Author: William Arkin

14 January 1996

Posted on by William Arkin

 

The special Osama bin Laden virtual station inside the CIA Counterterrorism Center (CTC) gets underway. The “virtual” station is similar to the virtual Iran station (located in Frankfurt, Germany) that was created because of an inability to have an actual physical station in Tehran.

But because the bin Laden “station” is not about a country, and it is in the backwater of the then secondary and unimportant counterterrorism portfolio, few pay much attention. If anything, it even has an opposite effect. Rather than creating a bin Laden czar who focuses the Agency’s attention, it is seen as a hotbed of obsessed extremists focused on a questionable threat. That legacy would persist even through CIA director Tenet’s December 1998 declaration of war against al Qaeda and up until 9/11—the station an epicenter of analysis (and obsession), but the actual action regarding countering bin Laden taking place in the physical Pakistan and Uzbekistan stations (and in Yemen and other country stations) where covert action is being undertaken.

13 January 2000

Posted on by William Arkin

 

A CIA operational cable, “Efforts to Locate al-Mihdhar,” is issued, admitting that “known” terrorist Khalid al-Mihdhar (spotted in the United Arab Emirates and in Malaysia, and then lost thereafter) is on the loose.

The CIA’s understanding of al-Mihdhar, and their evident lack of concern that the Saudi national possesses an American visa, is one of the great mysteries of 9/11.

The Agency sleuths state in their cable that Mihdhar flew to Bangkok, Thailand with at least two other al Qaeda operatives. The cable also speculated that Mihdhar met with an Iraqi Fedayeen Colonel in Malaysia, later found to be a case of false intelligence and mistaken identity. But the Iraqi connection would dog and confuse U.S. intelligence for another four years.

The CIA also speculated that Mihdhar was in Malaysia to discuss some kind of maritime attack plan (now known to be false), though “Khallad” (who was shepherding around Mihdhar and his partner Nawaf al-Hazmi) was later involved in the attack on the USS Cole.

12 January 1999

Posted on by William Arkin
AC-130 plane

 

After the December 1998 decision was made not to use Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles in a strike in Afghanistan to target Osama bin Laden in Kandahar (fear of civilian collateral damage being the most important factor in rejecting the missiles), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry (“Hugh”) Shelton directs the development of a new plan that would use an AC-130 gunship to assassinate bin Laden and be used in other retaliatory strikes. (911 Commission, p. 134)

The aircraft, operated by Air Force Special Operations Command, would in theory be able to use its cannons to inflict a more precise and intense attack. The precision of AC-130 gunships would later become a major factor in collateral-damage incidents during the Afghanistan war (and later in Iraq), as the aircraft proved not to be quite as precise as advertised. But more important, the special operations asset’s attacks and record get buried in official secrecy, the plane never being scrutinized alongside fighter aircraft and bombers.

11 January 2001

Posted on by William Arkin

 

Marwan al-Shehhi (Mohammed Atta’s partner, and the pilot of the plane that would fly into the South Tower of the World Trade Center) takes an unexplained eight-day sojourn to Casablanca, Morocco.

Al-Shehhi flies from Tampa, Florida, to New York on Delta Flight 2522, and then on to Casablanca on Royal Air Maroc Flight 205. His trip followed Atta returning to Florida from his own foreign trip. The 9/11 Commission (Staff Statement 16, p. 7) doesn’t speculate about the reason for al-Shehhi’s trip, but it thought that perhaps he was seeking medical treatment (he is believed to have had cancer). But as a citizen of the UAE, there is no other connection to Morocco, nor are their al Qaeda operatives in the country who are connected to the 9/11 plot. It is possible that he flew the roundabout route to then fly home, but there is no evidence of that.

10 January 2001

Posted on by William Arkin

 

President-elect George W. Bush is briefed in the famous and highly secure JCS “tank” at the Pentagon—on the national security situation and the immediate threats ahead.

The focus is on the immediate threat from Iraq, the absence of U.N. inspectors, the unravelling of international sanctions, the continued build-up of weapons of mass destruction, the hardening of Iraq’s air defense and communications infrastructure with buried fiber optics, Iraqi relations with terrorists, and Saddam’s Hussein’s human rights record. It is a bracing and single-minded presentation. In other words, Iraq wasn’t just some concoction of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. It was the number one threat as conceived by the Pentagon.

9 January 2001

Posted on by William Arkin

 

The Washington Post fawns over Rumsfeld’s Rules and America is introduced to the “known unknowns” and other useless observations from the new secretary of defense: hundreds of pithy, compelling, and often humorous observations about leadership, business, and life.

The rules later earned praise from the Wall Street Journal as “required reading,” and from the New York Times which said: “Rumsfeld’s Rules can be profitably read in any organization. … The best reading, though, are his sprightly tips on inoculating oneself against that dread White House disease, the inflated ego.”

