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This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event 2000-April 2001: Belgian and Spanish Connections Point US and Italian Intelligence to Cell with Apparent 9/11 Foreknowledge. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.
Following a request that the CIA be exempted from a US ban on torture, claims about alleged CIA mistreatment of prisoners begin to appear in the media, apparently fueled by CIA employees unhappy with the practices the CIA is employing. On November 2, the Washington Post reveals information about the CIA's network of secret prisons, including facilities in Europe, which is kept secret from "nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions." The rationale for the policy is that the CIA apparently needs to hold people without the restrictions imposed by the US legal system, in order to keep the country safe. Detainees are said to be tortured, and this is not only questionable under US law, but, in some cases, against the law of the host country. [Washington Post, 11/2/2005] On November 9, the New York Times reveals that in 2004, the CIA's Inspector General secretly concluded that the CIA's aggressive interrogation techniques in use up until that time were likely in violation of a 1994 international treaty against torture signed by the US (see May 7, 2004). [New York Times, 11/9/2005] After the network is revealed, there is much interest in what actually goes on in it and more important details are uncovered by ABC News on November 18. Apparently, the CIA's interrogation techniques have led to the death of one detainee and include sleep deprivation, physical violence, waterboarding, and leaving prisoners in cold cells (see Mid-March 2002). The intelligence generated by these techniques is said to be questionable, and one source says: "This is the problem with using the waterboard. They get so desperate that they begin telling you what they think you want to hear." [ABC News, 11/18/2005] Some videotapes of CIA interrogations of detainees are destroyed this same month, although what date this happens exactly is unclear (see November 2005). The CIA is also so alarmed by these revelations that it immediately closes its secret prisons in Eastern Europe and opens a new one in a remote section of the Sahara desert (see November 2005).
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline
Jose Padilla being escorted by federal agents in January 2006. [Source: Alan Diaz / Associated Press]Jose Padilla, a US citizen and "enemy combatant" alleged to be an al-Qaeda terrorist (see May 8, 2002) and held without charges for over three years (see October 9, 2005), is charged with being part of a North American terrorist cell that sent money and recruits overseas to, as the indictment reads, "murder, maim, and kidnap." The indictment contains none of the sensational allegations that the US government has made against Padilla (see June 10, 2002), including his supposed plan to detonate a "dirty bomb" inside the US (see Early 2002) and his plans to blow up US hotel and apartment buildings (see March 2002). Nor does the indictment accuse Padilla of being a member of al-Qaeda. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says, "The indictment alleges that Padilla traveled overseas to train as a terrorist (see September-October 2000) with the intention of fighting a violent jihad." He refuses to say why the more serious charges were not filed. Some provisions of the Patriot Act helped the investigation, Gonzales adds: "By tearing down the artificial wall that would have prevented this kind of investigation in the past, we're able to bring these terrorists to justice," he says. The Padilla case has become a central part of the dispute over holding prisoners such as Padilla without charge; by charging Padilla with lesser crimes, the Bush administration avoids the possibility of the Supreme Court ruling that he and other "enemy combatants," particularly American citizens, must either be tried or released. Law professor Eric Freedman says the Padilla indictment is an effort by the administration "to avoid an adverse decision of the Supreme Court." Law professor Jenny Martinez, who represents Padilla, says: "There's no guarantee the government won't do this again to Mr. Padilla or others. The Supreme Court needs to review this case on the merits so the lower court decision is not left lying like a loaded gun for the government to use whenever it wants." Padilla's lawyers say the government's case against their client is based on little more than "double and triple hearsay from secret witnesses, along with information allegedly obtained from Padilla himself during his two years of incommunicado interrogation." Padilla will be transferred from military custody to the Justice Department, where he will await trial in a federal prison in Miami. He faces life in prison if convicted of conspiracy to murder, maim, and kidnap overseas. The lesser charges—providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy—carry maximum prison terms of 15 years each. [Associated Press, 11/22/2005; Fox News, 11/23/2005] 'Dirty Bomb' Allegations 'Not Credible,' Says Former FBI Agent - Retired FBI agent Jack Cloonan, an expert on al-Qaeda, later says: "The dirty bomb plot was simply not credible. The government would never have given up that case if there was any hint of credibility to it. Padilla didn't stand trial for it, because there was no evidence to support it." [Vanity Fair, 12/16/2008] Issue with CIA Videotapes - In 2002, captured al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida identified Padilla as an al-Qaeda operative (see Mid-April 2002) and the government cited Zubaida as a source of information about Padilla after Padilla's arrest. Yet, sometime this same month, the CIA destroys the videotapes of Zubaida's interrogations from the time period where he allegedly identified Padilla (see November 2005). The Nation's Aziz Huq will later comment: "Given the [Bush] administration's reliance on Zubaida's statements as evidence of Padilla's guilt, tapes of Zubaida's interrogation were clearly relevant to the Padilla trial.… A federal criminal statute prevents the destruction of any record for a foreseeable proceeding, even if the evidence is not admissible.… [I]t seems almost certain that preservation of the tapes was legally required by the Jose Padilla prosecution." [Nation, 12/11/2007]
Entity Tags: Jenny Martinez, Jose Padilla, US Supreme Court, Jack Cloonan, Eric Freedman, Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush administration (43), Al-Qaeda, Aziz Huq, Central Intelligence Agency
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline, Civil Liberties
According to an unnamed law enforcement official who works with the FBI and the National Counter Terrorism Center, the investigation into the SAAR network is still ongoing. However, only a small portion of the documents and computer files confiscated in a raid on the network in 2002 (see March 20, 2002) have been fully translated from Arabic into English. This official complains, "They don't have the damn resources. They don't have the language skills or computer forensic personnel to go through it all. And yet it's a gold mine of information." [FrontPage Magazine, 12/9/2005]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, SAAR Foundation
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline
New York Times headline from article revealing NSA surveillance. [Source: CBS News]The New York Times reveals that after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush granted the National Security Agency (NSA) secret authorization to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the US without going through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to obtain legal warrants (see Early 2002. The administration justifies its actions by claiming such eavesdropping, which includes wiretapping phones and reading e-mails, is necessary to find evidence of terrorist activities, and says the nation needs the program after the 9/11 attacks exposed deficiencies in the US intelligence community's information gathering process, and because of what they characterize as the "handcuffing" of US intelligence agencies by restrictive laws. The Times has had the article for over a year; the White House prevailed on the Times not to publish its findings for that time, arguing that publication would jeopardize continuing investigations and warn potential terrorists that they were under scrutiny. Many believe that the White House wanted to delay the publication of the article until well after the 2004 presidential elections. The Times delayed publication for over a year, and agreed to suppress some information that administration officials say could be useful to terrorists. (Less than two weeks before the article is published, Bush tries to convince the Times not to print the article at all: see December 6, 2005.) Two days after the Times publishes its article, Bush will acknowledge the order, and accuse the Times of jeopardizing national security (see December 17, 2005). The NSA program eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the US at any given time, officials say; the overall numbers have likely reached into the thousands. Overseas, up to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are being monitored. Officials point to the discovery of a plot by Ohio trucker and naturalized US citizen and alleged al-Qaeda supporter Iyman Faris to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches as evidence of the program's efficacy. They also cite the disruption of an al-Qaeda plot to detonate fertilizer bombs outside of British pubs and train stations by the program. But, officials say, most people targeted by the NSA for warrantless wiretapping have never been charged with a crime, and many are targeted because of questionable evidence and groundless suspicion. Many raise an outcry against the program, including members of Congress, civil liberties groups, immigrant rights groups, and others who insist that the program undermines fundamental Constitutional protections of US citizens' civil liberties and rights to privacy. Several other government programs to spy on Americans have been challenged, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s surveillance of US citizens' library and Internet usage, the monitoring of peaceful antiwar protests, and the proposed use of public and private databases to hunt for terrorist links. In 2004, the Supreme Court overturned the administration's claim that so-called "enemy detainees" were not entitled to judicial review of their indefinite detentions. Several senior officials say that when the warrantless wiretapping program began, it operated with few controls and almost no oversight outside of the NSA itself. The agency is not required to seek the approval of the Justice Department or anyone else outside the FISA court for its surveillance operations. Some NSA officials wanted nothing to do with a program they felt was patently illegal, according to a former senior Bush administration official. Internal concerns about the program prompted the Bush administration to briefly suspend the program while Justice Department officials audited it and eventually provided some guidelines for its operations. A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the FISA Court, helped spur the suspension, according to officials. Kollar-Kotelly questioned whether information obtained under the program was being improperly used as the basis for FISA wiretap warrant requests from the Justice Department. Some government lawyers say that the Justice Department may have deliberately misled Kollar-Kotelly and the FISA court about the program in order to keep the program under wraps. The judge insisted to Justice Department officials that any material gathered under the program not be used in seeking wiretap warrants from her court. The question also arose in the Faris case, when senior Justice Department officials worried that evidence obtained by warrantless wiretapping by the NSA of Faris could be used in court without having to lie to the court about its origins. [New York Times, 12/15/2005]
Entity Tags: US Supreme Court, George W. Bush, US Department of Justice, Iyman Faris, National Security Agency, New York Times, Al-Qaeda, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties
After an NSA program to intercept telephone calls where one party is in the US and the other party is abroad is revealed (see December 15, 2005), President George Bush defends the program in a radio address. He justifies the program by implying that, if it had been in place before 9/11, it may have prevented the attacks: "As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, it was clear that terrorists inside the United States were communicating with terrorists abroad before the September the 11th attacks, and the commission criticized our nation's inability to uncover links between terrorists here at home and terrorists abroad. Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al-Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn't know they were here until it was too late." There are conflicting accounts of the circumstances of the hijackers' calls and the NSA actually intercepted them, so it is unclear why they were not exploited to prevent the attacks (see Early 2000-Summer 2001, (Spring 2000), Summer 2002-Summer 2004, and March 15, 2004 and After). [WhiteHouse(.gov), 12/17/2005; US President, 12/26/2005 ] It is unclear which statements of the 9/11 Commission the president thinks he is referring to. The Commission's final report touches on the NSA intercepts of the hijackers' calls from the US in two places; in one it says: "[T]he NSA was supposed to let the FBI know of any indication of crime, espionage, or 'terrorist enterprise' so that the FBI could obtain the appropriate warrant. Later in this story, we will learn that while the NSA had the technical capability to report on communications with suspected terrorist facilities in the Middle East, the NSA did not seek FISA Court warrants to collect communications between individuals in the United States and foreign countries, because it believed that this was an FBI role," (note: we do not actually learn this later in the 9/11 Commission report, this is the only mention). The second passage refers to Almihdhar's time in San Diego and does not actually mention that the NSA intercepted the relevant calls, "Almihdhar's mind seems to have been with his family in Yemen, as evidenced by calls he made from the apartment telephone." [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 87-8, 222]
Entity Tags: National Security Agency, Nawaf Alhazmi, George W. Bush, Khalid Almihdhar, 9/11 Commission
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline
Jonathan Alter. [Source: Publicity photo via Greater Talent Network]Reporter and political pundit Jonathan Alter writes that President Bush's attempt to kill the New York Times domestic wiretapping story (see December 15, 2005 and December 6, 2005), which the Times delayed for over a year at the White House's request, is not an attempt to protect national security, as Bush will say in his response to the article (see December 17, 2005), but "because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker." Alter continues, "He insists he had 'legal authority derived from the Constitution and Congressional resolution authorizing force.' But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post-9/11 congressional resolution authorizing 'all necessary force' in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism." Alter is puzzled that Bush felt the need for the program when the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (see 1978) "allows the government to eavesdrop on its own, then retroactively justify it to the court, essentially obtaining a warrant after the fact." Alter says that only four of "tens of thousands" of FISA requests have ever been rejected, and, "There was no indication the existing system was slow—as the president seemed to claim in his press conference—or in any way required extra-constitutional action." He concludes: "[Bush] knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason—and less out of genuine concern about national security—that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story. …We're seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War." [Newsweek, 12/21/2005]
Entity Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Bush administration (43), National Security Agency, New York Times, George W. Bush, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Jonathan Alter
Chart showing NSA surveillance network. [Source: NSA Watch] (click image to enlarge)The National Security Agency has built a far larger database of information collected from warrantless surveillance of telephone and Internet communications to and from US citizens than the NSA or the Bush administration has acknowledged (see October 2001). On December 15, the New York Times exposed the NSA's program (see December 15, 2005), which was authorized by President Bush in early 2002 (see Early 2002), but which actually began far earlier (see Spring 2001). The NSA built its database with the cooperation of several major American telecommunications firms (see June 26, 2006), and much of the information was mined directly into the US telecommunications system's major connections. Many law enforcement and judicial officials question the legality of the program (see May 12, 2006 and December 18, 2005), and many say the program goes beyond the bounds of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (see 1978). One question is whether the FISA Court, or FISC, can authorize monitoring of international communications that pass through US-based telephonic "switches," which handle much of the US's electronic communications traffic. "There was a lot of discussion about the switches" in conversations with FISC, says a Justice Department official. "You're talking about access to such a vast amount of communications, and the question was, How do you minimize something that's on a switch that's carrying such large volumes of traffic? The court was very, very concerned about that." While Bush and his officials have insisted that the warrantless wiretaps only target people with known links to al-Qaeda, they have not acknowledged that NSA technicials have not only eavesdropped on specific conversations between people with no known links to terrorism, but have combed through huge numbers of electronic communications in search of "patterns" that might point to terrorism suspects. Such "pattern analysis" usually requires court warrants before surveillance can begin, but in many cases, no such warrants have been obtained or even requested. Other, similar data-mining operations, such as the Total Information Awareness program, developed by the Defense Department to track terror suspects (see March 2002), and the Department of Homeland Security's CAPPS program, which screened airline passengers (see (6:20 a.m.-7:48 a.m.) September 11, 2001), were subjected to intense public scrutiny and outrage, and were publicly scrapped. The Bush administration has insisted that it has no intention of scrapping the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program, because, as its officials have said, it is necessary to identify and track terrorism suspects and foil terrorist plots before they can be hatched. Administration officials say that FISC is not quick enough to respond to its need to respond to potential terrorist acts. A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company says that after 9/11, the leading telecom firms have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists. "All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active involvement in that area," says the former manager. "If they get content, that's useful to them too, but the real plum is going to be the transaction data and the traffic analysis. Massive amounts of traffic analysis information—who is calling whom, who is in Osama Bin Laden's circle of family and friends—is used to identify lines of communication that are then given closer scrutiny." And, according to a government expert on communications privacy who used to work at the NSA, says that in the last few years, the government has quietly encouraged the telecom firms to rout more international traffic through its US-based switches so it can be monitored. Such traffic is not fully addressed by 1970s-era laws that were written before the onset of modern communications technology; neither does FISA adequately address the issues surrounding that technology. Computer engineer Phil Karn, who works for a major West Coast telecom firm, says access to those switches is critical: "If the government is gaining access to the switches like this, what you're really talking about is the capability of an enormous vacuum operation to sweep up data." [New York Times, 12/24/2005]
Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, US Department of Justice, Total Information Awareness, New York Times, US Department of Homeland Security, Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, Bush administration (43), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, George W. Bush, National Security Agency, Phil Karn
After 9/11 and, in particular, after the 7/7 bombings in London (see July 7, 2005), British security officials are asked about the wide latitude granted to radical Islamists in Britain in the 1990s and after (see Before 1998). Off-the-record statements by officials emphasize that they were wrong in their assessment of Islamist radicalism, and that they should have paid more attention. For example, in a 2006 book by authors Sean O'Neill and Daniel McGrory, an anonymous official says: "The French would periodically bombard us with warnings and get very worked up and we decided they were over-exaggerating on Islamic extremists colonizing London. Fact is, they were right and we were wrong, and we have not stopped apologizing since. Frankly, we were not equipped to deal with this menace. For 30 years everything was geared to combating terrorists from Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries in Ireland. That danger was still with us when the French were screaming about Islamic terror cells. We did not know how to monitor these people or how to combat the threat of suicide attacks. We did not have the techniques. We missed our chance to deal with this a lot sooner than we did, but a lot of countries made the same mistake." [O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 109-110] Most or all of the leading radicals worked with the British security services, were informers for them (see June 1996-February 1997, Early 1997, Spring 2005-Early 2007), and were also monitored by other informers (see Summer 1996-August 1998 and (November 11, 1998)). Several attacks in countries other than Britain were assisted by radicals based in London (see Early 1994-September 23, 1998, 1994, Summer 1998 and After, and November 13, 2001 or Shortly Before).
Vice President Cheney mentioned NSA intercepts of the 9/11 hijackers' calls in a speech to the Heritage Foundation. [Source: David Bohrer / White House]Vice President Dick Cheney uses calls between the 9/11 hijackers in the US and an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen that were intercepted by the NSA (see Early 2000-Summer 2001) to justify the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program (see December 15, 2005). Cheney points out that, "There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al-Qaeda that have one end in the United States," and says that if the NSA's warrantless program had been implemented before 9/11, "we might have been able to pick up on two hijackers [Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar] who subsequently flew a jet into the Pentagon." He adds: "They were in the United States, communicating with al-Qaeda associates overseas. But we did not know they were here plotting until it was too late." [White House, 1/4/2006] Other administration officials make similar claims about the calls by Almihdhar and Alhazmi in the years after the program is revealed by the New York Times (see December 17, 2005).
