.. Many CIA managers at headquarters posited that the guidelines did not present a problem and that no extra labor [was] required on the part of field officers as a result of the guidelines. Many others, including CIA officers in the field who brought their concerns to the attention of HPSCI members and staff, had a different view . . . . Their concerns were not that waivers were denied, but that they were not career enhancing and that the process by which requests were brought forward was cumbersome and resulted in disincentive to work to recruit anyone who might have been involved in proscribed acts. . . .
Prior to September 11, the FBI also attempted, but with only limited success, to develop human sources regarding the activities of al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups within the United States. Again, the difficult nature of the target, as well as FBI and Department of Justice policies and practices, may have hampered the FBI's coverage of the radical fundamentalist community in this country.
Recruiting sources in fundamentalist communities within the United States may have been more difficult than such recruitments abroad. The FBI advised the Joint Inquiry that, for example, only 21 FBI agents possess the Arabic language skills that would be expected to be important in pursuing such recruitments.
However, even those FBI agents who were skilled at developing such sources faced a number of difficulties that may have hampered the FBI's ability to gather intelligence on terrorist activities in the United States. According to several FBI agents, for example, FBI Headquarters and field managers were often unwilling to approve potentially controversial activity involving human sources who were in a position to provide counterterrorism intelligence. The 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act specifically outlawed providing material support to terrorism. If an FBI source was involved in illegal funding or in terrorist training, the agent responsible for the source had to obtain approval from FBI Headquarters and the Department of Justice to allow the source to engage in the illegal activity. According to FBI personnel, this was a difficult process that sometimes took as long as six months. Because terrorist sources frequently engaged in activity that violated the 1996 Act, the cumbersome approval process often discouraged aggressive recruitment of these sources in the field.
[page 100]
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FBI agents also cited to the Joint Inquiry the requirement for prior DCI approval of FBI source travel abroad as a roadblock to sending sources overseas for operational purposes. Several FBI agents expressed the opinion to the Joint Inquiry that the CIA took advantage of this requirement to prevent FBI sources from operating overseas. Another FBI agent complained that FBI Headquarters management did not readily approve overseas travel for sources because of its belief that the FBI should focus on activity within the United States. When FBI management did approve overseas travel for assets, it often declined to allow the responsible agents to accompany the sources during such travel. These decisions, according to FBI agents in Joint Inquiry interviews, significantly diminished the quality of the operations.
The FBI also apparently did not use those counterterrorism sources that had been identified in the most effective and coordinated manner. The FBI generally focused source reporting on cases and subjects within the jurisdiction of specific field offices and did not adequately use sources to support a national counterterrorism intelligence program. For example, the FBI received intelligence in 1999 that a terrorist organization was planning to send students to the United States for aviation training. While an operational unit at FBI Headquarters instructed twenty-four field offices to "task sources" for information, it appears that no FBI sources were in fact asked about the matter.
In addition, when the Phoenix FBI agent reported to FBI Headquarters in July 2001 his concern that Middle Eastern students were coming to the United States for civil aviation-related training, there was no effort by either FBI Headquarters or the field office that was advised of his concern by FBI Headquarters to task counterterrorism sources for any relevant information. Similarly, when Minneapolis FBI field office agents detained Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001, they were concerned that he might be part of a larger conspiracy. Nonetheless, neither the Minneapolis field office nor FBI Headquarters asked any FBI sources whether they knew anything about Moussaoui or the existence of any larger plot.
[Page 101]
[Finally, in August 2001, the FBI learned from the CIA that terrorist suspects Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar were in the United States. Neither the FBI field offices that were involved in the search nor FBI Headquarters thought to ask FBI field
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offices to ask their sources whether they were aware of the whereabouts of the two individuals, who later took part in the September 11 attacks. As one result, the San Diego counterterrorism informant who had numerous contacts with those two individuals during 2000 was never asked to help the FBI locate them in the last weeks before September 11].
12. Finding: During the summer of 2001, when the Intelligence Community was bracing for an imminent al-Qa'ida attack, difficulties with FBI applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance and the FISA process led to a diminished level of coverage of suspected al- Qa'ida operatives in the United States. The effect of these difficulties was compounded by the perception that spread among FBI personnel at Headquarters and the field offices that the FISA process was lengthy and fraught with peril.
Discussion: In the summer of 2000, during preparation for the trial in New York of those involved in the bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa, prosecutors discovered factual errors in applications for FISA orders sanctioning electronic surveillance. The FISA Court found that these errors included an erroneous statement that a FISA target was not under criminal investigation, erroneous statements concerning overlapping intelligence and criminal investigations, and unauthorized sharing of FISA information with criminal investigators and prosecutors.
The FISA Court also determined that these errors called into question the certifications that had been made by senior officials that the FISA surveillances requested by the applications had as their purpose the gathering of foreign intelligence, rather than criminal-related information, as required by FISA. After being informed of additional errors in subsequent months, the FISA Court barred an FBI agent who had prepared one of the erroneous applications from appearing before the Court again.
