September 15, 2003: 9/11 Commission Staffer Apparently Agrees CIA Withheld Key Intelligence from FBI in Run Up to Attacks

In an interview, a key 9/11 Commission staffer, Doug MacEachin, reportedly agrees with an important witness, FBI agent Ali Soufan, that the CIA deliberately withheld from the bureau the knowledge that al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash had attended al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit and was therefore linked to 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar. [Soufan, 2011, pp. 301-302] However, the Commission’s final report will call the non-passage of this intelligence “an example of how day-to-day gaps in intelligence sharing can emerge even when there is mutual goodwill.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 267] This interview appears to be the second time the Commission talks to Soufan, which is on September 15, 2003. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 507; Soufan, 2011, pp. 297-302] Soufan discusses the case of “Omar,” a joint FBI-CIA source inside al-Qaeda. At an interview of Omar in January 2001 the CIA learned that bin Attash had attended al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit in early 2000 (see January 5-8, 2000 and January 4, 2001). However, it then failed to share this with the FBI (see January 5, 2001 and After). Soufan tells the Commission’s staff: “This shows that the CIA knew the significance of Malaysia, Khallad, and Almihdhar but actively went out of their way to withhold the information from us. It’s not a case of just not passing on information. This is information the FBI representative working with the source should have been told about. It was a legal requirement. Instead we were deliberately kept out of the loop.” A staffer responds that the CIA claims it shared the information, and Soufan asks whether the Commission checked the “regular cables” between the field and CIA headquarters. After the staffer says they have, Soufan asks whether the Commission has checked the “operational traffic,” and MacEachin responds, “That must be it.” Other staffers are initially puzzled by McEachin’s comment, but he explains it to them. Soufan will comment: “Operational traffic refers to cables sent during an operation. The officer will list procedures, leaving a record in case something goes wrong or something needs to be referred to. Because these cables are strictly procedural and not related to intelligence, they would not be sent to the FBI. If someone wanted to hide something from the FBI, that’s where he would put it. Because Doug had worked for the CIA, he knew what operational cables were, while other members of the team might not have.” The Commission later finds that the information about bin Attash was in an operational cable. [Soufan, 2011, pp. 301-302] The reason for the discrepancy between MacEachin’s attitude in the interview of Soufan and the Commission’s final report is unknown.