Datasets:
shivendrra
/
consolidated-datasets

Dataset card Data Studio Files Community
1
text
stringlengths
0
82.7M
The control agent said that the asset later said that he had not told Stan about the boarders at all.
Although Stan declined to be interviewed by the OIG, after September 11, his FBI supervisors had interviewed him about the asset.
Stan also had discussed the asset with co-workers and was interviewed by, and subsequently testified in, a closed session before the Joint Intelligence Committee.135 Stan reported that the asset had told him contemporaneously that two Saudi national visitors were residing in a room at his residence.
Stan said that the asset merely provided the first names of the boarders, Nawaf and Khalid.
Stan contended that he had asked the asset for the boarders� last names but never received them and did not follow up.
He said that the asset told him that his boarders were in the U.S. on valid visitors� visas, and they planned to visit and to study while they were in the country.
In addition, Stan said that the asset told him that he believed that the two boarders were good Muslims because of the amount of time that they spent at the mosque.
Stan stated that he did not recall the asset ever telling him that either of the boarders had moved out.
According to Stan, the asset did not describe his boarders as suspicious or otherwise worthy of further scrutiny.
Stan reported that he never obtained Hazmi and Mihdhar�s full identities from the asset and that he did not conduct any investigation of them.
In sum, the FBI did not obtain information about Mihdhar�s and Hazmi�s time in San Diego, either as a result of the Bayoumi preliminary inquiry or from the asset.
In the analysis section of this chapter, we evaluate Stan�s actions with regard to Hazmi and Mihdhar and whether he should have pursued additional information about who was living with one of his assets.
The third potential opportunity for the FBI to acquire information about Hazmi and Mihdhar occurred in January 2001, [INFORMATION REDACTED].
However, the FBI has asserted that it did not learn of the source�s identification of the al Qaeda operative at the Malaysia meetings until much later in 2001, just before the September 11 attacks.
This section of the report describes the events surrounding this third opportunity for the FBI to focus on Hazmi and Mihdhar.
In 2000, the CIA and the FBI began debriefing a source who provided significant information on operatives and operations related to Usama Bin Laden.
The source gave the CIA and the FBI information about an al Qaeda operative known as �Khallad� and described him as being involved with the East African embassy bombings in August 1998.
Shortly after the U.S.S. Cole was attacked in October 2000, the CIA and the FBI received a photograph and information that a man named �Khallad� was the purported mastermind behind the attack on the Cole.
In December 2000, the CIA and the FBI showed the source the photograph of Khallad, and the source identified the person in the photograph as the same Khallad he had described as involved with the East African bombings.
As part of the Cole investigation, the FBI sought to find Khallad.
In January 2001, the source was shown photographs from the Malaysia meetings in an effort to determine whether Khallad was in the photographs.
[INFORMATION REDACTED]136 [INFORMATION REDACTED] As a result, they said, they may have uncovered earlier the CIA�s information about Mihdhar and Hazmi and found them in the United States well before the summer of 2001.
[INFORMATION REDACTED] For example, on September 26, 2002, Cofer Black, who served as Director of the CIA�s CTC from 1999 until May 2002, testified before the Joint Intelligence Committee: We therefore examine in detail the evidence relating to whether the FBI was aware of the identification of Khallad in the photographs of the Malaysia meetings.
In mid-2000, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) personnel arranged for FBI Legal Attach� (Legat) Office personnel overseas to meet a source who had substantial information on Bin Laden and his operatives and operations.
This particular FBI Legat office was staffed by the Legal Attach� (the �Legat�) and the Assistant Legal Attach� (the ALAT), who were FBI Special Agents.137 Because of the FBI Legat personnel�s inability to converse in any of the source�s languages, limits on the FBI�s authority to conduct unilateral intelligence activities overseas, and the source�s potential value as a source of intelligence information relevant to the CIA, the FBI contacted the CIA for assistance with the source.
The source was subsequently handled as a joint FBI/CIA source.
Even though the FBI ALAT � who we call �Max� � was unable to directly communicate with the source due to the lack of a common language, he was designated as the FBI control agent for the source.
Because the source had significant information about Bin Laden and his operatives and operations, the FBI New York Field Office � the office that was leading the investigations on the East African embassy bombings, the Cole attack, and other Bin Laden-related investigations � also became involved with the source.
This joint handling of the source created concerns within the CIA.
The CIA�s most significant concern was the FBI�s desire to use the source for the criminal investigations involving Bin Laden conducted by the FBI�s New York Field Office.
The CIA believed that the source should not face possible exposure in criminal proceedings.
CIA Headquarters was asked to work with FBI Headquarters to convert the source to purely an intelligence role, solely under CIA control.
According to CIA documents, the CIA and the Legat had discussed the FBI�s �wall� whereby separate but concurrent intelligence and criminal investigations were conducted within the FBI, but the CIA expressed concerns about the CIA�s ability to continue clandestine handling of the source if the FBI was involved.
