George Tenet

DCI Tenet Lied Under Oath About CIA Knowledge of Hijackers

The CIA freely admits that it followed American 77 hijackers Khalid Al Mihdhar and Nawaf Al Hazmi, as well as Nawaf's brother Salem, halfway around Asia in January 2000. However, it claims to have lost them in Thailand on 8 January 2000, one week before they entered the US. Allegedly, Thai intelligence didn't notify the CIA that Al Hazmi had entered the US until 5 March 2000, when a cable was drafted to this effect and sent to Langley.

In testimony before the joint House and Senate select intelligence committee investigating the Sept. 11 attacks CIA Director George Tenet claimed that:
“I know that nobody read that cable”; and
“Nobody read that cable in the March timeframe.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/17/politics/18ITEXT.html?pagewanted=33&ei=5070&en=496402ebc3564f0d&ex=1159070400

However, the CIA's Office of Inspector General later drafted a report on the CIA's performance before 9/11 and some passages of it were redacted and used in evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. Here's the relevant one:
“... in early 2000, numerous CIA officers in different divisions accessed one or more operational documents that reported Khalid al-Mihdhar's passport contained a multiple entry visa for the United States and that Nawaf al-Hazmi had departed Thailand on a flight bound for Los Angeles. Most of the officers who accessed the documents were in the Counterterrorism Division at that time.”

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