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REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 |
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A. Efforts to Improve Foreign liaison [In the mid-1990s, CIA counterterrorism officials recognized that unilateral CIA operations alone were not sufficient in penetrating and countering terrorist organizations. For instance, difficulties in unilaterally penetrating [ ] extremist groups necessitated increased cooperation with liaison services, according to a former CTC Chief. To this end, CIA, NSA, and other Intelligence Community agencies strengthened their liaison relationships with existing partners and forged new relationships to fight al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups. Throughout the 1990s, the FBI also greatly expanded its efforts to work with foreign governments against terrorism. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh testified that he met with dozens of foreign leaders to build a global counterterrorism network and greatly expanded the Bureau's presence overseas through its Legal Attache ("Legat") program. As of September 11, 2001, the FBI had agents assigned to 44 U.S. embassies. As Mr. Freeh explained, the FBI began to position itself around the globe "in places that matter in the fight against terrorism," particularly in the Middle East, as Legats were assigned to Cairo, Islamabad, Tel Aviv, Ankara, [page 286] Riyadh, and other sites. As a result, he added, the FBI was often able to expedite access to witnesses and create additional channels for information about terrorism. 271 [Liaison relationships within a country often vary by agency. For instance, interviews the Joint Inquiry conducted in []. Arrangements also vary by location. For example, FBI Legats often have established relationships with liaison services in Europe, but they often coordinate efforts through CIA in certain countries of counterterrorism interest]. [The struggle against al-Qa'ida led U.S. intelligence agencies to work closely with liaison services that were not major partners during the Cold War. The Joint Inquiry received testimony and responses from U.S. Government officials that several foreign liaison services deserved praise for their assistance to the United States. [ ]. [In the developing world, many liaison services are limited in resources, training and [ ], according to CIA officers, and the U.S. may be able to augment their capabilities greatly. According to Joint Inquiry interviews in [-], for example, the U.S. has helped pay for and train the [ ], to the point that the [] require personnel to take several CIA-taught courses in order to rise above the rank of Major. The CIA support has improved [ ] capabilities and has led to several joint efforts against terrorism, according to the Chief of CIA 's Near East Division]. [The CIA has also developed a program that CIA personnel told the Joint Inquiry makes liaison services [page 287] better able and more willing to pursue terrorist groups]. B. Benefits Of Foreign Liaison [The United States relies heavily on liaison services in the fight against terrorism because they offer many critical advantages. A former CTC Chief described liaison services as a "force multiplier." Their [ ], language skills and cultural backgrounds enable 272 Liaison services can also provide considerable assistance in human intelligence operations that goes beyond mere information sharing. [ ]. In addition, liaison services have legal jurisdiction in their own countries, which they used before September 11 to support a number of U.S. Government operations against terrorist suspects and otherwise disrupt terrorist activities. Liaison services, particularly those outside the West, can operate more freely in accordance with laws and procedures often less restrictive than those of liberal democracies. []. [Page 288] Liaison operations are often necessary because of the paucity of unilateral Intelligence Community sources, according to CIA's National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. This is especially so in remote or hostile parts of the world where U.S. access is limited. []. Liaison services are also important for []. 273 C. Disadvantages of Relying on Foreign Liaison Services [Despite the many advantages of working with foreign liaison services, this approach has several limitations that were manifest before September 11. These limitations can hinder cooperation and possibly be exploited by terrorists]. [On some occasions, individuals in some liaison services are believed to have cooperated with terrorist groups, [ ]. In addition, the former Chief of CTC's Bin Ladin unit testified that []. Governments can also be highly sensitive about information that embarrasses them or implicates their citizens in terrorism. The former Chief of CTC's Bin Ladin unit testified that [ [page 289] ]. Problems are common even with governments that have long been close partners of the United States. Many intelligence services are reluctant to share information. Even the most cooperative services withhold information to protect sources and methods and for other reasons. Several European governments were described as indifferent to the threat al-Qa'ida posed before September 11, while others faced legal restrictions that impeded their ability to disrupt terrorist cells. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger told the Joint Inquiry that European governments (except Britain) did not share the U.S. assessment of the al-Qa'ida threat. Joint 274 Inquiry interviews in Germany showed that the Germans did not see Islamist groups as a significant threat to their interests before September 11. Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley also noted that European support varied according to the perceived threat. [The former Chief of CTC's Bin Ladin unit testified that some European services had minimal interest in the Bin Ladin target and offered little assistance. []." Bin Ladin also was not a priority target for the [] until after September 11, according to Joint Inquiry interviews abroad]. Several services are apparently excessively bureaucratic. Interviews in Germany revealed that the intelligence apparatus was deliberately fragmented to make abuses of power more difficult. This fragmentation also made coordination and information sharing more difficult. Furthermore, before September 11, it was not illegal to be a member of foreign terrorist organizations in Germany or to raise funds for them. The Assistant Director for the FBI's Counterterrorism Division noted that "the Germans were so restrictive prior to 9/11 with their Constitution about what they can and cannot do, that they could do very little." [Finally, [ ] liaison partners have their own equities to consider, and this must be taken into account when working with them and in evaluating information received from them. Some services will try to take advantage of joint operations to seek more information []. D. Liaison Service Problems with the United States An array of factors can often hinder the degree of liaison service's cooperation. Many of these are outside the control of the Intelligence Community. 