The new Director of Operations for the DIA, General Ron Isler, has Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer brief him on a series of operations. According to Shaffer, Isler strongly objects to Shaffer assisting Able Danger. “I said, ‘Well, sir, with all due respect, this is an important operation focused on the global al-Qaeda target,’ and he said, ‘You’re not hearing me, Tony. This is not your job.’” After further disagreement, Shaffer recalls the argument ending, “‘Tony, I’m the two star here. I’m the two star. I’m telling you I don’t want you doing anything with Able Danger.’ ‘Sir, if not us then who?’ ‘I don’t know, but it’s not your job.’ And that effectively ended my direct support and my unit’s [Stratus Ivy] support to Able Danger.” Recalling how this helped end Able Danger, Shaffer says, “I remember the last conversation I had with Captain Scott Phillpott on this was a desperate call from him asking me to try to help use one of my operational facilities to at least try to exploit the information [Able Danger had collected] before it got lost.” However, Isler says he cannot recall any discussion with Shaffer about Able Danger. [Government Security News, 9/2005]
February-July 2001: Trial Presents FBI with Information About Pilot Training Scheme
A trial is held in New York City for four defendants charged with involvement in the 1998 US African embassy bombings. All are ultimately convicted. Testimony reveals that two bin Laden operatives had received pilot training in Texas and Oklahoma and another had been asked to take lessons. One bin Laden aide becomes a government witness and gives the FBI detailed information about a pilot training scheme. This new information does not lead to any new FBI investigations into the matter. [Washington Post, 9/23/2001]
February-March 2001: New Administration Shuts Down Surveillance of Saudi Arabians
The Defense Intelligence Agency began a project to monitor Saudi Arabian targets in the 1990s. The project, called Monarch Passage, was originally intended to track Saudi assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, but is expanded to become a comprehensive communications spying program against Saudi businessmen and members of the royal family. However, it is shut down in the early days of the Bush administration. [Stories that Matter, 1/7/2006] This is part of a larger US policy change that makes Saudi links to terrorism off limits to US investigators (see Late January 2001). Fifteen of the 19 9/11 hijackers will come from Saudi Arabia.
Early February 2001: Counterterrorism ‘Tsar’ Clarke Urges Vice President Cheney to Take Action Against Al-Qaeda
Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke briefs Vice President Cheney about the al-Qaeda threat. He urges decisive and quick action against al-Qaeda. Cheney soon visits CIA headquarters for more information about al-Qaeda. However, at later high-level meetings Cheney fails to bring up al-Qaeda as a priority issue. [Time, 8/12/2002; Clarke, 2004, pp. 227-30]
Early February 2001: Moussaoui Given US Visa despite Presence on French Watch List
The US Embassy in London grants a US student visa to Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen. The Los Angeles Times will later note this is granted “even though he was on a special French immigration watch list of suspected Islamic extremists.” [Los Angeles Times, 10/14/2001]
February 2001: FBI’s Washington Office Starts Training with Local Emergency Responders for Dealing with a Terrorist Attack
The FBI’s Washington, DC, field office (WFO) starts sponsoring training with fire department and law enforcement commanders in the Washington area on how emergency response workers and the FBI should coordinate their activities if there is a terrorist attack in the region. [Griffin, 3/30/2010, pp. 76 
]
FBI Has Developed Relationships with Fire Departments – The WFO has already established relationships with fire chiefs in the Washington area, on the initiative of Special Agent Christopher Combs. [US Department of Health and Human Services, 7/2002, pp. 10 ; Arlington TV, 10/8/2014] Combs is the assistant weapons of mass destruction (WMD) coordinator on the National Capital Response Squad (NCRS)—an antiterrorism rapid response unit—out of the WFO. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 76; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 5/17/2011] When he was assigned to the NCRS in 1998, he realized that if there was a major emergency or a terrorist attack, the agency that would be doing rescues, tackling fires, and going into any wrecked buildings would be the fire department. He told his bosses: “If there was a major bombing today, the fire chief is going to own that scene. He needs a relationship with the FBI.” Combs was consequently allowed to begin a liaison program with the local fire departments. As the WFO’s fire service liaison, he then got to know fire department officials in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia; set up joint training programs; and made sure the FBI understood fire department procedures. He also taught courses at the area’s fire academies on terrorism, WMDs, and the responsibilities of the FBI. [US Department of Health and Human Services, 7/2002, pp. A47 ; Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 8]
FBI Sponsors Training with Fire and Law Enforcement Departments – The WFO now expands its regional outreach activities by starting to sponsor training with the fire and law enforcement command staffs in the Washington area. This training will introduce FBI officials to local first responders. It will allow these officials to share lessons learned from the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 (see 8:35 a.m. – 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and present “conceptual operational theories” of how the FBI and first responders could coordinate their actions during a terrorist attack.
