“The sole purpose for setting up [the CIA’s] Alec Station was to keep track of bin Laden and members of Al Qaeda–and most important, to keep them out of the United States. Yet after NSA [National Security Agency] managed to pick up the first clue, and after a successful worldwide operation that tracked [future 9/11 hijackers] Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi to Kuala Lampur [Malaysia], and discovered that at least Almihdhar had a multi-entry visa to enter the United States, Rich [pseudonym for the Chief of Alec Station] completely dropped the ball. …Rich never even bothered to submit his name to the State Department’s terrorist watchlist–TIPOFF. It was a dangerous oversight. Thus, on January 15, 2000, the first two members of the 9/11 plot, including its leader, Khalid Almihdhar, boarded a United Airlines jet…flew to Los Angeles and were admitted to the United States with a smile and a wave. They eventually moved into an apartment in San Diego and began their plotting.”
– James Bamford, A Pretext for War, Pages 228-229