275 Leaks of information revealing a liaison service's role in assisting the United States are a source of frustration cited by almost every expert the Joint Inquiry interviewed. At times, leaks are the result of procedures regarding warnings. For example, the U.S. has issued warnings based on information from liaison services -warnings required by U.S. policies -even though this angered the liaison service by potentially revealing its sources. More commonly, leaks are unauthorized, serve no policy purpose and simply anger liaison service's whose sources and methods may be compromised. [Leaks also hinder cooperation with governments that prefer to minimize public ties to the U.S., and particularly to U.S. intelligence. For example, one foreign government is sensitive to excessive public connections with the United States because they damage its reputation in the area and provide fuel for criticism to [] rivals, according to a U.S. Government official]. Interviews with Intelligence Community officials suggest a range of additional problems. The U.S. can easily overwhelm a small liaison service with many demands. For instance, CIA Station personnel in [-] maintain that one of their principal responsibilities is to decide on the priorities for requests for information so that the [ ] do not receive too many. U.S. laws, [page 291] particularly those that attach the death penalty to crimes, make it difficult for several governments to extradite terrorist suspects to, or provide information in support of prosecutions by, the U.S. This has hindered cooperation in the investigations of Zacarias Moussaoui and other suspects. Finally, although intelligence cooperation is often isolated from shifts in bilateral diplomacy, poor bilateral relations can affect intelligence liaison relations in negative ways. E. Coordination of Foreign Liaison [Most Intelligence Community officials operating overseas coordinate liaison relations well with DCI representatives who are responsible for intelligence relations with foreign governments. U.S. Ambassadors are always briefed, according to the Chief of the CIA's [ ]. He emphasized that the primary instruction given to the DCI representatives by CIA is: "Recruit the U.S. Ambassador first," that is, gain the good will of the Ambassador. Interviews with several Ambassadors indicate that, in general, the Intelligence Community coordinates well with U.S. embassies]. 276 Nonetheless, there are challenges to coordinating relations with liaison services. For instance, liaison on counterterrorism has not always been integrated into overall U.S. regional goals. Senior policy makers told the Joint Inquiry that, before September 11, they had not always succeeded in incorporating the struggle against al-Qa'ida into U.S. policy toward key states []. As a result, other issues often diverted attention from terrorism. There are also many channels through different agencies for U.S. Government liaison with foreign governments. These range from CIA and FBI to the Agriculture and Commerce Departments. As former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger noted, U.S. ambassadors often lack control over these relationships and, consequently, the U.S. Government does not always properly consider the priorities of all the requests it makes of foreign governments. Mr. Clarke also noted that there exists a "gentleman's agreement" with friendly liaison services: "you don't spy in the United States and we don't spy in your country." In his view, [page 292] however, this arrangement can put the U.S. at "some disadvantage when [foreign liaison services] are not terribly aggressive on our behalf." [This disadvantage was compounded by the decision at the end of the Cold War to cut CIA presence in some Western countries dramatically .[]. [The CIA is responsible for coordinating the overall intelligence liaison relationship, but FBI Legats and Defense Department attaches do not need CIA permission to interact with their local partners when, for example, a U.S. citizen overseas is involved in terrorism. Weaknesses in inter-agency coordination overseas can also reflect lack of coordination within the United States. For example, during Joint Inquiry interviews abroad, it was determined that a joint planning meeting to target al-Qa'ida leader [ ], which was to include CIA officers and their foreign liaison service counterparts, did not include the local FBI Legat. In fact, he was not aware of the meeting, although the Bureau plays a major role in tracking [ ]. In 277 general, however, CIA and FBI have come to learn more about each other's procedures and requirements and, as a result, have improved cooperation overseas]. F. Additional Challenges for the FBI Overseas The FBI's Legat program, which grew rapidly in the 1990s and remains relatively new, faces several additional problems. FBI agents reported to the Joint Inquiry that some offices were responsible for too large an area or for too many countries. As a result, they have little opportunity for the face-to-face meetings with foreign counterparts that are integral to establishing liaison relationships. In addition, Legats have limited funding for interaction with foreign counterparts. One Legat also noted that most FBI agents in the United States have little understanding of how the program works and, therefore, do not use it effectively. [Page 293] In addition, the Joint Inquiry was told in interviews that FBI Headquarters has often been slow in responding to Legat requests for support or information. The FBI Headquarters unit that supports the Legat program appears to be understaffed, since it has the same number of staff to support 45 Legat offices as it did when there were only 20 such offices. G. Progress After September 11 [The Joint Inquiry did not delve deeply into how liaison relationships changed after the September 11 attacks. However, almost all interviews and testimony that dealt with this subject indicated that cooperation had improved dramatically, particularly in regard to al- Qa'ida. The immediacy and magnitude of the threat impressed governments worldwide. In addition, increased U.S. attention to terrorism increased pressure on other governments to cooperate, and the amount of shared intelligence reporting has greatly increased, as have other types of cooperation, even with some previously recalcitrant or hostile countries []. 278 III. Covert Action and Military Operations Against Bin Ladin [The Joint Inquiry examined whether the Intelligence Community might have missed opportunities to disrupt the September 11 attacks through covert action or military operations directed against Usama Bin Ladin. To answer that question, the Joint Inquiry reviewed covert action documents and interviewed twenty-six persons with first-hand knowledge of U.S. efforts to capture Bin Ladin before September 11. The review included documents authorizing covert action [ ], and information related to 13 military options formulated by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in late 2000. Interviews included CIA personnel involved in covert action to capture Bin Ladin and his principal lieutenants; senior military officers responsible for planning contingency operations; [ ]; senior CIA and NSC officials and senior military officers involved in [Page 294] authorizing and implementing covert action and the use of military force; and State Department counterterrorism officials. The National Security Act of 1947, as amended, defines "covert action" as "activities of the United States Government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly." Covert action does not include activities whose primary purpose is to acquire intelligence; traditional diplomatic or military activities; traditional law enforcement activities; or routine support to these activities or the activities of other ! government agencies abroad. [In spring 1986, President Reagan signed a directive authorizing CIA to conduct certain counterterrorism operations abroad]. [ 279 ]. [[page 295]]. All actions authorized [ ] must be important to U.S. national security as established in the relevant Presidential Finding. [ ]: [ ]. [ ]. 280 The U.S. military does not require [ ]. Thus, a traditional military operation, such as a strike by cruise missile or special operations forces, to kill or capture Bin Ladin would require only an order from the President. B. Authorities to Conduct Covert Action Against Bin Ladin [Page 296] [Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger testified that "from August 1998 on, ... [President Clinton] authorized a series of overt and covert actions to try to get Bin Ladin and his principal lieutenants." [ ]: [ ]. [ ]:
