The long-awaited loya jirga, or grand council, is concluded in Afghanistan. This council was supposed to be a traditional method for the Afghan people to select their leaders, but most experts conclude that the council is clearly rigged. [BBC, 8/1/2002] Half of the delegates walk out in protest. [CNN, 6/18/2002] One delegate states, “This is worse than our worst expectations. The warlords have been promoted and the professionals kicked out. Who calls this democracy?” Delegates complain, “This is interference by foreign countries,” obviously meaning the US. The New York Times publishes an article (“The Warlords Win in Kabul”) pointing out that the “very forces responsible for countless brutalities” in past governments are back in power. [New York Times, 6/21/2002]
June 20, 2002: Cheney Threatens to Terminate 9/11 Inquiry over NSA Leak
Vice President Dick Cheney phones Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Bob Graham (D-FL). Cheney’s call comes early in the morning, and Graham takes it while still shaving. Cheney is agitated; he has just read in the newspaper that telephone calls intercepted by the NSA on September 10, 2001 warned of an imminent al-Qaeda attack. But, the story continues, the intercepts were not translated until September 12, the day after the 9/11 attacks (see September 10, 2001). Cheney is enraged that someone leaked the classified information from the NSA intercepts to the press. As a result, Cheney says, the Bush administration is considering terminating all cooperation with the joint inquiry by the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on the government’s failure to predict and prevent the attacks (see September 18, 2002). (Graham co-chairs the inquiry.) Classified records would no longer be made available to the committees, and administration witnesses would not be available for interviews or testimony. Furthermore, Cheney says, unless the committee leaders take action to find out who leaked the information, and more importantly, take steps to ensure that such leaks never happen again, President Bush will tell the citizenry that Congress cannot be trusted with vital national security secrets. “Take control of the situation,” Cheney tells Graham. The senator responds that he, too, is frustrated with the leaks, but Cheney is unwilling to be mollified.
Quick Capitulation – At 7:30 a.m., Graham meets with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss (R-FL), and the ranking members of the committees, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL, who will later be accused of leaking the information) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). They decide to request that the Justice Department conduct a criminal inquiry into whether anyone on either committee, member or staffer, leaked the information to the press. One participant in the meeting later says, “It was a hastily made decision, made out of a sense of panic… and by people with bleary eyes.” Another person involved in the decision later recalls: “There was a real concern that any meaningful oversight by Congress was very much at stake. The political dynamic back then—not that long after September 11—was completely different. They took Cheney’s threats very seriously.” In 2007, reporter Murray Waas will observe that Cheney and other administration officials saw the leak “as an opportunity to undercut Congressional oversight and possibly restrict the flow of classified information to Capitol Hill.”
Graham: Congress Victimized by White House ‘Set Up’ – In 2007, after his retirement from politics, Graham will say: “Looking back at it, I think we were clearly set up by Dick Cheney and the White House. They wanted to shut us down. And they wanted to shut down a legitimate Congressional inquiry that might raise questions in part about whether their own people had aggressively pursued al-Qaeda in the days prior to the September 11 attacks. The vice president attempted to manipulate the situation, and he attempted to manipulate us.… But if his goal was to get us to back off, he was unsuccessful.” Graham will add that Goss shared his concerns, and say that in 2003, he speculates to Goss that the White House had set them up in order to sabotage the joint inquiry; according to Graham, Goss will respond, “I often wondered that myself.” Graham will go on to say that he believes the NSA leak was not only promulgated by a member of Congress, but by White House officials as well; he will base his belief on the fact that Washington Post and USA Today reports contain information not disclosed during the joint committee hearing. “That would lead a reasonable person to infer the administration leaked as well,” he will say, “or what they were doing was trying to set us up… to make this an issue which they could come after us with.”
White House Goes Public – The same day, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer tells reporters, “The president [has] very deep concerns about anything that would be inappropriately leaked that could… harm our ability to maintain sources and methods and anything else that could interfere with America’s ability to fight the war on terrorism.”