The mainstream media would sour on Rumsfeld in the first few months of the Bush administration, as he picked fights with the brass and controlled everything, flooding the defense establishment with his famous “snowflakes”—observations, questions, orders, the pre-Tweeting tweets of a narcissist. By the time 9/11 came about, Rumsfeld’s stock was in the toilet, until all of a sudden the same voices started to lavish praise on the “wartime” Rumsfeld, the wise man who would defeat terrorism (and Saddam Hussein) and bring peace to the land. We’re still fighting, 20 years later.

8 January 2000

Posted on by William Arkin

 

Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar leave Malaysia on a flight to Bangkok. It is the last time that the CIA “sees” the two. There is much written about the two: about the Malaysia meeting, about their visas, about intelligence not read, not passed on, and about mistakes in not recognizing their true purpose. It is worth a book in itself, but suffice it to say that the post-9/11 recriminations about the CIA not telling the FBI, and about the two not sharing information, is only a small piece of the multiple failures, ones that ultimately allowed everyone to say that domestic rules were to blame for the gigantic failure, rather than that the officers involved—and their bosses—just didn’t do their jobs, didn’t recognize the terrorists, didn’t understand the plotting, didn’t follow them into the United States, and didn’t, even a year later, see Mihdhar leaving the United States prior to 9/11 and then returning as a tourist in July 2001.

7 January 1995

Posted on by William Arkin

 

The “Bojinka” set of plots in the Philippines are foiled, both an attack on the Pope and an assassination attempt against President Clinton, as well as preparations that involved airliners.

In the discovery of the plot, Philippine police discover Ramzi Yousef’s bomb-making lab and they arrest an accomplice, Abdul Hakim Murad, who is subsequently tortured by the Philippine authorities before being hand over to the FBI.

Captured materials revealed a plot to kill the Pope, to blow up U.S. and Israeli embassies in Manila, to destroy United Airlines aircraft flying Asian routes, and even to crash a plane into CIA HQ (surely the most obvious connection to 9/11). Murad also tells Philippine authorities details about Ramzi Yousef’s involvement in February 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and that he planted a bomb on a Philippines airliner in December 1994 that killed one and almost brought the airliner down.

6 January 1999

Posted on by William Arkin

 

National Security Advisor “Sandy” Berger says President Clinton has expanded the rules of engagement (ROEs) for the no-fly zones over Iraq, allowing preemptive strikes on air defense and command and control targets that had previously exhibited hostile action against American overflights (on earlier flights, thus stretching the concept of “self defense”).

The no-fly zones, which had been imposed in 1991 after the first Gulf War, restricted Iraqi fighter jet (and later, attack helicopter) activity, essentially immobilizing (and deteriorating) the Iraqi air force. The scope of the no-fly zones would be expanded on numerous occasions and would even include “no-drive zones” in southern and northern Iraq that restricted offensive military action with armored vehicles.

The January 1999 expansion, compensating for the absence of on-the-ground UN inspectors and responding to increased Iraqi challenges to U.S. (and allied) overflights, really constitutes the beginning of the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war and the beginning of the end for Iraq. By March 2003, when the second Gulf War began, a clandestine operation called Operation Southern Focus built on the expanded 1999 ROEs and was weeks in the making, bombing Iraq and destroying Iraq’s command, communications, early warning and air defense capabilities while America was debating whether even to go to war. Southern Focus ultimately facilitated the invasion and the rapid defeat.

5 January 2000

Posted on by William Arkin

 

The famous Malaysia meeting of “known” terrorists begins. Khalid al-Mihdhar, a Saudi national who was expected to be one of the 9/11 pilots, arrives in Kuala Lumpur from Dubai—going to Evergreen Park, a condominium complex 20 miles south of the city. There he is joined by Nawaf al-Hazmi, another Saudi (and another designated pilot); as well as by Walid bin Attash (“Khallad”), a bin Laden confidant.

The purpose of the meeting is still unclear, though the CIA was tipped off by Emirati intelligence that suspected terrorist al-Mihdhar was traveling via Dubai to an al Qaeda meeting. The Emiratis photograph his passport and provide it to U.S. intelligence—it contained a multiple-entry visa for the United States, something that no one seems to take note of until much later.

During the Kuala Lumpur meetings, Malaysian authorities provide surveillance and photographs of the participants. CIA officers in Malaysia write several contemporaneous reports over multiple days of an important al Qaeda meeting, and the meeting is prominent enough that FBI director Louis Freeh is personally briefed on February 6th. Somehow though, the FBI is never “formally” alerted as to Mihdhar’s American visa, and by the time the two (Mihdhar and Hazmi) fly from Malaysia to Thailand to Los Angeles, they are lost to U.S. intelligence, no one having thought of informing authorities to watchlist them.

Mihdhar and Hazmi would go on to San Diego a few days later and begin English-language and flight training. They would fail at both and were eventually converted into being “musclemen” aboard the hijacked airliners. There would be a last-minute flurry in August 2001 to locate the two.