The FBI has blocked two of its veteran counterterrorism agents from going public with accusations that the CIA deliberately withheld crucial intelligence before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
FBI Special Agents Mark Rossini and Douglas Miller have asked for permission to appear in an upcoming public television documentary, scheduled to air in January, on pre-9/11 rivalries between the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.
The program is a spin-off from The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, by acclaimed investigative reporter James Bamford, due out in a matter of days.
The FBI denied Rossini and Miller permission to participate in the book or the PBS "NOVA" documentary, which is also being written and produced by Bamford, on grounds that the FBI "doesn't want to stir up old conflicts with the CIA," according to multiple reliable sources.
FBI Prevents Agents from Telling 'Truth' About 9/11 on PBS
Bamford, contacted by phone, said he could not comment because his publisher has embargoed his new book for release around Oct. 10.
The author of two other ground-breaking books on the NSA, Bamford also said his general policy is not to discuss his negotiations for interviews with intelligence agencies.
Pre-9/11 intelligence mishaps have been generally attributed to bureaucratic screw-ups -- a "failure to connect the dots," exacerbated by spy agency rivalries.
But Rossini and Miller, who were assigned to the CIA-run Counterterrorist Center during the run-up to the 9/11 attacks, are prepared to describe on camera how the CIA blocked them from sharing crucial intelligence with FBI headquarters - and then later pressured them not to tell the truth to investigators.
The first allegation is not entirely new, having been reported by author Lawrence Wright in his 2006 book, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, among other places.
But what is new is that Rossini and Miller -- who still hold sensitive jobs in the FBI, and are identified here for the first time -- are prepared to say publicly that, under pressure from the CIA, they kept the full the truth from the Justice Department's Inspector General, which looked into the FBI's handling of pre-9/11 intelligence in 2004.
"There was pressure on people not to disclose what really happened," said sources close to the IG investigation.
Rossini, in particular, is said to have felt threatened that the CIA would have him prosecuted for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act if he told the IG investigators what really happened inside the CTC.
CIA officials were in the room when he and Miller, as well as a sympathetic CIA officer, were questioned.
The IG investigators showed them copies of CTC intelligence reports and e-mails.
But the FBI agents suddenly couldn't remember details about who said what, or who reported what, to whom, about the presence of two al Qaeda agents in the U.S. prior to the 9/11 attacks,
The IG investigators were suspicious.
Indeed, their report, which used pseudonyms for the CIA and FBI agents its interviewed -- Rossini and Miller were called "Malcolm" and "Dwight," a CIA analyst was dubbed "Eric" -- hinted at a cover-up.
"When we interviewed all of the individuals involved about the CIR [Current Intelligence Report] they asserted that they recalled nothing about it," it said
The focus of the IG was what the CIA had witheld about the movement of two al Qaeda operatives, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, from Malaysia to the U.S. in early 2000.
But he and Miller did come clean during an internal FBI investigation, which remains under wraps.
Sources with direct knowledge of the FBI's internal probe say that the agents provided the bureau with unadulterated versions of their CTC experiences, including orders they were given by the center's then-Deputy Director, Tom Wilshire, to withhold intelligence about the movement of al Qaeda operatives into the country from the FBI.
When the agents asked permission to tell that same story on television, the FBI initially agreed, but then cancelled at the last moment, two sources involved in the deliberations said, with the explanation that it didn't want to risk inflaming the CIA.
The FBI's top spokesman, Assistant Director John Miller, did not address that issue directly.
But he said that the FBI had withheld permission for the agents to be named in various reports on 9/11 intelligence out of security and privacy concerns.
"These questions were examined extensively by several independent agencies and commissions," he said via e-mail Wednesday.
"It was determined that the two FBI employees would not be named in those reports because they continue to hold sensitive positions in the FBI as well as Privacy Act issues regarding current and former personnel."
Agent Douglas Miller has said that he doesn't have "a rational answer" to explain why the CIA blocked him from sharing information with the bureau, particularly a report of such obvious magnitude about al Qaeda operatives in the U.S. He speculated that CIA officials at the CTC were annoyed that he had encroached on their territory.
A CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, ridiculed the allegations.
"I have every reason--every reason--to believe that's complete garbage," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Not only did the 9/11 Commission look at the matter in detail, but former Director George Tenet wrote about it at some length in his book."
