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While the FBI made counterterrorism its top priority on paper, the FBI took few steps to ensure that field offices complied with this directive.
We discuss this issue at the end of this section.
The San Diego FBI�s preliminary investigation of Bayoumi As discussed above, Bayoumi is a Saudi national who in January 2000 had been living in the United States for approximately six years, was well-paid by a Saudi company that contracted with the Saudi government, and was involved in setting up mosques in the San Diego area.
Hazmi and Mihdhar met Bayoumi in Los Angeles approximately two weeks after entering the United States in January 2000.
A few days later they moved to San Diego, where Bayoumi assisted them in obtaining an apartment in the complex where he lived.
They lived in this complex for four months.
Bayoumi�s name had first surfaced at the FBI in 1995 in connection with other investigations.
Bayoumi�s name resurfaced at the FBI on August 31, 1998, when his apartment manager contacted the FBI to report her suspicions regarding Bayoumi�s activities.
The manager reported that she had been notified by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in March 1998 that Bayoumi had been sent a �suspicious� package from the Middle East.
According to the manager, the package had broken open and had a number of wires protruding from it.
She reported further that the apartment complex maintenance man had noticed a number of wires protruding beneath the bathroom sink in Bayoumi�s master bedroom.
She reported that there had been large meetings of men, who based upon their dress appeared to be Middle Eastern, gathering in Bayoumi�s apartment on weekend evenings.
She also complained that several parking spots were being illegally used by the people gathering at Bayoumi�s apartment.
On September 8, 1998, the San Diego FBI opened a preliminary inquiry on Bayoumi.200 The assigned agent checked FBI indices for further information regarding Bayoumi and conducted other investigative steps.
The agent contacted the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in reference to the alleged �suspicious� package sent to Bayoumi.
A postal inspector advised the FBI agent that �suspicious� did not necessarily mean �nefarious,� and the vast majority of suspicious packages were benign.
The postal inspector reviewed the report relating to the Bayoumi package and told the agent that the package had been deemed �suspicious� because it had no customs papers or appropriate postage and originated in Saudi Arabia.
According to the report, there was no record of any wires protruding from the package, Bayoumi had retrieved the package, and it was no longer called a �suspect parcel.� According to the FBI agent, the apartment manager agreed to record the license plate numbers of the meeting participants.
However, the manager later advised the agent that meetings had dwindled to a few participants and then stopped all together.
The agent asked fellow FBI agents to ask their �logical sources� for information regarding Bayoumi.
The sources related the following concerning Bayoumi: Bayoumi was married with small children and had recently completed a master�s degree program and he was looking for a Ph. D.
program, but his test scores were too low.
He was approximately 30 years old and unemployed.
Bayoumi was a Saudi who regularly attended the ICSD (Islamic Center of San Diego).
He was married with children and was working on a master�s or other advanced degree.
Bayoumi reportedly delivered $400,000 to the Islamic Kurdish community in El Cajon, California in order to build a mosque.
Source opined Bayoumi �must be an agent of a foreign power or an agent of Saudi Arabia.� Bayoumi was in the U.S. on a student visa but was applying for a green card.
Bayoumi claimed to have a master�s degree and was working on a Ph. D.
His father was sending him $3,000 a month for support while he was in school.
The FBI agent also contacted the INS in reference to Bayoumi�s immigration status.
An INS special agent advised that Bayoumi was in the U.S. on an F-1 student visa, but his work visa had expired.
However, the INS reported that his visa could be renewed.
The FBI agent received no further substantive information in response to various information checks.
According to the agent, the only remaining option was to conduct an interview of Bayoumi.
After her supervisor consulted with fellow FBI agents who were working on a large, sensitive counterterrorism investigation involving an alleged terrorist organization, the supervisor instructed the agent not to conduct the subject interview of Bayoumi.201 The agent told the OIG that she did not believe the decision was inappropriate based on the potential effect of such an interview on the other sensitive investigation.
On June 7, 1999, the FBI closed its preliminary inquiry on Bayoumi, and he was no longer actively under investigation by the FBI.
The FBI case agent told the OIG that she had no concrete information linking Bayoumi to any terrorist activities.
She stated that the allegations that gave rise to the preliminary investigation were not substantiated.