The FBI and the Department of Justice's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) began a systematic review of the FISA application process in September 2000 to [page 102] ensure the accuracy of FISA Court filings. Some FISA surveillances targeting al-Qa'ida agents were allowed to expire while OIPR and the FBI investigated how the errors had occurred. These orders were not renewed until after the attack on USS Cole in October 2000. In April 2001, the Bureau promulgated procedures for the review of draft
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FISA declarations and the submission of FISA applications to the Court. OIPR also revised the standard al-Qa'ida FISA application to reduce the amount of extraneous information that was required and that increased the likelihood of factual errors.
During this process, many FISA surveillances of suspected al-Qa'ida agents expired because the FBI and OIPR were not willing to apply for application renewals when they were not completely confident of their accuracy. Most of the FISA orders targeting al-Qa'ida that expired after March 2001 were not renewed before September 11. The Joint Inquiry received inconsistent figures regarding the specific number of FISA orders that were allowed to expire during the summer of 2001. One FBI manager stated that no FISA orders targeted against al-Qa'ida existed in 2001, others interviewed said there were up to [ ] al-Qa'ida orders at that time, and an OIPR official explained that approximately two-thirds of the number of FISA orders targeted against al-Qa'ida had expired in 2001.
Several organizations played a role in the breakdown of the FISA process in the year before the September 11 attacks. According to FBI personnel, OIPR and the FISA Court erred by requiring much extraneous information in FISA applications, thus increasing the likelihood of mistakes. Bureau agents frequently could not or did not verify the accuracy of information in the FISA applications. The FISA Court's order prohibiting an FBI agent from appearing before the Court also apparently had a chilling effect on FBI agents, and they became increasingly unwilling to confirm the veracity of FISA applications.
13. Finding: [ [page 103] ].
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Discussion: [During his tenure, President Clinton signed documents authorizing CIA covert action against Usama Bin Ladin and his principal lieutenants. [ ].
[ ]:
o [ ].
o [ ].
[ ] [page 104] [ ]. [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.
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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. . . ."]
[ ].
[ ]." As former National Security Advisor Berger noted in his Joint Inquiry interview, "We do not have a rogue CIA."
[ ]."
In his June 11, 2002 briefing to the Joint Inquiry, Mr. Clarke reiterated this point when he said: [page 105]
I think if you look at the 1980s and 1970s, the individuals who held the job of [DDO], one after another of them was either fired or indicted or condemned by a Senate committee. I think under those circumstances, if you become Director of Operations, you would want to be a little careful not to launch off on covert operations that will get you personally in trouble and will also hurt the institution. The history of covert operations in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s was not a happy one, and I think that lesson got over-learned by people who at the time were probably in their twenties and thirties, but by the time they became in their fifties, and they were managers in the [Directorate of Operations], I think that they institutionalized a sense of covert action is risky and is likely to blow up in your face. And the wise guys at the White House who are pushing you to do covert action will be nowhere to be found when the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence calls you up to explain the mess that the covert action became.
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Mr. Clarke went on to say: "I think it is changed because of 9/11. I think it is changed because George Tenet has been pushing them to change it."
In a July 26, 2002 Joint Inquiry interview, a former Chief of CTC made a similar point when he implicitly acknowledged that he pushed whenever possible for clarity in the covert action authorities [ ]."
The policy makers' reluctance [ ] limited the scope of CIA operations against Bin Ladin. [ ] [Page 106] [
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]."
[ ]:
[ ].
In any event, the differing perceptions about the scope of the authorizations shaped the types of covert action the CIA was willing to direct against Bin Ladin prior to September 11, 2001 and, therefore, its ultimate effectiveness. [ ].
[ ] [Page 107] [ ].
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The CIA's actual efforts to carry out covert action against Bin Ladin in Afghanistan prior to September 11, 2001 were limited and do not appear to have significantly hindered al-Qa'ida's ability to operate. [ ]:
o [ ];
o [ ];"
o [ ];
o [ ];"
[Page 108]
o [
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];
o [ ]; and,
o [ ].
Many of these efforts were key elements in "the Plan" - initially developed in 1999 and subsequently modified -- that the DCI described in his testimony before the Joint Inquiry on October 17, 2002. "The Plan" did not, however, feature elements commonly associated with war plans or contingency plans, such as a mission statement, strategic goals or objectives, a statement of commander's intent, a delineation of the resources that would be required or are available for the operation, or the measures by which operational success might be measured. Although a covert action plan might not be expected to contain all of the elements of a war plan, the absence of all these elements suggests an absence of rigor in the planning process.
[ ] [Page 109] [ ].
The Joint Inquiry heard testimony on September 12 and September 19, 2002 that, between March 2001 and September 2001, the Bush Administration was engaged in a
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review of counterterrorism policy. ].
[ ]. [Deputy Secretary of State Armitage testified that the Bush Administration was considering, among other things, "increased authorities for the Central Intelligence Agency" in the summer of 2001 and was close to final agreement on a more aggressive strategy against Bin Ladin and his followers by September 11, 2001:
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 distributed on August 13 to the principals for their final comments. And then, of course, we had the events of September 11. . . .]
14. Finding: [Senior U.S. military officials were reluctant to use U.S. military assets to conduct offensive counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan, or to support or participate in CIA operations directed against al-Qa'ida prior to September 11. At least part of this reluctance was driven by the military's view that the Intelligence Community was unable to provide the intelligence needed to support military operations. Although the U.S. military did participate in [ ] counterterrorism efforts to counter Usama Bin Ladin's terrorist network prior to September 11, 2001, most of the military's focus was on force protection].