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According to CIA personnel and NSC officials interviewed by the Joint Inquiry, Bin Ladin and his associates were expected to resist capture attempts. [ ]. The President also ordered the U.S. Navy to fire cruise missiles at targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. Some of the missiles were aimed at a location where Bin Ladin was thought to be, and the Joint Inquiry was told that one of the objectives of the strike was to kill Bin Ladin. [ ]. The NSC was considering [ ] operations: to capture Bin Ladin and a U.S. Navy cruise missile strike to kill him. According to a former Chief of CTC's Bin Ladin unit, the NSC decided against a cruise missile strike because of concerns about collateral damage to a nearby mosque. NSC and CIA personnel alike have said that [ ]. They differ in their interpretation [ ], 282 however .[[page 298]]. [Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger testified to the Joint Inquiry on September 19,2002 that, from the time of the East Africa U.S. Embassy bombings in 1998, the U.S. Government was: ...embarked [on] an very intense effort to get Bin Ladin, to get his lieutenants, through both overt and covert means. ...We were involved -at that point, our intense focus was to get Bin Ladin, to get his key lieutenants. The President conferred a number of authorities on the Intelligence Community for that purpose. Senator Shelby: By "get him," that meant kill him if you had to, capture him or kill him? Mr. Berger: I don't know what I can say in this hearing, but capture and kill. ... There was no question that the cruise missiles were not trying to capture him. They were not law enforcement techniques. ..."] [ ]. Mr. Berger noted that the Administration was openly and simultaneously trying to kill Bin Ladin with cruise missiles. Mr. Clarke also told the Joint Inquiry in June 2002 that "we wanted to make clear to the people in the field that we preferred arrest, but we recognized that that probably wasn't going to be possible." [ ]. [Later in the September 19, 2002 hearing, Mr. Berger and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft were asked whether the Executive Order 123:33 prohibition on assassinations should be reconsidered. They responded: Mr. Scowcroft: ...it gets us into all kinds of complications and drawing legalistic lines. One of the things that we found [in connection with a 1989 coup attempt in Panama] is that CIA personnel who were -I wouldn't say involved, but who knew about it and were meeting with the coup plotters and so on, were concerned about being accessories; because if you mount a coup, ...it is very likely there are going to be some people killed. Mr. Berger: ...we received rulings from the Department of Justice that the Executive Order did not prohibit our ability...to try to kill Bin Ladin, because it 283 did not apply to situations in which you are acting in self-defense or you are acting against command and control targets against an enemy, which he certainly was ... [A]s a practical matter, it didn't stop us from doing anything]. Senator Baxh: ...we have heard from some of [those ] who deal in these kinds of areas. They are pretty reluctant, absent an express authorization, to wander too far down that path for fear of having the wrong legal interpretation and someday being faced with a lawyer who has a different analysis of some kind... Mr. Berger: They certainly would have to have clarity from the President of the United States or something like that. ]
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As former National Security Advisor Berger noted in his interview, "We do not have a rogue CIA." While NSC officials maintained that []. CIA personnel interviewed by the Joint Inquiry explained that [ [page 300] ]. [ 285 ]:
[[page 301] ] . [ 286 ]. []. [[page 302] ]: [ ]. .... [ ]. 287 [ ]. [ ]. [ ]. [Page 303] [ ]. According to individuals interviewed by the Joint Inquiry, []. This idea reflects a tension between two views of counterterrorist efforts. One view is that the problem is primarily a law enforcement matter, with prosecutions and 288 convictions as the ultimate goal, while the other is that we are at war and terrorists are combatants in a foreign army who may be detained until the end of the conflict. []. The White House refused to allow the Joint Inquiry to review the relevant documents, but []: [ ]. [ [Page 304]]. [Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage testified to the Joint Inquiry on September 19, 2002 that: The National Security Council...called for new proposals [in March 2001] on a strategy that would be more aggressive against al-Qa'ida. The first deputies meeting, which is the first decision making body in the administration, met on the 30th of April and set off on a trail of initiatives to include financing, getting at financing, to get at increased authorities for the Central Intelligence Agency, sharp end things that the military was asked to do. ...So, from March through about August, we were preparing a national security Presidential directive, and it was 289 distributed on August 13 to the principals for their final comments. And then, of course, we had the events of September 11...]. [] :
The Joint Inquiry was told []. The Joint inquiry was not able to determine whether senior U.S. Government policymakers or the President reviewed them before that date. Within the Congress, distribution of [] was limited to the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader, the Minority Leaders of the [page 305] House and Senate, and the Chairs and Ranking Minority members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Congress did nor receive [ ]. Senior U.S. military officers involved in planning military operations against Bin Ladin have told Joint Inquiry staff that there were no documents [ ] authorizing the U.S. military to carry out clandestine operations against Bin Ladin. Nor were there efforts to draft 290 such documents, because they were not deemed necessary. However, Presidential approval would have been required for military operations. C. Additional Operational Challenges and Constraints In interviews, CTC personnel pointed out numerous operational challenges and constraints they faced in attempting to capture [ ] Bin Ladin and his lieutenants:
[page 306]
291 In interviews with the Joint Inquiry, a former CTC Chief and a former Chief of the [] Extremist Group also described constraints on CIA actions:
[Page 306] [In the September 12,2002 hearing, a CIA official also spoke of the constraints he faced in staging covert action against Bin Ladin: [ ]. In a Joint Inquiry interview, a former CTC Chief also offered his opinion that firing cruise missiles based on a single strand of human intelligence was not advisable since the risk of missing Bin Ladin or inflicting excessive collateral damage outweighed the chances of success. 292 In a statement to the Joint Inquiry, a former CTC Chief cited the "international political context of this period" as presenting "an operational environment with major impediments that CIA constantly fought to overcome":
[Page 308]
