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The CIA Deputy Chief of the Bin Laden Unit also said he had no recollection of this cable, and he did not know whether the information had been passed to the FBI.
Neither we nor the CIA OIG was able to locate any other witness who said they remembered anything about Mihdhar�s travel documents being passed to the FBI, or any other documents that corroborated the statement that the documents were in fact passed to the FBI.
After he arrived in Malaysia, Mihdhar was followed and photographed in various locations meeting with several different people.
These events are referred to as �the Malaysia meetings.� CIA employees wrote several cables contemporaneously about the Malaysia meetings, which we discuss below.
The CIA prepared an internal cable stating that Mihdhar had arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the evening of January 5.
The cable also described his activities with other Arabs who were unidentified at the time.
This cable, which we refer to as the �first Malaysia meetings cable,� did not contain any information regarding passports or visas.
It appears that this first Malaysia meetings cable was provided to the FBI.
Sometime before the daily FBI executive briefing that took place on January 6 at 7:30 a.m., the January 5 threat update information concerning Mihdhar was edited in the FBI�s SIOC.
This January 5 threat update reflected an almost verbatim recitation of portions of the CIA�s first Malaysia meetings cable, including the same spelling mistake in reference to a particular place in Malaysia, which indicates that the CIA provided a copy of the first Malaysia meetings cable to the FBI.
However, we were not able to determine who in the FBI received this information from the CIA or who edited the January 5 threat update.
No one we interviewed at the FBI said they recalled handling information related to Mihdhar or the January 5 threat update.
The threat update contained no reference to Mihdhar�s passport information or his U.S. multiple-entry visitor�s visa.
The January 5 threat update also was made part of the January 6 7:30 a.m. executive briefing document.
This briefing did not contain any additional information about Mihdhar.
The January 5 threat update was the only official document from this period located by the FBI that referenced the Malaysia meetings that were discussed in the first CIA Malaysia meetings cable.
As noted above, computer records show that James, the CTC employee detailed to the FBI�s SIOC, read the cables and the draft CIR indicating that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa.
Contemporaneous e-mails show that James discussed the Malaysia meetings with two FBI Headquarters employees in the SIOC in the early morning hours of January 6.
Below we detail the cables and the evidence about the discussions that took place between the CIA and FBI personnel in the SIOC about the Malaysia meetings.
Contemporaneous e-mail messages among CIA employees show that during the night of January 5 James briefed the FBI SSA who we call Bob about Mihdhar�s travel.
At the time, Bob was an SSA in the UBL Unit in FBI Headquarters, which was operating out of the SIOC during this period.
James wrote an e-mail to several CIA employees in which he stated that he was detailing �exactly what [he] briefed [the FBI] on� in the event the FBI later complained that they were not provided with all of the information about Mihdhar.112 This e-mail did not discuss Mihdhar�s passport or U.S. visa.
As previously mentioned, James told the CIA OIG that he had no recollection of these events.
He declined to be interviewed by us.
Bob told the OIG that he had no independent recollection of any briefing from a CIA employee regarding the Malaysia meetings.
However, he was able to locate a scant contemporaneous note that confirmed he had been briefed regarding Mihdhar and his trip to Malaysia.
This note contained no details as to the content of the briefing and no reference to Mihdhar�s U.S. visa.
Bob told the OIG that he does not believe that he had been told in this conversation about Mihdhar�s U.S. visa.
Bob stated to us that the presence of a U.S. visa in Mihdhar�s passport would have been extremely important and would have triggered a more significant response than his minimal notes.
Bob also told the OIG that he did not know why James chose to brief him about Mihdhar.
Bob said that he was not a designated point of contact for the CIA while the SIOC was activated, although he also said that he did not know whether there was a designated point of contact in the SIOC.
Bob said that he knew James because James had previously been detailed from the CTC to FBI Headquarters and had worked in ITOS with Bob.
The day after the CIA employee discussed the Malaysia meetings with the two FBI SIOC employees, the CIA sent another internal cable providing new information about the activities of Mihdhar.
This cable, �the second Malaysia meetings cable,� provided information about Mihdhar�s activities once he left the Kuala Lumpur airport and his meetings with various individuals.