Discussion: National Security Council officials, CIA officers in the CTC, and senior U.S. military officers differ regarding the U.S. military's willingness to conduct operations against Usama Bin Ladin prior to September 11, 2001. In general, however, [page 110] these officials indicate that senior military leaders were reluctant to have the military play a major role in offensive counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan prior to September 11:
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o In his June 11, 2002 remarks, former National Coordinator for Counterterrorism Richard Clarke said, "the overwhelming message to the White House from the uniformed military leadership was 'we don't want to do this,' [ ]. Later in that same briefing, he said: "The military repeatedly came back with recommendations that their capability not be utilized [ ] in Afghanistan."
o In a written response to the Joint Inquiry, former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger said:
President Clinton's top military advisers examined [military options]. They advised us that there would be a low probability of success for such operations in Afghanistan (before 9/11 when we did not have the cooperation of Pakistan and other bordering nations) in the absence of substantial lead-time actionable intelligence (i.e., specific advanced knowledge of where bin Ladin would be at a specific time and place). There were many obstacles to deploying ground troops into Afghanistan from staging areas at some distance, including a serious possibility of detection, difficulty of basing back-up forces nearby and logistical difficulties.
o Interviews of officials at the CTC and a review of CTC documents support the finding that the military did not seek an active role in offensive counterterrorism operations. For example, ]." In the 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."
[Page 111]
o On September 12, 2002, a former Chief of CTC said: "You know, [the U.S. military] - they have their own views on their willingness to take casualties and take risky operations… For them to go, they are more exacting in their requirements, in terms of intelligence certainly, before they engage."
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o Another former Chief of CTC testified:
Actually it was discussed… turning the ball over to [the military], but having them do it themselves. They declined, as I recall, as best I recall, because they lacked the covert action authorities to work in that environment. Since there wasn't an official declaration of war, there wasn't fighting, they didn't think they had the authorities to go in and do it themselves. They were willing to help… but they couldn't put boots on the ground themselves.
o The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that the U.S. military primarily thought about the threat posed by Usama Bin Ladin's network in terms of protecting U.S. forces deployed overseas from terrorist attack. He also stated his belief that the CIA and FBI should have the lead roles in countering terrorism, and that military tools should be viewed as an extension and supplement to the leading roles played by the CIA and FBI. In discussing offensive counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, the former Chairman cited the lack of actionable intelligence, noting "Look at the risk associated with swooping in." With regard to using U.S. military forces in clandestine operations, the former Chairman said: "you don't put U.S. armed forces in another country if the President doesn't declare war, unless you declare war on the Taliban." He said he never received a tasker to put boots on the ground to obtain actionable intelligence, noting "the military does what it is told to do."
o The Joint Chief of Staff's Director of Operations indicated that options developed by the military for the White House in 2000 were in part aimed at "educating" the National Security Advisor on the complexities of operations in Afghanistan involving "U.S. boots on the ground."
[Page 112]
In Joint Inquiry interviews, senior and retired U.S. military officers cited the lack of precise, actionable intelligence as a primary obstacle to the military conducting its own operations against Bin Ladin. The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated, for example: ". . . you can develop military operations until hell freezes over, but they are worthless without intelligence."
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However, according to CIA officers in the CTC who testified before the Joint Inquiry on September 12, 2002, the U.S. military often levied so many requirements for highly detailed, actionable intelligence prior to 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 or elsewhere prior to September 11. A former Chief of CTC's special Bin Ladin unit said:
[the military's] requirements, before they operate, are absolutely impossible for us to collect in most instances. [ ]. And the requirements they sent us included items like, which side of the door are the hinges on, do the windows open out or go up and down. And it is just not the kind of intelligence we can provide on anything resembling a regular basis.
The Department of Defense did ask the Defense HUMINT [Human Intelligence] Service to determine whether it could obtain information regarding Bin Ladin's whereabouts. However, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff indicated that the U.S. military did not undertake any independent efforts, utilizing U.S. military forces, to determine Bin Ladin's location.
Lower-level military officers appeared to be more enthusiastic than senior military officials about active military participation in counterterrorism efforts. Senior CIA officers, CIA documents, and at least one former special operations forces [page 113] commander indicated, in interviews and testimony, that military operators were both capable and interested in conducting a special operations mission against Bin Ladin in Afghanistan prior to September 11. A former JSOC commander told the Joint Inquiry that his units did have the ability to put small teams into Afghanistan. A CIA document commenting on the prospects of Joint Special Operations Command units participating in an operation to capture Bin Ladin said: "lots of desire at the [military] working level," but there was "reluctance at the political level."
Despite senior officers' reluctance to play a major role, military personnel and assets did contribute to several counterterrorism efforts in addition to force protection.
