Statement from George Tenet, Cofer Black and Richard Blee

Richard Clarke was an able public servant who served his country well for many years. But his recently released comments about the run up to 9/11 are reckless and profoundly wrong.

Clarke starts with the presumption that important information on the travel of future hijackers to the United States was intentionally withheld from him in early 2000. It was not.

He wildly speculates that it must have been the CIA Director who could have ordered the information withheld. There was no such order. In fact, the record shows that the Director and other senior CIA officials were unaware of the information until after 9/11.

The handling of the information in question was exhaustively looked at by the 9/11 Commission, the Congressional Joint Inquiry, the CIA Inspector General and other groups.

The 9/11 Commission quite correctly concluded that “…no one informed higher levels of management in either the FBI or CIA about the case.”

In early 2000, a number of more junior personnel (including FBI agents on detail to CIA) did see travel information on individuals who later became hijackers but the significance of the data was not adequately recognized at the time.

Since 9/11 many systemic changes have been made to improve the watchlisting process and enhance information sharing within and across agencies.

Building on his false notion that information was intentionally withheld, Mr. Clarke went on to speculate–which he admits is based on nothing other than his imagination–that the CIA might have been trying to recruit these two future hijackers as agents. This, like much of what Mr. Clarke said in his interview, is utterly without foundation.

Many years after testifying himself at length before the 9/11 Commission and writing several books but making no mention of his wild theory, Mr. Clarke has suddenly invented baseless allegations which are belied by the record and unworthy of serious consideration.

We testified under oath about what we did, what we knew and what we didn’t know. We stand by that testimony.

__________________________

Commentary on the above by Erik Larson:

Clarke finds it impossible to believe that Tenet and Black were in the dark about the efforts of Rich Blee and Tom Wilshire, w/ the help of some subordinates, to deliberately prevent the FBI from learning that Khalid Almihdhar had a US visa, and Nawaf Alhazmi and a “companion” had traveled to the US in Jan 2000. At the time, NSA and CIA had reason to believe these two were connected to Al Qaeda’s communications hub in Yemen; the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa which had killed over 200; and a summit involving high-level Al Qaeda operatives that had just taken place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

However, as Kevin Fenton documents in his book Disconnecting the Dots, there is no public documentary evidence that Tenet and Black were made aware of the presence in the US of these two, prior to Aug 22, 2001, and they may, in fact, have been unaware – or at least, they may have indicated to Blee and Wilshire that they did not want any documentary record of their being informed.

“In early 2000, a number of more junior personnel (including FBI agents on detail to CIA) did see travel information on individuals who later became hijackers but the significance of the data was not adequately recognized at the time.”

It is false that “the significance of the data was not adequately recognized at the time.” It is clear that Alec Station Deputy Chief Wilshire was aware of the significance of the data, because at the time it was learned that Almihdhar had a US visa, he instructed his subordinate, “Michelle”, to tell FBI detailee Doug Miller, who had recognized the significance of the data and was preparing to inform the FBI in a cable, that he was not to pass the info on to the FBI.

Shortly after that, Michelle sent a cable to several CIA stations informing them the info had been passed to the FBI, though it had not. The normal procedure when CIA passes info to the FBI is that there is not only a record that it was done, there is a record that CIA checked to confirm receipt; this documentation doesn’t exist, and CIA does not claim it does.

A CIA detailee to FBI, James, briefed two FBI agents, who were not CIA liaisons, about the Kuala Lumpur meeting – but failed to brief them on the only info that would be of particular interest to the FBI; that Almihdhar had a US visa. When another CIA officer was about to tell another FBI agent about these events, James briefed that FBI agent himself, and told the CIA officer he didn’t need to brief him. James was clear in his report about what he did and did not say.

It is unclear who may have read CIA Bangkok station’s March cable at the time re: Alhazmi and companion (Almihdhar) had traveled to the US, but the DOJ IG report notes a CIA cable in response that it had been read “with interest.” Wilshire did read this in May 2001, during the beginning of the period when reports were mounting of an impending Al Qaeda attack, and did not pass the info to the FBI, or do anything else with it apparently, even though his own emails in July, which Blee almost certainly received, make clear he believed Almihdhar would be connected to the upcoming attack.

Clarke surmises the reason this info was deliberately withheld was to protect an illegal CIA operation to infiltrate Al Qaeda in the US. Tenet, Black and Blee flatly deny this, and they may be right; Kevin’s documentation and analysis shows that the more probable explanation is that Blee and/or Wilshire were deliberate preventing the FBI from discovering and disrupting the 9/11 plot so that it could go forward. Even after the CIA began to pass on some info to the FBI in August 2001, Wilshire withheld other info and took steps to undermine FBI investigations.

“Clarke starts with the presumption that important information on the travel of future hijackers to the United States was intentionally withheld from him in early 2000. It was not.”

Even if this is true, why was this info not shared w/ him after Aug 22, 2001 when Tenet, Black and the FBI were officially made aware of it?

This Tenet-Black-Blee statement is very carefully worded, but does not get to the heart of the issues, and does not get any of these people off the hook for their pre-9/11 ‘failures’ and their obfuscations during the subsequent inquiries. They need to testify in public, under oath, with questions posed by an investigative body that is not compromised and riddled with conflicts of interest, the way the others were, especially the 9/11 Commission.