Entity Tags: Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, Richard ("Dick") Cheney
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties
It had been widely reported that the Saudi government began to crack down seriously on al-Qaeda and other radical militants after a 2003 al-Qaeda attack in Saudi Arabia (see May 12, 2003). However, the Los Angeles Times reports that US officials now claim that is not true. While Saudis have been very aggressive and cooperative in cracking down on militants within Saudi Arabia since that attack, they have done little outside the country. Millions of dollars continue to flow from wealthy Saudis through charity fronts to al-Qaeda and other suspected groups, and the Saudi government is doing next to nothing about it. In 2004, the Saudis promised to set up a government commission to police such groups, but they have yet to do so. The Saudi government has also done little to rein in influential radical religious leaders who openly encourage their followers to attack US interests in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. US officials claim that at least five organizations, including the Muslim World League (MWL), the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WML), "are headquartered in Saudi Arabia but continue to engage in highly suspect activity overseas." A senior US counterterrorism official says that some known terrorist financiers continue to "operate and live comfortably in Saudi Arabia" despite US objections. [Los Angeles Times, 1/15/2006]
Entity Tags: Saudi Arabia, International Islamic Relief Organization, Muslim World League, World Assembly of Muslim Youth
In a public speech, former National Security Agency chief Michael Hayden claims that everything the NSA does is with authorization from the White House, specifically the warrantless wiretapping program that spies on US citizens (see Early 2002). "I didn't craft the authorization," he says. "I am responding to a lawful order." Hayden claims that while the NSA continues to use court warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), technological advances and terrorist threats have made the law that created and supports FISC, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (see 1978), obsolete. Therefore, the NSA has carried out domestic surveillance operations with or without FISC warrants. Hayden says the warrantless surveillance operations are "operationally more relevant, operationally more effective" than anything FISA can handle. Hayden repeatedly denies, in the face of reams of evidence collected by journalists and others to the contrary, that the NSA is spying on domestic antiwar groups and religious organizations like the Quakers who publicly advocate nonviolence and peace. [Michael Hayden, 1/23/2006]
Entity Tags: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Al-Qaeda, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Terrorist Surveillance Program, National Press Club, Bush administration (43), National Security Agency, Michael Hayden, George W. Bush
President Bush at the National Security Agency. [Source: Eric Draper / White House]President George Bush uses calls between the 9/11 hijackers in the US and an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen that were intercepted by the NSA (see Early 2000-Summer 2001) to justify the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program (see December 15, 2005). Bush says: "We know that two of the hijackers who struck the Pentagon [Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar] were inside the United States communicating with al-Qaeda operatives overseas. But we didn't realize they were here plotting the attack until it was too late." Bush also quotes former NSA Director Michael Hayden, who previously said, "Had this program been in effect prior to 9/11… we would have detected some of the 9/11 al-Qaeda operatives in the United States, and we would have identified them as such" (see January 23, 2006). Bush and other administration officials make similar claims about the calls by Almihdhar and Alhazmi in the years after the program is revealed by the New York Times (see December 17, 2005). [White House, 1/25/2006] Bush made similar remarks at Kansas State University two days previously. [White House, 1/23/2006]
Entity Tags: Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, George W. Bush
In his State of the Union address, President Bush insists that his authority to wiretap Americans' phones without warrants (see December 15, 2005 and December 18, 2005) is validated by previous administrations' actions, saying that "previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have." He fails to note that those presidents authorized warrantless wiretaps before court orders were required for such actions (see June 19, 1972 and 1973). Since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed (see 1978), no president except Bush has ever defied the law. Law professor David Cole calls Bush's assertion of authority "either intentionally misleading or downright false." Fellow law professor Richard Epstein predicts that the Supreme Court will strike down any such assertions, if it ever addresses the issue. "I find every bit of this legal argument disingenuous," he says. Even many conservatives refuse to support Bush, with columnist George Will calling his arguments "risible" and a "monarchical doctrine" that is "refuted by the plain text of the Constitution." David Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, says the legal powers claimed by Bush and his officials can be used to justify anything: "Their argument is extremely dangerous.… The American system was set up on the assumption that you can't rely on the good will of people with power." Conservative activist Grover Norquist says flatly, "There is no excuse for violating the rule of law." And former Justice Department official Bruce Fein says Bush and his officials have "a view that would cause the Founding Fathers to weep. The real conservatives are the ones who treasure the original understanding of the Constitution, and clearly this is inconsistent with the separation of powers." Even former George H. W. Bush official Brent Scowcroft says that Bush's interpretation of the Constitution is "fundamentally in error." [Savage, 2007, pp. 203-204]
Entity Tags: David D. Cole, Brent Scowcroft, American Conservative Union, Bruce Fein, Richard Epstein, Grover Norquist, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, David Keene, George Will, George W. Bush
Retired AT&T technician Mark Klein (see December 15-31, 2005 and July 7, 2009), working with a civil liberties group and a reporter to expose the collusion of AT&T and the National Security Agency in pushing the government's illegal surveillance program (see Early January 2006 and January 23, 2006 and After), contacts the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) at the advice of Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Kevin Bankston. Klein talks to Feinstein's chief attorney in Washington, DC, Steven Cash. Klein will later write: "I instinctively recoiled at the thought of trying to approach her as my memory of her record told me she was no friend of civil liberties, though she plays one on TV. My instinct was not wrong." After an initial discussion with Cash, Klein emails him his packet of documentation (see December 31, 2005). On the afternoon of February 3, Cash calls Klein and says he is very interested in his story, though Feinstein's staff rates the probability of the NSA performing illegal acts at somewhere around "50-50," according to Klein. Cash promises to get back in touch with Klein on February 6, but fails to do so. Neither Klein nor his attorneys (see Early January 2006) are able to talk to anyone on Feinstein's staff from here on. Klein later writes: "The silent message was unmistakable: the senator did not want to sully her political skirts by having contact with a whistleblower. And this was a foretaste of her behavior and voting for the next two and a half years. At every turn, she was there pushing for immunity for the telecom companies in the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees; peddling her toothless restatement of the 'exclusive means' clause of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—see 1978] as a substitute for any confrontation with the president over ongoing illegal NSA spying; ushering former NSA Director Michael Hayden through his nomination for CIA director; and backing Michael Mukasey as a clone replacement for the resigning Attorney General [Alberto] Gonzales. Moreover, this ultimately turned out to be the attitude of virtually the entire Democratic Party leadership, not to mention the Republicans." Klein will explain that FISA's "exclusive means" clause states that FISA should be the "exclusive means" for the federal government to conduct surveillance. Congress's duty under the law was, Klein will state, to enforce the law against President Bush, "who openly flouted the law." Instead, Klein will claim, Feinstein uses the "exclusive means" clause to protect the Bush administration and the telecom firms. [Klein, 2009, pp. 57-60]
Entity Tags: Electronic Frontier Foundation, AT&T, Dianne Feinstein, Mark Klein, National Security Agency, Steven Cash, Kevin Bankston
Jaber Elbaneh. [Source: Yahya Arhab / EPA / Corbi]Twenty-three suspected al-Qaeda operatives break out of a high-security prison in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a. Escapees include Jamal al-Badawi, wanted for a role in the bombing of the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000), and Jaber Elbaneh, a US citizen believed to be linked to the alleged al-Qaeda sleeper cell in Lackawanna, New York (see April-August 2001). The men allegedly tunnel their way from the prison to the bathroom of a neighboring mosque. However, the New York Times will later comment: "[T]hat account is viewed with great skepticism, both in the United States and in Yemen. Many in Yemen say the escape could not have taken place without assistance, whether from corrupt guards or through a higher-level plan." [New York Times, 3/1/2008] The prison is located in the basement of the Political Security Organization (PSO), Yemen's equivalent of the FBI. Several days later, a cable sent from the US embassy in Yemen notes "the lack of obvious security measures on the streets," and concludes, "One thing is certain: PSO insiders must have been involved." Newsweek comments: "[P]rivately, US officials say the plotters must have had serious—possibly high-level—help at the Political [Security Organization].…. [T]he head of the PSO, Ali Mutahar al-Qamish, is said to be under suspicion, according to two US officials." [Newsweek, 2/13/2006] Al-Badawi and nine others escaped a Yemeni prison in 2003 and then were recaptured one year later (see April 11, 2003-March 2004). Al-Badawi and Elbaneh turn themselves in to the Yemeni government in 2007 and then are freed (see October 17-29, 2007 and February 23, 2008).
Entity Tags: Jamal al-Badawi, Ali Mutahar al-Qamish, Jaber Elbaneh, Yemeni Political Security Organization
The Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, a now-defunct Saudi Arabian charitable organization that once operated in Oregon, sues the Bush administration [Associated Press, 2/28/2006] over what it calls illegal surveillance of its telephone and e-mail communications by the National Security Agency, the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program. The lawsuit may provide the first direct evidence of US residents and citizens being spied upon by the Bush administration's secret eavesdropping program, according to the lawsuit (see December 15, 2005). According to a source familiar with the case, the NSA monitored telephone conversations between Al Haramain's director, then in Saudi Arabia, and two US citizens working as lawyers for the organization and operating out of Washington, DC. The lawsuit alleges that the NSA violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (see 1978), the US citizens' Fourth Amendment rights, and the attorney-client privilege. FISA experts say that while they are unfamiliar with the specifics of this lawsuit, they question whether a FISA judge would have allowed surveillance of conversations between US lawyers and their client under the circumstances described in the lawsuit. Other lawsuits have been filed against the Bush administration over suspicions of illegal government wiretapping, but this is the first lawsuit to present classified government documents as evidence to support its contentions. The lawsuit alleges that the NSA illegally intercepted communications between Al Haramain officer Suliman al-Buthe in Saudi Arabia, and its lawyers Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor in Washington. One of its most effective pieces of evidence is a document accidentally turned over to the group by the Treasury Department, dated May 24, 2004, that shows the NSA did indeed monitor conversations between Al Haramain officials and lawyers. When Al Haramain officials received the document in late May, 2004, they gave a copy to the Washington Post, whose editors and lawyers decided, under threat of government prosecution, to return the document to the government rather than report on it (see Late May, 2004). [Washington Post, 3/2/2006; Washington Post, 3/3/2006] Lawyer Thomas Nelson, who represents Al Haramain and Belew, later recalls he didn't realize what the organization had until he read the New York Times's December 2005 story of the NSA's secret wiretapping program (see December 15, 2005). "I got up in the morning and read the story, and I thought, 'My god, we had a log of a wiretap and it may or may not have been the NSA and on further reflection it was NSA,'" Nelson will recall. "So we decided to file a lawsuit." Nelson and other lawyers were able to retrieve one of the remaining copies of the document, most likely from Saudi Arabia, and turned it over to the court as part of their lawsuit. [Wired News, 3/5/2007] Al Haramain Designated a Terrorist Organization - In February 2004, the Treasury Department froze the organization's US financial assets pending an investigation, and in September 2004, designated it a terrorist organization, citing ties to al-Qaeda and alleging financial ties between Al Haramain and the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). The organization was disbanded by the Saudi Arabian government in June 2004 and folded into an "umbrella" private Saudi charitable organization, the Saudi National Commission for Relief and Charity Work Abroad (see March 2002-September 2004). In February 2005, the organization was indicted for conspiring to funnel money to Islamist fighters in Chechnya. The charges were later dropped. [US Treasury Department, 9/9/2004; Washington Post, 3/2/2006] The United Nations has banned the organization, saying it has ties to the Taliban. [United Nations, 7/27/2007] Challenging Designation - In its lawsuit, Al Haramain is also demanding that its designation as a terrorist organization be reversed. It says it can prove that its financial support for Chechen Muslims was entirely humanitarian, with no connections to terrorism or violence, and that the Treasury Department has never provided any evidence for its claims that Al Haramain is linked to al-Qaeda or has funded terrorist activities. [Associated Press, 8/6/2007] The lawsuit also asks for $1 million in damages, and the unfreezing of Al Haramain's US assets. [Associated Press, 8/5/2007] Administration Seeks to Have Lawsuit Dismissed - The Bush administration will seek to have the lawsuit thrown out on grounds of national security and executive privilege (see Late 2006-July 2007, Mid-2007).
Entity Tags: Wendell Belew, Suliman al-Buthe, Taliban, Washington Post, United Nations, Saudi National Commission for Relief and Charity Work Abroad, US Department of the Treasury, National Security Agency, Thomas Nelson, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, Al-Qaeda, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (Oregon branch), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Asim Ghafoor, Bush administration (43)
Rayed Abdullah. [Source: Scoop]Rayed Abdullah, an associate of hijacker pilot Hani Hanjour (see October 1996-December 1997 and October 1996-Late April 1999), enters New Zealand despite being on the watch list there and takes further pilot training. The New Zealand government claims it only ascertains his real identity after he has been in the country several months. Abdullah is then arrested and deported to Saudi Arabia, even though he was traveling on a Yemeni passport. [Associated Press, 6/9/2006; New Zealand Herald, 6/10/2006] However, FBI agents and CIA officers later say that the US released Abdullah after 9/11 in an attempt to use him to spy on al-Qaeda for Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency. The CIA ensures he is allowed into New Zealand as a part of a joint operation. However, the New Zealanders get cold feet when Abdullah starts flight training again. A CIA official will say: "[W]e know if Rayed was part of the [9/11] plot, someone in al-Qaeda will reach out for him, and we have a chance of making that connection." An FBI official will comment: "The amazing thing is the CIA convinced itself that by getting [Abdullah] tossed out of New Zealand, he would then be trusted and acceptable to Saudi intelligence and useful in al-Qaeda operations. For this tiny chance of success they put passengers at risk to enter into a partnership with Saudi intelligence." [Stories that Matter, 10/9/2006]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Rayed Abdullah
There is a tumultuous trial of al-Qaeda operative Luai Sakra before he is finally convicted in early 2007. Sakra, considered a high-ranking leader, is on trial for co-masterminding a series of bombings in Istanbul, Turkey in 2003 (see November 15-20, 2003). There is also considerable evidence that he was an informant for the CIA, Turkey, and Syria (see 2000 and September 10, 2001). Having already confessed to assisting a number of attacks, including the 9/11 plot (see Early August 2005), Sakra makes additional claims during the trial. He says through his lawyer that shortly after being arrested in Turkey in 2005, he was visited in his Turkish prison cell by a group of English speaking foreigners. He claims that he was offered his freedom if he would falsely agree to testify that the Syrian government was involved in the assassination of Lebanese politician Rafiq Al-Hariri in 2005. He claims these people were aware that he had secretly met with the head of Syrian intelligence in the past, and that he turned down their offer. [BBC, 11/10/2005] At the start of the trial, Sakra appears quite different than he had when he was seen in public after being arrested seven months before, heavier and with a full beard. He claims to be a completely different person. The Washington Post will comment, "More than 20 journalists failed to recognize Sakra as he entered the court building," and even his own lawyer claims to doubt Sakra's identity. [Washington Post, 3/21/2006; BBC, 3/21/2006] Sakra's trial leaves many questions about him unanswered. The London Times will later say that his "often outrageous behavior, conflicting statements of identity, and the suspicion that he has undergone extensive plastic surgery, have helped to build up a wall of mystery around him." [London Times, 2/17/2007] Sakra's lawyer will claim that if Sakra revealed all that he knew, "a few states would collapse." [Washington Post, 3/21/2006] At the conclusion of the trial, Sakra and six others receive life in prison for their role in the 2003 Istanbul bombings. Forty-one people receive shorter sentences, and 26 people are acquitted. [BBC, 2/16/2007]
Entity Tags: Luai Sakra, Rafiq Al-Hariri
Zacarias Moussaoui claimed that Richard Reid (above) was to have helped him hijack a fifth plane on 9/11. [Source: Mirrorpix(.com)]Against the will of his defense attorneys, Zacarias Moussaoui takes the stand at his trial (see March 6-May 4, 2006) and claims that he was supposed to fly a fifth plane on 9/11. He says the plane would have targeted the White House and one of the muscle hijackers would have been shoe-bomber Richard Reid (see December 22, 2001). However, he claims not to have known the details of the other hijackings, only that the WTC would be hit. He does not mention any other collaborators aside from Reid, who has already been sentenced to a long prison term. When the prosecution asks him whether he lied to FBI investigators so the plan could go forward he replies, "That's correct." An Associated Press expert calls this, "a stunning revelation that would help prosecutors rather than him." [Associated Press, 3/27/2006] In what the New York Times calls a "bizarre moment," the defense team, aware of the damage this admission could do, subject Moussaoui to tough questioning and the chief prosecutor objects that one of the defense attorneys is badgering his own client. [New York Times, 4/17/2006] Uncertainty over Fifth Jet - There is some dispute over whether Moussaoui was indeed to have flown a fifth plane (see January 30, 2003 and Before 2008). Following the testimony, the defense reads statements made by al-Qaeda leaders who are in custody, but are not permitted to testify at the trial (see May 14, 2003 and March 22, 2005). The statements say that Moussaoui was not part of 9/11, but a follow-up operation. [Associated Press, 3/28/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/31/2006 ] However, these statements were obtained using torture (see June 16, 2004). The government later concedes that there is no evidence linking Richard Reid to 9/11. [Associated Press, 4/20/2006] "Complete Fabrication" - Moussaoui had denied being part of 9/11 before the trial (see April 22, 2005). By the end of the trial he will do so again, calling the confession he makes on this day "a complete fabrication." [Associated Press, 5/8/2006]
Entity Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard C. Reid
Four statements based on the CIA inspector general's report on some aspects of the agency's performance before 9/11 are introduced as evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui by the defense. The report was completed in 2004 (see June-November 2004), but rewritten and is still secret (see January 7, 2005). The four passages say: "Numerous" CIA officers accessed cables reporting that Khalid Almihdhar's passport contained a US visa and Nawaf Alhazmi had flown from Thailand to Los Angeles (see Mid-January-March 2000); [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria District, 3/28/2006 ] FBI Director Louis Freeh was briefed about Almihdhar in January 2000, but not told that Almihdhar had a US visa (see January 6-9, 2000); [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2006 ] Nobody at Alec Station, the CIA's bin Laden unit, notified CIA personnel authorized to collect foreign intelligence in the US together with the FBI about Almihdhar's US visa (see 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000); [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2006 ] The CIA was unaware of the Phoenix memo until after 9/11 (note: this may not actually be true—see (July 27, 2001)). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2005 ] Two sections of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry report are also introduced as evidence as substitutes for the CIA inspector general's report. They cover the use of aircraft as weapons and US knowledge of bin Laden's intentions to strike inside the US in the summer of 2001. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2006 ]
Entity Tags: Office of the Inspector General (CIA), Central Intelligence Agency
Conservative Party leader David Cameron. [Source: Public domain]Following the London bombings (see July 7, 2005), Britain passes a new Terrorism Act containing tougher laws, but they have little practical effect and many Islamic radicals carry on as before. The act introduces new offenses such as criminalizing the encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications, but the most controversial measure is an extension of the period for which suspects could be detained without trial. The government pushes for an extension from 14 days to 90 days, but parliament only allows 28 days. [Guardian, 11/9/2005; London Times, 11/9/2005; BBC, 11/9/2005; UK Parliament. House of Commons., 3/30/2006] In August 2006, Conservative Party leader David Cameron will criticize the government for failing to "follow-though when the headlines have moved on." He asks, "Why have so few, if any, preachers of hate been prosecuted or expelled?" and "why has so little been done to use the existing law to deal with the radicalization that is rife within our shores?" He also criticizes the government for funding conferences addressed by radical imam Yousuf Abdullah Al-Qaradawi. [Conservative Party, 8/15/2006]
Entity Tags: David Cameron, Yousuf Abdullah Al-Qaradawi, Terrorism Act of 2006
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Civil Liberties
A leaked draft of the "narrative" of the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005) compiled by the Home Office in lieu of an official investigation concludes that there was no direct support from al-Qaeda for the 7/7 bombings. The Observer reports that the narrative concludes, "Far from being the work of an international terror network, as originally suspected, the attack was carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the Internet." It does acknowledge that two of the suicide bombers—Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer—traveled to Pakistan and met with known militants, but concludes that these trips were "ideological, rather than fact-finding." Even a video of Khan's last testament released by an al-Qaeda production company in Pakistan is dismissed as evidence of any al-Qaeda involvement in the attack (see September 1, 2005). Patrick Mercer, a spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, says an independent inquiry into 7/7 remains necessary, adding, "A series of reports such as this narrative simply does not answer questions such as the reduced terror alert before the attack, the apparent involvement of al-Qaeda, and links to earlier or later terrorist plots." [Observer, 4/9/2006] But within months, this assertion of no direct al-Qaeda invovlement will collapse as more information is made public about the bombers' links to al-Qaeda figures and training in al-Qaeda linked camps in Pakistan. On May 12, 2006, Home Secretary John Reid concludes for the first time that there is "considerable" circumstantial evidence of an al-Qaeda connection. [Guardian, 5/12/2006] By July 2006, Peter Clarke, the Metropolitan Police force's head of anti-terrorism, will concede, "Such information as we do have does suggest there is probably a link to al-Qaeda" (see July 6, 2006). [New York Times, 7/7/2006; Daily Telegraph, 7/8/2006] The BBC will report that same month: "British intelligence agencies believe some form of operational training is likely to have taken place while Khan and Tanweer were in Pakistan together and that it is likely they did have contact with al-Qaeda figures.… [T]he evidence pointing to a major role for al-Qaeda is mounting." [BBC, 7/6/2006] British counterterrorism expert Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed will argue that the government has deliberately downplayed evidence of al-Qaeda involvement in order to deflect questions about how a large network was able to operate in Britain for many years (see July 2, 2006).
Entity Tags: Mohammad Sidique Khan, Al-Qaeda, Home Office, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, John Reid, Peter Clarke, Patrick Mercer, Shehzad Tanweer
The Italian government says it will not ask for the extradition of 22 CIA officers sought by Italian prosecutors in connection with the kidnapping of radical imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar, see Noon February 17, 2003 and June 23, 2005 and After). Approving such a request is "usually a formality" according to the Washington Post, but the decision is delayed for months and then finally made by Italian Justice Minister Roberto Castelli immediately after the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi loses elections, but before it is replaced by a new government. The New York Times comments, "As minister of justice under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi—one of the Bush administration's most loyal supporters in Europe—Mr. Castelli's refusal to move forward with the extradition comes as no surprise." Prosecutor Armando Spataro says that the request will be resubmitted to the new Italian government, and the CIA officers may be tried in absentia. [Washington Post, 12/6/2005; New York Times, 4/12/2006] The request is resubmitted, but by the time the CIA officers are committed for trial in 2007, the new government will not have passed it on to the US (see February 11, 2007). [CNN, 2/16/2007]
Entity Tags: Roberto Castelli, Central Intelligence Agency, Armando Spataro, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr
A simulation of waterboarding arranged by ABC News. [Source: ABC News]According to an ABC News report in September 2007, CIA Director Michael Hayden bans the use of waterboarding some time in 2006, with the approval of the White House. It is not known when exactly the technique is banned that year, but presumably it takes place after Hayden becomes CIA director (see May 5, 2006) and in response to the Supreme Court decision mandating that terror suspects must be given treatment consistent with the Geneva Conventions (see July 12, 2006). Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation technique that simulates drowning and is usually referred to as torture. Allegedly, the CIA last used waterboarding in 2003 on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and "It is believed that waterboarding was used on fewer than five 'high-value' terrorist subjects" (see May 2002-2003). John Sifton of Human Rights Watch later says the ban "a good thing, but the fact remains that the entire [CIA interrogation] program is illegal." [ABC News, 9/14/2007] Over a year before Hayden's decision, Justice Department official Daniel Levin had himself subjected to simulated waterboarding to help him determine if waterboarding was indeed torture (see Late 2004-Early 2005). Levin intended to issue a memo condemning the practice as beyond the bounds of the law, but was forced out of the Justice Department before he could make that ruling.
