Thanks Kevin and Erik.

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Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Keep on digging out these diamonds and piling them on, Kevin- "The list of occasions and amount of information the CIA withheld from the FBI in the run-up to 9/11 is already impressive, and the newly found document simply adds one more tile to an ever-growing mosaic. The likelihood is that there is more that we don’t know, more information that the CIA purposely withheld."

'Shocking' that agencies principally involved in 'failing' to prevent 9/11 are provided inside info on the Commission's investigation and allowed to suggest changes to it's reports- in addition to controlling access to documents.

Many of the CIA's recommended changes were rejected- this was not included in Staff Statement 10, either- "FBI investigators including the FBI Director knew about the Kuala Lampur meeting and, as of at least June 2001, an FBI analyst had possession of the photographs and believed they were relevant to the Cole investigation." (2)

What was the CIA basing their claim on that the FBI Director knew about Kuala Lumpur, and why did the Commission discount it? The CIA and FBI records on this "joint operation" need to be made public, as well as a LOT of other records that are likely being withheld, not for 'national security' reasons, but to protect highly connected and extremely corrupt people- as would seem to be the case with those accused by Sibel Edmonds.

Also, from the 'Comment' section: "5. The staff statement speculates that the case officer "...may have misunderstood the possible significance of the new identification." In fact, the whole purpose of showing the photo to the asset was, in the words of the message to the case officer, wto confirm/rule out this particular Khalid (in the KL photo) as a match for Muhammad Bin 'Atash (Khallad the Cole bombing suspect)." The purpose was to support the Cole bombing investigation." (5)

The Commission already tried to give the CIA a little 'out', but it seems the CIA is trying for a bigger one; claiming their excuse for not 'connecting the dots' and alerting the FBI to Mihdhar's Visa and Al Qaeda connections is that the meeting's purpose was re: the Cole investigation?

Staff Statement 10 FBI, paragraph alluded to by the above comment: "This meant that Khallad and Mihdhar were two different people. But the fact that both had attended the meeting in Kuala Lumpur also meant that there was a link between Khallad, a suspected leader in the Cole bombing, the Kuala Lumpur meeting, and Mihdhar. Despite this new information, we found no effort by the CIA to renew the long-abandoned search for Mihdhar or his travel companions."

http://911reports.com
http://www.historycommons.org

From prior post:

“At the request of the head of the FBI’s Cole investigation Ali Soufan, in late 2000 the source had identified a photo of a man thought to be one of the masterminds behind the Cole bombing as bin Attash. At a joint FBI/CIA debriefing of the source a few weeks later, a CIA officer at the station in Islamabad known only as “Chris” showed him two photos taken at the meeting in Malaysia, which had been monitored by the CIA and Malaysian authorities in January 2000. The source identified one of the photos as Khallad (note: the person in the photo turned out not to be Khallad in the end, although Khallad had actually attended the meeting and the CIA had other photos and video of him in Malaysia that it failed to show to the source).

The source’s identification was crucial, as it put Cole mastermind Khallad at an important al-Qaeda meeting that started just two days after the failed attack on the USS The Sullivans, itself a forerunner to the Cole attack. It also clearly linked him to alleged 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar, who the CIA already knew to have been at the meeting. Although the CIA knew Almihdhar had a US visa and that the FBI should be informed of this, officers at Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, deliberately withheld this information from the bureau.”

Good find for Kevin Fenton.

Except for this actual cable that went back to the Yemen station, this information was already described in the book "Prior Knowledge of 9/11", including the fact that the Yemen station already knew that Khallad had been at the Kuala Lumpur meeting with Mihdhar and Hazmi, planning the Cole bombing. This information along with a summary of this information is located at www.eventson911.com. But Fenton now has found iron clad proof that the cable describing Khallad identification from the Kuala Lumpur photos went back to the Yemen CIA station. I had only concluded this from the information surrounding this identification.