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The Joint Inquiry has identified [ ] major types of military participation in, or support for, operations to counter Usama Bin Ladin's terrorist network prior to September 11:
o On August 20, 1998, following the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, the U.S. military, acting on President Clinton's orders, launched cruise missiles at Usama Bin Ladin-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. One of the objectives of those strikes was to kill Usama Bin Ladin. As former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger testified: "we [were] trying to kill Bin Ladin, we dropped cruise missiles on him;"
o Between 1999 and 2001, the U.S. military positioned a number of Navy ships and submarines armed with cruise missiles in the North Arabian Sea to launch additional cruise missile strikes at Bin Ladin in the event the Intelligence Community was able to obtain precise information on his whereabouts in Afghanistan; and
o [In 2000 and 2001, the Joint Staff and U.S. Air Force provided technical assistance in the development of the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle as a [Page 114] second source of intelligence on Usama Bin Ladin's precise whereabouts in Afghanistan. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger told the Joint Inquiry that:
The Clinton Administration was engaged in an active strategy against Bin Ladin and was continuously examining new initiatives for defeating Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida, given what was known and the allies available at the time. For example, in 2000, we developed the Predator program, which was successfully tested in late 2000 and was available to be operationalized as a critical intelligence platform to confirm intelligence on his whereabouts when the weather cleared in the Spring of 2001].
In general, however, the CIA and U.S. military did not engage in joint operations, pool their assets, or develop joint plans against Usama Bin Ladin in Afghanistan prior to September 11, 2001 - despite interest in such joint operations at the CIA. Commenting on the idea of the CIA and U.S. military engaging in joint operations, a former Chief of CTC testified:
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I think it is 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 [the Congress] would like to look into, it would be great for the United States.
Similarly, a former Chief of CTC's special Bin Ladin unit said: "As someone who served [ ] and 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." However, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Joint Inquiry that he did not believe in joint operations with the CIA. He said, "I want to make sure the military piece of the plan is under military control, and not predicated on the CIA's piece being successful."
15. Finding: The Intelligence Community depended heavily on foreign intelligence and law enforcement services for the collection of counterterrorism intelligence and the conduct of other counterterrorism activities. The results were mixed in terms of productive intelligence, reflecting vast differences in the ability and willingness of the various foreign services to target the Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida network. Intelligence Community agencies sometimes failed to coordinate their relationships with foreign services adequately, either within the Intelligence Community or with broader U.S. Government liaison and foreign policy efforts. This reliance on foreign liaison services also resulted in a lack of focus on the development of unilateral human sources.
[Page 115]
Discussion: [In the mid-1990s, CIA counterterrorism officials decided that unilateral operations alone were of limited value in penetrating al-Qa'ida and that foreign liaison services could serve as a force multiplier. Foreign intelligence and security services often had excellent local knowledge and capabilities; [ ]. Therefore, CIA, FBI, NSA, and other Intelligence Community agencies strengthened their liaison relationships with existing foreign partners and forged new relationships to fight al-Qa'ida and other radical groups. For example, the CIA [
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]. The FBI expanded its Legal Attache (Legat) program].
[Despite those efforts, many weaknesses in foreign liaison relationships were apparent before the September 11 attacks. These weaknesses limited the amount and quality of the counterterrorism intelligence received as a result of those relationships. For example, individuals in some liaison services organization are believed to have cooperated with terrorist groups].
[Regarding Saudi Arabia, former FBI Director Louis Freeh testified that, following the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, the FBI "was able to forge an effective working relationship with the Saudi police and Interior Ministry." A considerable amount of personal effort by Director Freeh helped to secure what he described as "unprecedented and invaluable" assistance in the Khobar Towers bombing investigation from the Saudi Ambassador to the United States and the Saudi Interior Minister. By contrast, the Committees heard testimony from U.S. Government personnel that Saudi officials had been uncooperative and often did not act on information implicating Saudi nationals].
[Page 116]
[According to a U. S. Government official, it was clear from about 1996 that the Saudi Government would not cooperate with the United States on matters relating to Usama Bin Ladin. [ ], reemphasized the lack of Saudi cooperation and stated that there was little prospect of future cooperation regarding Bin Ladin. [ ] told the Joint Inquiry that he believed the U.S. Government's hope of eventually obtaining Saudi cooperation was unrealistic because Saudi assistance to the U.S. Government on this matter is contrary to Saudi national interests].
[A U. S. Government official testified to the Joint Inquiry on this issue [ ] as follows:
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[ ]….[F]or the most part it was a very troubled relationship where the Saudis were not providing us quickly or very vigorously with response to it. Sometimes they did, many times they didn't. It was just very slow in coming.
The Treasury Department General Counsel testified at the July 23, 2002 hearing about the lack of Saudi cooperation:
There is an almost intuitive sense, however, that things are not being volunteered. So I want to fully inform you about it, that we have to ask and we have to seek and we have to strive. I will give you one-and-a-half examples. The first is, after some period, the Saudis have agreed to the designation of a man named Julaydin, who is notoriously involved in all of this; and his designation will be public within the next 10 days. They came forward to us two weeks ago and said, okay, we think we should go forward with the designation and a freeze order against Mr. Julaydin. We asked, what do you have on him? Because they certainly know what we have on him, because we shared it as we tried to convince them that they ought to join us. The answer back was, nothing new.
. . . .
. . . I think that taxes credulity, or there is another motive we are not being told.