Although the CIA acknowledged that the source had value to the FBI�s criminal case, the CIA argued that the source�s potential as an intelligence asset was more important then his potential assistance in the criminal case.
Despite the CIA�s concerns, the source remained a joint FBI/CIA asset.
Beginning in 2000, the CIA and FBI began to debrief the source on a regular basis.
Over the course of several months, the source frequently was shown photographs and asked to identify people in them.
Although Max was the source�s designated control agent, a CIA officer who spoke one of the source�s languages conducted the debriefings.
Max was present for some of these debriefings, but not all.
Some of the debriefings were unilateral CIA interviews.
The time spent with the source was kept short because of issues of travel and security.
According to Max, during the debriefings the CIA officer usually did not immediately translate the source�s statements for the benefit of Max.
He said that the CIA case officer would only immediately translate something when Max had specific questions for the CIA officer to ask the source.
The CIA case officer told the OIG he recalled translating for Max things that the source said, but he did this only when he recognized the significance of the information to Max or an FBI operation.
In an effort not to duplicate the reporting of information received from the source, the CIA and the FBI agreed that the CIA would be responsible for reporting the information from the debriefings.
However, in instances where the source was solely being shown FBI photographs or questioned based on an FBI lead, Max would document the source�s information, either in an EC or an FBI FD-302 form, and the CIA would not document the same information.
After the debriefings, the CIA officer would write internal cables covering the debriefings and forward them to the CTC and other appropriate offices.
These cables were internal CIA communications and were not provided to or shared with Max or other FBI personnel.138 Instead, Max and FBI Headquarters would be informed of the debriefings when the information was reported by the CIA in a TD.
As previously discussed, TDs were prepared by CIA reports officers who reviewed the internal cables and determined what information needed to be disseminated and to which agencies.
Based on our review of internal cables reporting the source�s debriefings and the TD reporting of the same interviews, it is clear the TDs often contained only a part of the information obtained during the source debriefings.
As a result, either through direct knowledge or through the TDs, Max had access to only some of the information obtained from the source during the debriefings.
In addition to the debriefings of the source by the CIA case officer, FBI agents from the New York Field Office working Bin Laden-related criminal investigations also interviewed the source with the CIA case officer present.
Max occasionally was present for these interviews.
After each of these interviews, the New York agents documented the source�s information in detail in an FD-302 that was entered into ACS and retrievable by all FBI personnel working on the Bin Laden cases.139 These FD-302s were routinely shared with CIA personnel in the field and at the CTC.
Over a 3-month period in 2000, FBI New York Field Office personnel interviewed the source overseas four times.
During one of these interviews, the source described an individual known as �Khallad� as a trusted senior Bin Laden operative with potential connections to the East African embassy bombings.
As noted above, on October 12, 2000, two terrorists in a boat laden with explosives committed a suicide attack on the U.S.S. Cole, a U.S. naval destroyer, during its brief refueling stop in the port in Aden, Yemen.
The FBI�s investigation into the attack was led by the FBI�s New York Field Office.
After the attack on October 12, the Yemenis provided the FBI and the CIA with information on the Bin Laden operative known as �Khallad.� According to this information, Khallad had been described as the purported mastermind of the Cole attack.
U.S. intelligence agencies had already connected Khallad to the East African embassy bombings.
The Yemenis also identified �Khallad� as Tawfiq Muhammad Salih Bin Rashid al Atash.
On November 22, 2000, the Yeminis provided the FBI with a photograph of Khallad (�the Yemeni-provided photograph�).
Around this same time, the Yemenis provided the FBI with several photographs of other Cole suspects.
The New York FBI agents investigating the Cole bombing wanted to determine whether the Khallad identified by the Yemenis was the same Khallad who had been previously described by the source.
At the same time, a CIA internal cable to was sent to several CIA offices suggesting that the photographs of the Cole suspects that the FBI had obtained from the Yemenis, including the Khallad photograph, be shown to the source.
Because the FBI did not have the technological capability to easily transmit the Khallad photograph from Yemen to the ALAT who was handling the source and who we call Max, the photograph was forwarded through CIA channels to the nearby CIA office in order to show the photograph to the source.140 CIA documents show that on December 16, 2000, the CIA officer conducted a debriefing of the source.
Max was present for the debriefing.141 During the debriefing, the CIA case officer showed the source many photos of Cole bombing suspects and other suspected Arab terrorists, including the Yemeni-provided photograph of Khallad.
The source immediately identified the individual in the Yemeni-provided photograph as the same Khallad he had previously described as a trusted senior Bin Laden operative with potential connections to the East African embassy bombings.
The CIA officer prepared a cable documenting the debriefing, which was addressed to several CIA offices.
