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Exclusive: The 9-11 Report: Slamming
the FBI
By Michael Isikoff
NEWSWEEK
July 28 issue — The FBI blew
repeated chances to uncover the 9-11 plot because it failed to
aggressively investigate evidence of Al Qaeda’s presence in the
United States, especially in the San Diego area, where two of the
hijackers were living with one of the bureau’s own informants,
according to the congressional report set for release this week.
THE LONG-DELAYED 900-page report also contains potentially explosive
new evidence suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two
of the hijackers, may have been a Saudi-government agent, sources tell
NEWSWEEK. The report documents extensive ties between al-Bayoumi and
the hijackers. But the bureau never kept tabs on al-Bayoumi—despite
receiving prior information he was a secret Saudi agent, the report
says. In January 2000, al-Bayoumi had a meeting at the Saudi Consulate
in Los Angeles—and then went directly to a restaurant where he met
future hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, whom he took back
with him to San Diego. (Al-Bayoumi later arranged for the men to get
an apartment next to his and fronted them their first two months
rent.) The report is sure to reignite questions about whether some
Saudi officials were secretly monitoring the hijackers—or even
facilitating their conduct. Questions about the Saudi role arose
repeatedly during last year’s joint House-Senate
intelligence-committees inquiry. But the Bush administration has
refused to declassify many key passages of the committees’ findings.
A 28-page section of the report dealing with the Saudis and other
foreign governments will be deleted. “They are protecting a foreign
government,” charged Sen. Bob Graham, who oversaw the inquiry.
The report criticizes the Pentagon for resisting military strikes against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan prior to 9-11, and the CIA for failing to pass along crucial information about Almihdhar and Alhazmi at a terrorists’ summit in Malaysia. But the FBI gets the toughest treatment. A few months after al-Bayoumi took them to San Diego, Almihdhar and Alhazmi moved into the house of a local professor who was a longtime FBI “asset.” The prof also had earlier contact with another hijacker, Hani Hanjour. But even though the informant was in regular touch with his FBI handler, the bureau never pieced together that he was living with terrorists. The bureau also failed to pursue other leads, including a local imam who dealt with several key 9-11 figures. The report, one congressional investigator said, “is a scathing indictment of the FBI as an agency that doesn’t have a clue about terrorism.” Furious bureau officials say the report misstates the evidence. They say the bureau checked out al-Bayoumi—now back in Saudi Arabia—and concluded he had not given the hijackers “material support.” As for Almihdhar and Alhazmi, “there was nothing there that gave us any suspicion about these guys,” said one FBI official.
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