Entity Tags: Daniel Levin, US Supreme Court, US Department of Justice, White House, Central Intelligence Agency, John Sifton, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Michael Hayden, Geneva Conventions
USA Today headline. [Source: CBS News]USA Today reports that "[t]he National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by the nation's three biggest telecommunications providers, AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth," according to "people with direct knowledge of the arrangement." None of the sources would allow USA Today to identify them by name, job, or affiliation. The USA Today story claims that the NSA program "does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations," but does use "the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity," according to their sources. One source says that the NSA program is compiling "the largest database ever assembled in the world," with the goal of creating "a database of every call ever made" within US borders. President Bush has said that the NSA program is focused exclusively on international calls, and for the calls to be recorded, "one end of the communication must be outside the United States." However, this is now shown not to be the case (see January 16, 2004). A US intelligence official says that the NSA program is not recording the actual phone calls themselves, but is collecting what he calls "external" data about the communications to allow the agency to emply "social network analysis" for insight into how terrorist networks are connected with one another. Another large telecommunications company, Qwest, has refused to help the NSA eavesdrop on customer calls (see February 2001, February 2001 and Beyond, and February 27, 2001). USA Today's sources say that the NSA eavesdropping program began after the 9/11 attacks, a claim that is not bolstered by the facts (see 1997, February 27, 2000, February 27, 2000, December 2000, February 2001, February 2001, February 2001 and Beyond, February 2001, Spring 2001, April 2001, April 4, 2001, July 2001, Before September 11, 2001, and Early 2002). The sources say that the three companies agreed to provide "call-detail records," lists of their customers' calling histories, and updates, which would allow the agency to track citizens' calling habits. In return, the sources say, the NSA offered to pay the firms for their cooperation. After the three firms agreed to help the agency, USA Today writes, "the NSA's domestic program began in earnest" (see After September 11, 2001, After September 11, 2001, October 2001, September 2002, and Spring 2004). NSA spokesman Don Weber says the agency is operating strictly "within the law," but otherwise refuses to comment. Former US prosecutor Paul Butler says that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which governs surveillance operations by US intelligence agencies, "does not prohibit the government from doing data mining" (see 1978). White House press spokesman Dana Perino says, "There is no domestic surveillance without court approval," and all surveillance activities undertaken by government agencies "are lawful, necessary, and required for the pursuit of al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists." All government-sponsored intelligence activities "are carefully reviewed and monitored," she adds, and says that "all appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on the intelligence efforts of the United States" (see October 11, 2001 and October 25, 2001 and November 14, 2001). Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, refuses to discuss the agency's operations, saying: "Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no information to provide. However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law." All three firms released similar comments saying that they would not discuss "matters of national security," but were complying with the law in their alleged cooperation with the NSA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is suing AT&T for what it calls its complicity in the NSA's "illegal" domestic surveillance program (see January 31, 2006). [USA Today, 5/11/2006]
Entity Tags: Verizon Communications, USA Today, Qwest, Paul Butler, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Jane Harman, AT&T, BellSouth, National Security Agency, Dana Perino, Don Weber
On May 11, 2006, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which is composed of members of parliament appointed by the prime minister, issued a report about the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005) that largely exonerates British intelligence for not stopping the bombings (see May 11, 2006). However, two days later, The Guardian and then the Sunday Times report that the ISC was never told that the British intelligence agency MI5 monitored head 7/7 suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan discussing the building of a bomb and then his desire to leave Britain because there would be a lot of police activity. In early 2004, Khan was monitored talking to members of a fertilizer bomb plot (see February 2-March 23, 2004). Tapes show he had knowledge of the "late-stage discussions" of this plot, as well as discussions with them about making a bomb. He was also taped talking about his plans to wage jihad (holy war) and attend al-Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. Further details, such as exactly whom he was speaking to and when, have not been made public. Since the ISC was not aware of this material, it concluded that MI5 had no reason to suspect Khan of plotting bombings in Britain. A member of the ISC admits that the ISC did not see transcripts of MI5's recordings of Khan. Instead, it listened to senior security officials and accepted their claims that there was no reason to regard Khan as a serious threat. After being told what was on these transcripts, this ISC member says: "If that is the case, it amounts to a scandal. I would be outraged." Shadow home secretary David Davis of the Conservative Party tells Home Secretary John Reid in a private exchange at the House of Commons: "It seems that MI5 taped Mohammad Sidique Khan talking about his wish to fight in the jihad and saying his goodbyes to his family—a clear indication that he was intending a suicide mission… he was known to have attended late-stage discussions on planning another major terror attack. Again, I ask the home secretary whether that is true." Reid responds that the questions are "legitimate" but fails to answer them. [Guardian, 5/13/2006; Sunday Times (London), 5/14/2006] Additionally, the ISC was only shown one surveillance photo of Khan. But in 2007 it will be revealed that MI5 in fact had at least six photos of him (see Between April 10, 2004 and July 7, 2005). It will also come to light in 2007 that Khan was briefly investigated in early 2005, and that all information about this was kept from the ISC (see January 27-February 3, 2005).
Entity Tags: Mohammad Sidique Khan, David Davis, John Reid, UK Security Service (MI5), Intelligence and Security Committee
Former NSA director and soon-to-be CIA director Michael Hayden says that a program in which the NSA listens in on calls between the US and other countries without obtaining warrants would have prevented 9/11, had it been in place then. Hayden tells a Senate hearing discussing his confirmation as CIA director, "Had this been in place prior to the attacks, the two hijackers who were in San Diego, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, almost certainly would have been identified as who they were, what they were, and most importantly, where they were." Hayden also says, "I can demonstrate in closed session how the physics and the math would work." [US Congress, 5/18/2006 ] However, the NSA actually intercepted the calls between Alhazmi and Almihdhar in the US and an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen (see Early 2000-Summer 2001), which it knew had been in contact with Osama bin Laden (see November 1996-Late August 1998) and was also involved in the East African embassy bombings (see August 4-25, 1998) and the attack on the USS Cole (see Mid-August 1998-October 2000). Before 9/11, the NSA was entitled to pass on information about the calls to the FBI, but did not do so, even though the FBI had specifically asked for information about calls between the communications hub in Yemen and the US (see Late 1998 and (Spring 2000)). Various explanations for this failure are offered after 9/11 (see Summer 2002-Summer 2004 and March 15, 2004 and After).
Counterterrorism expert Charles Shoebridge, a former detective with the Metropolitan Police, discusses Mohammad Sidique Khan, the head suicide bomber in the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005). In a radio interview with BBC Newshour, he says: "The fact that [information about Khan] has been so consistently overlooked it would appear by the [British] security service MI5, to me suggests really only one of two options. Either, a) we've got a level of incompetence that would be unusual even for the security services. But b) possibly, and this is a possibility, that this man Khan may even have been working as an informant for the security service. It is difficult otherwise to see how it can be that they've so covered his tracks in the interim." [BBC Newshour, 6/26/2006]
Entity Tags: Mohammad Sidique Khan, Charles Shoebridge
Salim Ahmed Hamdan in 1999. [Source: Pubic domain via the New York Times]In the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case, the Supreme Court rules 5-3 to strike down the Bush administration's plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions. Ruling in favor of detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan (see November 8, 2004), the Court rules that the commissions are unauthorized by federal statutes and violate international law. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens says, "The executive is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction." The opinion throws out each of the administration's arguments in favor of the commissions, including its assertion that Congress had stripped the Supreme Court of the jurisdiction to decide the case. One of the major flaws in the commissions, the Court rules, is that President Bush unilaterally established them without the authorization of Congress. [New York Times, 6/30/2006] During the oral arguments three months before, Hamdan's lawyer, Neal Katyal, told the Court: "The whole point of this [proceeding] is to say we're challenging the lawfulness of the tribunal [the military commissions] itself. This isn't a challenge to some decision that a court makes. This is a challenge to the court itself, and that's why it's different than the ordinary criminal context that you're positing." [Savage, 2007, pp. 274-275] Major Defeat for Bush Administration - Civil libertarian and human rights organizations consider the ruling a shattering defeat for the administration, particularly in its assertions of expansive, unfettered presidential authority. Bush says in light of the decision, he will work with Congress to "find a way forward" to implement the commissions. "The ruling destroys one of the key pillars of the Guantanamo system," says Gerald Staberock, a director of the International Commission of Jurists. "Guantanamo was built on the idea that prisoners there have limited rights. There is no longer that legal black hole." The ruling also says that prisoners held as "enemy combatants" must be afforded rights under the Geneva Conventions, specifically those requiring humane treatment for detainees and the right to free and open trials in the US legal system. While some form of military trials may be permissible, the ruling states that defendants must be given basic rights such as the ability to attend the trial and the right to see and challenge evidence submitted by the prosecution. Stevens writes that the historical origin of military commissions was in their use as a "tribunal of necessity" under wartime conditions. "Exigency lent the commission its legitimacy, but did not further justify the wholesale jettisoning of procedural protections." [New York Times, 6/30/2006] In 2007, author and reporter Charlie Savage will write, "Five justices on the Supreme Court said Bush had broken the law." [Savage, 2007, pp. 275] Hardline Conservative Justices Dissent - Stevens is joined by Justices David Souter, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Anthony Kennedy issues a concurring opinion. Dissenting are Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. Thomas, in a dissent signed by Scalia and Alito, calls the decision "untenable" and "dangerous." Chief Justice John Roberts recused himself from the case because of his participation in a federal appeals court that ruled in favor of the administration (see November 8, 2004). Not Charged for Three Years - Hamdan is a Guantanamo detainee from Yemen, captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 and taken to Guantanamo in June 2002. He is accused of being a member of al-Qaeda, in his function as driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. He was not charged with a crime—conspiracy—until mid-2004. [New York Times, 6/30/2006]
Entity Tags: Samuel Alito, US Supreme Court, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John G. Roberts, Jr, Al-Qaeda, Antonin Scalia, Bush administration (43), Center for Constitutional Rights, Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, International Commission of Jurists, Gerald Staberock, Geneva Conventions, Clarence Thomas
Al-Qaeda leader Hassan Ghul is secretly transferred from US custody to Pakistani custody. The Pakistani government will later release him and he will apparently rejoin al-Qaeda. In early 2004, Ghul was captured in Iraq and put in the CIA's secret prison system (see January 23, 2004). He became a "ghost detainee" because the US refused to admit they even held him. In 2006, the Bush administration decides to close most of the CIA's secret prisons and transfer most of the important al-Qaeda prisoners to the Guantanamo prison. But Ghul is given to the Pakistani government instead, apparently as a goodwill gesture. According to a 2011 article by the Associated Press, "[T]he move frustrated and angered former CIA officers, who at the time believed Ghul should have been moved to Guantanamo along with 14 other high-value detainees" (See September 2-3, 2006). The ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, promises that it will make sure Ghul is never released. But after only about a year, Pakistan will secretly let Ghul go and he apparently will return to working with al-Qaeda (see (Mid-2007)). [Associated Press, 6/15/2011] Ghul is given to Pakistan even though he is linked to a Pakistani militant group supported by the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, and the ISI had a history of protecting him from arrest (see (2002-January 23, 2004)). Also, Ghul is released even though he told US interrogators key information about Osama bin Laden's courier that will eventually prove key to the discovery of bin Laden's location (see Shortly After January 23, 2004 and Late 2005).
Entity Tags: Hassan Ghul, Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline, War in Afghanistan
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed. [Source: Publicity photo]The Independent publishes an article questioning some aspects of the official account of the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005). The article notes that "There are some bewildering gaps in the [government's] account of 7/7…" It quotes counterterrorism expert Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, who has recently published a book questioning the government account of the bombings. Ahmed concludes that the government has deliberately downplayed the sophistication of the operation, the size of its support network, and evidence of al-Qaeda involvement, in order to deflect questions about how a large network was able to operate in Britain for many years. The Independent notes that "even the nature of the explosives used in the bombing is unclear." The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), a group of MPs chosen by the prime minister, published a report on the 7/7 bombings in May 2006 (see May 11, 2006), but was vague about the explosives used. The Independent comments, "The report says only that 'it appears' they were home-made, although there is plenty of evidence that the bombs were powered by at least some commercial or military explosive." Ahmed says: "Forensic science… tends to produce unambiguous answers within a matter of hours and days. The idea that continuous examination over many months has failed to finish the job beggars belief." Ahmed also notes that the links between the 7/7 bombers such as Mohammad Sidique Khan and known al-Qaeda figures have been underplayed. For instance, the ISC report fails to mention Haroon Rashid Aswat at all, despite many articles suggesting that he may have been the mastermind of the bombings and may even have had a relationship with British intelligence (see Late June-July 7, 2005 and July 29, 2005). Ahmed says, "In systematically downplaying the undeniable role of al-Qaeda in the London bombings, the official account is attempting to draw public attention from the fact British authorities have tolerated the activities of an entrenched and burgeoning network of radical Islamists with terrorist connections for more than a decade." [Independent, 7/2/2006]
Entity Tags: Intelligence and Security Committee, Mohammad Sidique Khan, Al-Qaeda, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Haroon Rashid Aswat
Shehzad Tanweer in his last testament video. [Source: Agence France-Presse]One day before the first anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), the Al Jazeera satellite network broadcasts video speeches from what appears to be Shehzad Tanweer, one of the 7/7 suicide bombers, and al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. A similar video apparently featuring 7/7 bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan and al-Zawahiri was broadcast two months after the 7/7 bombings (see September 1, 2005). As with that video, the two speakers appear separately. The man resembling Tanweer says, "What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq and until you stop your financial and military support to America and Israel." The man resembling al-Zawahiri seems to make al-Qaeda's first explicit claim to have directly masterminded the 7/7 bombings as he says that Khan and Tanweer had been trained "in the manufacture of explosives" at al-Qaeda training camp. The videotape also separately shows what seems to be a militant training camp, but there are no obvious clues where or when the speeches were recorded. British officials have generally tried to downplay any al-Qaeda link to the bombings. But after this video is broadcast, Peter Clarke, the Metropolitan Police force's head of anti-terrorism, says, "Such information as we do have does suggest there is probably a link to al-Qaeda." [New York Times, 7/7/2006; Daily Telegraph, 7/8/2006]
Entity Tags: Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Ayman al-Zawahiri
Civil liberties lawyer and columnist Glenn Greenwald states that the recent Supreme Court ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (see June 30, 2006), finding that the Bush administration's Guantanamo Bay military commissions violate both federal law and the Geneva Conventions, also proves that the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program is illegal (see December 15, 2005). "To arrive at its decision," Greenwald writes, "the Court emphatically rejected the administration's radical theories of executive power, and in doing so, rendered entirely discredited the administration's only defenses for eavesdropping on Americans without the warrants required by law. Actual compliance with the Court's ruling, then, compels the administration to immediately cease eavesdropping on Americans in violation of FISA," the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (see 1978). "If the administration continues these programs now, then they are openly defying the Court and the law with a brazeness and contempt for the rule of law that would be unprecedented even for them." Greenwald notes that FISA prohibits any surveillance of American citizens without judicial approval and oversight. The Bush administration has already admitted to conducting just such surveillance (see December 17, 2005 and December 21, 2005), and President Bush has even stated his intention to expand the program (see December 19, 2005). The Justice Department and a number of administration officials have attempted to claim the NSA surveillance program is both legal and necessary (see December 19, 2005, December 19, 2005, December 21-22, 2005, and Early 2006); Greenwald writes that the Hamdan decision "decimated" those claims, a conclusion shared by a number of legal experts (see January 9, 2006). Moreover, he writes, there is no remaining excuse for Democratic senators not to endorse Senator Russ Feingold's resolution to censure Bush for violating FISA (see March 12, 2006 and After). The argument advanced by, among others, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), that Bush believed he was complying with the law because his lawyers told him he was in compliance, is no longer relevant in light of Hamdan, Greenwald argues. "[T]here is no longer any good faith basis left for violating FISA. Ongoing warrantless eavesdropping can only be ordered by the president with a deliberate intent to break the law. After Hamdan, there are no more excuses left for the president to violate FISA, and there is therefore no more excuse left for Democratic senators to refuse to take a stand with Sen. Feingold against the administration's lawbreaking." Bush has two clear choices, Greenwald writes: either to comply with FISA or openly defy the Supreme Court. "If we are a country that continues to operate under the rule of law, compliance with the Supreme Court's ruling compels the immediate cessation of the president's warrantless eavesdropping program, as well as what are undoubtedly the other, still-secret programs prohibited by law but which have been justified by these same now-rejected theories of unlimited executive power. Put simply, after Hamdan, there are no more excuses left for the president's refusal to comply with the law." [Crooks and Liars, 7/8/2006]
Entity Tags: Geneva Conventions, Barack Obama, Bush administration (43), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Glenn Greenwald, US Department of Justice, US Supreme Court, George W. Bush, National Security Agency
After prosecutors in Milan, Italy, charge a group of US officials with involvement in the kidnap of Islamist extremist Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar—see Noon February 17, 2003), public defenders are appointed for them. However, the US government bars the CIA officials among the accused, who will eventually number 25, from talking to their defenders. [Congressional Quarterly, 8/28/2009]
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives
Federal district court judge Anna Diggs Taylor rules that the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program (see Early 2002) is unconstitutional and orders it ended. She amends her ruling to allow the program to continue while the Justice Department appeals her decision. The decision is a result of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil liberties groups. Taylor rules that the NSA program violates US citizens' rights to privacy and free speech, the Constitutional separation of powers among the three branches of government, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (see 1978). Taylor writes: "It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution." [Verdict in ACLU et al v. NSA et al, 8/17/2006 ; Washington Post, 8/18/2006] The program "violates the separation of powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth amendments to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III," Taylor writes, and adds, "[T]he president of the United States… has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders." [CNN, 8/17/2006] Judge Lets One Portion Stand - Taylor rejects one part of the lawsuit that seeks information about the NSA's data mining program (see October 2001), accepting the government's argument that to allow that portion of the case to proceed would reveal state secrets (see March 9, 1953). Other lawsuits challenging the program are still pending. Some legal scholars regard Taylor's decision as poorly reasoned: national security law specialist Bobby Chesney says: "Regardless of what your position is on the merits of the issue, there's no question that it's a poorly reasoned decision. The opinion kind of reads like an outline of possible grounds to strike down the program, without analysis to fill it in." The White House and its Republican supporters quickly attack Taylor, who was appointed to the bench by then-President Jimmy Carter, as a "liberal judge" who is trying to advance the agenda of Congressional Democrats and "weaken national security." For instance, Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH) says that halting the program "would hamper our ability to foil terrorist plots." [Washington Post, 8/18/2006] Democrats, Civil Libertarians Celebrate Ruling - But Democrats defend the ruling. For instance, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) says the ruling provides a much-needed check on the unfettered power of the Bush White House. "[N]o one is above the law," says Kerry. [Washington Post, 8/18/2006] Lawyers for some of the other cases against the NSA and the Bush administration laud the decision as giving them vital legal backing for their own court proceedings. "We now have a ruling on the books that upholds what we've been saying all along: that this wiretapping program violates the Constitution," says Kevin Bankston, who represents the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in its class-action case against AT&T for its role in the NSA's surveillance program (see January 31, 2006). [Washington Post, 8/18/2006] Legal expert and liberal commentator Glenn Greenwald writes that Taylor's ruling "does not, of course, prohibit eavesdropping on terrorists; it merely prohibits illegal eavesdropping in violation of FISA. Thus, even under the court's order, the Bush administration is free to continue to do all the eavesdropping on terrorists it wants to do. It just has to cease doing so using its own secretive parameters, and instead do so with the oversight of the FISA court—just as all administrations have done since 1978, just as the law requires, and just as it did very recently when using surveillance with regard to the [British] terror plot. Eavesdropping on terrorists can continue in full force. But it must comply with the law." Greenwald writes: "[T]he political significance of this decision cannot be denied. The first federal court ever to rule on the administration's NSA program has ruled that it violates the constitutional rights of Americans in several respects, and that it violates criminal law. And in so holding, the court eloquently and powerfully rejected the Bush administration's claims of unchecked executive power in the area of national security." [Salon, 8/17/2006] White House Refuses to Comply - The Bush administration refuses to comply with Taylor's ruling, asserting that the program is indeed legal and a "vital tool" in the "war on terrorism." It will quickly file an appeal, and law professors on both sides of the issue predict that Taylor's ruling will be overturned. [Savage, 2007, pp. 206] Lawsuit Ends with White House 'Compromise' - The lawsuit will end when the White House announces a "compromise" between the wiretapping program and FISC (see January 17, 2007).