Outreach Efforts Improve the Response to the Pentagon Attack – Combs’s outreach efforts with emergency response agencies in the Washington area will reportedly pay dividends when these agencies have to respond to the attack on the Pentagon on September 11. [US Department of Health and Human Services, 7/2002, pp. A47 ; Kettl, 2008, pp. 203-204; Griffin, 3/30/2010, pp. 76-77 ] Emergency responders and the FBI will have “been through numerous exercises together so that at the Pentagon we all knew each other and the capabilities of each agency,” Combs will later say. “We knew the roles and responsibilities, so we already knew who was in charge and what phase we were in,” he will add. [Public Management, 9/2011]
Between February and August 2001: President Bush Cancels a Plan to Upgrade the White House’s Emergency Operations Center
President Bush cancels plans to upgrade the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a bunker below the White House where numerous government officials will go on September 11 to respond to the terrorist attacks.
Congressman Thinks the Upgrade is Unnecessary and Too Expensive – During the Clinton administration, as part of their efforts to improve the procedures for Continuity of Government, the military and the White House came up with plans for a secret, large-scale upgrade to the PEOC. In the first months of the Bush administration, early in 2001, these plans are shown to Representative Bill Young (R-FL), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. The intention is for Congress to unofficially approve the funding for the upgrade outside the normal appropriations process, so as to keep the plans secret. Young, though, is unhappy about the project. He thinks it is too expensive and the scenario it is aimed at dealing with too unlikely. He consequently calls Bush directly and complains about it. Bush, although he is unaware that a plan to upgrade the PEOC even exists, agrees to cancel the project. [Graff, 2017, pp. 353] Josh Bolten, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, will later describe the current indifference about the PEOC, commenting that before 9/11, the operations center was “an artifact of the bygone Cold War era and of no particular use to a current White House.” [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013]
Cancellation of the Upgrade Means Communications Are Poor on 9/11 – However, on September 11, the PEOC will play a crucial role. That day, numerous government officials will go to it to deal with the attacks. [CNN, 9/11/2002; Mother Jones, 5/24/2009] Consequently, the failure to upgrade it will apparently limit the government’s ability to respond to the crisis. Vice President Dick Cheney will find that, while he is in the PEOC, his calls to Bush keep dropping off and he will complain that the communications in the operations center are “terrible” (see (Shortly Before 12:30 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [Clarke, 2004, pp. 19]
Center Was Created for Surviving a Nuclear Attack – The PEOC was set up during the Cold War to enable government leaders to survive a nuclear attack on the US. [Mann, 2004, pp. 295] Located under the East Wing of the White House, it consists of a main hallway lined with bunk beds, a large operations and communications room, a small executive briefing room, and a main command center. In the middle of the command center is a conference table, long enough for about 16 officials to sit at. A number of drawers around the table hold secure telephones. There is a row of chairs along the wall for support staff and two large television screens are built into the wall closest to the entrance. A locked vault door leads into the PEOC and people have to use a telephone to ask the duty officer inside for permission to enter. [Hayes, 2007, pp. 337; Graff, 2017, pp. 331-332]
Planned Upgrade Is Reportedly Richard Clarke’s Idea – White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke will claim that the plan to upgrade the facility was his idea. When he visits the PEOC around midday on September 11 and Cheney complains to him about the “terrible” communications, he will reply, “Now you know why I wanted the money for a new bunker.” “The president had canceled my plans for a replacement facility,” he will comment in his 2004 book Against All Enemies. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 19]
Early 2001: CIA Reduces FBI Access to NSA’s Al-Qaeda Intercepts