Investigation Will Point to Senate Republican – An investigation by the Justice Department will determine that the leak most likely came from Shelby, but Shelby will deny leaking the intercepts, and the Senate Ethics Committee will decline to pursue the matter (see August 5, 2004). [National Journal, 2/15/2007]
June 21, 2002: CIA Prepares Report on Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links Under Pressure from Administration
The CIA issues a classified report titled, “Iraq and al-Qaeda: A Murky Relationship.” According to its cover note, the report “purposely aggressive in seeking to draw connections” between Iraq and Osama bin Laden’s organization. The document, which was prepared in response to pressure from the White House and vice president’s office, is heavily criticized by analysts within the agency. Analysts in the Near East and South Asia division complain that the report inflates “sporadic, wary contacts” between two independent actors into a so-called “relationship.” A complaint is filed with the CIA’s ombudsman for politicization. After interviewing 24 analysts, the ombudsman concludes that the report was crafted under pressure from the administration, later telling Senate investigators that “about a half-dozen [analysts] mentioned ‘pressure’ from the administration; several others did not use that word, but spoke in a context that implied it.” Despite being “purposely aggressive,” the report does not satisfy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, an adamant hawk who strongly believes Iraq is working closely with Islamic militant groups. In a memo to Donald Rumsfeld, he says that the report should be read “for content only—and CIA’s interpretation should be ignored.” [Washington Post, 10/20/2002; New York Times, 4/28/2004; US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 359; Daily Telegraph, 7/11/2004; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 112]
June 22, 2002: 9/11 Congressional Inquiry Member Appears Biased in Defending FBI
Internal FBI documents show that Thomas Kelley, in charge of matters relating to the FBI in the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, blocked an inquiry into the FBI’s role in Waco. For instance, an internal FBI memo from December 2000 states that Kelley “continued to thwart and obstruct” the Waco investigation to the point that a special counsel was forced to send a team to search FBI headquarters for documents Kelley refused to turn over. [Washington Post, 6/22/2002]
June 22, 2002: Al-Qaeda Spokesperson Says Bin Laden and Other Top Leaders Are Still Alive
Al-Qaeda spokesperson Suliman Abu Ghaith allegedly claims that al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, plus Taliban leader Mullah Omar, are alive and well. “I want to assure Muslims that Sheik Osama bin Laden… is in good and prosperous health and all what is being rumored about his illness and injury in Tora Bora has no truth,” he says. He adds that al-Qaeda is ready to attack new targets, and says it is responsible for a recent bombing of a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia (see April 11, 2002). Although he does not explicitly say al-Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks, he calls the attacks a “great historic victory that broke the backs of the Americans, the strongest power in this world.” The comments are made in an audiotape played on Al Jazeera. The authenticity of the recording has not been independently confirmed, and Al Jazeera does not explain how it got the recording or when it was made. [Associated Press, 6/22/2002] Abu Ghaith previously issued video recordings of his statements (see October 10, 2001).
June 25, 2002: Suspicions of ISI-Al-Qaeda Links Continue
Although the Western media continues to report that the ISI has reformed itself, “few in Pakistan believe it.” The Independent later reports rumors that on this day ISI officers hide three al-Qaeda members after a gun battle in which ten soldiers were killed. This follows several other betrayals—now the FBI and the other Pakistani law enforcement authorities no longer tell the ISI about their raids in advance. Other Pakistani investigators are forced to build files on militants from scratch, because the ISI will not share what it knows. [Independent, 7/21/2002]
June 26, 2002-January 24, 2003: Owners of Florida Flight Schools Attended by Hijackers Involved in Separate Air Crashes