Fenton’s post goes on to say that:

“At the request of the head of the FBI’s Cole investigation Ali Soufan, in late 2000 the source had identified a photo of a man thought to be one of the masterminds behind the Cole bombing as bin Attash. “

According to the DOJ IG report, after Khallad had been identified by the FBI/CIA joint source on December 16, 2000, “overseas CIA personnel”, never identified further as to their actual station, requested from the CIA Bin Laden unit photos of Khallad and Mihdhar taken at the Kuala Lumpur meeting. I had guessed that these “overseas CIA personnel”, had to have been people at the CIA Yemen station since they already had known about the identification of Khallad by the FBI/CIA joint source , from Soufan’s photo in December 16, 2000, the passport photo he had been given by the Yemen authorities.

According to Fenton’s post:

“At a joint FBI/CIA debriefing of the source a few weeks later, a CIA officer at the station in Islamabad known only as “Chris” showed him two photos taken at the meeting in Malaysia, which had been monitored by the CIA and Malaysian authorities in January 2000. The source identified one of the photos as Khallad (note: the person in the photo turned out not to be Khallad in the end, although Khallad had actually attended the meeting and the CIA had other photos and video of him in Malaysia that it failed to show to the source).”

The cable that described this identification of Khallad also went back to the CIA Bin Laden unit. So at this point the fact that Khallad, known to be one of the masterminds of the Cole bombing had been identified in the Kuala Lumpur photos must have been known by the CIA Yemen station, the Pakistan CIA station, I had assumed the handler for the FBI/CIA joint source had come from the Pakistan CIA station, the CIA Bin Laden unit and perhaps many others, who also knew that Mihdhar, Hazmi and Khallad were all together at the Kuala Lumpur meeting planning the Cole bombing. None of these units told the FBI or Soufan, in spite of the fact they all knew that Khallad had already been identified by Soufan as one of the masterminds of the Cole bombing.

In spite of this statement that “the person in the photo turned out not to be Khallad in the end “, it is now clear that Khallad actually was correctly identified in the photo of him taken at the Kuala Lumpur meeting by the source. There was a mistake in the DOJ IG report, concerning the fact that Khallad had been identified in the photo of Mihdhar and Hazmi, and that Hazmi was identified as Khallad. But it is clear that the DOJ IG report actually had some errors that should have been resolved by just checking its consistence.

One part of the DOJ IG report said that Khallad had been mistakenly identified in the photo with Mihdhar, from the image of Hazmi. But we know from other sections of the DOJ IG report that two photos were shown to the joint source one photo of Mihdhar and Hazmi, and a separate photo of Khallad by himself. The CIA clearly knew what both Mihdhar and Hazmi looked like since the CIA had identified them correctly from their Kuala Lumpur photos at the time of the Kuala Lumpur meeting. So identifying Hazmi as Khallad when the joint source also had the photo of Khallad from Kuala Lumpur and the CIA knew what Hazmi looked like makes no sense. We know that the joint source had identified Khallad correctly when shown Ali Soufan’s passport photo of him on December 16, 2000, so it is clear the FBI/CIA joint source knew exactly what Khallad looked like.

According to the DOJ IG report, Soufan traveled out to the meet the FBI /CIA joint source in February 2001, to show the FBI/CIA joint source again the passport photo of Khallad, to make sure he had actually identified Khallad from this photo. At this time Soufan and the FBI were never told by the handler for the FBI/CIA joint source, or the FBI/CIA joint source that Khallad had been identified on January 4, 2001, in a photo taken of him at the Kuala Lumpur meeting or that both Mihdhar and Hazmi had also been identified in photos taken of them at this same meeting, actually planning the bombing of the USS Cole with Bin Attash at this meeting.

