John Pistole, the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director for Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism, testified at the June 16, 2004 9/11 Commission hearing. When asked if there were al Qaeda cells within the U.S., he replied: ” ‘Absolutely,’ saying that such cells needed to be understood as a combination of possible operatives and ‘facilitators…fund-raisers, [and] recruiters.’ ”
– Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent, Page 242