“The Malaysian summit [of 9/11 masterminds and hijackers in January 2000] was so high-profile, according to intelligence scholar James Bamford, that it was monitored, as it took place, at the highest levels of the intelligence community–even at the White House. ‘Updates were circulated to senior officials on January 3 and 5 [2000],’ wrote Bamford in his compelling study A Pretext for War. Included on the list, per Bamford, was Alec Station at CIA…White House national security advisor Sandy Berger was reportedly kept up to speed on the conference, and…FBI director Louis Freeh himself was briefed on January 6. Attended by a who’s-who of top al Qaeda operational killers, that meeting set the stage for not only the [October 12, 2000] Cole bombing and the 9/11 attacks, but also the October 2002 Bali bombings, to which [Jemaah Islamiya head Riduan Isamuddin, aka] Hambali was later linked. Even if [9/11 mastermind] KSM [Khalid Shaikh Mohammed] wasn’t there physically, the presence of his deputy [Ramzi] bin al-Shibh, Hambali, and [key member of the African embassy bombings] Khallad bin Atash should have set off flashing red lights throughout the U.S. intelligence community–especially at the CIA and the FBI.”
– Peter Lance, Triple Cross, Page 337