With respect to the source reporting that Bayoumi had received large sums of money from overseas, the case agent explained it was not unusual for foreign students, especially from Saudi Arabia, to regularly receive money, even large sums of money.
Therefore, the case agent did not consider this to be inherently suspicious.
The agent�s squad supervisor at the time and other agents on the squad also told the OIG that it was not unusual or suspicious for Saudi students to have received large sums of money from Saudi Arabia.
As stated above, one source had provided unverified information that Bayoumi could potentially be a Saudi intelligence operative or source.
According to the agent, Bayoumi was allegedly very involved and interested in Saudi affairs in San Diego, and this probably led to the suspicions about Bayoumi�s connection to the Saudi government.
However, the agent told the OIG that Saudi Arabia was not listed as a threat country and the Saudis were considered allies of the United States.202 Therefore, Bayoumi�s potential involvement with the Saudi Arabian government would not have affected the FBI�s decision to close the preliminary inquiry.
The squad supervisor at the time of our investigation, who had been an agent on the squad for several years, told the OIG that before September 11, the Saudi Arabian government was considered an ally of the United States and that a report of an individual being an agent of the Saudi government would not have been considered a priority.
Other agents on the squad also said that a source reporting that an individual was an agent of the Saudi government would not have been cause for concern because the Saudi government was considered an ally of the United States.
In addition, the case agent explained that more intrusive investigative techniques could not be conducted because of the restrictions of the Attorney General FCI Guidelines in effect at the time.
No meaningful surveillance could be conducted, no bank records or other financial records could be sought, and very little investigative activity beyond fully identifying the individual could be done.
In sum, we do not believe that the FBI�s actions with regard to Bayoumi and its decision to close the preliminary inquiry were inappropriate.
The agent conducted logical investigative steps that were permitted under the Attorney General Guidelines in effect at the time, such as checking FBI records for information, asking other intelligence agencies for information about the subject, and asking agents to query their sources about the subject, but the agent did not uncover any information to support the allegations.
The Guidelines did not permit the case agent to engage in more intrusive investigative techniques, such as a clandestine search of Bayoumi�s property, obtaining his telephone or financial records, or secretly recording his conversations.
Although the Attorney General Guidelines would have permitted a subject interview of Bayoumi prior to closing the preliminary inquiry, the decision not to conduct an interview appeared warranted, given its possible effect on an ongoing significant investigation.
The FBI�s handling of the informational asset As described above, in May 2000 Hazmi and Mihdhar began renting a room in the home of an FBI informational asset.
An FBI San Diego Special Agent who we call �Stan� was the asset�s control agent since the asset was opened in 1994.
The asset had provided the FBI with significant information over the years and was considered a reliable source.
He was well known in the Muslim community.
He often rented rooms in his house to Muslim men in the community who needed temporary housing.
At the time that Hazmi and Mihdhar moved in with him, he had two other individuals renting rooms in his house.
Mihdhar lived with the asset until June 10, 2000, when he left the United States, and Hazmi remained as a boarder at the asset�s home until December 2000.
According to Stan, the asset told Stan that two young Saudis who had recently come to the United States to visit and study had moved in as boarders.
The asset described them as good Muslims who often went to the mosque and prayed.
The asset provided Stan with their first names but little other identifying information.
Stan did not obtain any additional information from the asset about the boarders, such as their last names, and he did not conduct any investigation of them.
Had Stan pursued information about Hazmi and Mihdhar, he might have uncovered the CIA information about them.
In addition, he might have created a record in FBI computer systems about Hazmi and Mihdhar�s presence in San Diego, which would have provided the FBI with additional information and avenues of investigation when it began to search for them in August 2001.
For these reasons, we examined Stan�s actions with regard to the asset.
In interviews with the JICI staff and in congressional testimony, Stan stated that the informational asset primarily provided information about the activities and identities of persons in the Muslim community in San Diego who were the subjects of FBI preliminary inquiries or full field investigations.203 Stan said that the asset volunteered some information about other individuals as well.
He said he thought that the asset had good judgment about which individuals might pose a threat and that his reporting had been �consistent� over the years.
We reviewed the asset�s file and noted the asset provided information on a regular basis on a variety of different individuals and topics.
Although we could not evaluate the asset�s judgment from the file, we consider Stan�s description of the asset�s reporting to be apt.
