500 Days (88 page)

3
: Some details of al-Qaeda’s pursuit of chemical and biological weapons from a note from Zawahiri to Mohammed Ataf, the al-Qaeda military leader, dated April 15, 1999; September 10, 2008, memo of Admiral D. M. Thomas Jr., Joint Task Force Guantanamo, to the Commander for United States Southern Command in Miami, “Recommendations for Continued Detention Under DOD Control (CD) for Guantanamo Detainee, ISN US9GZ-010016DP (S) (
Detainee Assessment, Abu al-Libi
).” Also see Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, “Al Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat: Hype or Reality?” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, January 2010.

3
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7
: Some details of Atyani’s trip to Afghanistan and experiences with bin Laden from a video of his June 24, 2001, report on MBC-TV.

4
: Details of bin Laden’s philosophies and histories from a secret twenty-seven-page dossier written by a foreign intelligence service. Under an agreement with an intelligence officer, neither the name on the dossier nor the name of the foreign service can be disclosed. Also see Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” August 23, 1996. Other information from Intelligence Report, “Terrorism: Osama Bin Laden’s Historical Links to Abdallah Azzam,” April 18, 1997; and FBI Electronic Communication from Counterterrorism, Usama Bin Laden Unit, “Title: Usama Bin Laden IT-UBL/Al-Qaeda OO:NY,” April 13, 2001 (
FBI-EC, April 13, 2001
). The fundamentalists’ belief in the Zionist-communist conspiracy and its impact on Muslims, from Salah al-Din al-Munajjid,
Amidat al Nakba,
Beirut, 1967. Also see Fouad Ajami,
The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967,
Cambridge University Press, 1992. The nature and significance of
jahiliyya
and other details of fundamentalist writers from Sayyid Qutb,
Milestones,
reprinted by Kazi Publications, 2007; Albert J. Bergesen,
The Sayyid Qutb Reader,
Routledge, 2008; and Ajami,
The Arab Predicament.

4
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5
: Some military, logistical, and operational details about al-Qaeda from FBI 302 (notes of interview) from the interview of Nasser Ahmed Nasser al-Qaeda-Bahri, aka Abu Jandal al-Qaeda-Gharbi, conducted from September 17 through October 2, 2001, in Sana’a, Yemen. Additional documentary information from the sworn testimony of Jamal al-Qaeda-Fadl,
United States v. bin Laden,
S(7) 98 Cr. 1023, February 6, 2001. Also see FBI 302s of interviews of Salem Ahmed Hamdan, May 26, 2002; June 26 through July 9, 2002; August 6, 2002; August 19, 2002; August 24, 2002; November 13, 2002. More details from “Government’s Evidentiary Proffer Supporting the Admissibility of Co-Conspirator Statements,”
United States v. Enaa Arnaout,
no. 02-CR-892, filed January 6, 2003. Also see the combined FBI report of interviews with Mohamed Rashed al-Qaeda-Owhali, dated September 9, 1998; Report from the Government of Prime Minister Tony Blair for the United Kingdom, “Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States, 11 September 2001,” October 4, 2001; and Decision Support Systems Inc., “Hunting the Sleepers,” December 31, 2001.

5
: Details of the East African bombings are included in a combined report by FBI agents and a CID agent with the Army Criminal Investigation Command. The report details information from the interviews of Mohamed Rashad Daoud al-Owhali (aka Khalid Salim Saleh bin Saudi Arabia), which took place in Nairobi, Kenya, from August 22 to August 25, 1998. Also see the indictment in
United States v. Bin Laden
, S(10) 98 Cr. 1023.

6
: Details of the training video from a copy of the recording. Bin Laden’s praise of jihadists from a video filmed at his son’s wedding in 2000.

7
: Details of the millennium plot from “Complaint for Violation Title 18, Sections 842(a)(3)(A) and 1001,”
United States v. Ahmed Ressam,
filed in Federal District Court of the Western District of Seattle, magistrate’s docket case no. 99-547M (December 1999). Some details of
the preparations for the millennium from FBI Office of the Inspector General, “A Review of the FBI’s Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks,” November 2004; and a September 20, 1999, cable from Tenet to the CIA field. Also see FBI Electronic Communication from Counterterrorism Division, NS#H/SIOC/CAT A/B, “Title: Ahmed Ressam; Usama Bin Laden; Sbih Benyamin; Lucia Garofalo,” December 29, 1999.