Entity Tags: John Kerry, Kevin Bankston, Mike DeWine, US Department of Justice, Peter Hoekstra, Glenn Greenwald, National Security Agency, George W. Bush, James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr., Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Alberto R. Gonzales, American Civil Liberties Union, AT&T, Anna Diggs Taylor, Bush administration (43), Bobby Chesney, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Actor Kiefer Sutherland as 'Jack Bauer.' [Source: Stuff.co.nz]Law professor Phillippe Sands begins a series of interviews with the former staff judge advocate for the US Army in Guantanamo, Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver. She is the author of a legal analysis that was used by the Bush administration to justify its extreme interrogation techniques (see October 11, 2002). Sands describes her as "coiled up—mistreated, hung out to dry." She is unhappy with the way the administration used her analysis, and notes that she was guided in her work at Guantanamo by personnel from the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency. She believes that some of the interrogation techniques were "reverse-engineered" from a training program called SERE—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape—though administration officials have denied this. Several Guantanamo personnel were sent to Fort Bragg, SERE's home, for a briefing on the program (see December 2001, January 2002 and After, Mid-April 2002, Between Mid-April and Mid-May 2002, July 2002, July 2002, July 2002, and August 1, 2002). Military training was not the only source of inspiration. Fox's television drama 24 came to a conclusion in the spring of 2002, Beaver recalls. One of the overriding messages of that show is that torture works. "We saw it on cable," Beaver remembers. "People had already seen the first series. It was hugely popular." The story's hero, Jack Bauer, had many friends at Guantanamo, Beaver adds. "He gave people lots of ideas." She recalls in graphic terms how excited many of the male personnel became when extreme interrogation methods were discussed. "You could almost see their d_cks getting hard as they got new ideas," she will say. "And I said to myself, You know what? I don't have a d_ck to get hard—I can stay detached." The FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service refused to become involved in aggressive interrogations, she says (see Late March through Early June, 2002 and December 17, 2002). [Vanity Fair, 5/2008]
Entity Tags: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Diane E. Beaver, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fox Broadcasting Company, Phillippe Sands, Georgetown University
Mohamad Farik Amin. [Source: FBI]The US temporarily closes a network of secret CIA prisons around the world and transfers the most valuable prisoners to the US prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, for eventual military tribunals. The prison network will be reopened a short time later (see Autumn 2006-Late April 2007). There were reportedly fewer than 100 suspects in the CIA prisons; most of them are apparently sent back to their home countries while fourteen are sent to Guantanamo. All fourteen have some connection to al-Qaeda. Seven of them reportedly had some connection to the 9/11 attacks. Here are their names, nationalities, and the allegations against them. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) (Pakistani, raised in Kuwait). He is the suspected mastermind of 9/11 attacks and many other al-Qaeda attacks. A CIA biography of KSM calls him "one of history's most infamous terrorists." Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi (Saudi). He allegedly helped finance the 9/11 attacks. Hambali (Indonesian). He attended a key planning meeting for the 9/11 attacks in Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000) and is accused of involvement in many other plots, including the 2002 Bali bombings (see October 12, 2002). Khallad bin Attash (a.k.a. Tawfiq bin Attash) (Yemeni). He also attended a key planning meeting for the 9/11 attacks in Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000) and had a role in other plots such as the 2000 USS Cole bombing (see October 12, 2000). Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (Pakistani, raised in Kuwait). He allegedly helped finance the 9/11 attacks and arranged transportation for some hijackers. His uncle is KSM. Ramzi bin al-Shibh (Yemeni). A member of the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell with Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers. The CIA calls him the "primary communications intermediary" between the hijackers and KSM. He also attended a key planning meeting for the 9/11 attacks in Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000). Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (Saudi). He is said to have been one of the masterminds of the USS Cole bombing (see October 12, 2000). He also attended a key planning meeting for the 9/11 attacks in Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000). The remaining seven suspects are alleged to have been involved in other al-Qaeda plots: Abu Zubaida (Palestinian, raised in Saudi Arabia). He is said to be a facilitator who helped make travel arrangements for al-Qaeda operatives. He is also alleged to have organized a series of planned millennium attacks. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (Tanzanian). He was indicted for a role in the 1998 African embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). He is also said to be an expert document forger. Majid Khan (Pakistani). He lived in the US since 1996 and is said to have worked with KSM on some US bomb plots (see March 5, 2003). Abu Faraj al-Libbi (a.k.a. Mustafa al-'Uzayti) (Libyan). He allegedly became al-Qaeda's top operations officer after KSM was captured. Mohamad Farik Amin (a.k.a. Zubair) (Malaysian). He is a key Hambali associate and was allegedly tapped for a suicide mission targeting Los Angeles. Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep (a.k.a. Lillie) (Malaysian). He is a key Hambali associate. He is accused of providing funds for the 2003 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia (see August 5, 2003). He was allegedly tapped for a suicide mission targeting Los Angeles. Gouled Hassan Dourad (Somali). He allegedly scouted a US military base in Djibouti for a planned terrorist attack. The fourteen are expected to go on trial in 2007. [Knight Ridder, 9/6/2006; Central Intelligence Agency, 9/6/2006; USA Today, 9/7/2006]
Entity Tags: Majid Khan, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Mohamad Farik Amin, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Hambali, Gouled Hassan Dourad, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, Khallad bin Attash, Abu Zubaida, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Central Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline
Abu Zubaida circa 2008. [Source: Defense Department.]In a speech defending the US treatment of high-level al-Qaeda prisoners, President Bush apparently makes some false claims about how valuable the intelligence from some prisoners was. He says that Abu Zubaida, who was captured in March 2002 (see March 28, 2002), revealed that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) used the alias 'Mukhtar.' "This was a vital piece of intelligence that helped our intelligence community pursue KSM." However, the 9/11 Commission's final report published in 2004 revealed that the fact that KSM had that alias was known to US intelligence before 9/11 (see August 28, 2001). Bush also claims that Zubaida's interrogation identified Ramzi bin al-Shibh as an accomplice in the 9/11 attacks. [New York Times, 9/8/2006] However, this was known months before Zubaida's capture, and reported in the US press as early as September 2001. A CBS News report from that time said bin al-Shibh was "believed to have provided logistics backup for the hijackers." [CBS News, 9/29/2001] Bush also describes the interrogation techniques used on the prisoners as "safe, lawful and effective," and he claims torture was not used. However, the New York Times notes that "the Bush administration has yet to make public the legal papers prepared by government lawyers that served as the basis for its determination that those procedures did not violate American or international law." [New York Times, 9/8/2006] Both the New York Times and Washington Post publish prominent stories pointing out the factual errors in Bush's statements, but this does not become a big political issue. [Washington Post, 9/7/2006; New York Times, 9/8/2006] Bush repeatedly exaggerated the importance of Zubaida in the months after his capture as well (see Shortly After March 28, 2002).
Entity Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaida, George W. Bush, Ramzi bin al-Shibh
Shortly after 14 high-ranking al-Qaeda prisoners are transferred from secret CIA prisons to the US-controlled Guantanamo prison in Cuba (see September 2-3, 2006), the International Committee of the Red Cross is finally allowed to interview them. The prisoners include 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Hambali, and Abu Zubaida. The Red Cross has a policy of not publicizing or commenting its findings. However, some US officials are shown the report on the interviews with these prisoners and apparently some of these officials leak information to the New Yorker about one year later. The New Yorker will report, "Congressional and other Washington sources familiar with the report said that it harshly criticized the CIA's practices. One of the sources said that the Red Cross described the agency's detention and interrogation methods as tantamount to torture, and declared that American officials responsible for the abusive treatment could have committed serious crimes. The source said the report warned that these officials may have committed 'grave breaches' of the Geneva Conventions, and may have violated the US Torture Act, which Congress passed in 1994. The conclusions of the Red Cross, which is known for its credibility and caution, could have potentially devastating legal ramifications." [New Yorker, 8/6/2007]
Entity Tags: Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Khallad bin Attash, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Abu Zubaida, Mohamad Farik Amin, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Central Intelligence Agency, Majid Khan, International Committee of the Red Cross, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, Hambali, Gouled Hassan Dourad
A bipartisan Senate report finds that no credible evidence of any links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government ever existed, despite repeated and insistent claims by the White House and its allies (see Early 1995), March-June 1998, (2:40 p.m.) September 11, 2001, Shortly After September 11, 2001, September 18, 2001, September 19, 2001, September 21, 2001, October 27, 2001, 2002, February 6, 2002, March 22, 2002, July 25, 2002, September 12, 2002, September 15, 2002, September 25, 2002, October 1, 2002, October 2, 2002, October 7, 2002, October 7, 2002, December 2, 2002, Mid-January 2003, January 26, 2003, January 28, 2003, January 28, 2003, February 1, 2003-February 4, 2003, February 5, 2003, February 5, 2003, February 6, 2003, February 8, 2003, February 9, 2003, February 11 or 12, 2003, February 16, 2003, March 9, 2003, March 17, 2003, March 17-18, 2003, Shortly After April 9, 2003, July 9, 2003, September 7, 2003, September 14, 2003-September 17, 2003, September 28, 2003, December 17, 2003, January 8, 2004, January 9, 2004, Early June 2004, June 14, 2004, June 15, 2004, June 15, 2004, October 4, 2004, May 2005, October 2005, (2006), January 31, 2006, March 29, 2006, and September 10, 2006). Panel Democrats say that the White House knew the intelligence surrounding its claims of such links was flawed and unreliable. Tenet Admitted to Giving in to Pressure - They note that in July former CIA Director George Tenet told the panel that the White House pressured him to support its arguments and that he agreed despite the findings of his own analysts. "Tenet admitted to the Intelligence Committee that the policymakers wanted him to 'say something about not being inconsistent with what the president had said,'" says Intelligence Committee member Carl Levin (D-MI). Such compliance was, in hindsight, "the wrong thing to do," Tenet added, according to Levin. "Well, it was much more than that," Levin says. "It was a shocking abdication of a CIA director's duty not to act as a shill for any administration or its policy." Tenet also admitted that he erred in issuing a statement after President Bush's October 7, 2002 speech saying that Bush's claims were consistent with CIA findings (see October 7, 2002). Republicans Say Report Just 'Election-Year Politicking' - Republican committee members insist that there is little new information about prewar intelligence or claims about Iraq's links to terrorism. Ranking committee member Pat Roberts (R-KS) accuses Levin and other Democrats of trying to "use the committee… insisting that they were deliberately duped into supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.… That is simply not true, and I believe the American people are smart enough to recognize election-year politicking when they see it." Democrats retort that the report speaks for itself. Impeachment Not Warranted - However, committee Democrats such as John Rockefeller (D-WV) say that the report does not prove any criminal behavior from Bush or his top officials, and say that impeachment of Bush or anyone else is not warranted. Hussein Opposed to US Policies - An FBI summary quoted in the report shows Hussein acknowledging that his government had met with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but denying any collusion. Hussein said he opposed only US policies, and added that "if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the US, he would have allied with North Korea or China," according to the FBI summary. Other Portions of Report - Other sections of the report find that no evidence existed to support claims that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program (see February 7, 2001, February 12, 2001, November 14, 2001, May 2002-September 2002, September 9, 2002, January 9, 2003, March 8, 2003, May 25, 2003, and May 30, 2003), had possessed biological weapons in 2003 (see 2002, 2002-March 2003, Mid-January 2002, March 22, 2002, August 2002, September 2002, September 24, 2002, December 2002, End of December 2002, January 9, 2003, and March 7, 2003), used the Salman Pak facility to train Islamist terrorists (see September 8, 2006), or that Iraqi officials met with 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in the months before the 9/11 attacks (see September 8-10, 2006). The report also finds that the White House relied heavily on false intelligence from Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (see After August 2, 1989, (1994), January 1996, November 6-8, 2001, Between February 12, 2002 and March 31, 2002, Between February 12, 2002 and March 31, 2002, Summer 2002, and June 26, 2002). [Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/8/2006 ; Associated Press, 9/9/2006]
Entity Tags: Iraqi National Congress, Bush administration (43), Ahmed Chalabi, Carl Levin, George J. Tenet, Saddam Hussein, Central Intelligence Agency, Osama bin Laden, Pat Roberts, Senate Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller, Mohamed Atta
Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation
Two simultaneous suicide attacks on oil and gas installations in Yemen fail. The Safer refinery in Marib and the al-Dhabba terminal in Hadramout are attacked by four suicide bombers with car bombs, but Yemeni security forces blow the cars up just before they reach their targets. The four suicide bombers and one security guard are killed. The attacks come just a few days after al-Qaeda number two leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called for attacks on oil facilities in the Persian Gulf region. A Yemeni court later sentences 32 men to between two and 15 years in jail for their roles in the attacks. Three of them are alleged al-Qaeda operatives tried in absentia who escaped from prison earlier in 2006 (see February 3, 2006). [BBC, 11/7/2007] Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam for several of the 9/11 hijackers while they lived in the US, was arrested in Yemen earlier in the month (see Early September 2006-December 2007). He allegedly also has a role preparing for the foiled attacks. [Australian, 11/3/2006; Australian, 11/4/2006] The attempted attacks also come just days before Yemen's presidential elections. Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh, in power since 1978, quickly uses the attacks to criticize his opponent, because one of the opponents' guards was accused of being involved. The guard is later acquitted. Saleh wins reelection. [New York Times, 3/1/2008] In 2008, one anonymous senior Yemeni official will tell the Washington Post that some important al-Qaeda members have had a long relationship with Yemen's intelligence agencies and have targeted political opponents in the past. [Washington Post, 5/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Anwar al-Awlaki, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda, Ali Abdallah Saleh
Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks, Complete 911 Timeline
The 9/11 Commission interviewed presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in 2004 (see April 29, 2004) but the details of what was revealed in these interviews were not included in the commission's final report (with one exception, see August 6, 2001). On this day, former 9/11 Commission Richard Ben-Veniste says, "I had hoped that we had—we would have made both the Clinton interview and the Bush interview a part of our report, but that was not to be. I was outvoted on that question.… I didn't have the votes.… I think the question was that there was a degree of confidentiality associated with that and that we would take from that the output that is reflected in the report, but go no further. And that until some five years' time after our work, we would keep that confidential. I thought we would be better to make all of the information that we had available to the public and make our report as transparent as possible so that the American public could have that." [CNN, 9/25/2006]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Richard Ben-Veniste, 9/11 Commission, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton
Original cover to Woodward's 'State of Denial.' [Source: Barnes and Noble]Journalist Bob Woodward's new book State of Denial is released. While the book focuses mainly on politics regarding the Iraq war, it also describes an urgent warning that then-CIA Director George Tenet gave to Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser at the time, and other White House officials on July 10, 2001 (see July 10, 2001). [New York Times, 9/29/2006; New York Daily News, 9/29/2006; Washington Post, 10/1/2006] This warning had been mentioned in passing in a 2002 Time magazine article, but it had escaped widespread attention until Woodward's book. [Time, 8/4/2002] The meeting is particularly controversial because neither the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry nor the 9/11 Commission mentioned in it in their final reports. The 9/11 Commission had learned about it from Tenet in early 2004 (see January 28, 2004). Rice and a number of 9/11 Commissioners deny knowing about the July meeting for several days, until documentation surfaces in the media detailing the meeting and Tenet's testimony to the commission (see October 1-2, 2006 and September 30-October 3, 2006). Details about the July meeting and surrounding controversies are reported on by the mainstream media for about a week, but there are no articles on it in any prominent newspaper after October 3, 2006. On October 5, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) formally asks Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for hearings about the revelations in Woodward's book, including controversies surrounding the July meeting. Kerry says in a letter to Lugar, "It is necessary to understand the mistakes of the past in order to ensure they are not repeated, and having testimony from the parties under oath will help to sharpen recollections and clarify the exact nature of this important meeting." However, no hearings take place. [Kerry, 10/5/2006]
Entity Tags: Bob Woodward, Condoleezza Rice, Bob Kerry, 9/11 Commission
In late September 2006, a new book by Bob Woodward reveals that CIA Director Tenet and CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black gave National Security Adviser Rice their most urgent warning about a likely upcoming al-Qaeda attack (see July 10, 2001 and September 29, 2006). Tenet detailed this meeting to the 9/11 Commission in early 2004 (see January 28, 2004), but it was not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission's final report later that year. According to the Washington Post, "Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork on the meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn't want to know about." [Washington Post, 10/1/2006] The 9/11 Commissioners initially vigorously deny that they were not told about the meeting. For instance, 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick says she checked with commission staff who told her they were never told about a meeting on that date. She says, "We didn't know about the meeting itself. I can assure you it would have been in our report if we had known to ask about it." [Washington Post, 9/30/2006] Commissioner Tim Roemer says, "None of this was shared with us in hours of private interviews, including interviews under oath, nor do we have any paper on this. I'm deeply disturbed by this. I'm furious." Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste says the meeting "was never mentioned to us." Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, says the commissioners and their staff had heard nothing in their private interviews with Tenet and Black to suggest that they made such a dire presentation to Rice. "If we had heard something that drew our attention to this meeting, it would have been a huge thing." [New York Times, 10/2/2006] However, on October 3, 2006, a transcript of Tenet's private testimony to the 9/11 Commission is leaked to reporters and clearly shows that Tenet did warn Rice of an imminent al-Qaeda threat on July 10, 2001. Ben-Veniste, who attended the meeting along with Zelikow and other staff members, now confirms the meeting did take place and claims to recall details of it, even though he, Zelikow, and other 9/11 Commissioners had denied the existence of the meeting as recently as the day before. In the transcript, Tenet says "the system was blinking red" at the time. This statement becomes a chapter title in the 9/11 Commission's final report but the report, which normally has detailed footnotes, does not make it clear when Tenet said it. [Washington Post, 10/3/2006] Zelikow had close ties to Rice before joining the 9/11 Commission, having co-written a book with her (see March 21, 2004), and became one of her key aides after the commission disbanded (see February 28, 2005). Zelikow does not respond to requests for comments after Tenet's transcript surfaces. [McClatchy Newspapers, 10/2/2006; Washington Post, 10/3/2006]
Entity Tags: Richard Ben-Veniste, Tim Roemer, Jamie Gorelick, George J. Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, Cofer Black
Secretary of State Rice says that she does not recall the meeting on July 10, 2001, when CIA Director Tenet and other officials briefed her about the al-Qaeda threat (see July 10, 2001). "What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible." [Associated Press, 10/2/2006] Rice says she has no recollection of what she variously calls "the supposed meeting" and "the emergency so-called meeting." [Editor & Publisher, 10/1/2006; McClatchy Newspapers, 10/2/2006] The Washington Post comments that "Rice added to the confusion… by strongly suggesting that the meeting may never have occurred at all—even though administration officials had conceded for several days that it had." Hours after Rice's latest denial, the State Department confirms that documents show Rice did attend such a meeting on that date. However, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack then says, "The briefing was a summary of the threat reporting from the previous weeks. There was nothing new." The Washington Post notes that when it was pointed out to McCormack that Rice asked for the briefing to be shown to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General Ashcroft (see July 11-17, 2001), "McCormack was unable to explain why Rice felt the briefing should be repeated if it did not include new material." [Washington Post, 10/3/2006]
Entity Tags: John Ashcroft, Sean McCormack, Condoleezza Rice, US Department of State, Al-Qaeda, George J. Tenet, Donald Rumsfeld
In two separate sessions, from October 6-11 and again from December 4-14, officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) interview 14 detainees newly transferred from a variety of CIA secret "black sites" to Guantanamo. The transfers followed President Bush's acknowledgment that the CIA has maintained a number of these sites and his announced intention to have a number of the detainees sent to the Cuban facility (see September 17, 2001 and September 6, 2006). ICRC Access - The ICRC is legally bound to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions and to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war; previously, it had not been allowed to see the detainees, and in some cases were never informed of their detention. The ICRC officials interview each prisoner in private, with the intention of producing "a description of the treatment and material conditions of detention of the 14 during the period they were held in the CIA detention program." Interviews - The 14 have been held for periods ranging "from 16 months to almost four and a half years." The ICRC's report, never intended for public consumption, will be released to the CIA several months later (see February 14, 2007) and revealed in a book in early 2009 (see March 15, 2009). Some of the detainees, concerned about the possible repercussions that may ensue from their discussions, ask the ICRC to withhold their names from some allegations, though most of the report attributes specific narratives and allegations to particular prisoners. Almost every allegation is independently corroborated by other, named detainees. 'Striking Similarity' - In 2009, author Mark Danner will write, quoting the ICRC report: "[I]ndeed, since the detainees were kept 'in continuous solitary confinement and incommunicado detention' throughout their time in 'the black sites,' and were kept strictly separated as well when they reached Guantanamo, the striking similarity in their stories, even down to small details, would seem to make fabrication extremely unlikely, if not impossible. 'The ICRC wishes to underscore,' as the writers tell us in the introduction, 'that the consistency of the detailed allegations provided separately by each of the 14 adds particular weight to the information provided below.'" Topics of Report - The report covers the following areas: Main elements of the CIA detention program; Arrest and transfer; Continuous solitary confinement and incommunicado detention; Other methods of ill-treatment; Suffocation by water (the ICRC term for waterboarding); Prolonged stress standing; Beatings by use of a collar; Beating and kicking; Confinement in a box; Prolonged nudity; Sleep deprivation and use of loud music; Exposure to cold temperature/cold water; Prolonged use of handcuffs and shackles; Threats; Forced shaving; Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food; Further elements of the detention regime. Conclusion - The report concludes: "The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment." Danner will write, "Such unflinching clarity, from the body legally charged with overseeing compliance with the Geneva Conventions—in which the terms 'torture' and 'cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment' are accorded a strictly defined legal meaning—couldn't be more significant." [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009]
Entity Tags: International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva Conventions, Central Intelligence Agency, Mark Danner