Stan also stated that he was aware that the asset had boarders in his house over the years, and the fact that two new boarders had moved in with the asset did not arouse suspicion.
He noted that the asset volunteered that the two boarders were living with him soon after they moved in, but the asset provided the information about his boarders as part of a personal conversation and not because the asset believed that it had any significance.
Stan stated the information provided from the asset was that the two boarders were from Saudi Arabia, which, according to Stan, was not a country that the United States had placed on the list as a threat to national security.
Stan said that the asset did not describe his boarders as suspicious or otherwise worthy of further scrutiny.
He also asserted that he was prohibited from further pursuing the information about Hazmi and Mihdhar, including documenting the information that he had obtained, because of the Attorney General Guidelines in effect at the time.
In examining Stan�s actions, we first considered whether the Attorney General�s FCI Guidelines were applicable to the situation involving Hazmi and Mihdhar.
As suggested by Stan, the Attorney General�s FCI Guidelines were designed to ensure that the FBI opened preliminary inquiries and conducted investigations only if the required predicating information was present.
Because there were no allegations or information provided to Stan that Hazmi and Mihdhar were terrorists or agents of a foreign power, we agree that Stan did not have sufficient information to open a preliminary inquiry and actively investigate Hazmi and Mihdhar.
We also considered whether, at a minimum, Stan could have attempted to obtain additional information about people who were living with his informational asset, such as their full names, and whether he was required to document the information on Hazmi and Mihdhar that he had received from his asset.
First, we reviewed FBI policies and procedures for handling assets.
Those policies did not require Stan to obtain information from an informational asset about people living in the asset�s house or to conduct record checks to obtain this information.
In addition, the policies do not appear to require Stan to have documented information received from the asset about anyone living with him, or to even document their full identities if he had obtained that information.
We also interviewed several FBI agents who were on Stan�s counterterrorism squad and asked them whether it would have been their practice to seek additional information about boarders living with an informational asset and what, if anything, they would have done with this information.
We found no consensus among them about whether information on boarders like Hazmi and Mihdhar who lived with an informational asset should have been obtained and documented.
Some agents stated that they would have pursued more information about boarders living with an informational asset, while others stated that they would not have.
Some of the agents stated that they would have noted the fact of the informational asset having boarders in his file.
Some agents stated that they would have documented the identities of the roommates in an EC that would have been uploaded to ACS.
However, former San Diego Division Special Agent in Charge William Gore told the OIG that he �did not believe anything had been done wrong� in the handling of the informational asset and he did not fault Stan for not obtaining the information.
While we recognize that no FBI policy addressed this issue and there was a lack of consensus on what should have been done in a situation like this, we believe that it would have been a better practice for Stan to have questioned the informational asset about his boarders and obtained their full identities.
Stan was aware that Hazmi and Mihdhar were relative strangers to the informational asset, and that they were not friends, family, or long-time associates of the asset.
Stan also was aware that the asset had no direct knowledge of Hazmi and Mihdhar�s backgrounds and could not vouch for their character.
Moreover, the boarders in the asset�s home were in a position to put the asset and the information he supplied to the FBI in jeopardy.
Therefore, prudence and operational security would suggest that information about persons living with the asset should have been sought, at least to the extent of learning and documenting their names, and perhaps running a records check on them.
If Stan had asked more questions about the asset�s boarders, he also may have acquired enough information to pursue further inquiry.
For example, the asset has stated after the September 11 attacks that Hazmi and Mihdhar did not make telephone calls from his house, and that in retrospect he found this behavior to be suspicious.
The asset also stated after September 11 that he had told Hazmi to stay away from Bayoumi because of his alleged association with the Saudi government.
Therefore, if Stan had asked the asset a few more questions about Hazmi and Mihdhar and acquired this kind of information, it may have led Stan to conduct further inquiries, particularly since Bayoumi had been the subject of an FBI investigation.
Moreover, while no specific FBI policy required agents to obtain information about persons living in a house with an informational asset, FBI policies required control agents to continuously evaluate the credibility of their informational assets.
Before informational assets are approved, they are required to undergo a background investigation to assess their suitability, credibility, and �bona fides.�204 Certain minimum checks were required, such as a check of FBI indices, local criminal checks, and CIA traces.
The policy provided that additional checks �may be deemed necessary,� such as querying other assets and running indices checks on immediate family members.