CIA Comments on 9/11 Commission Staff Statement about Khallad Identification

8/14/2019 CIA Comments on 9/11 Commission Staff Statement about Khallad Identification

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Central Intelligence AgencyOffice of General CounselWashington, D.C. 20505

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Date: 04/09/04Dan MarcusKean Commission202/331-4060202/296-5545

9/11 Closed by StatuteOffice of General Counsel9/11 Closed by Statute

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Dan: Here are proposed additions (in bold) and deletions (inbrackets) from the Kuala T .iimpf c^ri^ f fNo 10. Please call me to discuss] 9/ u closed by sta;:ute

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COMMISSION STAFF STATEMENT #10 p. 6.In early January 2001 two photographs from the Kuala Lumpurmeeting were shown to the source. One was a knownphotograph of Mihdhar, the other a photograph of an unknownsubject. The source did not recognize Mihdhar. But he wasninety percent certain that the other individual wasKhallad.This meant that Khallad and Mihdhar were two differentpeople, but it also meant that there was a link betweenKhallad, a suspected leader in the Cole bombing, the KualaLumpur meeting, and Mihdhar. Despite this new information,we found no effort by the CIA to renew the long abandonedsearch for Mihdhar or his travel companions.In addition, we found that there is conflicting evidence asto whether the CIA did not notified the FBI of thisidentification. [DCI Tenet and Cofer Black testifiedbefore the Joint Inquiry that the FBI had access to thisidentification from the beginning. But based on anextensive record, including documents that were notavailable to CIA personnel who drafted that testimony, weconclude they were may have been in error.] FBIinvestigators including the FBI Director knew about theKuala Lampur meeting and, as of at least June 2001, an FBIanalyst had possession of the photographs and believed theywere relevant to the Cole investigation. In addition, CIAdisseminated information about the photo identification toAden, Yemen where the Cole investigation was centered andFBI and CIA officers were working hand-in-hand. On theother hand, the FBI's primary Cole investigators say thatthey had no knowledge of the Kuala Lumpur meeting at all,let alone Khallad's possible participation in it, untilafter the September 11 attacks.This incident is an example of how day-to-day gaps ininformation sharing can emerge even in a situation ofgoodwill on both all sides. The information was from ajoint FBI/CIA intelligence source. The source spokeessentially no English. The FBI person on the sceneoverseas did not speak the languages the source spoke. Dueto travel and security issues the amount of time spent withthe source was necessarily kept short. As a result, theCIA officer usually did not simultaneously translate eitherthe questions or the answers for his accompanying FBI

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colleague, and friend. On the other hand, less than amonth earlier the CIA officer had taken the time to have adifferent photo identification by the source repeated,solely for the benefit of the FBI representative.For interviews without ouch simultaneous translation, theFBI agent on the scene received copies of the report thatthe CIA disseminated to other agencies, but he was notgiven access to the CIA's internal operational traffic thatcontained more detail. The information regarding theJanuary 2001 identification of Khallad was only reported inoperational traffic to which the rolovant FBI criminalinvestigators did not have access. Complicating thepicture, there were questions within the FBI as to whetherFBI intelligence officers could permissibly share theinformation with the criminal investigators involved in theCole. The CIA officer does not recall this particularidentification and this cannot aay can think of no reasonwhy it wag not would not have been shared with his FBIcolleague. [But he may have misunderstood the possiblesignificance of the new identification.]

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CommentWe strongly disagree with the statement concerning FBIaccess to the information from the photographs. Thestatement suggests that FBI was not informed about or awareof the KL meetings. While the evidence is contradictory,we believe that suggestion is incorrect. In fact, the FBIwas received intelligence and operational information fromthe beginning.1. In December 1999, FBI Headquarters, FBI WashingtonField Office and, most importantly, FBI New York FieldOffice received reporting about the impending travel of alQa'ida operatives to Kuala Lumpur. The New York FieldOffice was the office of origin for terroristinvestigations at that time and would become the office oforigin for the Cole investigation.2. Records available to the Commission establish thatappropriate FBI CT officials were briefed about the KLoperation as it was in progress. In addition,, according toa Commission Staff statement, the Director of the FBI wasalso briefed at the time the KL operation was in progress.3. As the Cole investigation began, a joint FBI-CIA sourcewas asked to -idf*nt:i fv an individual in photo from the KLsurveillance. I "~|| IAccording to thecontemporaneous cable, the ALATT was present for themeeting with the asset. Contrary to the staff's assertionthat meeting times were kept short, this meeting lasted 90minutes.4. The staff statement correctly asserts that .the ALATTdid not speak the appropriate language and that the caseofficer did not provide simultaneous translation. However,the staff statement omits the fact that during the previousphoto ID session at which the asset identified a differentphoto of Khallad, the case officer reported that he asked

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the asset to repeat the ID of Khallad so the ALATT would beclear about the identification.5. The staff statement speculates that the case officer"...may have misunderstood the possible significance of thenew identification." In fact, the whole purpose of showingthe photo to the asset was, in the words of the message tothe case officer, wto confirm/rule out this particularKhalid (in the KL photo) as a match for Muhammad Bin 'Atash(Khallad the Cole bombing suspect)." The purpose was tosupport the Cole bombing investigation.6. The report from the case officer about theidentification of Khallad was disseminated to, inter alia,Aden Station in Yemen. The only purpose of disseminationto Aden would have been to aid the Cole investigation.Aden was the center of the investigation of the Colebombing. FBI investigators and CIA officers were meetingdaily to work on the Cole case. They had pledged to sharetheir information and were doing so.7. We find no reason to believe that CIA officers did notshare the report that the joint asset had identifiedKhallad in a KL surveillance photo. The record indicatesthat CIA officers fully understood the significance ofKhallad in the Cole investigation. Both FBI and CIAsuspected that he was involved in the Cole bombing within aweek or two after the event. They had been in at least twomeetings with liaison in which senior FBI investigators,including NYFO SAC John O'Neill and the senior FBIinvestigator on scene, specifically asked liaison foradditional information about Khallad.8. As f June 20JX3r; an FBI analyst had possession of thehotograbhsarjdr understood their connection to the ColeInvestigation. Indeed the FBI analyst brought them to

ting with the Cole criminal investigators./Any issue about sharing within FBI is an issue relatingFBI.

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Documents

CIA Comments on 9/11 Commission Staff Statement about Khallad Identification