to the same cables.
In addition, CIA personnel described FBI detailee Malcolm as a �mole� for the FBI�s New York Office, suggesting they thought he was reading CIA cables for the express purpose of reporting back to the New York Field Office on what he found.
In addition, we found that a similar misunderstanding existed among FBI employees in New York with respect to the role of the CIA employee detailed to the FBI�s New York Field Office.
A CIA employee assigned to the JTTF in the New York Field Office had a desk in that office�s sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF).198 FBI agents in the New York Field Office asserted to the OIG that this individual was knowledgeable regarding their investigations and that he was responsible for reviewing CIA traffic, finding items of interest to the FBI, and bringing this information to the attention of appropriate New York agents.
The CIA employee, however, denied that this was his role.
He told the OIG that he had been sent to the New York Office to �improve the relationship between the CIA and the FBI� and that he provided the FBI with CIA intelligence that was designated for the FBI New York Field Office�s review.
He stated, however, his job was not to �spoon feed� information but only to make it accessible to the agents in New York.
This meant that he would print information obtained from CIA databases that was of potential interest to the FBI New York Field Office and make that information available for review in the SCIF if FBI agents decided to come and review it.
But, apparently unknown to many New York FBI agents, he believed the onus was on FBI personnel to come into the SCIF and see if any new, relevant information had arrived, rather than to alert them to that information.
He also said that while he generally knows what the various FBI squads are investigating, the New York JTTF has over 300 members and he could not reasonably be expected to have knowledge of all their investigative interests.
He said that if he spent his time solely looking for information of interest to the FBI, he would never get any work done.
As a result, FBI agents in New York believed they were receiving from this CIA employee assigned to the JTTF all of the CIA information of interest to the FBI, when in fact they were not.
Therefore, the New York agents could have received information on Hazmi and Mihdhar directly through their own CIA employee, but they misunderstood the process.
FBI employees� lack of understanding of CIA reporting process These gaps in the information sharing process were exacerbated by FBI personnel�s lack of understanding of the CIA�s reporting process.
This problem is clearly illustrated by the failure of the FBI to obtain the information on [INFORMATION REDACTED] by the joint FBI/CIA joint source.
As detailed above, we concluded that the FBI�s ALAT was not made aware of [INFORMATION REDACTED].
Although the ALAT attended the debriefing of the source, the ALAT did not immediately receive the information that the source had identified Khallad.
We were unable to ascertain the reasons for this significant omission.
However, our review found that there were later opportunities for the ALAT to have obtained information about the identification from CIA documents.
In addition, we found that the New York FBI agents working the Cole attack investigation did not learn of this significant information, despite interviewing the source on several occasions.
We believe this was due in part to the fact that the FBI personnel were not familiar with the CIA�s process for reporting intelligence information.
As discussed previously, the CIA primarily relies on cable traffic to share intelligence among its personnel who are stationed around the world.
None of these cables are available for FBI review, except by the limited number of FBI personnel with direct access to CIA computer systems, such as the detailees at the CTC.
The CIA uses a certain type of cable called a TD to disseminate CIA information outside of the CIA to other U.S. government agencies.
These cables are created by CIA reports officers based on their review of the internal CIA cable traffic.
The reports officers were described to us as �editors� who remove references to sources and methods contained in the cables and determine what information should be further disseminated in the TDs. As a result, TDs did not necessarily include all the substantive information contained in the internal cable traffic.
Our review found the ALAT did not understand that the TDs did not necessarily contain all of the intelligence gathered by the CIA from a particular source or on a particular event.
The ALAT had been keenly aware of the significance of Khallad to the FBI, and contemporaneous FBI documents outline his efforts in mid-January 2001 to try to ensure that all the information obtained from the joint source was provided to the UBL Unit at FBI Headquarters and the Bin Laden Squad in the New York Field Office.
However, he relied on the TDs concerning the source�s reporting to ensure the completeness of the information that he had provided to his FBI colleagues.
The ALAT erroneously believed he had obtained all the source reporting through the TDs. This was not the case.
[INFORMATION REDACTED] was only reported in an internal CIA cable and was never included in a TD.
In addition to the ALAT, New York FBI agents working on the Cole investigation told us that when they read a TD regarding a particular subject (which they could access through CTLink), they mistakenly believed that it contained all relevant information from the source debriefings.
The primary Cole case agent told us that he believed that the CIA operational cables dealt with techniques and methods, but he did not know that these cables also contained the details of debriefings.