He also noted other factors that complicated CIA operations against Bin Ladin: [ ]. The former CTC Chief explained that these challenges and operational constraints, [], left virtually no room to craft an executable operation. In an interview with the Joint Inquiry, CIA's Deputy Director for Operations also noted that CIA [ ] capabilities had "atrophied" in the years preceding the September 11 attacks. 293 General Hugh Shelton, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Joint Staffs current Director of Operations pointed to two additional constraints on military operations against Bin Ladin. The first was the absence of "actionable" intelligence on Bin Ladin's whereabouts: the Intelligence Community never provided a location and time at which a missile strike could be launched. The second was the absence of a declaration of war or some similar declaration indicating that the Taliban was a formal enemy. In General Shelton' s view, the absence of such a declaration precluded the United States from sending U.S. soldiers into Afghanistan to capture or kill Bin Ladin. He believes that solving the Afghanistan problem before September 11 required the full range of diplomatic, economic, and military tools available to the U.S. Government. [Page 309] In contrast, the Chief of CTC' s Bin Ladin unit through June 1999, told the Joint Inquiry: [ ]. A former CTC Chief had a somewhat different view of intelligence support to the military during his tenure [ ]: [The military has] exacting criteria that intelligence needs, that needs to be met before they can launch an operation. [ ]. Another Chief of CTC's Bin Ladin unit had yet another view on actionable intelligence: I
think our swift victory...after September 11th -underscores the fact that
we had
an enormous body of actionable intelligence on Bin Ladin's terrorist
infrastructure. D. CIA Covert Action Against Bin Ladin [ ] 294 [The Joint Inquiry also became aware of the existence of [ ]. The White House declined to provide access, but the Joint Inquiry was able to develop some information about their content. [Page 310] Notwithstanding the extensive efforts [ ] to guide CIA covert action against Bin Ladin, actual efforts to implement covert action and military operations against him in Afghanistan before September 11 were very limited. A central element in these efforts was the CTC unit established in 1996 to focus exclusively on Bin Ladin and his terrorist network. Initially, the unit was created to examine terrorist financing and to determine whether Bin Ladin posed a significant threat. []. []. In February 1998, Bin Ladin issued his public fatwa authorizing attacks on American civilians and military personnel anywhere in the world. His statement and subsequent indictment in the United States added urgency to the effort to formulate a covert action plan against him. []. [ ]. 295 [ [page 311]]. [ ]. [ ]. [ 296 [Page 312] ]: [ ]. [ ] [The President ordered the U.S. Navy on August 20, 1998 to launch cruise missiles against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. This is the only instance the Joint Inquiry has been able to identify in which the CIA or U.S. military carried out an operation directly against Bin Ladin before September 11] . According to the President's public statements at the time, the cruise missile strikes were launched in self-defense against groups that had played key roles in the embassy bombings, had executed earlier attacks against Americans, were planning to launch additional attacks, and were attempting to obtain chemical weapons. All personnel interviewed on this matter by the Joint Inquiry concur that one objective of the strikes in Afghanistan was to kill Bin Ladin. [ ]:
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[ ]. In the summer and fall of 1999, following the arrival of a new Chief of CTC and a new Chief of the Bin Ladin unit, CTC reviewed its covert action program against Bin Ladin and developed "The Plan." This review was propelled by the DCI's December 1998 memorandum declaring "war" against Bin Ladin. The Plan that resulted in September 1999 contained five main elements, with an estimate of each element's prospects of success:
298
A CIA September 1999 briefing presentation outlining these elements concluded: [The Bin Ladin unit] cannot implement "The Plan" without additional resources. ...Without additional resources, we will continue to be defense [sic]...not offensive. ...[The Chief of the CTC is] working on resource issue. [ ]." In CTC's view, although there was "lots of desire at the working level," there was "reluctance at the political level," and it was "unlikely that JSOC will ever deploy under current circumstances." A [ ] CIA document mentions another option to capture Bin Ladin [[Page 315] ]. 299 In testimony before the Joint Inquiry, the DCI acknowledged impediments to "The Plan": U.S. policy stopped short of replacing the Taliban regime, limiting the ability of the U.S. Government to exert pressure on Bin Ladin. U.S. relations with Pakistan, the principal access point to Afghanistan were strained by the Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998 and the military coup in 1999. The U.S. Government had no official presence in Afghanistan, and relations with the Taliban were seriously strained. Both factors made it more difficult to gain access to Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida personnel. Over time, CTC officers engaged in these covert action efforts concluded that "getting Bin Ladin" required dealing with the Taliban regime first. They believed that the different means of capturing Bin Ladin were unlikely to succeed as long as the Taliban continued to provide Bin Ladin a safe-haven. In addition, CIA officers recognized that the entire al-Qa' ida apparatus in Afghanistan, not just Bin Ladin, was a problem. Thus, placing pressure on the Taliban to expel Bin Ladin and end its support for terrorism was necessary. [ ]. [The Joint Inquiry was denied access to that document]. While it appears that CIA was not able to mount a single operation against Bin Ladin directly before September 11, CIA [ ] were key factors in U.S. military execution of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan beginning in October 2001. The DCI alluded to this in his testimony before the Joint Inquiry on June 18-19, 2002. [Page 316] E. [Use of [ ] against Bin Ladin [In June 2002, then-Presidential Advisor for Cybersecurity Richard Clarke told a Congressional forum examining technology that can be used to combat terrorism: Because of that development, which was telescoped and done very quickly in six months instead of three years, we were able to launch [ ] into Afghanistan last September]. 300 We were continually looking at what we were doing, looking at new techniques, looking at new steps we could take. In the fall -- in February of 2000, for example, I sent a memo to President Clinton outlining what we were doing. And he wrote back, this is not satisfactory .It was particularly related to how you find this guy. We have got to do more. And that prompted us to work with the Intelligence Community and the military on a new technique for detecting Bin Ladin. ... Actually it was very promising as a way of determining where he would be if we had one strand of human intelligence]. [ ]. [ ]: [ ]. [Page 317] [ ]. [ 301 ]. [ ]. [ ]. [ ]. [Page 319] [ 302 ]: [ ]. [Beginning in 2001, the U.S. Government embarked on an effort to develop [ ]. [ ]. [ ]. [Page 319] F. Use of U.S. Military Force Against Bin Ladin According to interviews of current and retired senior military officers and DoD civilians about U.S. military options for capturing or killing Bin Ladin, cruise missile strikes in August 1998, following the embassy bombings in East Africa, were the only use of U.S. military force against Bin Ladin or his terrorist network in Afghanistan prior to September 11, 2001 On [ ] occasions in [ ], President Clinton and his advisors contemplated additional missile strikes against Bin Ladin.