Since many CIA groups had to have been hiding this information from Soufan, the only thing you could conclude was that it was impossible to believe that all of these groups could have been acting independently, and since this was in fact information that CIA officer Wilshire and the CIA had been deliberately keeping secret from the FBI since January 5, 2000 from the FBI, that this in fact had to part of a massive criminal conspiracy to keep the meeting at Kuala Lumpur and the people who had attended this meeting secret from the FBI criminal investigators on the Cole bombing.

It was clear that the CIA knew at this point, the January 4, 2001 identification of Khallad at Kuala Lumpur, that they would, look culpable to the American people for the Cole bombing since they had photographed everyone at this Kuala Lumpur meeting and had let these al Qaeda terrorists walk away to carry out the bombing of the USS Cole 9 months later. So it is clear they decided to hide this information, and this conspiracy went right to the very top of the CIA and even the FBI

Since Cofer Black was in charge of the CTC CIA unit that was over the CIA Bin Laden unit and the Yemen station and the Pakistan CIA station were under either John Gannon or John Pavitt, and all of these units were acting together to hide this information from the FBI, this had to be a massive criminal conspiracy that had been directed from the very top of the CIA including even CIA director George Tenet, CTC Chief Cofer Black Gannon and Pavitt, all of whom were named in the CIA IG report as having withheld information on Mihdhar and Hazmi from the FBI.

In mid-May 2001 just after being moved from the CIA to the FBI ITOS unit, CIA officer Tom Wilshire, according to the DOJ IG report was trying to identify Khallad in the three photos of Mihdhar taken at Kuala Lumpur in mid-May 2001, see page 184 of the DOJ IG report.

In doing this identification, Wilshire clearly had Soufan’s request from April 2001, to the CIA for any information the CIA had on Khallad or any al Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000, which had attached to it a passport photo of Khallad. Even though this has been kept as one of the deepest and darkest secrets at the CIA and never uncovered by any investigation of 9/11, we know Wilshire had to be using this passport photo from Soufan’s request as he attempted to identify Khallad in the Mihdhar photos. If he had the photo of Khallad taken at Kuala Lumpur in order to identify Khallad in these photos of Mihdhar and Hazmi, he would have immediately realized that Khallad was in a completely separate photo from Mihdhar. Since he never did realize this, and even sent an email to Clark Shannon asking if Khallad had been in a photo from Kuala Lumpur, we now know that he had to have had the passport of Khallad that Soufan had attached to his request. If Wilshire who had no prior knowledge of what Khallad liked like, could clearly tell using Soufan’s photograph that Khallad was not in any of the photos with Mihdhar, then it makes no sense that the joint source, who knew Khallad personally and much better than Wilshire, could not identify Khallad correctly from the photograph of him taken at Kuala Lumpur.

It was clear that moving Tom Wilshire over to the FBI in mid-May 2001 just after the CIA received Soufan’s request for information on the Kuala Lumpur meeting and Walid Bin Attash, had to have been done by Cofer Black and George Tenet with the approval of Louis Freeh and Michael Rolince, head of the ITOS unit at the FBI, first to find out what the Cole investigators knew about the Kuala Lumpur meeting and second to block any investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi in case the FBI Cole bombing investigators uncovered enough information to actually start an investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.

In fact it was this error by Wilshire, thinking that the cable of this identification of Khallad was from just the Mihdhar photos , that was the first indication of a massive criminal conspiracy at the CIA to hide the meeting at Kuala Lumpur from the FBI Cole bombing investigators. Since the Joint Inquiry Committee and the 9/11 Commission left this information reports and left Soufan completely out of their reports in now appears to hide all of the connections from Soufan back to this massive criminal conspiracy at the CIA and FBI HQ to hide the Kula Lumpur information from him and his team.

This point is critical to understanding the criminal conspiracy at the CIA to withhold the information on the Kuala Lumpur meeting from the FBI for the following reasons.