But the Justice Department Inspector general contradicted Tenet's assertion that the CIA shared its intelligence on al Qaeda operatives in a timely fashion with the FBI.
"We concluded it was not disclosed by the CIA until late August 2001, shortly before the September 11 terrorist attacks."
Another intelligence source said the CIA feared that if FBI headquarters learned of the suspects' arrival in the U.S., it would try to arrest them -- and bust up a sensitive CIA operation to penetrate al Qaeda.
Mihdhar and Hazmi were plotting an attack outside of the United States, the CIA believed, and wanted the FBI to stay clear of them.
"They said it has nothing to do with the FBI, the next attack will be in Southeast Asia," said a source familiar with the details. "They said, 'It's none of your business.'"
Rossini and other FBI counterterrorism agents were furious, according to a knowledgeable source. The FBI is responsible for investigating domestic-based plots.
"They're here!" Rossini protested to his CTC bosses. "It is FBI business."
The IG report criticized Douglas Miller ("Dwight") for not ignoring CIA objections and sending his crucially important report on Mihdhar to FBI headquarters.
But Miller, who held the relatively low rank of GS-12 at the time, told investigators that it was unthinkable for him to violate the orders of his CTC superiors. He would have been fired, "sent home," he told them.
Miller would be happy to give CIA officials the benefit of the doubt in a television interview, he has told friends, conceding that there may have been good reasons for their decisions that he was not aware of.
He has described the CTC as place filled with dedicated professionals who were "America's lowest paid professional workers on an hourly basis," for all the pressure-packed time they spent trying to detect terrorist plots.
But unless the FBI changes its mind, he'll have to keep that story to himself.
The author of two other ground-breaking books on the NSA, Bamford also said his general policy is not to discuss his negotiations for interviews with intelligence agencies.
Pre-9/11 intelligence mishaps have been generally attributed to bureaucratic screw-ups -- a "failure to connect the dots," exacerbated by spy agency rivalries.
But Rossini and Miller, who were assigned to the CIA-run Counterterrorist Center during the run-up to the 9/11 attacks, are prepared to describe on camera how the CIA blocked them from sharing crucial intelligence with FBI headquarters - and then later pressured them not to tell the truth to investigators.
The first allegation is not entirely new, having been reported by author Lawrence Wright in his 2006 book, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, among other places.
But what is new is that Rossini and Miller -- who still hold sensitive jobs in the FBI, and are identified here for the first time -- are prepared to say publicly that, under pressure from the CIA, they kept the full the truth from the Justice Department's Inspector General, which looked into the FBI's handling of pre-9/11 intelligence in 2004.
"There was pressure on people not to disclose what really happened," said sources close to the IG investigation.
Rossini, in particular, is said to have felt threatened that the CIA would have him prosecuted for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act if he told the IG investigators what really happened inside the CTC.
CIA officials were in the room when he and Miller, as well as a sympathetic CIA officer, were questioned.
The IG investigators showed them copies of CTC intelligence reports and e-mails.
But the FBI agents suddenly couldn't remember details about who said what, or who reported what, to whom, about the presence of two al Qaeda agents in the U.S. prior to the 9/11 attacks,
The IG investigators were suspicious.
Indeed, their report, which used pseudonyms for the CIA and FBI agents its interviewed -- Rossini and Miller were called "Malcolm" and "Dwight," a CIA analyst was dubbed "Eric" -- hinted at a cover-up.
"When we interviewed all of the individuals involved about the CIR [Current Intelligence Report] they asserted that they recalled nothing about it," it said
The focus of the IG was what the CIA had witheld about the movement of two al Qaeda operatives, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, from Malaysia to the U.S. in early 2000.
Dwight told the OIG that he did not recall being aware of the information about Mihdhar, did not recall drafting the CIR, did not recall whether he drafted the CIR on his own initiative or at the direction of his supervisor, and did not recall any discussions about the reasons for delaying completion and dissemination of the CIR. Malcolm said he did not recall reviewing any of the cable traffic or any information regarding Hazmi and Mihdhar. Eric told the OIG that he did not recall the CIR.Subsequently, Rossini and Miller were not subpoenaed by the 9/11 Commission to tell what they knew, even though sources say they were eager to do so.
But he and Miller did come clean during an internal FBI investigation, which remains under wraps.