Shortly after 7:30 a.m. on January 6, James briefed another FBI SSA � who we call �Ted� � who was detailed to the SIOC from an FBI field office, about information contained in the second Malaysia meetings cable.
Ted told the OIG he was working in the SIOC as an �assistant� to the day shift commander and the UBL Unit Chief, but that he had no specific duties.
Because Bob had left FBI Headquarters on a trip to New York by this time, James briefed Ted to ensure that someone at FBI Headquarters had the latest information on Mihdhar.
In the same e-mail in which he had detailed what he told Bob, James provided specifics of what he told Ted.
The e-mail also stated that the CIA would �continue to run this down and keep the FBI in the loop.� The e-mail did not contain any reference to Mihdhar�s passport or U.S. visa.
Based on this briefing by James, Ted prepared an update for the January 6 afternoon FBI executive briefing.
Ted e-mailed the update to the ITOS Assistant Section Chief at 8:40 a.m. This update reflected the details of the information Ted had received from James.
It did not contain any reference to Mihdhar�s passport or U.S. visa.
Like Bob, Ted told the OIG that he had no recollection of being briefed regarding the Malaysia meetings.
Although he said he did not recall these events, Ted asserted he did not believe that he had received Mihdhar�s passport or U.S. visa information because if he had he would have unquestionably recognized their significance and documented such information in the update for the executive briefing.
Ted told the OIG that he did not know why James briefed him about the Mihdhar information.
Like Bob, Ted stated he was not a designated point of contact for the CIA while the SIOC was activated.
Ted also knew James because of James� previous detail to ITOS in FBI Headquarters when Ted served as an SSA in the RFU.
On January 8, the CIA reported in another internal cable that a new individual had joined Mihdhar and the others, and that additional surveillance photographs were taken.
The cable did not state how many photographs were taken or what would be done with the photos.
In another cable sent five hours later, the CIA reported in an internal cable that Mihdhar and two of the unidentified men � one of whom turned out to be Hazmi � departed Malaysia from Kuala Lumpur airport en route to Bangkok, Thailand.
On January 9, the CIA�s Bin Laden Unit prepared a cable asking that Mihdhar and his associates be identified while in Thailand.
CIA records show that on January 13, the CIA was attempting to locate Mihdhar and his traveling companions.
In addition, Mihdhar had been watchlisted at the airport in the event that he attempted to leave Thailand.
Several weeks later, CIA officers in Kuala Lumpur followed up with their Bangkok counterparts for additional information about Mihdhar and his traveling companions.
Approximately two weeks later, Bangkok reported that there was a delay in responding due to difficulties in obtaining the requested information.
In early March 2000, officials in Bangkok reported internally that it had identified one of Mihdhar�s traveling companions as Nawaf al-Hazmi.
The cable reported that Hazmi had traveled to Bangkok on January 8 and had subsequently traveled on a United Airlines flight to Los Angeles, California on January 15.
The cable also stated that Mihdhar had arrived in Bangkok on January 8 but that it was unknown if and when he had departed.113 In addition, the cable identified the third traveler as Salah Saeed Mohammed Bin Yousaf.114 CIA records show that none of the FBI detailees accessed this early March cable.
The OIG found no documents or witnesses indicating that the information that Hazmi had traveled to Los Angeles on January 15, 2000, was shared with the FBI at this time.
Rather, as we discuss below, this fact was not shared with the FBI until August 2001.
We found no indication that CTC personnel took any action with regard to the important information that Hazmi had traveled to the United States.
For example, he was not placed on any U.S. watchlists.
The day after Bangkok reported about Hazmi�s travel to Los Angeles, one office that received the Bangkok cable sent a cable to the CTC stating the Bangkok cable regarding Hazmi�s travel had been read �with interest.� Yet, despite this effort to flag the significance of this information, the cable was not shared with the FBI and did not result in any specific action by the CIA.
As we discuss below, it was not until August 2001 that FBI Headquarters personnel learned that on January 15, 2000, both Mihdhar and Hazmi had left Thailand and traveled to Los Angeles, California, where they were both admitted into the United States on non-immigrant visas and authorized to remain until July 14, 2000.
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.
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.
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.