The CIA drafts a report containing statements reportedly made by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) under interrogation at a black site. According to the report, KSM says that 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar did not receive specialized training at a course for al-Qaeda operatives scheduled for inclusion in the 9/11 operation in late 1999 because he had already received the training from KSM. In later statements, KSM will deny this and say he gave Almihdhar no such training, adding that he assumed Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda military commander Mohammed Atef had excused Almihdhar from the training (see Early December 1999). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 157, 493] The report also states that KSM says he sent Zacarias Moussaoui to Malaysia (see September-October 2000), that Jemaah Islamiyah leader Hambali helped Moussaoui when he was in Malaysia, and that KSM recalled Moussaoui from Malaysia when he discovered he was behaving badly there. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 490, 520] The US is already aware that Moussaoui had been to Malaysia, that Hambali and KSM were linked, and that Moussaoui behaved badly in Malaysia. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006] Details of the report will apparently be leaked to the media four days later (see March 28, 2003).
March 28, 2003: First Details of KSM’s Interrogations Leaked to Press
The first details of the interrogation of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) are leaked to the press and appear in the Washington Post. At least some of the information appears to come from a report on KSM’s interrogation drafted four days ago. According to the Post article, KSM claims that Zacarias Moussaoui, an al-Qaeda operative arrested in the US in August 2001 (see August 16, 2001), was not part of the 9/11 plot and was scheduled for a follow-up attack. He also says that Moussaoui was helped by Jemaah Islamiyah leader Hambali and Yazid Sufaat, one of Hambali’s associates. KSM reportedly says Sufaat attempted to develop biological weapons for al-Qaeda, but failed because he could not obtain a strain of anthrax that could be dispersed as a weapon. This information appears to be based on a CIA report of KSM’s interrogation drafted on March 24, which discussed KSM’s knowledge of Moussaoui’s stay in Malaysia, where he met both Hambali and Sufaat (see March 24, 2003). The Post notes that if KSM’s claim about Moussaoui were true, this could complicate the prosecution of Moussaoui. For example, it quotes former prosecutor Andrew McBride saying that “on the death penalty, it is quite helpful to Moussaoui.” [Washington Post, 3/28/2003] During the Moussaoui trial, the statement about Moussaoui’s non-involvement in the 9/11 operation will be submitted to the jury as a part of a substitution for testimony by KSM. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/31/2006 
] Moussaoui will escape the death penalty by one vote (see May 3, 2006). During this month, KSM is in CIA custody and is waterboarded 183 times over five days (see After March 7, 2003 and April 18, 2009). The claim about Moussaoui is not the full truth, as a communications intercept between KSM and his associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh in July 2001 showed that KSM was considering Moussaoui for the 9/11 plot (see July 20, 2001).
April 6, 2003: Iraqi Training Camp Overrun by US Forces; Allegations Facility Was Used to Train Islamist Terrorists Is Found Baseless
US forces overrun the Iraqi military training facility at Salman Pak, just south of Baghdad. The facility has been identified by several Iraqi National Congress defectors as a training facility for foreign terrorists, possibly aligned with al-Qaeda (see November 6-8, 2001). [New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Knight Ridder, 11/2/2005] The day of the raid, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks attempts to give the impression that US forces have found evidence that the camp was used to train terrorists, telling reporters that the camp was hit “in response to information that had been gained by coalition forces from some foreign fighters that we encountered from other country, not Iraq, and we believe that this camp had been used to train these foreign fighters in terror tactics…. The nature of the work being done by some of those people that we captured, their inferences to the type of training that they received, all of these things give us the impression that there was terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak.” Brooks says that tanks, armored personnel carriers, buildings used for “command and control and… morale and welfare” were destroyed. “All of that when you roll it together, the reports, where they’re from, why they might be here tell us there’s a linkage between this regime and terrorism and that’s something that we want to break…. There’s no indications of specific organizations that I’m aware of inside of that. We may still find it as with all operations that we conduct into a place, we look for more information after the operation is complete. We’ll pull documents out of it and see what the documents say, if there’s any links or indications. We’ll look and see if there’s any persons that are recovered that may not be Iraqi.” [CNN, 4/6/2003] However, US forces find no evidence whatsoever of any terrorists training activities at the camp. The story had a sensational effect in the media, and helped feed the public impression that the regime of Saddam Hussein was connected in some way with the 9/11 terrorists, but others, from Iraqi spokespersons to former US intelligence officials, asserted before the March 2003 invation that the Salman Pak facility was built, not for training terrorists, but for training Iraqi special forces to combat passenger jet hijackers. The facility formerly housed an old fuselage, generally identified as being from a Boeing 707, used in the training, and has been used in counter-terrorism training since