[Page 117]
[A number of U. S. Government officials complained to the Joint Inquiry about a lack of Saudi cooperation in terrorism investigations both before and after the September 11 attacks. ]. A high- level U. S. Government officer cited greater Saudi cooperation when asked how the September 11 attacks might have been prevented. In May 2001, the U.S. Government became aware that an individual in Saudi Arabia was in contact with a senior al-Qa'ida operative and was most likely aware of an upcoming al- Qa'ida operation. [ ].
[
111
].
Several other Arab governments hesitated to share information gleaned from arrests of suspects in the USS Cole bombing and other attacks. Even several European governments were described to the Joint Inquiry as indifferent to the threat al-Qa'ida posed prior to September 11, while others faced legal restrictions that impeded their ability to share intelligence with the United States or to disrupt terrorist cells. Prior to September 11, for example, [ ], despite repeated requests from CIA, [Page 118] provided little helpful information [ ]. A CIA representative described the situation in his testimony before the Joint Inquiry:
We had passed [ ] a great number of leads about al-Qa'ida members. We passed [them] a great deal of leads on al-Qa'ida members, including some of the people you see in the press now, like [ ], and we had really given them a lot of names to track after September 11. The arrests they made [after September 11, 2001] showed that they had in fact been following them and monitoring them to some extent. But the CIA did not get information back [ ] on it to any measurable extent that would help us with our efforts.
[CIA's liaison partners vary in competence and commitment. [ ]. However, the Agency still had to rely heavily on liaison partners in several countries in order to acquire counterterrorism intelligence for the conduct of other counterterrorism activities].
There were also missteps in the efforts of various Intelligence Community agencies to develop foreign liaison relationships. [ ]. However, significant problems arose because liaison on counterterrorism was not always well integrated into overall U.S. regional goals and
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liaison relations. As a result, other issues, albeit important, sometimes diverted attention from counterterrorism.
The many channels for contact between U.S. and foreign intelligence services also led to a lack of coordination at times. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger noted that many U.S. agencies, ranging from the CIA and FBI to the Agriculture Department, develop liaison service relations and that, in some countries, there are now a dozen or more of these kinds of relationships. Often, U.S. ambassadors were not able to control these interactions, and, as a result, the U.S. Government did not always place [page 119] proper priorities on what it asked of foreign governments. In his testimony, Mr. Berger recommended giving "the DCI authority to coordinate all intelligence cooperation with other countries."
Finally, the capabilities of FBI Legats were not always incorporated within the overall intelligence relationship with a foreign country. Thus, other members of the U.S. Intelligence Community did not always utilize relationships developed by the Legats to their full advantage.
16. Finding: [The activities of the September 11 hijackers in the United States appear to have been financed, in large part, from monies sent to them from abroad and also brought in on their persons. Prior to September 11, there was no coordinated U.S. Government-wide strategy to track terrorist funding and close down their financial support networks. There was also a reluctance in some parts of the U.S. Government to track terrorist funding and close down their financial support networks. As a result, the U.S. Government was unable to disrupt financial support for Usama Bin Ladin's terrorist activities effectively].
Discussion: [Tracking terrorist funds can be an especially effective means of identifying terrorists and terrorist organizations, unraveling and disrupting terrorist plots, and targeting terrorist financial assets for sanctions, seizures, and account closures. As with organized criminal activity, financial support is critically important to terrorist networks like al-Qa'ida. Prior to September 11, 2001, however, no single U.S. Government agency was responsible for tracking terrorist funds, prioritizing and coordinating government-wide efforts, and seeking international collaboration in that effort. Some tracking of terrorist funds was undertaken before September 11. For the
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most part, however, these efforts were unorganized and ad-hoc, and there was a reluctance to take actions such as seizures of assets and bank accounts and arrests of those involved in the funding. A U.S. Government official testified before the Joint Inquiry, for example, that this reluctance hindered counterterrorist efforts against Bin Ladin: "Treasury was concerned about any activity that could adversely affect the international financial system . . . ]."
Treasury Department General Counsel David Aufhauser testified to the Joint inquiry on July 23, 2002 that, prior to September 11, the financial war on terrorism was "ad-hoc-ism", episodic, and informal without any orthodox mechanism for the exchange [page 120] of information or setting of priorities. He stated that, prior to September 11, the DCI never asked Treasury to perform an analysis of Bin Ladin, al-Qa'ida, or associated terrorist financing.
At the same hearing, the Chief of the FBI's Financial Review Group also testified to the lack of an overall financial strategy against terrorist funding. He stated that the FBI's financial investigations prior to September 11 were inconsistent, done on a caseby- case basis, and not supervised by a specialized unit at FBI Headquarters.
Given this lack of focus on terrorist financing, the Intelligence Community was unable, prior to September 11, to identify and attack the full range of Bin Ladin's financial support network. Former National Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke described for the Joint Inquiry his pre-September 11 frustration with the Intelligence Community's lack of focus in this regard:
[].
. . . .
