“In the reporting after the [9/11] attacks, the government acknowledged that the CIA had notified the INS [Immigration and Naturalization Services] on August 21 [2001] that two of the hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, should be put on the terrorist watch list. Both had been identified on a surveillance tape meeting with an al-Qaeda operative in Malaysia. The INS informed both the CIA and the FBI that the two were already in the country. The FBI has said that ‘every attempt was made’ to find them. Despite this extraordinary situation, the FBI never notified the White House or the CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group], which had the greatest ability to mobilize all the assets of the federal government, that al-Qaeda operatives–including one suspected of involvement in the bombing of the [USS] Cole–were in the country.”
– Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, Page 347