303
In each situation, the Intelligence Community lacked "actionable intelligence" for a capture or kill operation by military means. Mr. Clarke described the problem. The Clinton Administration considered additional military strikes against Afghanistan on [] occasions [ ]. We now know that on only one of those [] occasions was the intelligence correct. [Actionable intelligence was particularly difficult to obtain since killing or capturing Bin Ladin required knowing where he would be when cruise missiles arrived at the target area, not 304 where he had been when they were launched. Several senior CIA officers who were interviewed, including the Deputy Director for Operations, two former CTC Chiefs, a former Chief of CTC's Bin Ladin unit, and a [ ]. Thus, CIA's general reluctance to rely on a single source of information or recommend missile launches based on human intelligence alone was compounded by concerns about the reliability of this information. In addition, policymakers sought information on the presence of non-combatants and property that might be damaged in a strike]. [The interviewees also mentioned contingency plans to launch additional cruise missile strikes at Bin Ladin had the Intelligence Community been able to obtain precise information on his location [Page 321] As former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger explained to the Joint Inquiry: Unfortunately, after August 1998, we never again had actionable intelligence information reliable enough to warrant another attack against Bin Ladin or his key lieutenants. If we had, President Clinton would have given the order. The President ordered two submarines loaded with cruise missiles on perpetual deployment off the coast of Pakistan for that very purpose. We also were engaged in a number of covert efforts I cannot discuss in this unclassified format]. According to a CIA document, in December 1999, the U.S. Special Operations Command had been tasked to begin planning and was "working closely" with CIA. The Joint Inquiry did not identify any operations that came about as a result of this planning. In an interview with the Joint Inquiry, General Shelton, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff explained the military options beyond cruise missile strikes. In the fall of 2000, he prepared a paper containing 12 or 13 options for using military force against Bin Ladin. Several options reportedly involved "U.S. boots on the ground" in Afghanistan and were aimed at capturing Bin Ladin, [ ]. General Shelton, along with Secretary of Defense William Cohen, discussed these options with National Security Advisor Berger in late 2000, after Mr. Berger had expressed impatience with U.S. efforts to get Bin Ladin. The military Joint Staffs Director of Operations described the military options paper as an effort to "educate" the National Security Advisor about the "extraordinary complexity of the 'boots-on- the-ground' options." According to this officer, the military did not receive any tasking to develop 305 these options further. The Joint Inquiry requested a copy of both the paper detailing the military options as well as the military Joint Staffs pre-September 11 strategic plan for Afghanistan that is discussed below. The NSC denied that request, although a senior officer in the military Joint Staff was allowed to brief the Joint Inquiry on those options. Former Chairman Shelton said the options could have been executed "very quickly," but depended on the Intelligence Community obtaining actionable intelligence. He said CIA never provided such intelligence and the military had never been tasked to obtain it. Mr. Clarke explained that "the overwhelming message to the White House from the uniformed military leadership was 'we don't want to do this,' [ ] [Page 322]." Mr. Clarke also said that '[t]he military repeatedly came back with recommendations that their capability not be utilized for commando operations in Afghanistan." According to CTC officers, the military levied so many requirements for highly detailed, actionable intelligence before conducting an operation -far beyond what the Intelligence Community was ever likely to obtain -that U.S. military units were effectively precluded from conducting operations against Bin Ladin's organization on the ground in Afghanistan before September 11. As noted above, the Joint Inquiry heard conflicting testimony from CIA officers about the Intelligence Community obtaining actionable intelligence. For instance, one former CTC officer told the Joint Inquiry: [ ]. A former CTC Chief [ ] explained: [The military has] exacting criteria that intelligence needs...that needs to be met before they can launch an operation. [ ]. 306 The military Joint Staff's Director of Operations also mentioned a strategic plan developed by the Joint Staff in late 2000 for dealing with the Taliban regime. The U.S. military was coming to the same conclusion as the Intelligence Community: getting Bin Ladin meant dealing with the Taliban regime first and shutting down the sanctuary in Afghanistan. The Joint Inquiry also asked General Shelton whether the military and CIA ever pooled assets or developed plans to conduct a joint operation against Bin Ladin. The former Chairman said that no plans existed, and that, as a general principle, he was opposed to joint CIA-military operations. He explained that he did not want U.S. military units to be dependent on the actions of CIA paramilitary units outside the military chain of command. He noted an instance in which CIA and the U.S. military conducted a coordinated operation [ ]. In that case, a "firewall" between CIA and military units allowed the military to proceed even if CIA units did not accomplish their mission. General Shelton said that he would have insisted on similar arrangements for joint operations in Afghanistan against Bin Ladin. In contrast, a former CTC Chief said about joint operations involving CIA and military units: I think it is an absolutely great [idea]. This is something we have been advocating for a long time. If you want to go to war, you take the CIA, its clandestinity, its authorities, and you match it up with special operations forces of the U.S. military, you can really -you can really do some damage... This is something that we have tried to advocate at the working level, and we haven't made much progress. But, if this is something that you [the Congress] would like to look into, it would be great for the United States. Similarly, a former Chief of CTC's Bin Ladin unit commented: As someone who [ ] worked with special forces, they want to work with us and we want to work with them. History was made between the CIA and special forces. We need to do that. 307 IV. Strategy to Disrupt Terrorist Funding Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida financial assets and networks are substantial, diverse, and elusive. In addition to Bin Ladin's personal