20th Annaversary of the fairytale of Big Lies

[Peter Lemkin]

What Happens When the FBI Does Attempt to Foil the Plot?
Having detailed the lengths Blee and his subordinates at Alec Station went to prevent certain key facts from becoming known to the FBI, it is worth delving into what happened when the FBI did become aware of an element of the unfolding terror plot. The case of Zacarias Moussaoui is illustrative.
Zacarias Moussaoui in the late 1990s. [Source: taipeitimes.com]
Moussaoui was a known entity to British and French intelligence by the late 1990s. He had been surveilled by MI5 via an informant and was investigated by the French government because of his possible connections to the assassination of consular officials in Algeria. He was placed on the French terror watch list in 1999.[54]
Despite this, Moussaoui had no problems entering the United States. He took flying lessons between February and May 2001,[55] and began lessons in July in Minnesota. This was financed by Ramzi Binalshibh,[56] an al-Qaeda operative who served as an intermediary between Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the operatives in the U.S.[57]

• Ramzi Binalshibh [Source: humanrightsfirst.org]
  
• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [Source: newyorker.com]
  

On August 15, 2001, the FBI began an investigation into Moussaoui[58] based on a tip from the flight school.[59] The FBI agents investigating Moussaoui became concerned he was an imminent threat,[60] and so on August 16 he was arrested by the INS for overstaying his visa.[61]
On August 24, FBI agents investigating Moussaoui were provided information from the French intelligence service which indicated that Moussaoui was a recruiter for Ibn al-Khattab, a mujahideen leader in Chechnya who was described by one FBI agent as a “close buddy with Bin Ladin.”[62]
Ibn al-Khattab [Source: alchetron.com]
At this stage, in the words of FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley, the FBI agents on the case were “desperate to search the computer lap-top that had been taken from Moussaoui.”[63]
Moussaoui’s laptop. [Source: historycommons.org]
However, the FBI’s National Security Law Unit never even submitted an application for a FISA intelligence warrant to search the contents of the laptop. The 9/11 Commission Report characterized this failure to submit the application as a consequence of a “spirited debate been the Minneapolis Field Office, FBI headquarters, and the CIA.” Following said “spirited debate,” FBI headquarters determined that Moussaoui’s connection to al-Khattab, as indicated in the French intelligence report, was not sufficient grounds for a FISA warrant because al-Khattab was not sufficiently connected to a known terrorist organization. This was despite the fact that the FBI was certainly aware of al-Khattab’s connection to Al-Qaeda, as indicated by an April 2001 memo entitled “Bin Laden/Ibn Khattab Threat Reporting.”[64]
However, subsequent events indicate that this “spirited debate” was a pretext and distraction which allowed staff at FBI HQ to block Minneapolis field agents from applying for a search warrant. This is borne out by the fact that the criminal search warrant for Moussaoui’s laptop, which was signed by a judge following the events of 9/11, did not even reference the French intelligence information.
FBI Minneapolis office. [Source: flickr.com]
What FBI HQ staff wanted for probable cause, the purported lack of evidence that Moussaoui was a threat, was evidently provided in the form of the 9/11 attacks.[65]
As evidenced by their use of an INS overstay as a pretext for what was effectively a preventive arrest, the FBI agents on the ground appreciated the potential threat posed by Moussaoui, and believed they had sufficient probable cause. One of the agents in Minneapolis said that he “was trying to keep Moussaoui from crashing an airplane into the World Trade Center.”[66]
FBI HQ staff, on the other hand, purported to not appreciate this threat, with Michael Maltbie telling Minneapolis FBI agents, “you have a guy interested in this type of aircraft. That is it.”[67]
Rita Flack, another HQ staffer, approved of Maltbie’s efforts to block the warrant, despite the fact that she had read the so-called Phoenix Memo, in which the Phoenix FBI told FBI HQ that al-Qaeda was already using flight schools to obtain flight training for terrorist purposes.[68]
Having read this memo, she was certainly aware that Moussaoui posed a threat, and yet she continued to assist in blocking Minneapolis FBI agents from investigating Moussaoui. The coordinated efforts to block the investigation were so egregious to FBI agents in Minneapolis that, according to Rowley, “jokes were actually made that the key FBIHQ personnel had to be spies or moles … who were actually working for Osama Bin Laden to have so undercut Minneapolis’ effort.”[69]
Coleen Rowley [Source: huffpost.com]
Fenton has documented how Tom Wilshire—noted previously for his role in protecting al-Qaeda associates—was also highly involved in the Moussaoui case.[70] On August 24, Wilshire sent a cable to Dave Frasca, Michael Maltbie, and Rita Flack—the three FBI HQ staffers handling the case. He asked the agents if they had yet obtained biographical information about Moussaoui, if they had yet obtained photos, and if the CIA could get these photos to provide them to agency assets in the field.[71]
This indicates he was aware of the HQ staff’s ongoing efforts to get further information about Moussaoui, and that he played a role in facilitating the transfer of information from the FBI to the CIA in this case.
In his cable to FBI HQ staff, Wilshire referred to the Moussaoui case by asking Dave Frasca “where we are re the Minneapolis Airplane IV crowd.” It is unclear whether he was referring to Moussaoui himself or to the FBI field office in Minneapolis. [72] What is clear is that, while Minneapolis field agents “were trying to keep Moussaoui from crashing an airplane into the World Trade Center”[73] and a CIA agent detailed to FBI HQ was concerned that Moussaoui “will be talking to a control tower while aiming a 747 at the White House,” [74] Wilshire was downplaying the threat by making a joke about the 1980 parody disaster film “Airplane!”
