Before his interview with the 9/11 Commission on January 22, 2004, CIA Director George “Tenet seemed to understand that the CIA’s failure to watch-list the pair [9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar] after their arrival in California [on January 15, 2000] was the agencies’ Achilles’ heel–the one horrendous blunder that could sink the CIA.”
– Philip Shenon, The Commission, Page 257