The Eleventh Day_ The History and Legacy of 9_11 - Anthony Summers [307]
76 follow up/discussed with Ashcroft?: The job of making contact with domestic agencies, Bush told Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, was not Rice’s but that of White House chief of staff Andy Card. This assertion was impossible to check because the commission was bound by yet another condition, not to raise questions arising from the Rice or Bush-Cheney interviews with other White House officials. (Ben-Veniste, 303).
77 Rice in Texas?: A contemporary Washington Post report of the President’s activity on August 6 stated that he “held a 45-minute meeting with four senior officials here and talked by telephone with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice about Macedonia.” (authors’ italics) (WP, 8/7/01, USA Today, 8/6/01, 10:24 P.M. update);
78 doubt/“asked for it”: Ben-Veniste, 300, remarks by the President to the Travel Pool, [Fort Hood, TX], 4/11/04, www.whitehouse.gov;
79 “All right”: Suskind, One Percent Doctrine, 1–, Ben-Veniste, 300, additional information gathered by authors, not for attribution;
80 “no formal”: Tenet to Kean & Hamilton, 3/26/04, “PDB—letter from Tenet re Aug. 6 PDB,” B6, Dan Marcus files, CF;
81 “none”: Ben-Veniste, 391.
82 “current”/“pay more”: Shenon, 379, 437n. This account of the August 6 PDB episode is intended by the authors to be not an assessment of the document’s quality but a summary of its content—in the context of the way President Bush, National Security Adviser Rice, and press secretary Fleischer described its contents. Author Amy Zegart severely criticized the quality of the PDB in her book Spying Blind, on the CIA and the FBI and their role prior to 9/11. She judged it a “tragically shoddy piece of intelligence.” Former CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black, however, characterized it as a “place-marker” or “reminder” that bin Laden’s ultimate objective was “to strike hard against the United States” (Zegart, 108, Testimony of Cofer Black, 4/13/04, CO).
83 “had written”: Ben-Veniste, 301–.
84 manager alerted/Moussaoui/“goal”/“I am sure”/$6,800: Stipulation, 3/1/06, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, 3/1/06;
85 “joy ride”: “Moussaoui, Zacarias, IT—Other,” 8/19/01, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit 692;
86 string of questions/detained/“martyrs”/“unambiguous”/“convinced”/: CR, 273–, FBI IG, MFR 04019350, 3/18/04, CF, Report, JI, 22–;
87 KSM would tell/“problematic personality”: KSM SUBST, CR, 247, 531n162;
88 met Binalshibh/$14,000/telephone number: Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO, MFR, 04019350, 3/18/04, Indictment & Exhibits MN00601, MN00601.1, MN00601.2, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, CR, 225, 520n54.
89 agents knew nothing: Had agents been cleared to examine Moussaoui’s possessions, they would have discovered letters purporting to show that Moussaoui was acting as consultant in the States for a company called “InFocus Tech.” The signature on the letters was that of Yazid Sufaat, the owner of the Kuala Lumpur condominium in which the terrorist meeting—attended by Mihdhar and Hazmi—had been held in January 2000. The FBI had been aware of that meeting at the time, so—had the Bureau’s system been adequately coordinated—discovery of the letters in timely fashion would immediately have linked Moussaoui to al Qaeda. (Report, JI, 26, Exhibit OK01043, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui).
90 appeals/70 messages: Statement of Eleanor Hill re “The FBI’s Handling of the Phoenix Electronic Communication and Investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui Prior to Sept. 11, 2001,” 9/24/02 [as updated 10/17/02], JI, USA Today, 3/2/06, Newsday, 3/21/06, LAT, 3/21/06;
91 “spun up”/“take control”: FBI