Within the space of seven months, the owners of two Venice, Florida flight schools attended by several of the alleged 9/11 suicide pilots are separately in serious air accidents. On June 26, 2002, Arne Kruithof, whose Florida Flight Training Center was attended by Ziad Jarrah, survives a crash at the Venice Municipal Airport. He is a passenger in a twin-engine plane, which suddenly pulls to the left when about 50 feet off the runway and the pilot is unable to regain control. All the passengers are uninjured, but the plane is damaged extensively. [Venice Gondolier Sun, 6/29/2002] On January 24, 2003, Rudi Dekkers, whose Huffman Aviation was attended by Marwan Alshehhi and Mohamed Atta, crashes his helicopter. He is flying to work early in the morning for a meeting with a competitor, to sell his flight school to them. Ten minutes after takeoff, his engine cuts out and he crashes into a river. He is rescued from the ice-cold water by a friend and fellow helicopter pilot who pulls him to shore. He arrives in Venice later in the day, and is able to proceed with the sale of Huffman Aviation. Two days earlier, the Associated Press had announced that Dekkers was to be arrested on felony fraud charges (see August 23, 2001-April 2004). [Associated Press, 1/22/2003; Associated Press, 1/24/2003; Venice Gondolier Sun, 1/25/2003; Naples Daily News, 1/25/2003; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 1/28/2003] In 2011, Dekkers will say that he is convinced someone tried to kill him, although he doesn’t know who. “The fuel lines were cut.” [Miami Herald, 5/5/2011]
Mid-2002: Al-Qaeda Operatives with WMD Connections Interviewed but Remain Free in Sudan
In November 2001, the Sudanese allowed the FBI to interview two al-Qaeda operatives living in Sudan, Mohammed Loay Bayazid, and Mubarak al Duri (see November 2001). Even though both men had links to al-Qaeda dating back to the 1980s (Bayazid even was one of al-Qaeda’s founding members), CIA Director George Tenet will later claim that the FBI agents “reported back that, although their suspicions were great, they were unable to develop sufficient grounds for a case against either man that would justify an extradition request.” But the CIA continues to find more intelligence that appears to tie both of them to al-Qaeda efforts to get weapons of mass destruction. For instance, a trusted informant claims Bayazid helped in an effort to buy uranium for bin Laden (see Late 1993). Tenet claims that “Both men had developed business connections to Sudanese WMD-related entities, and both had established businesses that could have served as dual-use front companies for developing nuclear and biological weapons.” In mid-2002, the CIA tries to get the two men to change sides. CIA officer Rolf Mowatt-Larssen goes to Sudan and is allowed to speak with them in a neutral location. But both men are unrepentant. After an appeal to help uncover al-Qaeda’s WMD program to potentially save millions of lives, one of them replies, “No… I think it is legitimate to kill millions of you because of how many of us you killed.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 270-271] There have been no reports since of the US capturing or killing either man or putting them on any public wanted lists.
July 2002: US Special Forces Not Given Permission to Target Mullah Omar
A CIA case officer tells Adam Rice, a US Special Forces operations sergeant working out of a safe house near Kandahar, Afghanistan, that a figure believed to be top Taliban leader Mullah Omar has been tracked by a Predator drone to a location in Shah-i-Kot Valley, a short flight away. Omar and the group with him would be vulnerable to a helicopter assault. However, whenever Rice’s team wants to move more than five kilometers from their safe house, they are required to file a request in advance. If fighting is involved, the request has to pass through several layers of bureaucracy, and a three-star general has to give the final okay. The process can take days, and in this case it does. The target eventually moves on before permission is given. [Newsweek, 8/28/2007]
July 2002: Alleged ‘20th Hijacker’ Confesses in Guantanamo
The FBI takes over interrogations of Saudi Guantanamo detainee Mohamed al-Khatani. He had been captured and taken into US custody months before (see December 2001) but his real identity was only recently discovered. In the months before, military intelligence, using harsh tactics, was unsuccessful in gaining information from him, but the FBI allegedly uses subtle persuasion with an experienced interrogator and succeeds. Khatani discloses: 
He is an al-Qaeda member and received terrorist training at two al-Qaeda camps. He attended an al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia attended by two 9/11 hijackers (see January 5-8, 2000). He attempted unsuccessfully to be one of the hijackers himself, failing to enter the US in August 2001 (see August 4, 2001). He had been sent to the US by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. He had met bin Laden on several occasions and had been in contact with many other senior al-Qaeda leaders. He is related to Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, an apparent al-Qaeda sleeper agent already arrested in the US (see September 10, 2001). He informs on about thirty other prisoners being held at Guantanamo.
But he is also believed to have little knowledge of other al-Qaeda plots. [New York Times, 6/21/2004; Time, 3/3/2006] He will later recant his confession (see October 26, 2006).
