George John Tenet

George Tenet & John McLaughlin of the CIA gave Powell false intelligence from the interrogations of an unnamed prisoner that there were links between Iraq and Al Qaida. They stated that “a high-level Al Qaida detainee had just revealed under interrogation substantive contacts between Al Qaida and Baghdad, including Iraqis training Al Qaida operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons”. Wilkerson later said that the source was Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi who recanted after stating that he was just telling the tortures what they wanted to hear.

CIA tracked Alhazmi from a Al Qaeda meeting in the Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur back to the Los Angeles, California. This meeting was with Fahad al-Quso who was a suspect of the USS Cole bombing, and Riduan Isamuddin a suspect in the Bojinka plot. On his flight back to the US he flew with another 911 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar. The CIA did nothing with this information knowing that Alhazmi conversing with a known Al Qaeda terrorist, and allowed him free reign in the United States. This report is contradicted by George Tenet’s Testimony before a joint inquiry into terrorist attacks where he stated that the CIA knew about Nawaf & Khalid in late 1999. They began surveillance and claim to only know Khalid’s full identity in early 2000 just before the Malaysia meeting, and Nawaf’s identity after the meeting.

After repeated warnings that Al Qaeda was going to strike the United States the CIA tells the State Department, Customs, INS, and the FBI that Nawaf Alhazmi, and Khalid Almihdhar were suspected terrorists and within the United States.

In George Tenet’s testimony before the joint inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks he states “CIA sent a Central Intelligence Report to the Department of State, FBI, INS, and other US Government agencies requesting that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar be entered into VISA/VIPER, TIPOFF, and TECS [Treasury Enforcement Communication System]. The message said that CIA recommends that the two men be watchlisted immediately and denied entry into the US”. At this point the CIA already knew they were inside the US

Despite this they were still able to hijack flight 77.

A request was put out to CIA to set-up assassination teams to go out and put hits on men working with Osama Bin Laden. Then directory of the CIA declined stating that it was not practical because some of these people were in friendly countries.