President Bush signs the Military Commissions Act into law. [Source: White House]President Bush signs the Military Commissions Act (MCA) into law. [White House, 10/17/2006] The MCA is designed to give the president the authority to order "enemy detainees" tried by military commissions largely outside the scope of US civil and criminal procedures. The bill was requested by the Bush administration after the Supreme Court's ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (see June 28, 2004) that the US could not hold prisoners indefinitely without access to the US judicial system, and that the administration's proposal that they be tried by military tribunals was unconstitutional (see June 28, 2004). [FindLaw, 10/9/2006] It is widely reported that the MCA does not directly apply to US citizens, but to only non-citizens defined as "enemy combatants. [CBS News, 10/19/2006] However, six months later, a Bush administration lawyer will confirm that the administration believes the law does indeed apply to US citizens (see February 1, 2007). Sweeping New Executive Powers - The MCA virtually eliminates the possibility that the Supreme Court can ever again act as a check on a president's power in the war on terrorism. Similarly, the law gives Congressional approval to many of the executive powers previously, and unilaterally, seized by the Bush administration. Former Justice Department official John Yoo celebrates the MCA, writing, "Congress… told the courts, in effect, to get out of the war on terror" (see October 19, 2006). [Savage, 2007, pp. 319, 322] 'Abandoning' Core 'Principles' - The bill passed the Senate on a 65-34 vote, and the House by a 250-170 vote. The floor debate was often impassioned and highly partisan; House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called Democrats who opposed the bill "dangerous," and Senate Judiciary Committee member Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said this bill showed that the US is losing its "moral compass." Leahy asked during the debate, "Why would we allow the terrorists to win by doing to ourselves what they could never do, and abandon the principles for which so many Americans today and through our history have fought and sacrificed?" Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) had said he would vote against it because it is "patently unconstitutional on its face," but then voted for it, saying he believes the courts will eventually "clean it up." Specter's attempt to amend the bill to provide habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants was defeated, as were four Democratic amendments. Republicans have openly used the debate over the MCA as election-year fodder, with House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) saying after the vote that "House Democrats have voted to protect the rights of terrorists," and Boehner decrying "the Democrats' irrational opposition to strong national security policies." Democrats such as Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) say they will not fight back at such a level. "There will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be called everything from cut-and-run quitters to Defeatocrats, to people who care more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans," Obama says. "While I know all of this, I'm still disappointed, and I'm still ashamed, because what we're doing here today—a debate over the fundamental human rights of the accused—should be bigger than politics." [Washington Post, 10/19/2006] After winning the vote, Hastert accused Democrats who opposed the bill of "putting their liberal agenda ahead of the security of America." Hastert said the Democrats "would gingerly pamper the terrorists who plan to destroy innocent Americans' lives" and create "new rights for terrorists." [New York Times, 10/19/2006] Enemy Combatants - The MCA applies only to "enemy combatants." Specifically, the law defines an "unlawful enemy combatant" as a person "who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents," and who is not a lawful combatant. Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch says the definition far exceeds the traditionally accepted definition of combatant as someone who directly participates in hostilities. But under the MCA, someone who provides "material support" for terrorists—whether that be in the form of financial contributions or sweeping the floors at a terrorist camp—can be so defined. Worse, the label can be applied without recourse by either Bush or the secretary of defense, after a "competent tribunal" makes the determination. The MCA provides no guidelines as to what criteria these tribunals should use. Taken literally, the MCA gives virtually unrestricted power to the tribunals to apply the label as requested by the president or the secretary. Mariner believes the definition is both "blatantly unconstitutional" and a direct contradiction of centuries of Supreme Court decisions that define basic judicial rights. [FindLaw, 10/9/2006] Under this definition, the president can imprison, without charge or trial, any US citizen accused of donating money to a Middle East charity that the government believes is linked to terrorist activity. Citizens associated with "fringe" groups such as the left-wing Black Panthers or right-wing militias can be incarcerated without trial or charge. Citizens accused of helping domestic terrorists can be so imprisoned. Law professor Bruce Ackerman calls the MCA "a massive Congressional expansion of the class of enemy combatants," and warns that the law may "haunt all of us on the morning after the next terrorist attack" by enabling a round of mass detentions similar to the roundup of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. [Savage, 2007, pp. 322] Military Commissions - The MCA mandates that enemy combatants are to be tried by military commissions, labeled "regularly constituted courts that afford all the necessary 'judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples' for purposes of common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions." The commissions must have a minimum of five commissioned military officers and a military judge; if death is a possible penalty, the commissions must have at least 12 officers. The defendant's guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt; convictions require a two-thirds vote. Sentences of beyond 10 years require a three-quarters vote, and death penalties must be unanimously voted for. Defendants may either represent themselves or by military or civilian counsel. The court procedures themselves, although based on standard courts-martial proceedings, are fluid, and can be set or changed as the secretary of defense sees fit. Statements obtained through methods defined as torture are inadmissible, but statements take by coercion and "cruel treatment" can be admitted. The MCA sets the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA—see December 15, 2005) as a benchmark—statements obtained before the December 30, 2005 enactment of that law can be used, even if the defendant was "coerced," if a judge finds the statement "reasonable and possessing sufficient probative value." Statements after that date must have been taken during interrogations that fall under the DTA guidelines. Defendants have the right to examine and respond to evidence seen by the commission, a provision originally opposed by the administration. However, if the evidence is classified, an unclassified summary of that material is acceptable, and classified exculpatory evidence can be denied in lieu of what the MCA calls "acceptable substitutes." Hearsay evidence is admissible, as is evidence obtained without search warrants. Generally, defendants will not be allowed to inquire into the classified "sources, methods, or activities" surrounding evidence against them. Some human rights activists worry that evidence obtained through torture can be admitted, and the fact that it was obtained by torture, if that detail is classified, will not be presented to the court or preclude the evidence from being used. Public access to the commissions will be quite limited. Many experts claim these commissions are illegal both by US constitutional law and international law. [FindLaw, 10/9/2006] Secret Courts - The military tribunals can be partially or completely closed to public scrutiny if the presiding judge deems such an action necessary to national security. The government can convey such concerns to the judge without the knowledge of the defense. The judge can exclude the accused from the trial if he deems it necessary for safety or if he decides the defendant is "disruptive." Evidence can be presented in secret, without the knowledge of the defense and without giving the defense a chance to examine that evidence, if the judge finds that evidence "reliable." And during the trial, the prosecution can at any time assert a "national security privilege" that would stop "the examination of any witness" if that witness shows signs of discussing sensitive security matters. This provision can easily be used to exclude any potential defense witness who might "breach national security" with their testimony. Author and investigative reporter Robert Parry writes, "In effect, what the new law appears to do is to create a parallel 'star chamber' system for the prosecution, imprisonment, and elimination of enemies of the state, whether those enemies are foreign or domestic." [Consortium News, 10/19/2006] Appeals - Guilty verdicts are automatically appealed to a Court of Military Commission Review, consisting of three appellate military justices. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has extremely limited authority of review of the commissions; even its authority to judge whether a decision is consistent with the Constitution is limited "to the extent [that the Constitution is] applicable." Types of Crimes - Twenty-eight specific crimes fall under the rubric of the military commissions, including conspiracy (not a traditional war crime), murder of protected persons, murder in violation of the bill of war, hostage-taking, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, mutilation or maiming, rape, sexual abuse or assault, hijacking, terrorism, providing material support for terrorism, and spying. [FindLaw, 10/9/2006] CIA Abuses - The MCA, responding to the recent Supreme Court decision of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (see June 30, 2006) that found the CIA's secret detention program and abusive interrogation practices illegal, redefines and amends the law to make all but the most pernicious interrogation practices, even those defined as torture by the War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions, legal. The MCA actually rules that the Geneva Conventions are all but unenforceable in US courts. It also provides retroactive protection under the law to all actions as far back as November 1997. Under the MCA, practices such as waterboarding, stress positioning, and sleep deprivation cannot be construed as torture. [FindLaw, 10/9/2006] The MCA even states that rape as part of interrogations cannot be construed as torture unless the intent of the rapist to torture his victim can be proven, a standard rejected by international law. The MCA provides such a narrow definition of coercion and sexual abuse that most of the crimes perpetrated at Abu Ghraib are now legal. [Jurist, 10/4/2006] Although the MCA seems to cover detainee abuse for all US agencies, including the CIA, Bush says during the signing of the bill, "This bill will allow the Central Intelligence Agency to continue its program for questioning key terrorist leaders and operatives." International law expert Scott Horton will note, "The administration wanted these prohibitions on the military and not on the CIA, but it did not work out that way." Apparently Bush intends to construe the law to exempt the CIA from its restrictions, such as they are, on torture and abuse of prisoners. [Salon, 5/22/2007] No Habeas Corpus Rights - Under the MCA, enemy combatants no longer have the right to file suit under the habeas corpus provision of US law. This means that they cannot challenge the legality of their detention, or raise claims of torture and mistreatment. Even detainees who have been released can never file suit to seek redress for their treatment while in US captivity. [FindLaw, 10/25/2006] Retroactive Immunity - The administration added a provision to the MCA that rewrote the War Crimes Act retroactively to November 26, 1997, making any offenses considered war crimes before the MCA is adopted no longer punishable under US law. Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean will write in 2007 that the only reason he can fathom for the change is to protect administration officials—perhaps including President Bush himself—from any future prosecutions as war criminals. Dean will note that if the administration actually believes in the inherent and indisputable powers of the presidency, as it has long averred, then it would not worry about any such criminal liability. [Dean, 2007, pp. 239-240]
Entity Tags: Human Rights Watch, Joanne Mariner, US Supreme Court, Patrick J. Leahy, Military Commissions Act, John Dean, George W. Bush, Scott Horton, Geneva Conventions, Bruce Ackerman, Dennis Hastert, American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Detainee Treatment Act, Arlen Specter, War Crimes Act, Barack Obama, Central Intelligence Agency, Bush administration (43), John Boehner
In an interview with WDAY's Scott Heinen, Vice President Dick Cheney says it was a "no-brainer for me" to authorize waterboarding of suspected terrorists (see April 2002 and After and Summer 2003). Cheney says that since waterboarding and other brutal methods are not torture, as he defines the term (see Mid-March 2002), the entire issue is not really an issue. "We don't torture," he says. "That's not what we're involved in. We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to, and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that." [Savage, 2007, pp. 154-155; Financial Times, 10/26/2008] After Cheney's statement causes a welter of criticism among lawmakers and media figures, the White House says Cheney was not talking about waterboarding, and insists that the US does not torture. Cheney calls reporters to bolster the denial. "I did not talk about specific techniques and won't," he says. "I didn't say anything about waterboarding.… He [Heinen] didn't even use that phrase." Human Rights Watch says Cheney's remarks are "the Bush administration's first clear endorsement" of waterboarding. [Associated Press, 10/28/2006]
Entity Tags: Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Bush administration (43), Scott Heinen, Human Rights Watch
Vice President Cheney linked the NSA's warrantless surveillance program to the case of 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. [Source: White House]Vice President Dick Cheney justifies an NSA program for warrantless surveillance of conversations between the US and other countries by referring to communications between 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi in the US and an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen (see Early 2000-Summer 2001). The calls were intercepted by the NSA, but this did not help the US roll up the plot. Echoing remarks previously made by President Bush (see December 17, 2005), Cheney says: "If you'll recall, the 9/11 Commission focused criticism on the nation's inability to uncover links between terrorists at home and terrorists overseas [note: the 9/11 Commission's final report does not actually say this (see December 17, 2005)]. The term that was used is 'connecting the dots'—and the fact is that one small piece of data might very well make it possible to save thousands of lives. If this program had been in place before 9/11, we might have been able to prevent it because we had two terrorists living in San Diego, contacting terrorist-related numbers overseas." [Office of the Vice President, 8/25/2006] Before 9/11, the NSA was entitled to pass on information about the calls to the FBI, but did not do so, even though the FBI had specifically asked for information about calls between the communications hub in Yemen and the US (see Late 1998 and (Spring 2000)). Various explanations for this failure are offered after 9/11 (see Summer 2002-Summer 2004 and March 15, 2004 and After).
Entity Tags: National Security Agency, Richard ("Dick") Cheney
MSNBC reports that Mohammed al-Khatani, the alleged would-be twentieth 9/11 hijacker, will likely never be put on trial. A US army investigation concluded that he "was forced to wear a bra. He had a thong placed on his head. He was massaged by a female interrogator who straddled him like a lap dancer. He was told that his mother and sisters were whores. He was told that other detainees knew he was gay. He was forced to dance with a male interrogator. He was strip-searched in front of women. He was led on a leash and forced to perform dog tricks. He was doused with water. He was prevented from praying. He was forced to watch as an interrogator squatted over his Koran." Mark Fallon, head of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, claims that he was told by other officials several times not to worry building a legal case against al-Khatani since there would never be a trial against him due to the interrogation techniques used on him. [MSNBC, 10/26/2006] According to al-Khatani's lawyer, al-Khatani appears to be a broken man, who "painfully described how he could not endure the months of isolation, torture and abuse, during which he was nearly killed, before making false statements to please his interrogators." [Time, 3/3/2006]
Entity Tags: Mohamed al-Khatani
After learning that a new book published by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (see September 25, 2006) says that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) either killed American reporter Daniel Pearl or played a leading role in the murder (see January 31, 2002), the lawyer for Saeed Sheikh, one of the kidnappers, says he plans to use the book in an appeal. Sheikh was found guilty of the kidnapping (see April 5, 2002), but the lawyer, Rai Bashir, says, "I'm going to submit an application that [Musharraf's] book be used as a piece of evidence. The head of state has exonerated [Sheikh and his accomplices]." [Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/2006] Bashir will also make similar comments after KSM says that he carried out the murder in early 2007 (see March 10, 2007): "In the next court hearing, I am going to submit the recent statement by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in which he said he himself beheaded the US journalist… From day one, my contention was that the evidence presented in court was not strong enough to lead to the conviction of my client." [Guardian, 3/19/2007] Sheikh was convicted in July 2002 (see July 15, 2002). As of late July 2005, the appeal proceedings had been adjourned thirty-two times. [International Herald Tribune, 7/29/2005] As of 2007, his appeal process is still in limbo.
Entity Tags: Pervez Musharraf, Rai Bashir, Saeed Sheikh
A British high court approves the extradition of Haroon Rashid Aswat to the US. Many media accounts have described Aswat as the mastermind of the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005 and Late June-July 7, 2005). However, British authorities appear to be ignoring his possible connection to the 7/7 bombings and are allowing him to be extradited to the US on unrelated charges of helping to create a militant training camp in Oregon (see November 1999-Early 2000). The US has promised that he will not be sent to the prison in Guantanamo or turned over to a third country. [Guardian, 11/30/2006] As of mid-2008, Aswat has yet to be extradited.
Entity Tags: Haroon Rashid Aswat
The Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, and NSA Director Keith Alexander try to get a lawsuit dismissed that alleges the NSA illegally wiretapped a Saudi charitable organization (see February 28, 2006). The organization, the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, is presenting a classified US document as proof of the illegal wiretapping. Invoking 'State Secrets' Privilege - In late 2006, Negroponte and Alexander tell the presiding judge, US District Judge Garr King, that in order to defend itself, the government would have to disclose "state secrets" (see March 9, 1953) that would expose US anti-terrorism efforts. This same argument will be reiterated in July 2007, when government lawyers say, "Whether plaintiffs were subjected to surveillance is a state secret, and information tending to confirm or deny that fact is privileged." The judge will hear arguments for and against dismissing the case on August 15, 2007. [Associated Press, 8/5/2007] Judicial Examination - King, in Portland, Oregon, examined the document for himself, and read classified briefs supplied by the Justice Department. Upon reading the briefs, King met with government lawyers to discuss turning over yet more documents in discovery—a decision unlikely to have been taken had King not believed the evidence did not show that the Al Haramain plaintiffs were, in fact, monitored. And, under FISA, had the surveillance been lawful and court-ordered, King would have been legally constrained to dismiss the lawsuit, since according to that law, plaintiffs can only sue if no warrant was ever issued for the alleged surveillance. "If there was a FISA warrant, the whole case would have crumbled on the first day," says plaintiff attorney Thomas Nelson, "It's pretty obvious from the government's conduct in the case, there was no warrant." 'Inherent Authority' of President - Justice Department lawyers rely on the argument that the president has the inherent authority to order surveillance of suspected terrorists with or without warrants, and that to judge the president's decision would reveal national secrets that would alert terrorists to government anti-terrorist actions, thereby mandating that this and other lawsuits be dismissed. Consolidation of Lawsuits - An August 2006 court ruling ordering that the Al Haramain case be consolidated with 54 other NSA-related lawsuits, under US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, damaged the government's argument that it cannot be sued in court. Walker has presided over the year-old class-action lawsuit brought before his court by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T for the telecom firm's cooperation with the NSA program (see January 31, 2006); Walker ruled in July 2006 that the case would proceed, against government requests that it be thrown out because of national security requirements. Walker ruled that because the government had already admitted to the existence of the program, the state secrets privilege does not apply. (The Justice Department is appealing Walker's decision.) As for Al Haramain, its lawyers want that case to be adjudicated separately, because the court has sufficient evidence to decide on the case without waiting for the appellate court decision. Another lawyer for the plaintiffs, Jon Eisenberg, tells Walker in February 2007, "You need only read the statutes to decide, 'Does the president have the right to do this without a warrant?'" Walker has yet to rule on that request. [Wired News, 3/5/2007]
Entity Tags: Thomas Nelson, Vaughn Walker, National Security Agency, US Department of Justice, Jon Eisenberg, John Negroponte, AT&T, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (Oregon branch), Garr King, Keith Alexander, Electronic Frontier Foundation
On December 24, 2006, Ethiopia invades Somalia with US encouragement, attacking the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an Islamist militant group that rules much of the country. The invasion is triggered because the ICU had encircled the Somali town of Baidoa, the last hold out of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the internationally recognized government of Somalia that actually controls very little of the country. Within days, the Ethiopians conquer the capital of Mogadishu and replace the ICU with the TFG. But Ethiopian troops remain in Somalia, occupying much of the country, and the ICU and other Islamist militant groups are not completely defeated. On January 5, 2007, al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri issues a message urging Somalis to "consume" the "crusader" Ethiopians "as the lions eat their prey." [Time, 11/29/2007] The US had been quietly improving ties with Ethiopia, and had been secretly training Ethiopian forces in counterterrorism techniques for years. The US covertly assists Ethiopia's invasion with spy satellite data and other intelligence. A secret US special forces unit, Task Force 88, launches operations into Somalia from Kenya and Ethiopia. On January 6, two US Air Force AC-130 gunships secretly arrive at a small airport in eastern Ethiopia. The next day, they carry out a strike near a small village close to the Kenyan border, attempting to kill al-Qaeda-linked militants fleeing the country. Eight people are killed, but apparently no important al-Qaeda leaders. [New York Times, 2/23/2007] A second AC-130 strike on January 23 also misses its target. It is unknown how many are killed, but the wreckage of six large trucks is later seen at the spot of the attack. But while the US strikes are unsuccessful, al-Qaeda leader Abu Talha al-Sudani is apparently killed at some point during the fighting between Ethiopian forces and Somali militants. The US will not officially say he is dead, but US officials will unofficially say he is to Time magazine later in the year. Al-Sudani is said to have been living in Somalia since 1993 and involved in al-Qaeda attacks in Kenya in 1998 and 2002. [Washington Post, 1/8/2007; Time, 11/29/2007] By summer 2007, US and Ethiopian officials will claim that the war in Somalia is over. However, the fighting, the occasional US strikes, and the Ethiopian occupation, continue. [Time, 11/29/2007]
Entity Tags: Abu Talha al-Sudani, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Transitional Federal Government (Somalia), US Military, Islamic Courts Union
Jeff Castelli, a former CIA Rome station chief involved in the blown rendition of Islamist extremist Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (see Noon February 17, 2003), is disciplined over the affair. Castelli is reprimanded by the CIA's accountability board and sent to the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. One reason for the domestic posting is that Castelli may have difficulty traveling, as he could be arrested if he entered a European country, as well as some other states. [Congressional Quarterly, 2/15/2008]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Jeff Castelli
Italian authorities investigating the kidnapping of radical imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar) seize half of a villa belonging to Robert Seldon Lady, a CIA substation chief involved in the abduction (see Noon February 17, 2003 and February 22-March 15, 2003). The half of the villa that belongs to Lady (the other half belongs to his wife) is to be held until the end of Lady's trial for the kidnapping (see February 16, 2007). If Lady is convicted, it will be sold to pay for court costs and possibly damages. [Associated Press, 1/26/2007]
Entity Tags: Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, Robert Seldon Lady
Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, brother-in-law and former best friend of Osama bin Laden, is killed in Madagascar. Khalifa's family claims that a large group of armed men broke into his house and killed him as he slept. His computer and laptop is stolen. Khalifa was living in Saudi Arabia but traded precious stones and was staying at a mine that he owns. His family says they do not believe he had been killed by locals. There is considerable evidence Khalifa was involved in funding al-Qaeda-connected plots in the Philippines and Yemen in the 1990s (see December 16, 1994-February 1995, December 16, 1994-May 1995, and 1996-1997 and After). Since that time, Khalifa has steadfastly denied any involvement in terrorism and has criticized bin Laden. CNN reporter Nic Robertson asks, "Was he killed by bin Laden's associates for speaking out against the al-Qaeda leader or, equally feasibly, by an international intelligence agency settling an old score?" Just one week earlier, a Philippine newspaper published a posthumous 2006 interview with Khaddafy Janjalani, former leader of Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim militant group in the southern Philippines. In the interview, Janjalani claimed Abu Sayyaf received $122,000 from Khalifa and bomber Ramzi Yousef in the mid-1990s (see Early 1991). [CNN, 1/31/2007; Reuters, 2/1/2007] And four days before his murder, Interpol put out a bulletin about him, notifying a number of US intelligence agencies (see January 26, 2007). [Guardian, 3/2/2007] His murderers have not been found or charged.