wealth, the al-Qa'ida financial network relies on funds reportedly raised through legitimate and illegitimate businesses and on donations from wealthy Muslims and charitable organizations supporting Muslim causes. Bin Ladin has claimed that he has access to four ways of transferring money: smuggling cash, the global banking system, the Islamic banking system, and hawalas or informal money transfer networks. Bin Ladin once boasted to a Pakistani newspaper that the cracks in the Western financial system were as familiar to him and his al-Qa'ida colleagues as the lines on their own hands. [Page 324] A. Financial Tracking before September 11 Before September 11, no single federal agency was responsible for tracking terrorist funds or coordinating U.S. Government efforts and securing international collaboration to interdict these funds. Some agencies did track terrorist financing, but, for the most part, the effort was disorganized and related to specific cases, and the U.S. Government was generally reluctant to seize assets or make arrests relating to that financing. The General Counsel of the Department of Treasury explained to the Joint Inquiry that, before September 11, 2001, the financial war on terrorism was "ad-hocism," episodic, and informal, with no mechanism for exchanging information among agencies or for setting priorities. He described errors in perception, focus, and targeting of the Bin Ladin threat and his realization as he watched the World Trade Center Towers disintegrate: It was as if we had been looking at the world through the wrong end of a telescope. ...Money had been spirited around the globe by means and measures and in denominations that mocked all of our detection. ...The most serious threat to our well-being was now clean money intended to kill, not dirty money seeking to be rinsed in a place of hiding. The fact that, before September 11, no single agency was responsible for coordinating government efforts to attack terrorist funding does not mean that individual agencies were not tracking funds effectively, identifying terrorists and their organizations, and unraveling their plots by targeting assets. The Chief of the FBI's Financial Crimes Section and the Director of 308 Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) told the Joint Inquiry that, before September 11, they had the capacity to develop leads on terrorist suspects and link them to other terrorists by examining funding sources. The FBI Financial Crimes Section Chief also explained his belief that he would have been able to locate hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al- Mihdhar, if asked, through credit card and banking transactions. FinCEN started doing linkage analysis of terrorist financing in April 1999 and first identified an account with a direct link to Bin Ladin in February 2001. FinCEN has the advantage of being able to work with law enforcement and intelligence information, which it [Page 325] combines with Bank Secrecy Act information and commercial data to produce a product useful to the Department of Treasury and others in seizing, blocking, and freezing terrorist assets. These capabilities and databases at FinCEN, the Drug Information Center, and across the Intelligence Community enabled the FBI and FinCEN to connect almost all 19 hijackers within days after September 11 by linking their bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, addresses, and telephone numbers. B. Financial Tracking after September 11 Since September 11, 200 I, the federal government has taken actions to block and seize terrorist assets such as smuggled cash, to arrest and indict terrorist financiers, and to shut down front companies, charities, banks, and hawala conglomerates that offer financial support to al- Qa'ida. On September 24,2001, four days after signing an Executive Order blocking terrorist funds, President Bush gave a new priority to the effort: "We will starve the terrorists of funding." The Treasury General Counsel described to the Joint Inquiry the change in the government's strategy: "the difference between the activity before 9/1 I and after 9/11 is the difference between a mule and an 8- cylinder Chevy." V. Khalid Shaykh Mohammed: The Mastermind Of September 11 [Khalid Shaykh Mohammed (KSM) is one of al-Qa'ida's most senior leaders and is believed to be the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks. Although the Intelligence 309 Community knew of KSM's support for terrorism since 1995 and later learned of his links to al- Qa'ida, he was not recognized as a senior al-Qa'ida lieutenant. In Apri1 2002, the Intelligence Community learned that KSM and his group conceived the September 11 plot. KSM is also known as Mukhtar or "the Brain]." The efforts the Intelligence Community took against KSM illustrate the difficulties it had in understanding al-Qa'ida's activities and structure and formulating a coherent response. The Community devoted few analytic or operational resources to tracking KSM or understanding his [page 326] activities. Coordination within the Community was irregular at best, and the little information that was shared was usually forgotten or dismissed. A. KSM's Links to Terrorist Attacks before September 11 KSM and his followers played a major role in several Islamist extremist plots before September 11. These plots are notable for the large number of casualties they sought to create, the use of airplanes, and focus on symbolic targets such as the World Trade Center and U.S. government facilities, all characteristics of the September 11 attacks. Investigators determined in 1995 that KSM was linked to the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Federal prosecutors gave CIA a copy of a financial wire transaction for $660 between Qatar and the U.S., dated several days before the blast, from "Khaled Shaykh" in Doha to Muhammad Salameh, one of four defendants convicted in the World Trade Center bombing. With additional information that emerged from the Philippines investigation described below, CIA was able to determine that Khaled was KSM, that KSM was an uncle of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing plot, and that KSM had married the sister of Yousef's wife. [In 1995, Yousef's plots to bomb twelve U.S. airplanes flying Asian routes, kill the Pope, and crash a plane into CIA Headquarters were thwarted by Philippine police when a fire erupted in an apartment where Yousef was preparing explosives. The police seized a list of names and telephone numbers and found a notation for "Khalid Doha" with telephone and facsimile numbers in Qatar. [ 310 ]. Yet another link to KSM was made when Yousef, who was apprehended shortly after fleeing the Philippines, made a call from detention to Qatar and asked to speak with "Khalid." This number was similar to the one found by the Philippine police. [ ]. [Page 327] The Intelligence Community agencies worked together to apprehend KSM during his time in Qatar and in the Balkans. However, KSM's frequent travels, and the slow pace of efforts to learn his whereabouts, [ ]. C. Finding KSM and Building the Case [ ]. [Prosecutors asked that C1A continue to assist the FBI by using its assets to help establish the case. [ ]. [ ]. [It was determined that KSM was a top priority. The FBI was poised to take a photograph abroad for identification purposes. If KSM were identified from the photograph, an indictment 311 would be sought. [ ]. On December 30, 1995 KSM was identified [page 328] from the photograph, and he was indicted by a New York City grand jury in January 1996. The indictment was sealed and would be opened once KSM was in custody]. [ ]. [ ]. [ ]. [ ]. 