SK B1 Family Liaison Fdr- Undated Unsigned Letter Re Access Needed Refused to Joint Inquiry 537

8/14/2019 SK B1 Family Liaison Fdr- Undated Unsigned Letter Re Access Needed Refused to Joint Inquiry 537

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Access the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the UnitedStates must gain from entities that the Joint Inquiry was either refusedor limited.

Dear Commissioners and Staff,After recently re-reading the Joint Inquiry's Report, it has come to my attentionthat there are many areas that this Commission must gain access.In light of recent eventsnamely the issuance of your first subpoena to the FAA, Iwould hope that if you have not already gamed access to the below mentioned list,you will immediately and liberally issue subpoenas to gain such access. The issuanceof a subpoena provides the legal mechanism to compel compliance with yourrequests. It permits your investigation to move along swiftly, constructively andthoroughly, devoid of any roadblocks. And, perhaps most importantly, the use of asubpoena establishes a level of credibility that this Commission must reach in orderfor your final report to be definitive, complete, and above reproach.The Joint Inquiry listed these below mentioned areas, individuals, and entities asareas that were in need of further investigation. Thus, it would seem that these areaswould be well within your mandate since your investigation of them will notduplicate any work already done by the Joint Inquiry.During your consideration of issuing subpoenas for the below mentioned areas, Iwould hope that you would recall the words issued by the White House in theirOctober 15, 2003, memorandum, 'Cooperation with National Commission onTerrorist Attacks Upon the United States,'words that were steadfast and strongabout the ability of this Commission to gain access to all information in order tocomplete a definitive final report. The Administration stated, "It is imperative thatwe see these strong efforts through to completion of the Commission's work."

Th e areas that call for further investigation by this Commission include:Areas Where Access W as DeniedThe President's Daily Brief(PDB): The White determined and the DCI and CIA agreedthat the Joint Inquiry could have no access to the contents of the PDB. Ultimately, thisbar extended to the point where CIA personnel was not allowed to be interviewedregarding the simple process by which the PDB is prepared. Although the Inquiry wasinadvertently given access to fragments of some PDB items early on, this decision limitedthe Inquiry's ability to determine systematically what Presidents Clinton and Bush, andtheir senior advisors were being told by the Intelligence Community agencies, and whenit was told to them, regarding the nature of the threat to the United States from Usama


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Bin Ladin and al-Qaida. Despite the White House decision, the Joint Inquiry was advisedby Intelligence Community representatives of the content of an August 2001 PD B itemthat is discussed in the report. This glimpse into that PDB indicated the importance ofsuch access [ ]**National Security A dvisor Condoleeza Rice stated in May 16, 2002 press briefing thaton August 6, 2001, the PDB included information about Bin Ladin's methods ofoperation from a historical perspective dating back to 1997. One of the methods was thatBin Ladin might choose to hijack an airliner in order to hold passengers hostage to gainrelease of one of their operatives. S he stated, however, that the report did n ot containspecific warning information, bu t only a generalized warning, and did not containinformation that al Qaida was discussing a particular planned attack against a spec ifictarget at any specific time, place, or by any specific method.Foreign Liaison Relationships: The DCI refused to allow the Joint Inquiry to have accessto a series of reports that had been prepared w ithin CT C regarding the strengths andweaknesses of CIA's liaison relationships with a variety of foreign governments. Thisaffected the Inquiry's ability to determine the extent to which some foreign governmentshad or had not cooperated and shared information with the United States in counteringBin Ladin and al Qaida prior to September 11.Budget Inform ation: While certain inform ation was m ade available regarding agency andCongressional action, the Office of Management and Budget and the White Houseprevented the agencies from sharing information regarding the budget requests that weresubmitted by the agencies to OM B and the actions O MB took to increase or decreasethose requests befor e they were subm itted to Congress. This limited the Inquiry's abilityto determine where in the budget process requests for additional counterterrorismresources were changed.Covert Action: Covert action was an important part of CIA 's overall effort to counter thethreat posed by B in Ladin prior to September 11, 2001. The NSC denied the Joint Inquiryaccess to docum ents thereby limiting its ability to inqu ire into this area.NSC -Level Info rmation: There were several areas of counterterrorism intelligence policydevelopment where insight into discussions involving the DCI, CIA and otherintelligence Community officials and personnel at the National Security Council andW hite House levels w ould have been helpful in determining why certain options andprograms were or were not pursued in particular time frames. Access to most informationthat involved N SC-level discussions was blocked, however, by the White House. Evenagency documents that were drafted in anticipation of NSC discussion were denied to theInquiry as "pre-decisional". The Inqu iry also w as denied access to, or a briefingconcerning, the findings and con clusions of the report of the Nationa l SecurityPresidential Directive-5 Commission on Intelligence Reform chaired by Lt. Gen. BrentScowcroft.