Fenton explains that Tom Wilshire was “part of the group of staff at FBI headquarters who shackled the case … he was a senior member of this group, and … he was either the originator of the obstructionism or endorsed and strengthened it, undermining the FBI’s investigation.”[75]
Though we only have the one cable from Wilshire to FBI HQ staff, there are certainly others. Declassification and release of these other cables would shed light on the dynamic between Wilshire and other FBI HQ staff members.
As Kevin Fenton notes, if the Moussaoui investigation had not been stymied from above, the FBI and CIA would likely have identified at least 11 of the 19 hijackers. This is because, as discussed earlier, Moussaoui was financed by Binalshibh. Binalshibh was closely connected to three of the alleged hijackers—Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, and Marwan al-Shehhi.
Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi. [Source: pbs.org]
When Moussaoui was arrested, he was in possession of a letter from Yazid Sufaat, host of the aforementioned January 2000 summit in Malaysia. Furthermore, the CIA had also observed Sufaat in the company of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.[76]
Yazid Sufaat [Source: historica.fandom.com]
For his part, George Tenet was also aware of the Moussaoui case. He was briefed on August 23, with a document entitled “Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly.”[77]
Yet, he told no one about the case—including the President. Tenet was in contact with President Bush between August 31 and September 10,[78] and in an interview with Tim Russert claimed that he “held nothing back from the president” during that period.[79]
However, during this time of high threat reporting when Tenet knew an attack on U.S. soil was likely, he never relayed to President Bush, or anyone else, that he knew an “Islamic fundamentalist” had traveled to the U.S. to learn to fly 747s.[80] He alleges that, at the time, he had no idea the case was connected to al-Qaeda; he assumed the FBI was handling it, and therefore he didn’t discuss it with anyone.[81]
At the time of the attack, however, Tenet understood very well Moussaoui’s importance—so much so that the news of the 9/11 attacks triggered him to wonder if Moussaoui had anything to do with it.
On the morning of September 11, while enjoying breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel with former Oklahoma Senator David Boren, he received a call informing him of the attack on the World Trade Center. Boren later claimed that as Tenet left breakfast, he asked himself, “I wonder if this has something to do with the guy who trained for a pilot’s license?”[82] Thus, despite his claims to the contrary, it seems that Tenet did in fact hold something back from the President.
David Boren [Source: wikipedia.org]
Tenet’s Golden Boy?
As discussed earlier in this article, Richard Blee seems to have been CIA Director George Tenet’s golden boy, or at least one of them. With Tenet’s assistance, he became head of Alec Station at age 41, five years younger than his legendary father had made station chief.[83]
Following Alec Station’s apparent disastrous failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks, Blee was assigned to Kabul as Chief of Station—arguably a promotion. Given that the agency was massively expanding its activities in the region following 9/11, this was certainly a plum position for a man with long-standing interest in Central Asia.[84]
When researchers began to uncover Blee’s identity and his role in the disastrous actions taken by Alec Station leadership in advance of the attacks, Tenet attempted to protect him. In 2011, John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski were working on a documentary podcast about the CIA’s actions with respect to al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. They had interviewed the former National Coordinator for Counterterror, Richard Clarke, who made statements that implicated Blee in a plot to conceal information from both the FBI and Clarke himself (some of which is detailed earlier in this article).
Ray Nowosielski [Source: owltail.com]
Duffy and Nowosielski sent a video of the interview to Tenet, who responded to them with a joint statement issued along with Cofer Black and Richard Blee. They attempted to exonerate themselves, stating “[w]e testified under oath about what we did, what we knew and what we didn’t know. We stand by that testimony.”[85]
Unfortunately for Tenet, that testimony included a number of statements that we now know to be false. One particularly intriguing false statement concerns that crucial March 5, 2000, Bangkok station cable which detailed that al-Hazmi and a companion (al-Mihdhar) had traveled to the U.S.[86]
Tenet testified to the congressional inquiry that “I know that nobody read that cable.” He repeated that “nobody read that cable in the March timeframe,” and when pressed by Senator Levin, he again stated that “nobody read that information only cable.”
Tenet receiving a medal from George W. Bush. [Source: apjjf.org]
Yet, the CIA inspector general’s report indicates that “in the period January through March 2000, some 50 to 60 individuals read one or more of six Agency cables containing travel information related to these terrorists.” [87]
For Tenet to insist that “nobody read that cable,” when we know that Wilshire read it on May 15, 2001, suggests that he may have been part of Black’s and Blee’s CIA efforts to block FBI inquiry into certain al-Qaeda operations. More clearly, Tenet was part of a subsequent effort to conceal the whole fiasco from a congressional inquiry.