The CIA’s bin Laden unit, Alec Station, reduces the FBI’s access to NSA material tracking al-Qaeda members. The FBI had previously used such intercepts to map al-Qaeda’s global network (see Late 1998-Early 2002). The NSA intercepts at least one call from the 9/11 hijackers in the US to an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen after this (see Mid-October 2000-Summer 2001 and (August 2001)), but does not tell the FBI. Authors Joe and Susan Trento will comment that by doing this and withholding the hijackers’ identities from the FBI, “the CIA effectively ended any chance in the months leading up to 9/11 of discovering that [Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi] were actually al-Qaeda agents destined to play major roles in the 9/11 attacks.” The CIA repeatedly fails to tell the FBI what it knows about Alhazmi and Almihdhar (see 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000, January 5, 2001 and After, and June 11, 2001). [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 194] There is a long history of the NSA not wanting other US government agencies to have access to NSA material about al-Qaeda (see December 1996, Late August 1998, Between 1996 and August 1998, and Before September 11, 2001).
February 1, 2001:ColeInvestigators Interview Source over Identification of Al-Qaeda Leader, CIA Conceals Key Information Leading to Two 9/11 Hijackers
Two FBI agents investigating the bombing of the USS Cole interview a source, referred to later as “Omar,” who previously identified a photo of one of the bombers as al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash (see November 22-December 16, 2000). However, a CIA officer present at the interview, known only as “Chris,” fails to add a crucial detail. The interview, which apparently takes place in Pakistan, is held to document the previous identification by Omar of bin Attash, who led the attack on the Cole, based on a photograph provided by Yemeni authorities. Chris is also aware that Omar has identified bin Attash in a surveillance photo taken of al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit (see January 5-8, 2000 and January 4, 2001). The identification of bin Attash in the photo taken at the summit is important because it connects bin Attash to future 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who were also at the summit, and because it casts light on bin Attash’s interaction with the other Cole bombers. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General will later say it believes “that had the FBI known about the identification of [bin Attash] in the Kuala Lumpur photographs, they would likely have sought information about the other participants in the meeting, including Almihdhar and Alhazmi, which could have increased the FBI’s chances of locating them before the September 11 attacks.” Chris had previously failed to notify the FBI of the identification of bin Attash in the Malaysia summit photo (see January 5, 2001 and After), as had the CIA’s bin Laden unit (see Shortly Before February 1, 2001). [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 275-8 ] Omar is usually handled by Cole case agents Ali Soufan and Steve Bongardt. [Soufan, 2011, pp. 120] Presumably, one of them is the lead FBI agent at this interview, although it is not clear which.
February 1, 2001: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Wants to Get Rid of Hussein in Iraq; Envisions Iraq After Hussein Is Gone
The Bush White House holds its second National Security Council meeting. Like the first meeting (see January 30, 2001), the issue of regime change in Iraq is a central topic. [CBS News, 1/10/2004; New York Times, 1/12/2004] Officials discuss a memo titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,” which talks about troop requirements, establishing war crimes tribunals, and divvying up Iraq’s oil wealth. [ [Sources: Paul O’Neill] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld interrupts Colin Powell’s discussion of UN-based sanctions against Iraq, saying, “Sanctions are fine. But what we really want to discuss is going after Saddam.” He continues, “Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with US interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond it. It would demonstrate what US policy is all about.” [Suskind, 2004, pp. 85-86 Sources: Paul O’Neill] According to Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Rumsfeld talks at the meeting “in general terms about post-Saddam Iraq, dealing with the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, the reconstruction of the country’s economy, and the ‘freeing of the Iraqi people.’” [New York Times, 1/12/2004 Sources: Paul O’Neill] Other people, in addition to O’Neill, Bush, and Rumsfeld, who are likely in attendance include Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers. [US President, 2/13/2001]
