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Cia knew nyp { June 3 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://nypost.com/news/nationalnews/49418.htmhttp://nypost.com/news/nationalnews/49418.htm
CIA BUNGLE
By JOHN LEHMANN
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June 3, 2002 -- In a sickening security lapse, CIA agents tracked two Sept. 11 plotters attending an al Qaeda terror summit in Malaysia and watched them re-enter the United States - but failed to tell the FBI, a new report says.
Saudi-born terrorists Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who were aboard the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon, could have led the FBI to ringleader Mohamed Atta and at least five other terrorists months before the deadly attacks.
The intelligence screw-up has led to angry showdowns in the White House, including one meeting in which top State Department consular official Wayne Griffith reportedly blew up at a CIA agent.
As CIA officials prepare for Senate Intelligence Committee hearings this week, a senior FBI official branded as "unforgivable" the spy agency's failure to put domestic law enforcement in the loop.
"There's no question we could have tied all 19 hijackers together," the official said.
The CIA's Counterterrorism Center had Almihdhar, 26, and Alhazmi, 25, under the microscope in January 2000 - 20 months before Sept. 11 - when they attended the terror summit in an upscale condo in Kuala Lumpur, according to the report, which appears in this week's issue of Newsweek.
With U.S. law-enforcement agencies already on red alert for an al Qaeda strike, the magazine said, CIA agents tracked Alhazmi as he flew back to Los Angeles on the same flight as Almihdhar and returned to an apartment they were renting in San Diego.
But instead of immediately alerting the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which could have refused them entry, or informing the FBI, which could have shadowed the pair, the CIA waited until Aug. 23 - three weeks before the attacks - before warning law enforcement to be on the lookout for the men.
Malaysian intelligence chiefs, who kept tabs for the CIA on about a dozen of Osama bin Laden's operatives attending the Kuala Lumpur summit, said they were amazed by the agency's lack of interest in the weeks after the meeting.
"We couldn't fathom it, really," Malaysia's legal-affairs minister, Rais Yatim, told Newsweek. "There was no show of concern."
With the FBI out of the loop, Alhazmi and Almihdhar lived openly in San Diego, taking flying lessons and using their real names on driver's licenses, Social Security cards and credit cards.
Atta, who piloted the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, visited the San Diego house, according to neighbors.
When Alhazmi, who was listed in the phone book, was picked up for speeding in Oklahoma five months before the attacks, a state trooper ran his license through criminal databases and turned up nothing.
The CIA, which is prohibited from spying on people within the United States, also failed to pass on information that it had linked Almihdhar with a terrorist involved in the bombing of USS Cole in Yemen in Oct. 2000, the report said.
Unaware of the link, the State Department's Consular Office in Saudi Arabia issued Almihdhar the new visa he used to re-enter the United States, through New York, two months before Sept. 11.
If the feds had tracked the pair in the months before the attacks, they would have found Alhazmi opening bank accounts with five other 9/11 terrorists in New Jersey.
One month before the strikes, Almihdhar also met with Atta and several other hijackers in Las Vegas.
The latest evidence of glaring security lapses follows intense criticism of the FBI's failure to act on clues pointing to a major terror attack.
Despite the CIA's reluctance to share critical information, the agency's director, George Tenet, told a Senate panel in February that he was proud of its record.
He claimed the terrorist strikes were not due to a "failure of attention and discipline and focus and consistent effort - and the American people need to understand that."
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