The CIA officer wrote in the cable that the source was shown the many photographs and �quickly� identified Khallad in the Yemeni-provided photograph.
Notably, the CIA cable stated that the CIA officer had the source repeat the identification specifically for the benefit of Max.
In addition, the cable stated that before the debriefing ended, the CIA officer again showed the photographs to the source and asked the source to verify the Khallad identification.
Max acknowledged to the OIG that he was contemporaneously aware of the identification of Khallad in the Yemeni-provided photograph by the source on December 16.
Max stated that he recalled specific circumstances of the debriefing and recounted them to us.
Max told us that he recalled the source immediately identifying Khallad in the photograph.
Around this same time, CIA personnel were beginning to connect Khallad with Mihdhar [INFORMATION REDACTED].
In a December 2000 cable, CIA personnel overseas asked for copies of the January 2000 Kuala Lumpur surveillance photographs of Mihdhar.
The cable noted that further connections had been made between Mihdhar and Al Qaeda.
As a result of these further connections, the CIA believed there might be a connection between Mihdhar and the Cole perpetrators.
The CIA office reported in the December 2000 cable that the it had learned that Fahd al Quso, who was in Yemeni custody for his participation in the Cole attack, had received $7,000 from someone named Ibrahim, which Quso had taken to Bangkok, Thailand, on January 6, 2000, to deliver to �Khallad,� a friend of Ibrahim�s.
It was noted in the cable that because Mihdhar had departed Kuala Lumpur around that same time to travel to Bangkok, the CIA suspected that the �Khallad� mentioned by Quso could actually be Khalid al Mihdhar or one of his associates.142 It was noted further that this information had �added significance� because Khallad had been identified as a �key operative likely serving as an intermediary between Usama Bin Laden and the [Cole] perpetrators.� In another December 2000, cable the CTC concurred with the overseas CIA office�s theory and forwarded a Kuala Lumpur surveillance photo of Mihdhar to the CIA case officer to show to the source.
According to the cable, the purpose was �to confirm/rule out this particular Khalid [Mihdhar] as a match for [Khallad].�143 The next day, the CIA officer received permission to show the Kuala Lumpur surveillance photographs to the source.
Max told the OIG, however, that he was not aware of the CIA cables or the theory that Khallad was actually Mihdhar.
We found no other evidence that Max knew about the information that Mihdhar was at the Malaysia meetings, or the CIA�s theory that Khallad was actually Mihdhar.144 The CIA case officer debriefed the source again in early January 2001.
At some point, the CIA case officer showed the source photographs, including two of the surveillance photographs taken during the January 2000 Malaysia meetings.
One of the photographs from the Malaysia meetings, which we call �Photo No. 1� included an unknown subject.
[INFORMATION REDACTED] According to a January 2001, cable written by the CIA case officer, the source was asked if he was sure, and he replied that he was �ninety percent� certain.145 The second photograph from the Malaysia meetings, which we call �Photo No. 2,� contained a picture of the person the CIA knew to be Mihdhar.
The source could not identify the person in the photograph.146 [INFORMATION REDACTED] First, the source previously provided information that Khallad was a Bin Laden operative who was connected to the Cole attack and the East African embassy bombings.
[INFORMATION REDACTED] Thus, the source�s identification of Khallad at the Malaysia meetings raised the question whether Mihdhar and Hazmi also were linked to the Cole attack.
We tried to determine if the FBI�s ALAT learned of the source�s identification of Khallad in the photograph.
Max told the OIG that he did not specifically recall the early January 2001 debriefing of the source.
[INFORMATION REDACTED] The CIA case officer told the OIG that he had no independent recollection of any particular meeting with the source, including the meeting in early January 2001.
(1) CIA cables To examine whether the FBI learned of the source�s identification of [INFORMATION REDACTED], we reviewed the CIA documentation concerning the meeting with the source in early January 2001.
In an internal cable written the day after the debriefing, the CIA case officer reported that the source had identified [INFORMATION REDACTED] with a �ninety percent� certainty.
However, unlike in the December 2000 CIA cable, which stated that the CIA officer had the source repeat the identification of Khallad in the Yemeni-provided photograph to Max, the January 2001 cable did not suggest the identification was repeated for Max or was brought to the attention of Max.
The January 2001 cable did not provide any other details about the debriefing, such as where the meeting took place, when exactly during the debriefing the photographs were shown to the source, who was present when the photographs were shown to the source, or what other topics were discussed with the source.
We also reviewed a detailed January 2001 CIA TD to the Intelligence Community regarding the early January 2001 debriefing.
The TD reported specifics about what the source discussed and that he had provided a stack of documents to his CIA and FBI handlers.
The TD made no mention of any photographs being shown to the source [INFORMATION REDACTED].147 A few days later, the CIA case officer wrote another cable describing the logistics of the early January 2001 meeting with the source.
In addition, the cable summarized what was discussed during the meeting.