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Senior Administration Officials: It is stated in the Joint Intelligence Report that the "JointInquiry would have benefited greatly, ... had it been able to hear directly from the mostsenior national security officials in the current administration. For various reasons, theSecretaries of State and Defense, the Attorney G eneral, and the National SecurityAdvisor were not questioned directly about issues related to the September 11 attacks".The author goes on to say that he doesn't believe that "the record of the nationalcommission will be complete unless this shortcoming is addressed".Interview of FBI informant: O n August 8, 2002, the FBI informed the Joint Inquiry thattwo of the hijackers had numerous contacts with a long time FBI counterterrorisminformant. The FBI supported by the Attorney General and the Administration, refused tomake the informan t available for an interview or to serve a Congressional depositionnotice and subpoena on the informant, whose whereabouts were known to the FBI at thetime. While the Joint Inquiry interviewed and received testimony from FBI personnelfamiliar with the informa tion provided by the informant, it was denied the opportunity todiscuss that information directly with the informant.CIA and NSA documents: CIA took the position that so-called "operational cables" fromthe field and certain other documents it deemed to be sensitive could be subject to JointInquiry review at CIA headquarters, bu t that no copies could be brought to the JointInquiry's office. NSA adopted a similar position concerning its transcripts an ddisseminated intelligence reports and ultimately almost all other materials. Thisprevented the incorporation of the original do cumen ts in the Inquiry's central recordswhere they could be drawn upon effectively fo r research and reference purposes. Bothagencies did permit verbatim note-taking w hich consumed many hou rs and slowed theInquiry's p rogress. Both agencies then agreed to allow copies to be removed from theirpremises if the Jo int Inquiry agreed to allow them to be stored by the agencies at the endof the Inquiry, and even provided a draft of an agreement that would recognize this.When the Inqu iry later agreed in principle and responded with a revised draft, theagencies decided that such an agreement was no longer desirable.Military options: The Joint Inqu iry asked to review documents regarding 13 militaryoptions that had been reportedly prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in response toWhite House request. The Joint Chiefs of Staff Legal Counsel supported by the DefenseDepartment General Cou nsel and the NSC took the position that this request exceededthe scope of the Joint Inquiry's authority.

Areas where Access Was LimitedForeign Government Information at the FBI: The FBI allowed the Joint Inquiry to reviewinformation provided by foreign governments at the FBI, bu t would no t allow thedocuments or verbatim notes to be carried to the Inquiry's offices. This limited anddelayed the Inquiry's efforts to understand the level o f cooperation displayed by the []and other governments in counterterrorism efforts prior to September 11.


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Interview policies: The Intelligence Com munity agencies insisted that agencyrepresentatives be present to monitor all interviews of their personnelpresent or former.Some of the agencies pre-briefed personnel who were to be interviewed by the JointInquiry, explaining to them w hat the agency position w as on certain m atters and urgingthe employees not to range too broadly in their responses. In one instance, after lengthydiscussions with DOJ and FBI personnel, a former FBI agent was interviewed withoutmonitors present at his request. On occasion, agency legal representatives instructedindividuals not to respond to questions.

Areas Where Access Was DelayedInterview of the Deputy Na tional Security Advisor: The Joint Inquiry requested theopportunity to conduct an interview of the National Security Adv isor to the President inM ay 2002 in order to better understand the development of counterterrorism policy in theBush Adm inistration before September 11, 2001. The NSC resisted this and suggestedthat the Deputy National Security Advisor be the subject instead and that writtenquestions be provided instead of conducting an interview. The Joint Inquiry providedwritten questions in July but did not receive responses until November 2002.

Documents

SK B1 Family Liaison Fdr- Undated Unsigned Letter Re Access Needed Refused to Joint Inquiry 537