This information in the DOJ IG report clearly shows that the CIA and Wilshire had Soufan’s request in mid-May 2001, and shows that instead of responding to Soufan’s request, Wilshire is first moved over to the FBI by the top managers at the CIA, and so that he can set up a meeting with Soufan’s own people for June 11, 2001. Wilshire actually had FBI IOS Agent Dina Corsi set up this meeting, and then had Corsi present the three photos Wilshire had obtained from the CIA of Mihdhar and Hazmi. CIA officer Clark Shannon who also was at this meeting then asked FBI Agent and Soufan’s assistant on the Cole bombing Steve Bongardt, if he or any one on his team recognized anyone if the photos, (of Mihdhar and Hazmi taken at Kuala Lumpur).

When Bongardt said neither he nor anyone on his team knew who these people were it was obvious the CIA was only trying to find out if the FBI Cole bombing investigators had somehow found out about the meeting at Kuala Lumpur in their search for information on Khallad, and the people who at that meeting. When Bongardt realized that this question from Shannon made no sense, he asked Shannon and Corsi who were these people in these photos, and why were they you asking the FBI Cole bombing investigators? And what did these people have to do with the Cole bombing?

Corsi and Shannon replied that the wall did not allow them to give any of this information to FBI criminal investigators. But this was just a ruse for the following reasons:

First the CIA and the FBI HQ had ample proof from the NSA cable that informed them that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were going to the Kuala Lumpur meeting, that both Mihdhar and Hazmi were long time al Qaeda terrorists who were connected to the east Africa bombings. UBL had already been indicted for this crime and Mihdhar and Hazmi were known to be part of his organization, and since the east Africa bombings were a crime any NSA information on Mihdhar and Hazmi could have gone to the FBI Cole investigators with no restrictions.

Second at the time on this June 11, 2001 meeting both the CIA and FBI HQ knew that Walid Bin Attach had been at the Kuala Lumpur meeting on January 5-8, 2001 planning the Cole bombing with both Mihdhar and Hazmi. Corsi tells the DOJ IG investigators that well before this June 11, 2001 meeting she knew that Bin Attash had been at this Kuala Lumpur meeting with Mihdhar and Hazmi. The Cole bombing was yet another crime that had resulted in the deaths on 17 American US Navy sailors. This meant that there was no reason what so ever to withhold any information known by the CIA or FBI HQ on Mihdhar and Hazmi from the FBI criminal investigators, particularly the investigators on the Cole bombing.

But it gets worse:

After August 22, 2001 when FBI IOS Agent Margaret Gillespie found Mihdhar and Hazmi inside of the US and took this information to FBI Agent Dina Corsi and CIA officer Tom Wilshire, both Corsi and Wilshire conspired to keep this information away from Bongardt and to shut down his investigation of Mihdhar. They all knew if Bongardt continued with his investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, and then was given the photograph of Khallad at the Kuala Lumpur meeting, he would have immediately realized that this meeting in New York on Juke 11, 2001 was nothing but a sting on him and his team and part of a wide ranging criminal conspiracy at the CIA and FBI HQ only to find out what he and the Cole investigators knew about the meeting at Kuala Lumpur.

When Bongardt accidently received Corsi’s EC to start an intelligence investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi on August 28, 2001 he called Corsi to demand that this investigation be given to him and his team

But Corsi told Bongardt again that the wall prohibited him from receiving any information on Mihdhar and Hazmi since it came from the NSA and that he would not be allowed to start any investigation of Mihdhar.

We again now know that was another ruse in order to shut down his investigation of Mihdhar. Again the wall did not apply for the following reasons:

A written request was sent to the NSA on August 27, 2001 to get a release for the Kuala Lumpur information for the FBI Cole bombing investigators in New York by someone acting for FBI Agent Dina Corsi, probably Tom Wilshire, on August 27, 2001, and was approved in just a few hours. This release said that the information that Mihdhar and Hazmi were traveling to the al Qaeda planning meeting in January 2001 was approved to be given to the FBI criminal investigators in New York on the Cole bombing. So the wall no longer applied at all to this NSA information. This release was actually not needed since both Mihdhar and Hazmi were already tied to massive criminal acts, but it shows that even after receiving this release this criminally conspiracy proceeded unabated.