Sources with direct knowledge of the FBI's internal probe say that the agents provided the bureau with unadulterated versions of their CTC experiences, including orders they were given by the center's then-Deputy Director, Tom Wilshire, to withhold intelligence about the movement of al Qaeda operatives into the country from the FBI.
When the agents asked permission to tell that same story on television, the FBI initially agreed, but then cancelled at the last moment, two sources involved in the deliberations said, with the explanation that it didn't want to risk inflaming the CIA.
The FBI's top spokesman, Assistant Director John Miller, did not address that issue directly.
But he said that the FBI had withheld permission for the agents to be named in various reports on 9/11 intelligence out of security and privacy concerns.
"These questions were examined extensively by several independent agencies and commissions," he said via e-mail Wednesday.
"It was determined that the two FBI employees would not be named in those reports because they continue to hold sensitive positions in the FBI as well as Privacy Act issues regarding current and former personnel."
Agent Douglas Miller has said that he doesn't have "a rational answer" to explain why the CIA blocked him from sharing information with the bureau, particularly a report of such obvious magnitude about al Qaeda operatives in the U.S. He speculated that CIA officials at the CTC were annoyed that he had encroached on their territory.
A CIA spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, ridiculed the allegations.
"I have every reason--every reason--to believe that's complete garbage," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Not only did the 9/11 Commission look at the matter in detail, but former Director George Tenet wrote about it at some length in his book."
But the Justice Department Inspector general contradicted Tenet's assertion that the CIA shared its intelligence on al Qaeda operatives in a timely fashion with the FBI.
"We reviewed whether this information was in fact passed to the FBI by the CIA, and based on the evidence, concluded that while the CIA passed some of the information about Mihdhar to the FBI, it did not contemporaneously pass the information about Mihdhar's U.S. visa to the FBI," the IG report said.
"We concluded it was not disclosed by the CIA until late August 2001, shortly before the September 11 terrorist attacks."
Another intelligence source said the CIA feared that if FBI headquarters learned of the suspects' arrival in the U.S., it would try to arrest them -- and bust up a sensitive CIA operation to penetrate al Qaeda.
Mihdhar and Hazmi were plotting an attack outside of the United States, the CIA believed, and wanted the FBI to stay clear of them.
"They said it has nothing to do with the FBI, the next attack will be in Southeast Asia," said a source familiar with the details. "They said, 'It's none of your business.'"
Rossini and other FBI counterterrorism agents were furious, according to a knowledgeable source. The FBI is responsible for investigating domestic-based plots.
"They're here!" Rossini protested to his CTC bosses. "It is FBI business."
The IG report criticized Douglas Miller ("Dwight") for not ignoring CIA objections and sending his crucially important report on Mihdhar to FBI headquarters.
But Miller, who held the relatively low rank of GS-12 at the time, told investigators that it was unthinkable for him to violate the orders of his CTC superiors. He would have been fired, "sent home," he told them.
Miller would be happy to give CIA officials the benefit of the doubt in a television interview, he has told friends, conceding that there may have been good reasons for their decisions that he was not aware of.
He has described the CTC as place filled with dedicated professionals who were "America's lowest paid professional workers on an hourly basis," for all the pressure-packed time they spent trying to detect terrorist plots.
But unless the FBI changes its mind, he'll have to keep that story to himself.
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Comments
Have you read the info and the book from the website
http://www.eventson911.com ?
eb
Posted by: EightBelles08
| October 1, 2008 4:44 PM
I bought the book on the website, Prior Knowledge of 911. It ties
everything together and it uses publicly available government
documents. I haven't read any book or article that is as compelling
as this book. I would seriously recommend it to anyone that wants to know what really happened prior to 911.
Posted by: spymaster
| October 1, 2008 7:52 PM
Read the book. This is the most incredible book ever. It has the complete story on 9/11 in one place and not the story the 9/11 Commission wanted to tell the world, but the real story on 9/11. And where did the author get this information, right from the US governments own web sites.
ATT was right. You can't hide from the Internet . The people at the CIA and FBI HQ who deliberately allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take place had given the DOJ IG investigators enough information so that it was possible for the author to get the complete story with the other publicly available information. This book seems to have every detail on what had occurred prior to the attacks on 9/11 that had allowed these attacks to take place. The author build very detailed time lines using all of the official document on 9/11, combined with the account of FBI Agent Ali Soufan, the lead FBI criminal investigator on the Cole bombing. Since all of the information in this book came from official government documents, you might say in fact that this book is the official government account of 9/11!