the mid-1980s. A former CIA station chief says the agency assisted the Iraqis in their training: “We were helping our allies everywhere we had a liaison.” The former station chief adds that it is unlikely that the Iraqis, or anyone else, would train for terrorist strikes in an open facility easily spotted by satellite surveillance and human observers. “That’s Hollywood rinky-dink stuff,” he says. “They train in basements. You don’t need a real airplane to practice hijacking. The 9/11 terrorists went to gyms. But to take one back you have to practice on the real thing.” The US forces comb through Salman Pak, and find nothing to indicate that the facility was used for anything except counter-terrorism training. [New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Knight Ridder, 11/2/2005] In 2004, a senior US official will say of the claims about Salman Pak as a terrorist training facility, “We certainly have found nothing to substantiate that.” [Knight Ridder, 3/15/2004] In 2006, the Senate Intelligence Committee will report similar findings (see ISeptember 8, 2006). The CIA doubted reports of Salman Pak being used as a terrorist training camp as early as 2003 (see January 2003). And former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was debunking those stories in 2002 (see August 2002).
Shortly After April 9, 2003: US Troops Find Many Forged Documents in Iraq that Attempt to Link Hussein and Al-Qaeda
In 2007, CIA Director George Tenet will write in a book, “Once US forces reached Baghdad (see April 9, 2003), they discovered—stacked where they could easily find them—purported Iraqi intelligence service documents that showed much tighter links between Saddam [Hussein] and [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi, and Saddam and al-Qaeda.” CIA analysts work with the Secret Service to check the paper and ink, plus to verify the details mentioned in the documents. But “time and again” the documents turn out to be forgeries. “It was obvious that someone was trying to mislead us. But these raw, unevaluated documents that painted a more nefarious picture of Iraq and al-Qaeda continued to show up in the hands of senior [Bush] administration officials without having gone through normal intelligence channels.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 356] For instance, one forged document found in December 2003 and reported on by the press will purport that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta went to Iraq to be trained by Iraqi intelligence agents (see December 14, 2003). Tenet will not speculate who is behind the forgeries.
May 2003: CIA Inspector General Reviews Videotapes of Abu Zubaida’s Interrogations; Several Blank, Waterboarding Sessions Missing
The CIA’s Office of the Inspector General reviews videotapes of the interrogation and custody of militant training camp facilitator Abu Zubaida. The tapes, made in 2002 (see Spring-Late 2002), show 83 applications of the waterboarding technique, most of which last for less than 10 seconds. However, 11 of the interrogation videos turn out to be blank, two others are blank except for one or two minutes, and two more are broken and cannot be reviewed. The Inspector General then compares the tapes to logs and cables about the interrogations and identifies a 21-hour period, including two waterboarding sessions, that is not captured on the tapes. [Central Intelligence Agency, 5/7/2004, pp. 36-37 ]
May 7-9, 2003: CIA Wrongly Informs Court about Detainee Recordings in Moussaoui Case
On May 7, 2003, Leonie Brinkema, the judge in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, asks the CIA if it has recordings of interrogations of detainees related to Moussaoui’s case. Two days later, the CIA replies that it does not, although it is actually in possession of some recordings. In 2002, the CIA secretly videotaped interrogations of high-ranking detainees Abu Zubaida and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (see Spring-Late 2002) but it does not reveal this to anyone involved in the Moussaoui trial. In 2005, some of these videotapes will be destroyed (see November 2005), around the time the Brinkema makes a repeat request for the tapes (see November 3-14, 2005). However, other recordings—two videotapes and one audio tape—will survive and will finally be viewed by Moussaoui’s prosecutors in 2007, long after Moussaoui has been convicted (see September 19 and October 18, 2007). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 10/25/2007 ; Reuters, 11/13/2007] Although the identity of the detainees in the recordings requested is not known, one of the prosecutors will later say, “Obviously the important witnesses included [Abu] Zubaidah, [Ramzi] bin al-Shibh, and KSM [Khalid Shaikh Mohammed]… those are the guys at the head of the witness list.” However, he will not specifically recall which tapes are requested. [Associated Press, 12/7/2007]
Summer 2003: CIA Officials Obtain Permission from Rice to Use Harsh Interrogation Tactics on New Detainee
CIA officials ask for reauthorization of the controversial harsh interrogation methods (see April 2002 and After and August 1, 2002) that had been withdrawn (see December 2003-June 2004) after the revelation of abuse and torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison (see November 5, 2003). The CIA has captured a new al-Qaeda suspect in Asia, and top agency officials ask the National Security Council Principals Committee—Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft—for permission to use extreme methods of interrogation against the new detainee. Rice, who chairs the Principals Committee, says: “This is your baby. Go do it.” [ABC News, 4/9/2008] The name of the new suspect captured in Asia is not mentioned, but Hambali is captured in Thailand in August 2003 (see August 12, 2003), and he is the only prominent al-Qaeda figure arrested that summer. He is considered one of al-Qaeda’s most important leaders. There are some reports that he is one of only about four prisoners directly waterboarded by the US (see Shortly After August 12, 2003).