Whenever we pressed the various agencies to do more on finding Bin Ladin's money, we would hear that they didn't consider it as important as the White House did for the reason you specified, that you were able to stage an operation for a small amount of money. My view was that it may have been true that you could stage an operation for a small amount of money, but you couldn't run al-Qa'ida for a small amount of money. Al- Qa'ida was a vast worldwide organization that was creating terrorist groups in various countries that would not be called a-Qa'ida, but would be called names associated with that particular country. But they were creating terrorist groups, they were funding them from the start. They were taking preexisting terrorist groups and buying their allegiance and buying them additional capability. It seemed to me it must have cost a great deal of money to be al-Qa'ida, but I was never able to get the Intelligence Community to tell me within any range of magnitude how much money the annual operating budget of al-Qa'ida may have been.
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[Page 121]
Prior to September 11, there was also some reluctance to use available financial databases to track suspected terrorists. The Chief of the FBI's Financial Review Group - which had been only a section in the FBI's White Collar Crime Unit before September 11 -- and the Director of the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) both testified before the Joint Inquiry that, prior to September 11, they had capabilities to develop leads on terrorist suspects and link them to other terrorists and to terrorist funding sources. They both agreed that they would have been able to locate Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in the United States in August 2001, if asked, through credit card and bank information. The use of these capabilities in the first weeks after September 11 enabled the FBI, with assistance from the Secret Service, to connect almost all of the 19 hijackers to each other very quickly by linking bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, address checks, and telephones. Despite the existence of those capabilities, the FBI did not seek their assistance in the search for al-Hazmi and al- Mihdhar in late August 2001.
FinCEN was involved in tracking terrorist funds prior to September 11 and experienced some success. FinCEN began doing linkage analysis of terrorist financing in October 1999 and first identified a specific account with a direct link to al-Qa'ida in February 2001. It has the advantage of being able to work with both law enforcement and intelligence information, and to combine that information with Bank Secrecy Act and commercial data to assist the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and others in the seizure, blocking, and freezing of terrorist assets. FinCEN's capabilities have been made available to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies for lead purposes since before September 11.
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The FBI did some tracking of terrorist funds prior to September 11, but this was mostly done on an episodic basis, primarily directed at money laundering activity, in the context of field office investigations with no national or international coordination, and with very limited cooperation with the Treasury Department. The Joint Inquiry was informed that the FBI's newly-formed Financial Review Group is developing what did not exist pre-September 11, a national strategy for a coordinated U.S. Government-wide [page 122] effort to track terrorist funds, mine financial data from a common database, investigate, disrupt, arrest, and prosecute.
International cooperation in tracking terrorist funds was also not easy to achieve prior to September 11. For example, the Director of OFAC at the Treasury Department testified that he made two trips to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait in 1999 and 2000 to request their cooperation in tracking and restricting Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida funds, but only achieved limited results. Pre-September 11, OFAC did take some actions, such as trade sanctions and an asset freeze against the Taliban for harboring Bin Ladin, that achieved a modicum of success.
On September 24, 2001, President Bush gave a new priority to the tracking of terrorist funds when he stated: "We will direct every resource at our command to win the war against terrorists, every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence. We will starve the terrorists of funding." (Emphasis added.) The President made this statement four days after signing an executive order to block the funds of terrorists and their associates. Substantial actions have been taken by the U.S. Government in this area since September 11, including blocking terrorist-related assets; seizing assets and smuggled bulk cash; arresting terrorist financiers and indicting them; and, shutting down front companies, charities, banks, and hawala conglomerates that served as financial support networks for al-Qa'ida and Bin Ladin.
New authorities that have been granted since September 11 have also been instrumental in making these seizure and arrest actions successful. For example, OFAC at Treasury requested and received in the October 2001 USA PATRIOT Act explicit
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authorities to block assets while an investigation is in progress and to use classified information as evidence in order to place additional names on the list for freezing and blocking assets. The challenge facing the Intelligence Community is to maintain, expand and adapt the use of these capabilities to combat future terrorist threats effectively. Despite improvements since September 11, former National Counterterrorism [page 123] Coordinator Richard Clarke told the Joint Inquiry that, as of June 2002, there were still many unanswered questions about Bin Ladin's finances:
We asked [CIA] in particular [ ], because initially - because he was said to be a financier. They were unable to do that, [ ].CIA was [ ] unable to tell us what it cost to be Bin Ladin, what it cost to be al-Qa'ida, how much was their annual operating budget within some parameters, where did the money come from, where did it stay when it wasn't being used, how it was transmitted. They were unable to find answers to those questions.
Part of the challenge for the Intelligence Community, and particularly the FBI, is the difference between terrorist financing and other forms of organized criminal money laundering. Strategies and tactics that were effective in countering money laundering must be reexamined in order to assure their effectiveness in regard to terrorist financing. The Treasury Department's General Counsel was in England at a money laundering conference on September 11, 2001 and explained to the Joint Inquiry how his perception of the problem shifted as he watched the two 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.
D. RELATED FINDINGS
During the course of this Joint Inquiry, testimony and information were received that pertained to several issues involving broader, policy questions that reach beyond the boundaries of the Intelligence Community. In the three areas described below, the Inquiry finds that policy issues were relevant to our examination of the events of September 11.
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17. Finding: Despite intelligence reporting from 1998 through the summer of 2001 indicating that Usama Bin Ladin's terrorist network intended to strike inside the United States, the United States Government did not undertake a comprehensive effort to implement defensive measures in the United States.