The account of FBI agent Ali Soufan was dictated to Lawrence Wright by FBI Agent Steve Bongardt, Ali Soufan's assistant on the Cole bombing, and was vetted by FBI information officer John Miller. So this account can be considered to be the official FBI account of 9/11.
The critical documents the author has in this book clearly show that CIA deliberately and knowingly had allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take place. First the CIA hid the information, in wide ranging criminal conspiracies, that came out of the Kuala Lumpur al Qaeda planning meeting, the meeting where both the attack on the USS Cole and the 9/11 attacks were planned. Next the CIA, working with FBI HQ agents they had subjugated, shut down the investigtaion of Mihdhar and Hazmi by FBI Agent Steve Bongardt. They did this even when they knew that these long time al Qaeda terrorists were inside of the US and knew they were going to take part in a huge al Qaeda attack that would kill thousands of Americans. The CIA officer who was involved in shutting down this investigtaion, not only knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US in order so they could take part in this huge al Qaeda attack, but even was in direct contact with Maltbie and Frasca, the two FBI managers who at the same time were shutting down the FBI investigtaion of Moussaoui.
Both of these investigations of al Qaeda terrorists known to be side fo the US were in fact shut down by the very same unit at FBI Headquarters, the ITOS unit under Michael Rolince. In fact the conclusion the author came to was that when the CIA was shutting down this investigation of Mihdhar, it was impossible to believe that they did not know the result would be that thousands of Americans would perish in these attacks and they simply did not care!
But what is more horrific was the additional information that the author found and is in this book, the account of FBI Agent Soufan, the Substitution for the Testimony of John, CIA officer Tom Wilshire, the release from the NSA caveats given to FBI HQ agent Dina Corsi should have been found by both the 9/11 Commission and they DOJ Inspector General when they did an official investigtaion of this after the attacks on 9/11.
The 9/11 Commission had the information from the DOJ IG report, but Soufan is completely missing from this report, and according to the author, this was the missing pieces that were needed to put this entire story together.
How was it possible that the DOJ IG did not know who Ali Soufan was when he was the lead investigtairs on the Cole bombing.
James Bamford and the PBS do not need to have FBI IOS Agents Doug Miller and Mark Rossini appear in this documentary to get the whole story on 9/11. In fact, it is clear that they will never get the CIA to give permission for them to appear anyway. They can just read this one book. It is all there and it is just incredible!
Posted by: What-really-happened
| October 1, 2008 8:15 PM
-NEW 911 STUDY PRODUCES TROUBLING ANALYSIS
Veteran Captain Challenges Official Account
A new comprehensive report of the September 11, 2001 attack offers the first alternative analysis of 9/11 based primarily on the official FBI, NTSB, White House, FAA, 911 Commission and Congressional investigations and transcripts. The report disputes the findings of the 911 Commission and points to elements within the government of Saudi Arabia and key individuals associated with the Bush Administration as the likely planners and active enablers of the world-changing attack with far reaching complications.
Investigative author Philip Marshall, a twenty year airline veteran and captain on both the Boeing 757 and 767, the same planes used in the attack, led the research and has made the findings available in a book recently released by Amazon/BookSurge, False Flag 911: How Bush, Cheney and the Saudis Created the Post-911 World. False flag is a military action disguised to appear as the work of another entity. In this case, the 911 attack was blamed on al Qaeda, the arch enemies of Saudi Arabian royalty and American interests in the Middle East. The author was a colleague of four of the pilots who were murdered on 9/11 and was a covert pilot in 1984 during the illegal Iran-Contra cladestine activity under then Vice President Bush and Colonel Oliver North.
FIRST-EVER ANALYSIS OF THE TACTICAL PLAN
False Flag 911 is the first book to analyze the strategic plan of the attacks and to assess, in real aviation terms, the tactical planning and training they required. Contrary to the 911 Commission Report of simple hijackings followed by a relatively straightforward task of aiming a plane at a large building, Marshall details how immensely sophisticated, intricate and difficult the attacks were on every level -- and how they relied on esoteric knowledge of Boeing aircraft, the FAA's Air Traffic Control system and the protocols for U.S. fighter jet defenses.