312 E. Link to al-Qa'ida Discovered The Intelligence Community was not sure ofKSM's alliances until after [ ]. For example, a December 1995 CIA cable stated, " As far as we know, Yousef and his [page 329] confederates -such as [KSM] -are not allied with an organized terrorist group and cannot readily call upon such an organized unit to execute retaliatory strikes against the U.S. or countries that have cooperated with the U.S. in the extradition of Yousefand his associates." [This assessment changed in 1996 when a foreign government shared information that Bin Ladin and KSM had traveled together to a foreign country the previous year. 1n August 1998, after the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, another foreign government sent CIA a list of the names of individuals who flew into Nairobi before the attack. Based on information delivered by another liaison service, CIA recognized that one of the passengers' names was an alias for KSM. The liaison report also described KSM as close to Bin Ladin. In an interview, the FBI agent responsible for the KSM case could not remember this information, even though it had been disseminated by CIA. This information and subsequent reporting led the CIA to see KSM as part of Bin Ladin's organization. Several CIA cables indicated that following up on information relevant to KSM was essential, given his past activities and his links to al-Qa'ida]. [ ]. [ ]: Page 330] 313 [ ]. Only once before September 11 did an analyst write requirements that were intended to determine KSM's role in al-Qa'ida, his future plans, or other traditional intelligence concerns. [Though KSM had numerous links to the United States, it appears that information concerning such links was difficult to discover and did not generate an aggressive response. The Intelligence Community knew that KSM had attended college in the United States in the 1980s. Both the CIA and FBI tried to track this down, but they were unsuccessful until the Kuwaitis published information in the media. CIA disseminated a report that KSM had traveled to the United States as recently as May 2001 and was sending recruits to the United States to meet colleagues already in the country did not cause the Intelligence Community to mobilize, even though it contained apparently significant [ ] information. The report explained that KSM was a relative of convicted World Trade center bomber Ramzi Yousef, appeared to be one of Bin Ladin's most trusted lieutenants and was active in recruiting people to travel outside Afghanistan, including to the United States, to carry out unspecified activities on behalf of Bin Ladin. According to the report, he continued to travel frequently to the United States, including as recently as May 2001, and routinely told others that he could arrange their entry into the United States as well. Reportedly, these individuals were expected to establish contact with colleagues already there. The clear implication of his comments, according to the report, was that they would be engaged in planning terrorist-related activities]. [Page 331] The CIA did not find the report credible, but noted that it was worth pursuing in case it was accurate: "if it is KSM, we have both a significant threat and an opportunity to pick him up." The Joint Inquiry requested that CIA review this particular source report and provide information 314 concerning how CTC, CIA field personnel, and other agencies reacted to this information. That information has not been received. [Since September 11, the CIA has come to believe that KSM may have been responsible for all Bin Ladin operations outside Afghanistan. In Spring 2002, intelligence indicated that he played a leading role in the USS Cole bombing. In the Summer 2002, CIA created a new High Value Target Team to track and target terrorist masterminds such as KSM. In the summer of 2002, KSM appeared along with Ramzi Bin al-Shibh in a taped al-Jazeera interview. Despite Bin al-Shibh's capture in Pakistan shortly thereafter, KSM has not yet been found]. VI. The FBI's Investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui Before September 11 Zacarias Moussaoui came to the attention of the FBI as the Intelligence Community was detecting numerous signs of an impending terrorist attack against U.S. interests somewhere in the world. He was in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) on September 11, 2001. The Joint Inquiry examined whether information resulting from the FBI's investigation of Moussaoui could have alerted the government to the scope and nature of the attacks on September 11. From interviews with flight school personnel and with Moussaoui himself in August 2001, the FBI pieced together the details of his arrival in the United States. Moussaoui contacted the Airman Flight School in Oklahoma by e-mail on September 29, 2000 and expressed interest in taking lessons to fly a small Cessna aircraft. On February 23, 2001, he entered the United States at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, traveling on a French passport that allowed him to stay in [page 331] the country without a visa for 90 days until May 22, 2001. On February 26, he began flight lessons at Airman Flight School.' _______________ * On March I, 2003, Khalid Shaykh Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan as a result of a joint operation by Pakistani and U.S. authorities. 