Discussion: As noted earlier, the Joint Inquiry has established that the Intelligence Community acquired and disseminated from 1998 through the summer of 2001 intelligence reports indicating in broad terms that Usama Bin Ladin's network intended to carry out terrorist attacks inside the United States. This information encompassed, for example, indications of plots for attacks within the United States that would include:
o attacks on civil aviation;
o assassinations of U.S. public officials;
o use of high explosives;
o attacks on Washington, D.C., New York City, and cities on the West Coast;
o crashing aircraft into buildings as weapons; and
o using weapons of mass destruction.
The intelligence that was acquired and shared by the Intelligence Community was not specific as to time and place, but should have been sufficient to prompt action to insure a heightened sense of alert and implementation of additional defensive measures. Such actions could have included: strengthened civil aviation security measures; increased attention to watchlisting suspected terrorists so as to keep them out of the United States; greater collaboration with state and local law enforcement authorities concerning the scope and nature of the potential threat; a sustained national effort to inform and alert the American public to the growing danger; and improved capabilities to deal with the consequences of attacks involving mass destruction and casualties. The U.S. Government did take some steps in regard to detecting and preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction, but did not pursue a broad program of additional domestic defensive measures or public awareness.
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Both the DCI and the FBI Director discussed the important role that defensive measures could have played. According to the DCI's 's testimony, looking back at the September 11 attacks:
. . . since now we understand and possibly have understood the basis of the history of specific reporting with regard to specific targets, and the context was we raced from threat period to threat period, from target to target, and once we resolved them we never thought about the fact that the security that was protecting, whether it's a plane or an infrastructure or a bridge, is poor to begin and somebody will come back to the same target that they've planned against. Unless they see a security profile and a deterrent posture that's different, there's nothing to stop them from doing that, because essentially we all believed that it would never happen here. That's the point.
. . . .
. . . I posit a theory that we were so busy overseas in terms of what we were doing at the time that, you know, they were looking here the whole time and steadily planning in terms of what they were doing. So they were operating on two fronts.
FBI Director Mueller added:
I think you can look at what happened September 11 and I think both of us would say there are things we did right and things we missed and did wrong. But you look at it from the perspective of could we have prevented these individuals, identified these individuals and prevented them from undertaking this multi-plane undertaking, and I guess I would say I think it's speculation, but in looking at each of the areas that we could have done better, I'm not certain you get to the point where we stop these individuals.
On the other hand, looking at the concept of hijacking planes and taking them over, as a country one could look back and say with reports of hijackings over a period of time, perhaps we as a country should have looked at changing the way we protect our planes, which means doing what we are doing now in terms of hardening the cockpit, understanding that the threat of a hijacking is not for a person to hijack a plane and get it to the ground, utilizing the passengers as hostages, but the concept of using a plane as a weapon. Had we, as a country, reached the position where the attacks were such and the possibilities such that we would change what we did in our airline industry to harden cockpits and train pilots to resist being taken over, that's another avenue that I think might have made a difference. But that's speculation.
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18. Finding: Between 1996 and September 2001, the counterterrorism strategy adopted by the U. S. Government did not succeed in eliminating Afghanistan as a sanctuary and training ground for Usama Bin Ladin's terrorist network. A range of instruments was used to counter al-Qa'ida, with law enforcement often emerging [page 126] as a leading tool because other means were deemed not to be feasible or failed to produce results. Although numerous successful prosecutions were generated, law enforcement efforts were not adequate by themselves to target or eliminate Bin Ladin's sanctuary. While the United States persisted in observing the rule of law and accepted norms of international behavior, Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida recognized no rules and thrived in the safehaven provided by Afghanistan.
Discussion: Between 1996 and September 2001, the United States worked with dozens of cooperating foreign governments to disrupt al-Qa'ida activities, arrest and interrogate operatives, and otherwise prevent terrorist attacks. Throughout that period of time, however, Afghanistan was largely a terrorist "safe haven." In its Afghan sanctuary, al-Qa'ida built a network for planning attacks, training and vetting recruits, indoctrinating potential radicals, and creating a terrorist army with little interference from the United States.
Some CIA analysts and operators have told the Joint Inquiry that they recognized as early as 1997 or 1998 that, as long as the Taliban continued to grant Bin Ladin's terrorist organization sanctuary in Afghanistan, it would continue to train a large cadre of Islamic extremists and generate numerous terrorist operations. In 1999, senior officials at the CIA and the State Department began to focus on the Taliban as an integral part of the terrorist problem. In 1999 and 2000, the State Department worked with the United Nations Security Council to obtain resolutions rebuking the Taliban for harboring Bin Ladin and allowing terrorist training. The Defense Department began to focus on this issue in late 2000, after the USS Cole bombing. A State Department demarche to Taliban representatives in Pakistan, on June 26, 2001, specifically noted the threats to Americans emanating from Afghanistan and stated that the United States would hold the Taliban regime directly responsible for any actions taken by terrorists harbored by the Taliban.
Former National Security Advisor Berger noted in a statement to the Joint Inquiry that "In fact, there was a concerted military, economic, and diplomatic pressure on the Afghanistan and the Taliban…." Mr. Berger also explained that Saudi Arabia and
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Pakistan were pressed to cut support for the Taliban and that covert and military measures were taken to disrupt al-Qa'ida activities in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the [page 127] Joint Inquiry found that none of these actions were effective in hindering terrorist training or al-Qa'ida's ability to operate from Afghanistan.