Marshall notes that al Qaeda’s methods of operation before and since has been limited to crude bombs in cars, trains, trucks and, in the instance of the US Cole, a bomb detonated on a rubber boat. He finds no evidence to suggest that al Qaeda actually planned the details of the attack, directed the training it required, or managed its execution. “A precision attack using scheduled passenger airliners required great study to calculate probabilities of the airline world around a time-critical tactical plan. This timing would require savvy military tactical planners, Boeing experts and a well coordinated logistical support team. There is no evidence to suggest that al Qaeda had any of these required individuals in their camp.”
Philip Marshall's False Flag 911 is the best book on 911.
Posted by: Rand C
| October 2, 2008 11:26 AM
The outline of this story has been well-known for some time, but it appears that we may finally learn more about the precise reasons why CIA did not share its information about the two AQ plotters at the Malaysia meeting who had US entry visas. Had these two been picked up & interrogated by the FBI the odds are that the whole plot would have unraveled. But it appears that CIA had its own plan to infiltrate AQ, and having absolutely no idea of the scope of the 9/11 plot involving those two, it made a certain type of sense for the Agency to keep the FBI away from "people of interest" who may have had an unwitting role to play in the CIA scheme. However, this is where information sharing really does play a key role -- someone above both agencies needed to adjudicate competing agendas, which was sure as hell something the DCI wasn't about to do. Would the DNI do so today?
As to the al-Qaeda 9/11 plot itself, what the intelligence community has long needed is a "red team" for counterterrorism, looking at unusual terror strategies that may or may not have much supporting intel, and asking the question "if they want to do it, how would they go about it?" Working backward from the notion of crashing airliners into buildings (for which there was some sparse evidence of intent or desire on AQ's part, I believe), a red team would have quickly focused on training facilities for large commercial aircraft. These are fewer in number than general aviation training facilities, cost a great deal of money to attend, and for the most part the students have airline or major corporate sponsorship. Students from the Middle East without such sponsorship would have been fairly easy to identify. The famous "Phoenix Memo" showed that some people were thinking somewhat along those lines, but it was way too late and would have needed major bureaucratic horsepower to move it into intelligence channels.
Posted by: Ralph H.
| October 2, 2008 4:22 PM
I'm sorry, Ralph, but your response is simply an attempt at apologetics for the CIA.
No one at CIA was reprimanded, fired, or brought to justice for this arguably treasonous behavior. Instead Tenet got a medal, and then he vigorously defended these actions which clearly helped the 9/11 attacks succeed.
Unfortunately, the CIA has a long history of pro-terrorism, around the world, on all continents save Antarctica. You don't really need me to list the atrocities do you? But, they also have a history directly linked to the alleged perpetrators of 9/11, that being the "Mujahadin", the "freedom fighters" in the worlds of Ronald Reagan. A support network was created including the Saudi government and the Pakistani intelligence. This network was aided, trained, funded by the US and Britain in Bosnia and Kosovo, supplying Jihadis in those conflicts.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistani intelligence are both implicated in 9/11.
CIA counter terrorism center (sic?) also gave "aid and comfort" to the alleged hijackers by hiding them from FBI (illegally).
There is much, much more to the story here. The cover up is staggering and indicative of a guilty party covering its tracks.
The Phoenix Memo was only one glaring clue. You omit that Moussaoui was already IN CUSTODY, yet FBI supervisors at the headquarters refused the Minneapolic office permission to search his laptop computer (until after the WTC was struck).
I would also take issue with those claiming the entire story of 9/11 is known. It is not. It is the "enigma inside of a mystery," and with the Bushites able to destroy evidence for these last 7 years, the truth may never be fully known.
One thing is certain however. Treason.
Disturbing Facts About 9/11
http://crimesofthestate.blogspot.com/2007/02/no-george-monbiot-these-are-facts-of.html
Posted by: John Doraemi
| October 3, 2008 4:25 PM
The cover-up and damage control is proving quite difficult, eh.
The whole world knows it was a false-flag operation, except for a few Americans.
Out of this terrible tragedy, perhaps the eventual revealing of those responsible, will lead to a Great Purge of the Traitors who hijacked the U.S. long ago.
Posted by: EndangeredFeces
| October 3, 2008 5:47 PM
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