315 Moussaoui was unhappy with the training and, at the end of May, contacted Pan American International Flight School in Minneapolis. While Airman provided flight lessons in piloting Cessnas and similar small aircraft, Pan Am provided ground training and access to a Boeing 747 flight simulator used by professional pilots. Most of Pan Am's students were newly hired airline pilots, who used the flight simulator for initial training, or active airline pilots, who used the equipment for refresher training. Although anyone can sign up for lessons at Pan Am, the typical student has a pilot's license, is employed by an airline, and has several thousand flight hours. Moussaoui had none of these qualifications. On August 11, Moussaoui and his roommate, Hussein al-Attas, arrived in Egan, Minnesota and checked into a hotel. Moussaoui began classes at Pan Am on August 13. On Wednesday, August 15, a Pan Am employee called the FBI's Minneapolis Field Office because he and other Pan Am employees had become suspicious of Moussaoui. Before September 11, the FBI determined that Moussaoui had paid approximately $6,800 in cash for training on the Boeing 747 simulator, but met none of the usual criteria for students at the flight school. Moussaoui had no aviation background and, apparently, no pilot's license. It was also considered odd that Moussaoui simply wanted to learn the most challenging elements of flying, taking off and landing a 747, which he referred to as an "ego boosting thing." Based on information from the flight school, the FBI field office opened an international terrorism investigation of Moussaoui. Agents within that office saw him as a threat to national security. Because the FBI field office in Minneapolis hosts and is part of a Joint Terrorism Task Force, INS agents, who share space and work closely with the FBI in Minneapolis, were able to determine immediately that Moussaoui had been authorized to stay in the United States until May 22,2001 and, thus, was "out of status" when the FBI began to investigate him in August. [Page 333] On the day the Minneapolis field office learned about Moussaoui, it asked both the CIA and the FBI's legal attache in Paris for information about him. The FBI field office also informed FBI Headquarters about the investigation. 316 FBI documents indicate Moussaoui's instructors thought that ht: had what they characterized as a "legitimate" interest in aircraft. Nonetheless, he was unlike any other student with whom his flight instructor had worked. Moussaoui began the ground school portion of the training with a Power Point presentation on aircraft systems. The instruction was reportedly useless for Moussaoui, who had no background in sophisticated aircraft systems and, apparently, had only approximately 50 hours of flight training in light civil aircraft. In addition, Moussaoui was extremely interested in the operation of the plane's doors and control panel. Pan Am found that suspicious. Further, Moussaoui reportedly said that he would "love" to fly a simulated flight from Heathrow Airport in England to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. Thus, the Minneapolis FBI office decided to arrest Moussaoui. In a Joint Inquiry interview, a Minneapolis FBI field office agent said that a Supervisory Agent at Headquarters had suggested that Moussaoui be put under surveillance, but Minneapolis did not have enough agents to do that. In testimony before the Joint Inquiry, however, the Minneapolis agent said that he had relied on his criminal experience in deciding to arrest Moussaoui, rather than surveilling him: The decision on whether or not we were going to put Mr. Moussaoui under surveillance rested with me. And I made the decision that he was going to be arrested because we had a violation. The INS was participating as a member, a full member of our joint terrorism task force. My background in the criminal arena suggests that when a violation occurs and you can stop further or potential criminal activity, you act on that. So that is exactly what I instructed the agents to do. If we had the possibility of arresting him, we were going to arrest him. If we needed to surveil him, we certainly could have instituted a surveillance plan. ...It was not appropriate to do [so] in this case. In response to questions, the agent explained in more detail why he decided to arrest Moussaoui, rather than put him under surveillance: Because I didn't want him to get any additional time on a flight simulator that would allow him to have the knowledge that we could no longer take back from him to operate an aircraft. This provided us the opportunity to freeze the situation as it was going on right there, prevent him from gaining the knowledge that he could use at some point in the future. And, if ultimately we determined all we could do, after interviewing him and doing some other investigative steps, if all we could do was deport him, then we would be sensitized to the fact that he was interested in doing something else and he could be put in the Tip-off System. He would be put in--the appropriate notifications could have been made if he attempted to reenter the United States. But our focus was on preventing him getting the knowledge that he would have needed. ... 317 [I]t is important to remember the circumstances that were present before September 11th. We had no real incidents of airplane hijacking that had happened domestically within the preceding decade. We now have a different perspective, that it is very, very difficult to go back and forget and not acknowledge. But, again, I speak to my criminal background in saying if a violation has occurred, and we can take further steps to stop what could speak to a continued violation, we will act. And those were the circumstances under which I made that decision. Thus, on August 16,2001, FBI agents, along with two INS agents, went to Moussaoui's hotel. The INS agents temporarily detained Moussaoui and his roommate, Hussein al-Attas, while checking to determine if they were legally in the United States. Al-Attas showed the INS agents a valid student visa and agreed to allow the agents to search his property in the hotel room. Moussaoui showed the agents his passport case, which included his passport, a British driver's license, a bank statement showing a deposit of $32,000 in cash to an Oklahoma account, and a notification from INS acknowledging his request to extend his stay in the United States. The INS agents determined that Moussaoui had not received an extension beyond May 22, 2001, and they therefore took him into custody. Moussaoui declined to allow the agents to search his belongings. When the agents told him that he would be deported, Moussaoui agreed to let the agents take his belongings to the INS office for safekeeping. In packing those items, the agents noticed that Moussaoui had a laptop computer. [Page 335] The agents interviewed Moussaoui at the INS office in Minneapolis. He told them that he had traveled to Morocco, Malaysia, and Pakistan for business, although he could not provide details of his employment or convincingly explain the $32,000 bank balance. After Moussaoui's detention, the Minneapolis case agent called the field office's legal counsel and asked if there was any way to search Moussaoui's possessions without his consent. He was told that he had to obtain a search warrant. Over the ensuing days, Minneapolis agents considered several alternatives, including a criminal search warrant and a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court search order. They also considered deporting Moussaoui to France, after arranging for French authorities to search his possessions and share their findings 318 |