Entity Tags: Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Abu Sayyaf, Osama bin Laden, Khaddafy Janjalani
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar) is released in Egypt. He was kidnapped by the CIA in Milan, Italy, in 2003 and taken to Egypt, where he was imprisoned. This sparked a confrontation between the CIA and Italian anti-terrorist authorities, who had been investigating him before he was kidnapped (see Noon February 17, 2003). Nasr, who filed an action for unlawful detention against Egypt's Interior Ministry, is released in Alexandria after a State Security Court declares his detention "unfounded." Nasr will apparently remain in Egypt and not return to Italy, where a warrant for his arrest was issued on terrorism counts (see April 2005). [Associated Press, 2/12/2007]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr
The International Committee of the Red Cross sends its report on the detention and torture of 14 detainees formerly in CIA custody (see October 6 - December 14, 2006) to the CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo. The report is never intended to be made public, but it is documented in an article and subsequent book by Mark Danner (see March 15, 2009). [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Mark Danner, John Rizzo, International Committee of the Red Cross
An Italian judge rules that there is enough evidence to try thirty-five people in the affair of kidnapped imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar). Nasr was kidnapped by the CIA, with the knowledge of the Italian military intelligence service Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare (SISMI), in Milan in 2003 (see Noon February 17, 2003). Nasr, a former CIA asset (see August 27, 1995 and Shortly After), was then taken to Egypt, where he says he was tortured (see April-May 2004). The 26 Americans that are indicted can be tried in absentia in Italy and include Robert Seldon Lady, former chief of the CIA's substation in Milan, the former CIA station chief in Rome, and an officer from the US air base in Aviano, near Venice. The nine Italians include former SISMI head Nicolo Pollari, but three of them are only charged with complicity in the kidnapping, not the kidnapping itself. However, none of the Americans are in Italy at this time, and Italy has not asked for them to be extradited. [Associated Press, 1/26/2007; CNN, 2/16/2007]
Entity Tags: Nicolo Pollari, Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Seldon Lady, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, SISMI
Robert Seldon Lady, a CIA officer involved in the rendition from Italy to Egypt of Islamist extremist Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar—see Noon February 17, 2003), grants an interview to GQ magazine. In addition to discussing the rendition and the surveillance of Nasr that preceded it, Lady comments on his life afterwards, saying he feels he is constantly watched and that his wife has left him because of the stress following his outing as a covert operative. Furthermore, his home in Italy will probably be confiscated if he is convicted in legal proceedings against the kidnappers in Italy, although he is still making mortgage payments of $4,000 a month on it. "I'll probably be convicted, but I won't go to the trial, and I'll never see Italy again," he says. The CIA apparently told him to "keep quiet and let this blow over," and he has to report to headquarters every month for update meetings. "No one's called me for support. No one has helped. I keep thinking, 'F_ck it, I've got nothing to lose,'" he adds. "Leaders used to protect those below from the top as they went up. It's a way of harnessing the loyalty of those they led. Now they protect the top. They manage down and step on anyone below. What happened to me—and it happened to many good people—is that I worked too hard. I was decent. Even bureaucracies must die." [GQ, 3/2007 ]
Entity Tags: Robert Seldon Lady
High value detainees. Top row, from left: KSM, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Hambali, Khallad bin Attash. Middle row, from left: Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Abu Zubaida. Bottom row, from left: Majid Khan, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, Mohamad Farik Amin, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, and Gouled Hassan Dourad. [Source: FBI (except for AFP for Hambali, New York Times for Abu Zubaida, and Reuters for Majid Khan)]Combat Status Review Tribunal hearings are held for fourteen high-value detainees who have been moved to Guantanamo Bay and are being held there by the US military (see September 2-3, 2006). The purpose of the hearings is to check that the detainees are properly designated as "enemy combatants." Transcripts of the unclassified part of the hearings are released to the media, but no journalists are allowed to attend the hearings, and no photographs of the prisoners are released. However, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) view Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's confession on closed circuit television in Guantanamo Bay (see March 10, 2007). Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) admits to being involved in dozens of terror plots and attempts to morally justify his actions (see March 10, 2007), causing a good deal of interest in the media (see March 15-23, 2007 and Shortly After). Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi says he is not an al-Qaeda member. However, he admits receiving military training from al-Qaeda, and helping some of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as knowing Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and KSM (see March 21, 2007). Hambali is accused of being a leader of al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and being involved in several bomb plots in Southeast Asia. He submits a wide-ranging written statement and denies all involvement in terrorist acts, saying he resigned from JI in 2000. [US department of Defense, 4/4/2007 ] Khallad bin Attash is accused of being involved in the attacks on US embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole. He says that the details of his participation in the attacks, as presented in the evidence, are incorrect, but admits being involved in the attacks. [US department of Defense, 3/12/2007 ] Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (a.k.a. Ammar al-Baluchi) admits sending hijacker Marwan Alshehhi some money, but says he knew nothing of the plot, denies being an "enemy combatant," and says he has provided "vital information" to the US (see March 30, 2007). Ramzi bin al-Shibh refuses to attend the hearing, or talk to his personal representative and translator, so only the summary of unclassified evidence is read out at the hearing. He is accused of knowing three of the hijacker pilots and facilitating the plot, as well as helping Zacarias Moussaoui and being captured at an al-Qaeda safehouse. [US department of Defense, 3/9/2007 ] Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is accused of involvement in the African embassy and USS Cole bombings, but claims that he was tortured into confessing details of plots he invented (see March 10-April 15, 2007). However, he admits knowing Osama bin Laden and several other militants, as well as receiving up to $500,000 from bin Laden and distributing it to associates, some of whom used the money to get married and some of whom used it "to do other stuff." He admits knowing the people involved in the USS Cole attack, such as al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash, who he describes as a "regular guy who was jihadist," and he admits buying the boat used in the attack and some explosives in Yemen using money provided by bin Laden. [US department of Defense, 3/14/2007 ] Abu Zubaida is accused of heading the Khaldan and Darunta training camps in Afghanistan, and admits heading Khaldan, but denies actually being a member of al-Qaeda (see March 27, 2007) and complains of torture (see March 10-April 15, 2007). Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is accused of being involved in the 1998 embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998), for which he was indicted in the US. He admits being present when one of the bomb trucks was purchased and traveling in a scouting vehicle, but not to the embassy; and he admits buying the explosives, but argues another team member "could have gotten it himself, but he sent me to get it and bring it to him." He also says he was told the explosives were for "mining diamonds." He admits working with al-Qaeda, but denies actually being a member. He concludes by saying he "would like to apologize to the United States Government for what I did before… it was without my knowledge what they were doing but I helped them." [US Department of Defense, 3/17/2007 ] Majid Khan, who is alleged to have facilitated travel for extremists and to have planned an attack inside the US, attends the hearing, but says he "would rather have a fair trial… than a tribunal process." He also denies the charges, complains of being tortured in US custody (see March 10-April 15, 2007), and submits favorable testimony from witnesses. For example, one witness claims he was forced to make a false statement saying that Khan wanted to participate in a suicide operation against Pakistani President Musharraf by the FBI, which threatened to transfer him to Guantanamo Bay. Khan also points out that he helped the FBI catch an illegal immigrant and says he will take a lie detector test. [US department of Defense, 4/15/2007 ] Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who was accused of running an al-Qaeda guest house in Afghanistan, running a communications hub, and facilitating travel for militant trainees, elects not to participate in his hearing, as, according to his personal representative, "his freedom is far too important to be decided by an administrative process and [he] is waiting for legal proceedings." [US department of Defense, 3/9/2007 ] Mohamed Farik Amin is accused of being involved with the al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah and of helping finance attacks by it. He attends the hearing, but does not say anything. [US department of Defense, 3/13/2007 ] Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep (a.k.a. Lillie) does not to attend the hearing and is represented by his personal representative. He is accused of facilitating the transfer of funds for attacks in Southeast Asia, being an associate of Hambali, and having suspicious materials in the apartment where he was arrested. He says he has "nothing to do with JI" and that "it is true I facilitated the movement of money for Hambali, but I did not know what it was going to be used for." He also points out, "it is not against the law in Thailand to have an M-16 in your apartment." [US Department of Defense, 3/20/2007 ] Gouled Hassan Dourad is accused of heading an al-Qaeda cell in Djibouti and of participating in operations by Al-Ittihad al-Islami in Somalia, but decides not to attend the hearing. He denies the specific allegations, but acknowledges fighting Ethiopians, which he says is his "right." [US Department of Defense, 4/28/2007]
Entity Tags: Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Gouled Hassan Dourad, Jemaah Islamiyah, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Hambali, Abu Zubaida, Majid Khan, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, Mohamad Farik Amin, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, Khallad bin Attash
A photo of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed allegedly taken during his capture in 2003 (there are controversies about the capture). [Source: FBI]Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) attends his combat status review tribunal at Guantanamo Bay (see March 9-April 28, 2007), where he admits participating in the 9/11 attacks and numerous other plots, and offers a defense of his actions. He claims responsibility or co-responsibility for a list of 31 plots, including: The 1993 World Trade Center bombing (see February 26, 1993); The 9/11 operation: "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z"; The murder of Daniel Pearl (see January 31, 2002): "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl"; The late 2001 shoe bombing operation (see December 22, 2001); The 2002 Bali nightclub bombings (see October 12, 2002); A series of ship-bombing operations (see Mid-1996-September 11, 2001 and June 2001); Failed plots to assassinate several former US presidents; Planned attacks on bridges in New York; Various other failed attacks in the US, UK, Israel, Indonesia, Australia, Japan, Azerbaijan, the Philippines, India, South Korea, and Turkey; The planned destruction of an El-Al flight in Bangkok; The Bojinka plot (see January 6, 1995), and assassination plans for President Clinton (see September 18-November 14, 1994) and the Pope (see September 1998-January 1999); and Planned attacks on the Library Tower in California, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building in New York, and the "Plaza Bank" in Washington State (see October 2001-February 2002). [US Department of Defense, 3/10/2007 ] However, the Plaza Bank was not founded until 2006, three years after KSM was captured. The bank's president comments: "We're confused as to how we got on that list. We've had a little bit of fun with it over here." [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3/15/2007] On the other hand, KSM denies receiving funds from Kuwait or ever heading al-Qaeda's military committee; he says this was a reporting error by Yosri Fouda, who interviewed him in 2002 (see April, June, or August 2002). In addition, he claims he was tortured, his children were abused in detention, and that he lied to his interrogators (see June 16, 2004). He also complains that the tribunal system is unfair and that many people who are not "enemy combatants" are being held in Guantanamo Bay. For example, a team sent by a Sunni government to assassinate bin Laden was captured by the Taliban, then by the US, and is being held in Guantanamo Bay. He says that his membership of al-Qaeda is related to the Bojinka operation, but that even after he became involved with al-Qaeda he continued to work with another organization, which he calls the "Mujaheddin," was based in Pakistan, and for which he says he killed Daniel Pearl. [US Department of Defense, 3/10/2007 ] (Note: KSM's cousin Ramzi Yousef was involved with the militant Pakistani organization Sipah-e-Sahaba.) [Reeve, 1999, pp. 50, 54, 67] Mohammed says he was waterboarded by his interrogators. He is asked: "Were any statements you made as the result of any of the treatment that you received during that time frame from 2003 to 2006? Did you make those statements because of the treatment you receive from these people?" He responds, "CIA peoples. Yes. At the beginning, when they transferred me." [ABC News, 4/11/2008] He goes on to compare radical Islamists fighting to free the Middle East from US influence to George Washington, hero of the American War of Independence, and says the US is oppressing Muslims in the same way the British are alleged by some to have oppressed Americans. Regarding the fatalities on 9/11, he says: "I'm not happy that three thousand been killed in America. I feel sorry even. I don't like to kill children and the kids." Although Islam prohibits killing, KSM argues that there is an exception because "you are killing people in Iraq.… Same language you use, I use.… The language of war is victims." [US Department of Defense, 3/10/2007 ] The hearing is watched from an adjoining room on closed circuit television by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL). [US Congress, 3/10/2007] KSM's confession arouses a great deal of interest in the media, which is skeptical of it (see March 15-23, 2007 and Shortly After).
Entity Tags: Daniel Robert ("Bob") Graham, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Carl Levin
A cartoonist's view of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's confession. [Source: Rob Rodgers / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's (KSM) confession at a Guantanamo Bay hearing (see March 10, 2007), becomes, as Time puts it, "a focus of cable TV and other media coverage, a reminder of America's ongoing battle against international terrorism." [Time, 3/15/2007] However, terrorism analysts are skeptical of some aspects of it. In an article entitled Why KSM's Confession Rings False, former CIA agent Robert Baer says that KSM is "boasting" and "It's also clear he is making things up." Specifically, Baer doubts that KSM murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (see January 31, 2002). Baer notes that this "raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated." Baer also points out he does not address the question of state support for al-Qaeda and that "al-Qaeda also received aid from supporters in Pakistan, quite possibly from sympathizers in the Pakistani intelligence service." [Time, 3/15/2007] Pearl's father also takes the confession of his son's murder "with a spice of doubt." [Hindustan Times, 3/23/2007] Journalist Yosri Fouda, who interviewed KSM in 2002 (see April, June, or August 2002), comments, "he seems to be taking responsibility for some outrages he might not have perpetrated, while keeping quiet about ones that suggest his hand." Specifically, he thinks KSM may have been involved in an attack in Tunisia that killed about 20 people (see April 11, 2002). [London Times, 3/18/2007] KSM is also believed to have been involved in the embassy and USS Cole bombings (see Mid-1996-September 11, 2001), but these are also not mentioned. Terrorism analyst Bruce Riedel also does not take the confession at face value, saying, "He wants to promote his own importance. It's been a problem since he was captured." [Time, 3/15/2007] The Los Angeles Times notes that, according to intelligence officials, "the confession should be taken with a heavy dose of skepticism." A former FBI manager says: "Clearly he is responsible for some of the attacks. But I believe he is taking credit for things he did not have direct involvement in." [Los Angeles Times, 3/16/2007] The Seattle Post-Intelligencer points out that the Plaza Bank, one of the targets KSM says he planned to attack, was actually established in 2006, three years after he was captured. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3/15/2007] Michael Scheuer, formerly head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, notes KSM only says he is "involved" in the plots and that 31 plots in 11 years "can hardly be called excessive." [Hindustan Times, 3/23/2007] Some media are even more skeptical. For example, the Philadelphia Inquirer comments that KSM, "claimed credit for everything but being John Wilkes Booth's handler." [Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/30/2007]
Entity Tags: Yosri Fouda, Judea Pearl, Daniel Pearl, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Michael Scheuer, Robert Baer, Bruce Riedel
Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. The picture is taken from a stamped document prior to 9/11. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division]At his combat status review tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, 9/11 facilitator Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi denies providing a large amount of funds for the plot, although he does admit knowing some of the hijackers and helping them travel to the US. According to the Los Angeles Times, his denial that he provided substantial amounts to the hijackers is surprising because, "US authorities, as well as the Sept. 11 commission that investigated the attacks, have long alleged that al-Hawsawi was a top lieutenant of plot mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed… [and he]… arranged funding and travel for several of the 19 hijackers." Meyer also points out that, "the unclassified summary of evidence read at the hearing did not mention any instances in which he allegedly sent money to them. When specifically asked during the hearing if he had done so, al-Hawsawi said he had not." [Los Angeles Times, 3/30/2007] The unclassified facts supporting his designation as an enemy combatant mostly relate to his receiving money transfers from some of the hijackers just before 9/11 (see September 5-10, 2001), a laptop computer hard-drive containing information about al-Qaeda that is said to be "associated with the detainee," and a nineteen-page address book. He admits returning to Pakistan just before 9/11 on the advice of 9/11 managers Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, meeting Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, receiving military training in an al-Qaeda camp, meeting four of the muscle hijackers (see Early-Late June, 2001), and talking to Mohamed Atta on the phone. However, he says that the information on the hard-drive was copied from other computers and was not put there by him, the address book is not his, he never swore bayat to Bin Laden, and is therefore not an al-Qaeda member. [US department of Defense, 3/21/2007 ] Several other high-value detainees have combat status review tribunals hearings at this time (see March 9-April 28, 2007).
Entity Tags: Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi
At a Guantanamo Bay tribunal to decide his combat status (see March 9-April 28, 2007), militant Islamist logistics manager Abu Zubaida (see March 28, 2002) is accused of heading Khaldan and Darunta training camps in Afghanistan and of co-ordinating their operation with Osama bin Laden, as well as moving money for al-Qaeda, desiring fraudulently-obtained Canadian passports for a terrorist plot, and making diary entries about planned attacks in the US. [US Department of Defense, 3/27/2007 ] Complaints of Torture, Admission of False Confessions - Zubaida complains of being tortured in US custody (see Mid-May 2002 and After and March 10-April 15, 2007). Zubaida's statements about his treatment in US custody will be redacted from the trial transcripts, but a few remarks remain. In broken English, Zubaida states: "I was nearly before half die plus [because] what they do [to] torture me. There I was not afraid from die because I do believe I will be shahid [martyr], but as God make me as a human and I weak, so they say yes, I say okay, I do I do, but leave me. They say no, we don't want to. You to admit you do this, we want you to give us more information… they want what's after more information about more operations, so I can't. They keep torturing me." The tribunal president, a colonel whose name is also redacted, asks, "So I understand that during this treatment, you said things to make them stop and then those statements were actually untrue, is that correct?" Zubaida replies, "Yes." [US Department of Defense, 3/27/2007 ; Vanity Fair, 12/16/2008] Denies Being Al-Qaeda Member or Enemy of US - He goes on to deny that he is an "enemy combatant," saying that the Khaldan training camp, which he admits being logistics manager of, was around since the Soviet-Afghan War and was also used to train Muslims who wanted to fight invaders in Muslim lands, such as Chechnya, Kashmir, the Philippines, and Bosnia, where "America helped us." After he was captured the US administration exaggerated his importance, and some media accounts have suggested his role was greatly exaggerated (see Shortly After March 28, 2002). He denies being an official member of al-Qaeda and says he disagrees with attacks on civilians. However, he admits some of his trainees subsequently decided to join al-Qaeda and that he did not prevent them from doing this. He also denies moving the money and submits a volume of his diary that apparently shows he was in Pakistan when the charges state he went to Saudi Arabia to collect the money. He requests the production of other volumes of his diaries, on which some of the charges are based, but they are not made available to the tribunal. In addition, he denies corresponding with bin Laden before 2000 and details a dispute that arose between them after that time. He says his diary entries about military targets are "strictly hypothetical," and the passports are for non-terrorist travel. Following the US invasion of Afghanistan, he admits he helped non-aligned fighters escape from South Asia. He states that he is an enemy of the US because of its alliance with Israel, which he claims is oppressing his fellow Palestinians, saying, "A partner of a killer is also a killer." [US Department of Defense, 3/27/2007 ]
Entity Tags: Darunta training camp, Abu Zubaida, Al-Qaeda, Khaldan training camp
Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (a.k.a. Ammar al-Baluchi) at Guantanamo in July 2009. [Source: International Committee of the Red Cross]At his Combat Status Review Tribunal hearing in Guantanamo Bay (see March 9-April 28, 2007), 9/11 facilitator Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (a.k.a. Ammar al-Baluchi) denies being an enemy combatant and says he has provided "vital information" to the US. Regarding the allegations against him: He admits sending money to hijacker Marwan Alshehhi in the US, but says it was Alshehhi's money and he regularly moved money for others—he did not know Alshehhi intended to hijack airliners (see June 28-30, 2000); He admits knowing and working for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), his uncle, but says he had no idea KSM was connected to al-Qaeda; He admits leaving Dubai just before 9/11, but says this was due to residence permit problems (see September 9-11, 2001); He also denies various other allegations made against him and says he has never been a member of al-Qaeda, trained in the camps, or met Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Statements by KSM and Ramzi bin al-Shibh saying he was not involved in the operation are also submitted in his defense. In his final statement to the tribunal he says: "Ever since I was turned in to the United States government, about four years ago, the government uses my services by getting information from me about al-Qaeda activities and personnel that I obtained through independent research. The United States has benefited from the vital and important information I supplied by foiling al-Qaeda plans and obtaining information on al-Qaeda personnel… So, is it fair or reasonable that after all the important and vital information I have supplied to the United States government that I be considered an enemy combatant?" [US Department of Defense, 4/12/2007 ] The CIA refuses to comment on Ali's claim he is cooperating. [Los Angeles Times, 4/13/2007]
Entity Tags: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Germany rejects a fresh bid from Spain to extradite Mamoun Darkazanli, a German-Syrian businessman who associated with 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and Ziad Jarrah and is suspected of helping the 9/11 plot (see October 9, 1999 and Spring 2000). Germany had rejected a previous extradition request (see July 18, 2005), but German law had been amended and the Spanish, who had indicted Darkazanli on terrorism charges, tried again. The justice ministry in Hamburg was apparently in favor of extradition, but the move was blocked by the federal justice ministry, which said Germany had already investigated Darkazanli and found no grounds to prosecute him. Apparently, they could not find evidence that he supported the 9/11 plot and being a member of al-Qaeda only became illegal in Germany in 2002, so he cannot be extradited. It appears no action can now be taken against Darkazanli, and a spokesman for the justice department in the city-state of Hamburg says, "We now assume that the Darkazanli case is closed for us." [EUbusiness(.com), 4/30/2007; Agence France-Presse, 4/30/2007]
Entity Tags: Mamoun Darkazanli, Germany
According to former CIA Director George Tenet, he speaks to a "senior CIA officer" with knowledge of pre-9/11 intelligence failures, apparently in preparation for a book he is writing. They discuss the failure to inform the FBI that one of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar, had a US visa (see 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000). The officer tells Tenet: "Once Almihdhar's picture and visa information were received, everyone agreed that the information should immediately be sent to the FBI. Instructions were given to do so. There was a contemporaneous e-mail in CIA staff traffic, which CIA and FBI employees had access to, indicating that the data had in fact been sent to the FBI. Everyone believed it had been done." [Tenet, 2007, pp. 195] The claim that "everyone agreed" the information should be sent to the FBI is false, because two officers, deputy unit chief Tom Wilshire and Michael Anne Casey, specifically instructed two other people working at Alec Station, the CIA's bin Laden unit, not to send it (see 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000 and January 6, 2000). The "contemporaneous e-mail" was then written by Casey, who must have known the claim the information had been passed was incorrect (see Around 7:00 p.m. January 5, 2000). Casey later appears to have lied about this matter to Tenet (see Before October 17, 2002) and the Justice Department's inspector general (see February 2004).