Summer 2003-January 2004: 9/11 Commission Does Not Receive Videotapes of Detainee Interrogations
The 9/11 Commission does not receive video or audio recordings of interrogations of detainees thought to know something about the 9/11 plot (see Spring-Late 2002), even though it is unhappy with the amount and quality of information it is getting from detainees (see Summer 2003) and has a series of meetings with CIA officials to improve access (see November 5, 2003-January 2004). The CIA will indicate that the Commission never asks for the tapes, saying it “went to great lengths to meet the requests of the 9/11 Commission,” and that one of the reasons that the tapes are not destroyed until after the Commission releases its final report in 2004 is so that it could have the tapes, if it so desires. [New York Times, 12/8/2007] However, when the tapes’ destruction is revealed in late 2007 (see November 2005 and December 6, 2007), former 9/11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton will dispute this, saying that in hours of negotiations and discussions with the CIA and written requests they make it clear they want all material connected to the interrogations of the relevant detainees. [International Herald Tribune, 12/8/2007] Kean will say, “They knew what they had and they didn’t give it to us.” [ABC News, 12/7/2007] Hamilton will say, “The CIA certainly knew of our interest in getting all the information we could on the detainees, and they never indicated to us there were any videotapes… Did they obstruct our inquiry? The answer is clearly yes. Whether that amounts to a crime, others will have to judge.” [International Herald Tribune, 12/8/2007]
Summer 2003: 9/11 Commission Unhappy with Information Coming from Detainees
The 9/11 Commission becomes unhappy with the quality of information being provided by the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon about detainees in US custody who are being interrogated, because “the government’s investigators [are] not asking the detainees the kinds of questions [it wants] answered” – they are asking about future threats rather than the history of the 9/11 plot. The Commission is receiving detainee evidence “third-hand – passed from the detainee, to the interrogator, to the person who writes up the interrogation report, and finally to [its] staff in the form of reports, not even transcripts.” It can take up to six weeks for a report on an interrogation to be produced. Due to the absence of any interaction between Commission staff and detainees, they also have “no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information.” [Kean and Hamilton, 2006, pp. 119-123] In at least one case, it seem possible that the 9/11 Commission was not given all the information from CIA interrogations that it needed. Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna will later independently view some interrogation transcripts, and from them he will claim that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) confessed to attending a pivotal al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia where the 9/11 plot was discussed (see January 5-8, 2000). The CIA was in charge of monitoring this meeting, so their failure to notice the presence of KSM, a photographed and well-known terrorist mastermind with a $2 million bounty on his head at the time, would have been nearly inexplicable (see July 9, 2003). The Commission subsequently requests direct access to the detainees, but this request is not granted (see November 5, 2003-January 2004).
June 2, 2003: CIA Is Concerned about Interrogation Techniques US Military Is Using on High-Ranking Detainees
In a secret memo, Gen. George Casey, Jr., director of the US military’s Joint Staff, warns Gen. Michael DeLong at Central Command (Centcom) that the “CIA has advised that the techniques the military forces are using to interrogate high value detainees (HVDs)… are more aggressive than the techniques used by CIA who is [sic] interviewing the same HVDs.” DeLong replies to Casey that the techniques being used are “doctrinally appropriate techniques” in line with Army regulations and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s direction. [New Yorker, 6/17/2007] It will later come out that the CIA was using techniques on these detainees widely considered to be torture, such as waterboarding. But little is known about military treatment of these detainees or the techniques they used.