7
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8
: Some details of CIA’s success in stopping the attack on the Albanian embassy from the testimony of Cofer Black before the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on September 26, 2002. Information related to the planned attack in Turkey from Report of the U.S. Select Committee on Intelligence and U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,” S. Rept. no. 107-351, H. Rept. no. 107-792, December 2002 (
Congressional 9/11 Report
).

8
: Some details of the spike in chatter from FBI’s Daily UBL/Radical Fundamentalist Threat Update, “Newly Reported Threats and Incidents,” June 22, 2001, and FBI-EC, April 13, 2001. Also see National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States,
The 9/11 Commission Report,
W. W. Norton, 2004 (
the 9/11 Commission Report
); Condoleezza Rice press conference of May 16, 2002; and James Bamford,
The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America,
Doubleday, 2008. Also see details of the FBI’s knowledge from a memo from Dale Watson, head of the Bureau’s counterterrorism unit, to Louis Freeh, the director. The memo, headed “BIN LADEN/IBN KHATTAB THREAT REPORTING,” was written in April 2001. Also see FBI Electronic Communication from Usama bin Laden Unit/SIOC to all field offices, “Usama bin Laden,” April 13, 2001. The increase in NSA detections of chatter from the Congressional 9/11 Report. Also see a transcript from “News Conference with FBI Special Agent Robert Wright,” May 30, 2002.

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10
: Some details of the conversation between Pickard and Watson, as well as some details from the briefing of Ashcroft, from Memorandum for Record from an interview of Dale Watson, conducted June 3, 2004, by the staff of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (
the 9/11 Commission
); Pickard’s letter of June 24, 2004, to Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton of the 9/11 Commission; Pickard’s sworn testimony before the commission on April 13, 2004; agenda briefing records, entitled “Weekly with the Attorney General: Briefing Material,” for June 28, 2001, and July 12, 2001; and “Team Six Questions for Attorney General John Ashcroft,” an undated document prepared by the staff of the 9/11 Commission. Also see Philip Shenon,
The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation,
Twelve, 2008.
   There is no dispute that the discussion between Pickard and Watson took place; both Pickard and Watson have agreed in official statements that it occurred immediately after the July 12 briefing. However, there has been disagreement about whether the events Pickard described from his meeting with Ashcroft took place. The evidence leaves little doubt that Pickard’s description is true.
   Both Pickard and Watson state that their discussion took place within minutes of the Ashcroft briefing. To contend that Pickard’s portrayal of the briefing is untrue would, by necessity, mean that immediately after he returned from the briefing, Pickard stepped into Watson’s office and lied for no discernible reason at a time when he was about to retire. Such an argument is simply not credible.
   Second, Pickard has testified under oath before the 9/11 Commission that these events occurred. He also described them to the staff members of the commission in an earlier interview; the statements were so detailed and Pickard spoke with such conviction that the staff had no doubt he was telling the truth, according to Shenon in
The Commission
.
   
Third, Pickard has publicly offered to take a lie detector test on this, performed by an independent government agency. Neither Ashcroft nor his supporters have made a similar offer.

Then there is the nature of the denials themselves. Ashcroft’s supporters often argue that he refuted Pickard’s allegation under oath before the 9/11 Commission. That is a false reading of the record. Indeed, Ashcroft’s statement made it seem as if he had denied the allegation before the commission, when in fact he had not. The exchange was:

Commissioner James Thompson:
[Pickard says he] briefed you on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and when he sought to do so again, you told him you didn’t need to hear from him again. . . .

Ashcroft: . . .
I did never speak to him saying that I did not want to hear about terrorism.