Entity Tags: Michael Anne Casey, Central Intelligence Agency, Alec Station, George J. Tenet
Fahad al-Quso. [Source: New York Times]Fahad al-Quso, implicated in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Yemen in 2004 for his role in that bombing (see April 11, 2003-March 2004). He attended a key 2000 al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia in which the 9/11 plot was discussed (see January 5-8, 2000). The US maintains a $5 million bounty for him. However, around May 2007, al-Quso is secretly freed. Since 2002, the Yemeni government has had a program of "reeducating" al-Qaeda prisoners and then releasing them (see 2002 and After). The US learns of al-Quso's release in February 2008, but takes no known action in response. Al-Quso apparently remains free. [Washington Post, 5/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Fahad al-Quso
Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi. [Source: Public domain]Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and four other organizations file a US federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information about 39 people they believe have "disappeared" while held in US custody. The groups mentions 39 people who were reportedly captured overseas and then held in secret CIA prisons. The US acknowledges detaining three of the 39 but the groups say there is strong evidence, including witness testimony, of secret detention in 18 more cases and some evidence of secret detention in the remaining 18 cases. In September 2006, President Bush acknowledged the CIA had interrogated dozens of suspects at secret CIA prisons and said 14 of those were later sent to Guantanamo Bay (see September 6, 2006). At that time it was announced that there were no prisoners remaining in custody in US secret facilities (see September 2-3, 2006). However, the groups claim that in April 2007 a prisoner named Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was transferred from CIA custody to Guantanamo, demonstrating the system is still operating (see Autumn 2006-Late April 2007). The groups also claim that in September 2002 the US held the two children of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), then aged seven and nine, in an adult detention center. KSM was later captured and is now held at Guantanamo; it is unknown what happened to his children. [Reuters, 6/7/2007] Some of the more important suspects named include: Hassan Ghul, said to be an important al-Qaeda courier. In 2005, ABC News reported he was being held in a secret CIA prison (see November 2005). Apparently, the CIA transferred Ghul to Pakistani custody in 2006 so he would not have to join other prisoners sent to the Guantantamo prison (see (Mid-2006)), and Pakistan released him in 2007, allowing him to rejoin al-Qaeda (see (Mid-2007)). Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader. The same ABC News report also mentioned him. Al-Libi was secretly transferred to Libya around 2006 (see Between November 2005 and September 2006) and will die there in 2009 under mysterious circumstances (see (May 10, 2009)). Mohammed Omar Abdul-Rahman, a son of the Blind Sheikh, Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman. The same ABC News report also mentioned him. He was reportedly captured in Pakistan in 2003 (see February 13, 2003). Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, a.k.a. Abu Bakr al Azdi. He is said to be a candidate 9/11 hijacker who was held back for another operation. In 2004, the 9/11 Commission reported he was in US custody. Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed. Wanted for involvement in the 1998 African embassy bombings, he was reportedly captured in Somalia in March 2003. Witnesses claim to have seen him in two secret US prisons in 2004. Yassir al-Jazeeri. Said to be a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader, he was reportedly captured in Pakistan in March 2003. Witnesses later saw him in a secret CIA prison (see March 15, 2003). Musaad Aruchi, a nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. He was reported captured in Pakistan in June 2004 and then taken into CIA custody (see June 12, 2004). Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan. Wanted for a role in the African embassy bombings, there were various reports he was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and taken into US custody (see July 11, 2002). However, it appears these reports are false, because he will allegedly be killed in Pakistan in 2009 (see January 1, 2009). Anas al-Liby, also wanted for a role in the African embassy bombings. He was reportedly captured in 2002 (see January 20, 2002- March 20, 2002) and it is suspected the US has handed him over to Egypt. [Human Rights Watch, 6/7/2007]
Entity Tags: Pacha Wazir, Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed, Yassir al-Jazeeri, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, Human Rights Watch, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, Amnesty International, Anas al-Liby, Hassan Ghul, Mohammed Omar Abdul-Rahman, Musaad Aruchi
Former Reagan Justice Department official and constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein and former civil liberties lawyer Glenn Greenwald applaud the recent ruling requiring the government to overturn alleged al-Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri's military detention status (see June 11, 2007). Fein writes that the decision "rebuked President Bush's frightening claim that the Constitution crowned him with power to pluck every American citizen from his home for indefinite detention without trial on suspicion of preparing for acts of international terrorism." Other terrorist acts, such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and the 1993 World Trade Center bombings (see February 26, 1993), "were tried and punished in civilian courts," Fein notes, adding that Bush bypassed the USA Patriot Act to classify al-Marri as an enemy combatant, although the Patriot Act "provides a specific method for the government to detain aliens affiliated with terrorist organizations who are believed likely to engage in terrorist activity." Al-Marri was denied that procedure due to his classification as an enemy combatant. [Washington Times, 6/19/2007] Greenwald writes, "How extraordinary it is—how extraordinarily disturbing it is—that we are even debating these issues at all. Although its ultimate resolution is complicated, the question raised by al-Marri is a clear and simple one: Does the president have the power—and/or should he have it—to arrest individuals on US soil and keep them imprisoned for years and years, indefinitely, without charging them with a crime, allowing them access to lawyers or the outside world, and/or providing a meaningful opportunity to contest the validity of the charges? How can that question not answer itself?… Who would possibly believe that an American president has such powers, and more to the point, what kind of a person would want a president to have such powers? That is one of a handful of powers that this country was founded to prevent." [Chicago Sun-Times, 6/17/2007]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Al-Qaeda, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, Glenn Greenwald, Bruce Fein, USA Patriot Act
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Civil Liberties
Relatives of some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks call on the CIA to release a report drafted by its inspector general into some aspects of the agency's failings before 9/11. The report was completed in 2004 (see June-November 2004), and rewritten in 2005 (see January 7, 2005), but was not then released (see October 10, 2005). The call is backed by 15,000 signatures on a petition calling for the release. The victims' relatives, Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg, and Lorie Van Auken, say the report "is the only major 9/11 government review that has still not been made publicly available," and quote Newsweek journalist Michael Isikoff saying that the main reason for the report's non-release is "a desire to protect the reputations of some of the main figures [named in the report]." [Raw Story, 6/18/2007] This coincides with efforts by lawmakers to get part of the report published (see Spring-Summer 2007) and is eventually partially successful (see August 21, 2007).
Entity Tags: Mindy Kleinberg, Lorie Van Auken, Monica Gabrielle, Office of the Inspector General (CIA), Central Intelligence Agency, Patty Casazza
Most of the lawsuits filed against the US government and against a number of private telecommunications firms alleging illegal wiretapping of US citizens and foreign organizations (see January 31, 2006) are hampered by what legal experts call a "Catch 22" process: lawyers for the Justice Department and for the firms that are alleged to have cooperated with the government in wiretapping citizens and organizations argue that the lawsuits have no merits because the plaintiffs cannot prove that they were direct victims of government surveillance. At the same time, the lawyers argue that the government cannot reveal if any individuals were or were not monitored because the "state secrets privilege" (see March 9, 1953) allows it to withhold information if it might damage national security. Lawyer Shayana Kadidal, who is representing the Center for Constitutional Rights in another lawsuit on behalf of Guantanamo Bay detainees, says, "The government's line is that if you don't have evidence of actual surveillance, you lose on standing." One Lawsuit Has Evidence of Surveillance - But the lawsuit filed by Saudi charitable organization the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (see February 28, 2006) is different, because the plaintiffs have an actual classified US document that they say proves their allegations. Kadidal says that because of that document, "[T]his is the only one with evidence of actual surveillance" and therefore has a much stronger chance of going forward. The Justice Department will not confirm, or deny, if anyone from Al Haramain was monitored either under the Terrorist Surveillance Program or any other government operation, but plaintiff lawyer Jon Eisenberg tells a judge in July 2007: "We know how many times [my client has] been surveilled. There is nothing left for this court to do except hear oral arguments on the legality of the program." Extraordinary Measures to Keep Document 'Secure' - Though the Justice Department has repeatedly argued that the Treasury Department document at the heart of the case is harmless and unrelated to NSA surveillance, it is taking extraordinary measures to keep it secure—it is held under strict government seal and remains classified as top secret. Even the plaintiff's lawyers are no longer allowed to see the document, and have been forced to file briefs with the court based on their memories of the document. [Wired News, 3/5/2007] Expert: Government Cannot Stop Case - The government probably does not have enough to derail the Al Haramain case, according to law professor Curtis Bradley. In August 2007, Bradley observes, "The biggest obstacle this litigation has faced is the problem showing someone was actually subjected to surveillance," but the lawsuit "has a very good chance to proceed farther than the other cases because it's impossible for the government to erase [the lawyers'] memories of the document." [Associated Press, 8/5/2007]
Entity Tags: US Department of Justice, Terrorist Surveillance Program, Shayana Kadidal, Jon Eisenberg, Curtis Bradley, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (Oregon branch), National Security Agency, Center for Constitutional Rights
Security forces after the Sheba temple bombing. [Source: Marib Press / Associated Press]A suicide bomber drives into a convoy of Spanish tourists visiting an ancient temple in Yemen, killing eight Spaniards and two Yemenis. The attack takes place near a 3,000 year old temple dedicated to the Queen of Sheba, about 85 miles east of the capital of Sana'a. No group claims responsibility for the bombing, but less than two weeks earlier, the US embassy issued a warning for Americans to avoid the area, due to suspicions of a planned al-Qaeda attack. [Associated Press, 7/3/2007; BBC, 8/8/2007] One month later, Yemeni security forces kill some suspected al-Qaeda militants, including three men, Ali bin Ali Naser Doha, Naji Ali Jaradan, and Abdul-Aziz Saeed Jaradan, who are believed to have been involved in the bombing. One of those that is not killed is Kassem al-Raimi, an alleged top al-Qaeda operative thought to have masterminded the attack. Al-Raimi was one of many who escaped from a Yemeni prison the year before (see February 3, 2006). [BBC, 8/8/2007; Yemen Times, 8/12/2007] In several interviews after the bombing, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh will claim his government has reached a new truce with al-Qaeda. [Associated Press, 10/26/2007]
Entity Tags: Naji Ali Jaradan, Kassem al-Raimi, Ali Abdallah Saleh, Ali bin Ali Naser Doha, Abdul-Aziz Saeed Jaradan, Al-Qaeda
Justice Department official Patrick Philbin testifies in a closed session of the House Intelligence Committee on the subject of interrogation tactics. Philbin testifies that each of the 24 approved interrogation tactics used by US personnel to interrogate terrorist suspects are "plainly lawful." He notes that laws such as the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Uniform Code of Military Justice define, to an extent, what is and is not torture, and prohibit excessive interrogation methods that might come under that rubric. He also notes that the US is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture (see October 21, 1994), which defines torture broadly as the intentional infliction of "severe pain or suffering" by anyone acting in an official capacity. He insists the US has done nothing to violate this treaty, nor the War Crimes Act, the Geneva Conventions, or Fifth and the Eighth Amendments to the US Constitution. Although terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and "extragovernmental" organizations such as the Taliban do not fall under the protection of the Geneva Conventions, Philbin argues that the US continues to follow its guidelines in its treatment of prisoners from those groups "to the extent consistent with military necessity…" [House Intelligence Committee, 7/14/2007 ] However, in 2004, a classified report by the CIA's Inspector General concluded that some of the interrogation techniques used by the CIA probably did violate the Convention Against Torture (see May 7, 2004).
Entity Tags: War Crimes Act, US Department of Justice, Uniform Code of Military Justice, Patrick F. Philbin, Geneva Conventions, Convention Against Torture, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, House Intelligence Committee, Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act
Juma al-Dosari in Saudi Arabia after his release. [Source: Nancy Durham / CBC]The Defense Department releases 16 Saudis being held in Guantanamo prison and returns them to Saudi Arabia. One of them is Juma al-Dosari, a dual Bahraini/Saudi citizen, and apparently a long-time al-Qaeda operative. [Gulf Daily News, 7/17/2007] Extensive Al-Qaeda Links - Al-Dosari was known as "the closer" for recruiting new al-Qaeda operatives, and he recruited the "Lackawanna Six" in New York State while he lived in the US from 1999 to 2001. According to his 2006 Guantanamo Administrative Review Board evidence review, there is a long list of evidence tying him to al-Qaeda since he was 16-years old in 1989, just one year after al-Qaeda was founded. He fought with militants in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Tajikistan. He was arrested in Kuwait and then again in Saudi Arabia for suspected involvement in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombings (see June 25, 1996), but released without charge both times. An unnamed source claims he was involved in the 2000 USS Cole bombing (see October 12, 2000). He was arrested during the battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in late 2001, and then sent to Guantanamo. US intelligence intercepted communications between him and Osama bin Laden's son Saad bin Laden, and also him and al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash (see November 2001-May 2002). [PBS Frontline, 10/16/2003; PBS Frontline, 10/16/2003; US Department of Defense, 9/13/2006 ] Release Unnoticed, Unexplained - Al-Dosari's 2007 release goes almost entirely unnoticed by the US media, despite previous articles and books discussing his recruitment of the "Lackawanna Six." In June 2008, retired FBI agent Peter Ahearn will comment to the Buffalo News that he is baffled that the US government never criminally prosecuted al-Dosari, and then released him. "We felt strongly that we could try him in Buffalo on criminal charges, but the Justice Department declined." Ahearn is upset that al-Dosari "is walking around as a free man in Saudi Arabia." [Buffalo News, 6/22/2008] "Rehabilitated" in Saudi Arabia - Upon arriving in Saudi Arabia, al-Dosari is admitted into a "soft approach" government rehabilitation program designed to prevent militants from relapsing back into violent extremism (see 2007 and After). He is given a car, psychological therapy, a monthly allowance, help to find a job, and help to get married. He had attempted to commit suicide over a dozen times while in Guantanamo. In 2008, it will be reported that he is doing well in Saudi Arabia, with a new wife and a new job. He now says Osama bin Laden "used my religion and destroyed its reputation." [Los Angeles Times, 12/21/2007; Gulf News, 2/22/2008]
Entity Tags: Peter Ahearn, Juma al-Dosari
Steven Bradbury, the chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), issues a classified memo on what a new interpretation of the Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3 means for the CIA's "enhanced interrogation program." The Bradbury memo, released after months of debate among Bush officials regarding the ramifications of the recent Supreme Court decision extending Geneva protections to enemy combatants in US custody (see June 30, 2006), new legislation following the Court's decision (see October 17, 2006), and an executive order on interrogations (see July 20, 2007), spells out what interrogation practices the CIA can use. The memo's existence will not become known until after the 2009 release of four Justice Department torture memos (see April 16, 2009). Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights will say upon learning of the memo, "The CIA still seems to want to get authority to interrogate people outside of what would be found to be a violation of the Geneva Conventions and the law." Ratner will add that the memo raises questions about why the CIA felt it needed expanded authorities for interrogations. "What we don't know is whether, after Hamdan, that 2007 memo modifies what the CIA is able to do in interrogation techniques," he will say. "But what's more interesting is why the CIA thinks it needs to use those interrogation techniques. Who are they interrogating in 2007? Who are they torturing in 2007? Is that they're nervous about going beyond what OLC has said? These are secret-site people. Who are they? What happened to them?" [Washington Independent, 4/21/2009]
Entity Tags: Geneva Conventions, Bush administration (43), Center for Constitutional Rights, Central Intelligence Agency, US Supreme Court, Michael Ratner, US Department of Justice, Steven Bradbury, Office of Legal Counsel (DOJ)
After alleged al-Qaeda leader Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani is captured in Lahore, Pakistan, by local forces in July 2007 (see July 2007), he is soon transferred to a secret CIA prison. He is held in the CIA's secret prison system until March 14, 2008, when he is transferred to the US-run prison in Guantanamo, Cuba. [Los Angeles Times, 3/15/2008] It is not known when he is captured or handed to the CIA exactly, but a newspaper report on August 2, 2007, indicates he is already in US custody. [Asian News International, 8/2/2007] Secret CIA Prison System Still Operational - It is also not known where he is held exactly. In September 2006, President Bush announced that the CIA's secret prisons had been emptied, at least temporarily, and the remaining prisoners had been transferred to Guantanamo (see September 6, 2006 and September 2-3, 2006). Since then, there has only been one instance of anyone held in secret CIA custody, and that was Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, held by the CIA from autumn 2006 until April 2007 (see Autumn 2006-Late April 2007). Rahim's custody indicates that the CIA prison system is still being used, although Rahim may be the only prisoner held in it at this time. [Los Angeles Times, 3/15/2008] Is Rahim Interrogated Using Legally Questionable Methods? - In August and November 2007, an unnamed prisoner in a secret CIA prison is forced to stay awake for up to six days straight. This is almost certainly Rahim. The US State Department considers this treatment torture when other countries do it (see August and November 2007).