[Despite the Intelligence Community's growing recognition that Afghanistan was churning out thousands of radicals, the U.S. government did not integrate all the instruments of national power and policy - diplomatic, intelligence, economic, and military - to address this problem. [ ]. Prior to September 11, military force was used only in the August 20, 1998 cruise missile strikes on targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger testified to the Joint Inquiry that massive military strikes on Afghanistan would have had little public or Congressional support before September 11, 2001. Moreover, as Mr. Berger noted to the Joint Inquiry, a lack of intelligence on which to base action hindered efforts to use military force in Afghanistan].
Permitting the sanctuary in Afghanistan to exist for as long as it did allowed Bin Ladin's key operatives to meet, plan operations, train recruits, identify particularly capable recruits or those with specialized skills, and ensure that al-Qa'ida's masterminds remained beyond the reach of international justice. In his testimony before the Joint Committee on October 17, 2002, the DCI responded to a question about what he would do differently prior to September 11, 2001, saying:
[H]indsight is perfect, we should have taken down that sanctuary a lot sooner. The circumstances at the time may have not warranted, the regional situation may have been different, and after [September] 11 all I can tell you is we let a sanctuary fester, we let him build capability. And there may have been lots of good reasons why in hindsight it couldn't have been done earlier or sooner. I am not challenging it, because hindsight is always perfect, but we let him operate with impunity for a long time without putting the full force and muscle of the United States against it.
As an adjunct to covert and military efforts to eliminate Bin Ladin's sanctuary in Afghanistan, the United States Government relied heavily on law enforcement to counter
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[page 128] terrorism. The origins of this emphasis on prosecutions can be traced back to the 1980s, when Congress and President Reagan gave the FBI an important role in countering international terrorism, including events overseas. More recently, the successful prosecutions of individuals involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the plot to attack New York City landmarks, and the 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa added to the emphasis on law enforcement as a counterterrorism measure.
Senior Department of Justice officials, including former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Mary Jo White, who prosecuted many of the most important cases against al-Qa'ida, point out that they saw their efforts as an adjunct to other means of fighting terrorism. Prosecutions do have several advantages in the fight against terrorism. As Ms. White noted to the Joint Inquiry, prosecutions take terrorists off the street. She acknowledged that this does not shut down an entire group, but some bombs do not go off as a result of the arrests. In addition, critical intelligence often comes from the investigative process, as individual terrorists confess or reveal associates through their personal effects and communications. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh pointed out to the Joint Inquiry, "you can't divorce arrest from prevention." Ms. White also contends that the prosecutions may deter some, though admittedly not all, individuals from using violence. Finally, the threat of a jail sentence often induces terrorists to cooperate with investigators and provide information.
Heavy reliance on law enforcement had limits, however. As Paul Pillar, National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and Asia, explained to the Joint Inquiry, it is easier to arrest underlings than masterminds. Those who organize and plan attacks, particularly the ultimate decision makers who authorize them, are often thousands of miles away when an attack is carried out. In addition, the deterrent effect of imprisonment is often minimal, particularly for highly motivated terrorists such as those in al-Qa'ida.
Moreover, law enforcement is time-consuming. The CIA and the FBI expended considerable resources supporting investigations in Africa and in Yemen regarding the Embassies and USS Cole attacks, a drain on scarce manpower and resources that could
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[page 129] have been used to gather information and disrupt future attacks. Further, there were no established mechanisms for law enforcement officials to share foreign intelligence developed in these investigations with the Intelligence Community, and they did not always recognize it, prior to September 11. Finally, law enforcement standards of evidence are high, and meeting these standards often requires unattainable intelligence or the compromise of sensitive intelligence sources or methods.
At times, law enforcement and intelligence have competing interests. The former head of the FBI's International Terrorism Division noted to the Joint Inquiry that Attorney General Janet Reno leaned toward closing down Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-based collection activities if they seemed to hinder criminal cases. Ms. White, however, said that the need for intelligence was balanced with the effort to arrest and prosecute terrorists.
The reliance on law enforcement when individuals can operate from a hostile country such as the Taliban's Afghanistan appears particularly ineffective, as the masterminds are often beyond the reach of justice. One FBI agent, in a Joint inquiry interview, scorned the idea of using the Bureau to take the lead in countering al-Qa'ida. He noted that the FBI can only arrest and support prosecution and cannot shut down training camps in hostile countries. He added that, "[it] is like telling the FBI after Pearl Harbor, 'go to Tokyo and arrest the Emperor.'" In his opinion, a military solution was necessary because, "[t]he Southern District [of New York] doesn't have any cruise missiles." As the DCI testified to the Joint Inquiry on June 19, 2002:
The fact that you went into the sanctuary and took it down is the single most important thing that occurred [after September 11], because they no longer operated with impunity in terms of their training and financing and all the things they were doing. And that opportunistically has changed the game. So the policy question I would answer first is, the longer you wait when you see this kind of thing, the longer you wait to intervene, the longer you wait to allow evidence to manifest behavior, I guarantee you will be surprised and hurt.