The denial is a straw man. No one ever accused Ashcroft of not wanting to hear about terrorism—Pickard’s allegation was very specific: Ashcroft did not want to hear about the ongoing chatter that month by al-Qaeda.
   Next, there is one uncomfortable fact. The rest of Ashcroft’s testimony was loaded with deceptive statements. He falsely claimed that the Clinton administration had no covert action program to kill bin Laden; at the time of his testimony, the commission had obtained a copy of Clinton’s 1998 authorization to kill bin Laden. Ashcroft stated that the “wall” separating the CIA and the FBI prevented an investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, saying that a warrant was rejected because of the division. This is false. Two warrants were prepared. The first was rejected on the grounds that its evidence was “shaky”; the second was prepared as part of an intelligence investigation under FISA, so the wall would have no role at all. Ashcroft claimed the wall prevented the FBI from learning about two hijackers that the CIA had tracked into the United States, when in fact the information could legally have been shared without breaching the wall. Then he attacked Jamie Gorelick, a member of the commission, saying that she was responsible for the wall. As proof, he had declassified a 1995 memo—almost certainly for political purposes—showing that Gorelick had wanted a wall between intelligence and law enforcement in the World Trade Center bombing case of 1993; Gorelick’s memo extended no further than that particular case. The wall was instead established sometime later by Attorney General Reno.
   The false attack on Gorelick infuriated commission members. Both commission chairmen criticized Ashcroft’s comments as “overstated.” Slade Gorton, a Republican member of the commission, pointed out that Ashcroft’s second in command had reaffirmed the wall procedures in August 2001.
   There have been other denials as well, but many of them are equally questionable. For example, Ashcroft’s chief of staff, David Ayres, stated in a memo to the commission that he was present at all of the briefings and never heard the exchange described by Pickard. However, Ayres did not have the appropriate clearance to
be
present at a briefing on al-Qaeda chatter. That is why Pickard very clearly states that Ayres left the room before that briefing began. Another written denial came from David Laufman, the chief of staff for Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson. Laufman states in his letter that he attended the briefing on June 28, and did not hear Ashcroft make the statement attributed to him by Pickard. This is, of course, irrelevant. Pickard testified that the event took place on July 12, not June 28.
   This leaves only one piece of evidence on Ashcroft’s side—a denial by Deputy Attorney General Thompson. He cosigned the Laufman letter, saying that Ashcroft never refused to hear information about the al-Qaeda threat. Moreover, Thompson has a sparkling reputation as a man of integrity, and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity.
   
However, this again referenced the irrelevant June 28 briefing. Thompson did, however, have the appropriate clearance to attend a classified briefing on July 12, but he does not mention that meeting.
   There is, of course, the possibility of the statement’s being forgotten or unheard, but just assuming that would be inappropriate on my part. So, the next level of ascertaining credibility would be, simply, to examine what Ashcroft did in the aftermath of the July 12 briefing.
   Unfortunately for Ashcroft, that examination leaves only two possible choices: that he was not particularly concerned about the chatter and its possible meaning, or that he was incompetent. The briefings on the rising threats were frightening. Ashcroft received a similar briefing from the CIA earlier, on July 5, and by that point the agency was pulling no punches in describing the potential magnitude of the problem.
   If Ashcroft was, as he portrays himself to have been, concerned about this growing terrorist threat, then his reaction would have been clear: Elevate the significance of terrorist issues and pump up the resources available to counterterrorist efforts. Ashcroft did the opposite.
   On August 11, 2001, Ashcroft issued a document called “Strategic Plan: Attorney General Priorities.” The document listed thirty-six items, with thirteen of those items highlighted as “AG GOAL.” Only one of those items dealt with terrorism, and it was not highlighted.
   The budget also did not reflect any concern on Ashcroft’s part about a potential terrorist attack. He called for spending increases in sixty-eight programs, none involving terrorism. He proposed $65 million in cuts for state and local counterterrorism grants. He rejected the FBI’s entreaty for $58 million in new counterterrorism resources—more agents, analysts, and translators. Pickard appealed that decision, refusing to contest any other cuts in hopes of getting the counterterrorism budget approved. Ashcroft rejected that appeal on September 10, 2001, one day before the attack.
   In other words, Ashcroft either knew of the problem but did not care, or did not think the threat levels merited special attention. It is unreasonable to think that Ashcroft would have been callous regarding such a potential threat. The second choice is all that remains.
   All of this left me with two outcomes. I have no doubt that the encounter in Watson’s office took place, and I have no doubt that Pickard is telling the truth. Some may disagree with my second conclusion, based on the Thompson letter and an assumption that he simply recounted the wrong date; as a result, I have presented this story only through the context of the encounter in Watson’s office. I would not have done so, however, if the evidence were not so overwhelming that Pickard’s story about his encounter with Ashcroft is true.