“The staff of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States reported in the spring of 2004 that Sudan arranged contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda during the mid-1990s, including a meeting between an Iraqi intelligence officer and bin Laden in 1994. These and other sporadic, mid-level contacts ‘do not appear to have resulted […]
Category: quotes
4/14/2004
Based on information from the hearings on April 14, 2004, the 9/11 Commission reported that, despite sweeping reforms by head of FBI Robert Mueller, ” ‘…there is no national strategy for sharing information [among the intelligence community] to counter terrorism.’ ” – Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent, Page 198 […]
4/14/2004
Based on information from the hearings on April 14, 2004, the 9/11 Commission staff reported: ” ‘The DCI [Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet] labored within–and was accountable for–a Community of loosely associated agencies and departmental offices that lacked the incentives to cooperate, collaborate, and share information. …As a result, a question remains: Who is […]
4/14/2004
CIA Director George Tenet told the 9/11 Commission in his April 14, 2004, testimony: ” ‘We made mistakes’ before 9/11. Specifically, he cited the failure to put future hijackers [Nawaf al-] Hazmi and [Khalid al-] Midhar on terrorism watch lists, even though they were known to the CIA; the fact that terrorism watch lists in […]
4/13/2004
According to information in a Norwegian Defence Research Establishment report on April 13, 2004: “European intelligence services estimate that radical Islamists have planned as many as thirty ‘spectaculars’ since September 11 [2001].” – Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack, Page 82 […]
4/13/2004
“Testifying before the 9/11 Commission in [April 13] 2004, [Attorney General John] Ashcroft claimed that ‘the single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents [in different departments of the intelligence community].’ [Former Deputy Attorney General Jamie] Gorelick herself, he alleged, had ‘built that wall through her […]
4/13/2004
Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before the 9/11 Commission on April 13, 2004: ” ‘The single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents. Government erected this wall. Government buttressed this wall. And before September 11, government was blinded by this wall.’ He [also] described how information […]
4/13/2004
In his testimony before the 9/11 Commission on April 13, 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft blamed the ‘wall’ for keeping information separate from various intelligence agencies. A member of the commission commented: ” ‘I have here a memorandum dated August 6th [2001] from [Ashcroft’s deputy] Larry Thompson, the fifth line of which reads, *The 1995 […]
4/13/2004
The 9/11 Commission staff made a report based on the April 13, 2004, hearing, which summarized the way data was gathered by the FBI: “Information was gathered to prosecute individual cases, not to be widely disseminated, analyzed, and acted upon. A piece of evidence was a clue to a particular case, not a dot to […]
4/13/2004
FBI Director Louis Freeh told the 9/11 Commission on April 13, 2004: “because terrorism was not a national priority before September 11…the FBI did not get adequate resources or legal authorities to go after al Qaeda… After 9/11, Freeh argued, the FBI got these resources and legal authorities because Americans had made combating terrorism a […]