After being told he could not start any investigation of Mihdhar due to the wall Bongardt asked Corsi to get a legal ruling from the NSLU at FBI HQ.

We now know have the email, from FBI Special Agent Steve Bongardt back to Dina Corsi, 908/29 8:38 AM that said:

Dina- where is "the wall" defined? Isn't it dealing with FISA information"? I think everyone is still confusing this issue. I know we discussed this issue ad nasuseum but "the wall" concept grew out of the fear that FISA would be obtained as opposed to a Title III.

The DOG IG report backed Bongardt up. Both the Justice Department’s office of inspector general and the 9/11 Commission later backed Bongardt and say the investigation should have been a criminal investigation, as the “wall” procedures did not apply. The inspector general will comment that Bongardt “was correct that the wall had been created to deal with the handling of only [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] information and that there was no legal barrier to a criminal agent being present for an interview with Almihdhar if it occurred in the intelligence investigation.” [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 351

The 9/11 Commission will remark: “Simply put, there was no legal reason why the information [Corsi] possessed could not have been shared with [Bongardt].” It will conclude. Because Mihdhar was being sought for his possible connection to or knowledge of the Cole bombing, he could be investigated or tracked under the existing Cole criminal case. No new criminal case was needed for the criminal agent to begin searching for [him]. And as the NSA had approved the passage of its information to the criminal agent, he could have conducted a search using all available information. …the criminal agents who were knowledgeable about al-Qaeda and experienced with criminal investigative techniques, including finding suspects and possible criminal charges, were thus excluded from the search.”

When FBI Agent Dina Corsi asked FBI NSLU attorney Sherry Sabol about whether the information on Mihdhar and Hazmi could be given to the FBI criminal investigators, and if he, (Bongardt) could take part in an investigation and search for Mihdhar, Sabol says that this NSA information could be given to the FBI criminal investigators in New York since it had no connection to any FISA warrant. Sabol further tells Corsi that if she is still confused she, Corsi herself, can request this release from the NSA unaware that she had already gotten a written release two days earlier. But Corsi told Bongardt that the NSLU attorneys had ruled that he, Bongardt , could not take part in any investigation of Mihdhar a ruling we now know was fabricated by Corsi to keep Bongardt off any investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi.

Note the “Substation for the testimony of John” aka Tom Wilshire shows that not only did Wilshire know that Mihdhar and Hazmi were going to take part in the next big al Qaeda attack but that he communicated this information to his CTC managers that had to be Richard B, and Cofer Black who communicated this information to George Tenet on July 23, 2001. See web site at www.events on 911.com for this actual document.

So it clear when they shut down Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar both Wilshire and Corsi and many more at both the CIA and FBI HQ knew Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order to take part in a massive al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans.

Corsi continued to withhold this information from Bongardt in spite of getting a written release from the NSA and the opinion from Attorney Sherry Sabol that the NSA information could be passed to Bongardt, and even knowing that the CIA had been hiding the photo and identification of Khallad from the Kuala Lumpur photos from him and his team. Even her boss Ron Middleton who received the photograph of Khallad on August 30, 2001 and knew that Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar had been illegally shut down was part of this huge conspiracy.

It is impossible to believe that the CIA and FBI HQ did not know that thousands of Americans would perish in these al Qaeda attacks they had been warned many times about when they shut down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt’s investigation of Mihdhar, one of only two investigations that could have prevented the attacks on 9/11.

It is clear that the wall then was nothing but a fiction to used by the CIA and FBJI HQ agents they were working with to criminally withhold critical information from FBI criminal agents on the Cole bombing.

Withholding this information and shutting down FBI Agents Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi directly lead to the deaths of almost 3000 people on 9/11.