Entity Tags: Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, Al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency
The Protect America Act (PAA) (see August 5, 2007), an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA—see 1978), is introduced in Congress. With limited debate and no committee hearings, it passes both houses with substantial majorities. [US Senate, 8/5/2007; Boston Globe, 8/6/2007; House Judiciary Committee, 9/18/2007 ] Congressional Democrats quickly capitulate on the bill, submitting to what the Washington Post later calls "a high-pressure campaign by the White House to change the nation's wiretap law, in which the administration capitalized on Democrats' fears of being branded weak on terrorism and on Congress's desire to act on the issue before its August recess." [Washington Post, 8/5/2007] Indeed, one Republican senator, Trent Lott, warns during the initial debate that lawmakers should pass the law quickly and get out of Washington before they could be killed in a terrorist attack (see August 2, 2007). McConnell tells the Senate, "Al-Qaeda is not going on vacation this month." And Democrat Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), a supporter of the bill, told his colleagues: "We're at war. The enemy wants to attack us. This is not the time to strive for legislative perfection." [Slate, 8/6/2007] Some Democrats Unhappy - One Democratic lawmaker responds angrily: "There are a lot of people who felt we had to pass something. It was tantamount to being railroaded." Many House Democrats feel betrayed by the White House; Democratic leaders had reached what they believed was a deal on the bill with the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, only to have the White House throw out the deal and present a new list of conditions at the last minute. Both McConnell and the White House deny that any such deal was reached. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, says, "I think the White House didn't want to take 'yes' for an answer from the Democrats." Representative Jerrold Nadler (R-NY) says lawmakers were "stampeded by fear-mongering and deception" into voting for the bill. Fellow House Democrat Jane Harman (D-CA) warns that the PAA will lead to "potential unprecedented abuse of innocent Americans' privacy." [Washington Post, 8/5/2007] The ACLU's Caroline Fredrickson has a succinct explanation of why the Democrats folded so quickly: "Whenever the president says the word terrorism, they roll over and play dead." [Slate, 8/6/2007] AT&T Whistleblower: Democratic Leadership Colluded in Passing PAA - AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein (see July 7, 2009 and December 15-31, 2005) will later write that the Democrats played a far more active role in getting the PAA passed than others acknowledge. He will quote a 2008 column by liberal civil liberties advocate Glenn Greenwald, who will write: "[I]n 2006, when the Congress was controlled by [then-Senate Majority Leader] Bill Frist [R-TN] and [then-House Speaker] Denny Hastert [R-IL], the administration tried to get a bill passed legalizing warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty, but was unable. They had to wait until the Congress was controlled by [House Majority Leader] Steny Hoyer [D-MD], [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA], and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] to accomplish that." According to Klein, once the Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, they engaged in "pure theater, posturing as opponents of the illegal NSA program while seeking a way to protect the president." The few principled Democrats to actively oppose the legislation, such as Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), were, Klein will write, "hamstrung by their own leadership." The PAA passage was accompanied by refusals from the Democratic leaders of "the relevant Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, which were now led by Democrats such as [John D.] Rockefeller, [Dianne] Feinstein (see February 1-6, 2006), and [Patrick] Leahy in the Senate, and John Conyers and Sylvestre Reyes in the House," who "quickly decided not to launch any serious investigations into the NSA spying." Klein will later add that at the time of the PAA passage, he was unaware of how thoroughly Democrats had been briefed on the NSA program (see October 1, 2001, October 11, 2001, October 25, 2001 and November 14, 2001, July 17, 2003, and March 10, 2004), "and thus were in on the secret but took no action to stop it." [Salon, 6/19/2008; Klein, 2009, pp. 86-87]
Entity Tags: Trent Lott, Mike McConnell, Protect America Act, Joseph Lieberman, Mitch McConnell, Jane Harman, Jerrold Nadler, Caroline Fredrickson, Bush administration (43), Jan Schakowsky, House Intelligence Committee
Mitch McConnell. [Source: US Senate]President Bush signs the controversial Protect America Act (PAA) into law. The bill, which drastically modifies the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 (see 1978), was sponsored by two Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Christopher Bond (R-MO), but written by the Bush administration's intelligence advisers. [US Senate, 8/5/2007; Washington Post, 8/5/2007] It passed both houses of Congress with little debate and no hearings (see August 1-4, 2007). "This more or less legalizes the NSA [domestic surveillance] program," says Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies. [New York Times, 8/6/2007] Slate's Patrick Radden Keefe adds ominously, "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is now dead, and it's never coming back." [Slate, 8/6/2007] The PAA expires in six months, the only real concession Congressional Democrats were able to secure. Though the Bush administration and its allies in Congress insist that the law gives the government "the essential tools it needs" to conduct necessary surveillance of foreign-based terrorists while protecting Americans' civil liberties, many Democrats and civil liberties organizations say the bill allows the government to wiretap US residents in communication with overseas parties without judiciary or Congressional oversight. Bush calls the bill "a temporary, narrowly focused statute to deal with the most immediate shortcomings in the law" that needs to be expanded and made permanent by subsequent legislation. The administration says that the lack of judiciary oversight in the new law will be adequately covered by "internal bureaucratic controls" at the National Security Agency. [Associated Press, 8/5/2007; Washington Post, 8/5/2007] Reining in FISA - The PAA allows FISA to return "to its original focus on protecting the rights of Americans, while not acting as an obstacle to conducting foreign intelligence surveillance on foreign targets located overseas." Before the PAA, the White House says, FISA created unnecessary obstacles in allowing US intelligence to "gain real-time information about the intent of our enemies overseas," and "diverted scarce resources that would be better spent safeguarding the civil liberties of people in the United States, not foreign terrorists who wish to do us harm." The PAA no longer requires the government to obtain FISA warrants to monitor "foreign intelligence targets located in foreign countries" who are contacting, or being contacted by, US citizens inside US borders. FISA will continue to review the procedures used by US intelligence officials in monitoring US citizens and foreign contacts by having the attorney general inform the FISA Court of the procedures used by the intelligence community to determine surveillance targets are outside the United States." Allows Third Parties to Assist in Surveillance, Grants Immunity - The PAA also allows the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to secure the cooperation of "third parties," particularly telecommunications firms and phone carriers, to "provide the information, facilities, and assistance necessary to conduct surveillance of foreign intelligence targets located overseas." It provides these firms with immunity from any civil lawsuits engendered by such cooperation. Short Term Legislation - The White House says that Congress must pass further legislation to give telecommunications firms permanent and retroactive immunity against civil lawsuits arising from their cooperation with the government's domestic surveillance program. [White House, 8/6/2006] Temporary Suspension of the Constitution? - Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, says: "I'm not comfortable suspending the Constitution even temporarily. The countries we detest around the world are the ones that spy on their own people. Usually they say they do it for the sake of public safety and security." [Washington Post, 8/5/2007]
Entity Tags: Christopher ("Kit") Bond, National Security Agency, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, George W. Bush, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Mitch McConnell, Al-Qaeda, Terrorist Surveillance Program, Kate Martin, Patrick Radden Keefe, Rush Holt, Protect America Act
John Brennan. [Source: PBS]An article in the New Yorker magazine reveals that the CIA interrogations of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) were not as reliable as they are typically made out to be. Mohammed was interrogated with methods such as waterboarding that are regarded as torture by many. CIA official John Brennan, former chief of staff for CIA Director George Tenet, acknowledges, "All these methods produced useful information, but there was also a lot that was bogus." One former top CIA official estimates that "ninety per cent of the information was unreliable." Cables of Mohammed's interrogation transcripts sent to higher-ups reportedly were prefaced with the warning that "the detainee has been known to withhold information or deliberately mislead." [New Yorker, 8/6/2007] For instance, one CIA report of his interrogations was called, "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's Threat Reporting—Precious Truths, Surrounded by a Bodyguard of Lies" (see June 16, 2004). [Los Angeles Times, 6/23/2004] Former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel asks, "What are you going to do with KSM in the long run? It's a very good question. I don't think anyone has an answer. If you took him to any real American court, I think any judge would say there is no admissible evidence. It would be thrown out." Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) says, "A guy as dangerous as KSM is, and half the world wonders if they can believe him—is that what we want? Statements that can't be believed, because people think they rely on torture?" [New Yorker, 8/6/2007] Journalist James Risen wrote in a 2006 book, "According to a well-placed CIA source, [Mohammed] has now recanted some of what he previously told the CIA during his interrogations. That is an enormous setback for the CIA, since [his debriefings] had been considered among the agency's most important sources of intelligence on al-Qaeda. It is unclear precisely which of his earlier statements [he] has now disavowed, but any recantation by the most important prisoner in the global war on terror must call into question much of what the United States has obtained from other prisoners around the world…" [Risen, 2006, pp. 33] In a 2008 Vanity Fair interview, a former senior CIA official familiar with the interrogation reports on Mohammed will say, "90 percent of it was total f_cking bullsh_t." A former Pentagon analyst will add: "KSM produced no actionable intelligence. He was trying to tell us how stupid we were." [Vanity Fair, 12/16/2008]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Carl Levin, John O. Brennan, Bruce Riedel, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Congressional legislation forces the CIA to declassify and release the executive summary of its inspector general's report into some of its pre-9/11 failings. The legislation follows a long campaign by senators (see Spring-Summer 2007) and victims' relatives (see June 18, 2007), and orders the CIA to release the summary within 30 days, together with a classified annex for Congress explaining the report's redactions. The report was completed in 2004 (see June-November 2004), and rewritten in 2005 (see January 7, 2005), but was then not released (see October 10, 2005). Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) says, "All I can say is that it's an extraordinarily important, independent assessment, written with a specific purpose to learn how we can improve our security." Senator Kit Bond (R-MI) points out that "this should have been declassified a long time ago." [The Hill, 8/8/2007] The report is released two weeks later (see August 21, 2007).
Entity Tags: Ron Wyden, Christopher ("Kit") Bond, Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Inspector General (CIA)
Hambali, circa 2008. [Source: US Defense Department]Fourteen "high value" detainees held by the US in Guantanamo Bay (see March 9-April 28, 2007) are ruled to be "enemy combatants." The detainees include 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, 9/11 coordinator Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Jemaah Islamiyah leader Hambali, and al-Qaeda leaders Khallad bin Attash and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. However, a judge had previously ruled that designating a detainee an "enemy combatant" was meaningless and that a person designated an enemy combatant could not be tried under the Military Commissions Act (see June 4, 2007). The Washington Post comments, "It is unclear if these men can be tried at military commissions without a change in the law or a newly designed review." [Washington Post, 8/10/2007]
Entity Tags: Mohamad Farik Amin, Khallad bin Attash, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Military Commissions Act, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, Majid Khan, Abu Zubaida, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Hambali, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Gouled Hassan Dourad
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties
AT&T attorney Michael Kellogg enters the courtroom. [Source: Wired News]The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco hears two related cases: one a government appeal to dismiss a case brought against AT&T for its involvement in the National Security Agency (NSA)'s domestic wiretapping program (see July 20, 2006), and the other a challenge to the government's authority to wiretap overseas phone calls brought on behalf of a now-defunct Islamic charity, Al Haramain (see February 28, 2006). The AT&T lawsuit is brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (see January 31, 2006). Among the onlookers is AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein (see December 15-31, 2005 and July 7, 2009), who has provided key documentation for the EFF lawsuit (see Early January 2006). Government Lawyer: Court Should Grant 'Utmost Deference' to Bush Administration - Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, arguing on behalf of the US government, tells Judge Harry Pregerson, one of the three judges presiding over the court, that allowing the EFF lawsuit against AT&T to go forward would result in "exceptionally grave harm to national security in the United States," even though a previous judge has ruled otherwise (see July 20, 2006) and the government itself has admitted that none of the material to be used by EFF is classified as any sort of state secret (see June 23, 2006). Pregerson says that granting such a request would essentially make his court a "rubber stamp" for the government, to which Garre argues that Pregerson should grant the "utmost deference" to the Bush administration. Pregerson retorts: "What does utmost deference mean? Bow to it?" [Wired News, 8/15/2007] Klein will later accuse Garre of using "scare tactics" to attempt to intimidate the judges into finding in favor of AT&T and the government. [Klein, 2009, pp. 79] Government Refuses to Swear that Domestic Surveillance Program Operates under Warrant - Garre says that the goverment's domestic surveillance program operates entirely under judicial warrant; he says the government is not willing to sign a sworn affidavit to that effect. Reporter Kevin Poulsen, writing for Wired News, says that Garre's admission of the government's reluctance to swear that its domestic surveillance program operates with warrants troubles all three judges. AT&T attorney Michael Kellogg argues that AT&T customers have no proof that their communications are being given over to the government without warrants, and therefore the EFF lawsuit should be dismissed. "The government has said that whatever AT&T is doing with the government is a state secret," Kellogg says. "As a consequence, no evidence can come in whether the individuals' communications were ever accepted or whether we played any role in it." EFF attorney Robert Fram argues that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows citizens to challenge electronic surveillance by permitting courts to hear government evidence in chambers. He is careful, Poulsen writes, to note that EFF does not want specific information on the NSA's sources and methods, and says that EFF already has enough evidence to prove its assertion that AT&T compromised its customers' privacy by colluding with the NSA's domestic surveillance program. Government Mocks Whistleblower's AT&T Documentation - Garre mocks Klein's AT&T documents, saying that all they prove is that the NSA's secret room in AT&T's San Francisco facility (see Late 2002-Early 2003, January 2003, and October 2003) "has a leaky air conditioner and some loose cables in the room." Fram counters that Klein's documentation is specific and damning. It proves that the NSA housed a splitter cabinet in that secret room that "split" data signals, allowing the NSA to wiretap literally millions of domestic communications without the knowledge of AT&T customers (see February 2003, Fall 2003, Late 2003, and Late 2003). Fram says Klein's documents, along with other non-classified documentation EFF has presented, proves "the privacy violation on the handover of the Internet traffic at the splitter into the secret room, which room has limited access to NSA-cleared employees. What is not part of our claim is what happens inside that room." Klein's documentation proves the collusion between AT&T and the NSA, Fram states, but Judge M. Margaret McKeown questions this conclusion. According to Poulsen, McKeown seems more willing to grant the government the argument that it must protect "state secrets" than Pregerson. Government Argues for Dismissal of Al Haramain Case - As in the AT&T portion of the appeal hearing, the government, represented by Assistant US Attorney General Thomas Brody, argues for the Al Haramain lawsuit's dismissal, saying, "The state secrets privilege requires dismissal of this case." Even the determination as to whether Al Haramain was spied upon, he argues, "is itself a state secret." The Top Secret government document that Al Haramain is using as the foundation of its case is too secret to be used in court, Brody argues, even though the government itself accidentally provided the charity with the document. Even the plaintiff's memories of the document constitute "state secrets" and should be disallowed, Brody continues. "This document is totally non-redactable and non-segregable and cannot even be meaningfully described," he says. A disconcerted Judge McKeown says, "I feel like I'm in Alice and Wonderland." Brody concludes that it is possible the Al Haramain attorneys "think or believe or claim they were surveilled. It's entirely possible that everything they think they know is entirely false." [Wired News, 8/15/2007] No Rulings Issued - The appeals court declines to rule on either case at this time. Klein will later write, "It was clear to everyone that this panel would, if they ever issued a ruling, deny the 'state secrets' claim and give the green light for the EFF lawsuit to go forward." [Klein, 2009, pp. 79-81] Wired News's Ryan Singel writes that the panel seems far more sympathetic to the EFF case than the Al Haramain case. The judges seem dismayed that the government fails to prove that no domestic surveillance program actually exists in the EFF matter. However, they seem far more willing to listen to the government's case in the Al Haramain matter, even though McKeown says that the government's argument has an "Alice in Wonderland" feel to it. Singel believes the government is likely to throw out the secret document Al Haramain uses as the foundation of its case. However, he writes, "all three judges seemed to believe that the government could confirm or deny a secret intelligence relationship with the nation's largest telecom, without disclosing secrets to the world.… So seemingly, in the eyes of today's panel of judges, in the collision between secret documents and the state secrets privilege, 'totally secret' documents are not allowed to play, but sort-of-secret documents—the AT&T documents—may be able to trump the power of kings to do as they will." [Wired News, 8/15/2007] Wired News's David Kravets notes that whichever way the court eventually rules, the losing side will continue the appeals process, probably all the way to the US Supreme Court. The biggest question, he says, is whether the NSA is still spying on millions of Americans. [Wired News, 8/15/2007]
Entity Tags: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, US Supreme Court, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Bush administration (43), Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, AT&T, David Kravets, Ryan Singel, Thomas Brody, National Security Agency, Mark Klein, Kevin Poulsen, M. Margaret McKeown, Gregory Garre, Harry Pregerson, Robert Fram, Michael Kellogg
A redacted summary of a report by the CIA's inspector general into some aspects of the agency's pre-9/11 performance is released. The report's main points are: No CIA employees violated the law or were guilty of misconduct in the run-up to 9/11; However, some officials did not perform their duties in a satisfactory manner. The report recommended accountability boards be convened to review their performance, but former CIA Director Porter Goss decided against this recommendation in 2005 (see October 10, 2005); There was no "silver bullet" that could have prevented 9/11, but if officers had performed satisfactorily, they would have had a better chance of stopping the attacks; The CIA had no comprehensive strategy to combat al-Qaeda before 9/11 (see After December 4, 1998 and Between Mid-December 2002 and June 2004); Management of counterterrorism funds was poor (see 1997-2001); Arguments between the CIA and NSA negatively impacted counterterrorism efforts (see December 1996, Late August 1998, and 2000); Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was well-known to the CIA before 9/11, but his case was badly handled (see 1997 or After); There were numerous failures related to the CIA's monitoring of al-Qaeda's Malaysia summit (see Mid-January-March 2000, 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000, Mid-July 2004, (After January 6, 2000), and March 5, 2000); The CIA also missed "several additional opportunities" to watchlist Pentagon hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi (see January 8, 2000 and August 23, 2001). Such watchlisting could have led to them being denied entry, or being placed under surveillance in the US; The CIA was confused about whether it was authorized to assassinate Osama bin Laden or not (see Mid-August 1998, December 24, 1998, December 26, 1998 and After, February 1999, February 1999, and December 1999); There were various problems with assets and operations linked to foreign services. [Central Intelligence Agency, 6/2005 ] The media picks various angles in commenting on the report (see August 21, 2007), which is criticized by current CIA Director Michael Hayden (see August 21, 2007) and former Director George Tenet (see August 21, 2007).
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Inspector General (CIA)
MSNBC runs an inaccurate story about waterboarding and its alleged usefulness. According to an article by Robert Windrem sourced to four senior US officials, only three detainees have been waterboarded: alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, militant training camp facilitator Abu Zubaida, and Jemaah Islamiyah head Hambali. The article contains several claims that will later be proved false: It says that al-Qaeda leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was not one of three detainees who was waterboarded. [MSNBC, 9/13/2007] However, it will later be generally reported that he was indeed waterboarded, and Vice President Dick Cheney will admit it in 2008. [Washington Times, 12/18/2008] The report claims that Hambali was one of the three detainees who was waterboarded. [MSNBC, 9/13/2007] However, this claim will later fade, with al-Nashiri replacing Hambali as the third detainee subjected to waterboarding. [Washington Times, 12/18/2008] The article also falsely claims that Hambali was subjected to waterbaording because he was "resistant to other interrogation methods." It adds that he "cried like a baby," a claim repeated in a prominent subheadline, and "quickly told all he knew." [MSNBC, 9/13/2007] One former senior intelligence official is quoted as saying that "KSM required, shall we say, re-dipping," although it will later emerge that KSM was waterboarded 183 times on five separate days (see After March 7, 2003 and April 18, 2009). In addition, the article says, "a total of 13 high value detainees—all of them ranking al-Qaeda operatives—were subjected to 'enhanced interrogation techniques' in 2002 through 2004." [MSNBC, 9/13/2007] However, according to a 2008 interview with Cheney, the US applied enhanced interrogation techniques to 33 detainees. This number appears to relate to a longer period, from 9/11 until late 2008, although cases where enhanced techniques were used after 2004 are not well known. [Washington Times, 12/18/2008]
Entity Tags: Hambali, Abu Zubaida, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Central Intelligence Agency, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
A New York Post graphic illustrates the numbers of Americans that believe in several possible high-level conspiracies. [Source: New York Post]According to a poll by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University, 62 percent of Americans believe it is possible that some people in the US government had specific advance warnings of the 9/11 attacks, but chose to ignore them. Thirty-two percent of respondents think this is "very likely," and only 30 percent say it is unlikely. The national survey of 811 adults also inquires about respondents' opinions on other alleged high-level conspiracies. It finds 42 percent think it likely that some people in the government knew in advance about the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in 1963, 37 percent think it possible that the government is hiding the truth about UFOs, and 81 percent think that oil companies conspire to keep the price of gasoline high. [Scripps Howard News Service, 11/23/2007; Scripps Howard News Service, 11/23/2007; WorldNetDaily, 11/24/2007] The New York Post reports the survey in a story titled, "'Blame US for 9/11' Idiots in Majority," which refers to "the popularity of crackpot conspiracy theories." [New York Post, 11/24/2007] Ironically, in May 2002 the same newspaper had a prominent front-page story titled, "Bush Knew: Prez Was Warned of Possible Hijackings before Terror Attacks" (see May 15, 2002). [MSNBC, 11/26/2007] A previous Scripps Howard/Ohio University survey in July 2006 found that 36 percent of Americans thought US government officials assisted in the 9/11 attacks or deliberately took no action to stop them (see July 6-24, 2006). [Scripps Howard News Service, 8/3/2006]
Entity Tags: Ohio University, New York Post, Scripps Howard News Service
CIA Director Michael Hayden orders an unusual internal investigation of the agency's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the press will later learn. The OIG, led by Inspector General John Helgerson, has conducted aggressive investigations of the CIA's detention and interrogation programs (see May 7, 2004). Current and former government officials say that Hayden's probe has created anxiety and anger in the OIG, and has sparked questions in Congress of possible conflicts of interest. The review is focusing on complaints that the OIG has not been, as the New York Times reports, a "fair and impartial judge of agency operations," but instead has "begun a crusade against those who have participated in controversial detention programs." Some current and former officials say that such a probe threatens to undermine the independence of the office. Former CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz, who served from 1990 through 1998, says any move by Hayden to conduct a probe into the OIG would "not be proper." Hitz calls it "a terrible idea," and adds: "Under the statute, the inspector general has the right to investigate the director. How can you do that and have the director turn around and investigate the IG?" A CIA spokesman says Hayden's only motive is "to help this office, like any office at the agency, do its vital work even better." The investigation is being overseen by Robert Deitz, a trusted aide to Hayden who served with him when he ran the National Security Agency. Another member of the investigating group is Associate Deputy Director Michael Morrell. Under the law, the proper procedure for Hayden would be to file complaints with the Integrity Committee of the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, which oversees all the inspectors general, or to go directly to the White House. For an internal inquiry to be launched against an agency's OIG by the agency head violates the independence and the position of the OIG. Critics say that the timing of Hayden's investigation is more than coincidental, as Helgerson's office is readying a number of reports on CIA detention, interrogation, and rendition practices. [New York Times, 10/11/2007]
Entity Tags: John Helgerson, Central Intelligence Agency, Bush administration (43), Frederick Hitz, President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, Robert Deitz, Michael Morrell, Michael Hayden, Office of the Inspector General (CIA), New York Times
Jamal al-Badawi in a Yemeni prison in 2005. [Source: Associated Press / Muhammed Al Qadhi]Al-Qaeda operative Jamal al-Badawi, considered one of the main planners of the USS Cole bombing (see October 12, 2000), turns himself in to Yemeni authorities on October 17, 2007. He had escaped a Yemeni prison the year before and had been sentenced to death in Yemen for his role in the bombing (see February 3, 2006). But on October 26, Yemeni authorities release him again in return for a pledge not to engage in any violent or al-Qaeda-related activity. Yemen often lets militants go free if they pledge not to attack within Yemen (see 2002 and After). The US has issued a $5 million reward for al-Badawi's capture, but the Yemeni government refuses to extradite him. US officials are furious about the release, which is particularly galling because it comes just two days after President Bush's top counterterrorism adviser Frances Townsend visits Yemen and praises the Yemeni government for their cooperation in fighting terrorism. The US had also just announced $20 million in new aid for Yemen, but threatens to cancel the aid due to al-Badawi's release. Al-Badawi is put back in prison on October 29 and the aid program goes forward. However, US officials are dubious about al-Badawis' real status. One official who visits him in prison gets the impression he was put in a prison cell just in time for the visit. [Newsweek, 10/27/2007; Newsweek, 10/31/2007; New York Times, 1/28/2008] In December 2007, a Yemeni newspaper reports that al-Badawi has again been seen roaming free in public. One source close to the Cole investigation will tell the Washington Post in 2008 that there is evidence that al-Badawi is still allowed to come and go from his prison cell. US officials have demanded to be able to conduct random inspections to make sure he stays in his cell, but apparently the Yemeni government has refused the demand. [Washington Post, 5/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Jamal al-Badawi, Frances Townsend
Attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey uses an anecdote about a cell phone battery to argue that the current legal system is poorly equipped to fight Islamic terrorism. The anecdote is told during his confirmation hearings, but he previously used it in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in August. Mukasey says that during Ramzi Yousef's trial for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing: "[S]omebody testified to somebody having delivered a cell phone battery to someone else. That piece of testimony disclosed to al-Qaeda that a line of communication of theirs had been compromised and, in fact, was one of communication that our government was monitoring and from which it had gotten enormously valuable intelligence. That line of communication shut down within days of that testimony and I don't know what we lost. Nobody knows what we lost. But we probably lost something enormously valuable." Mukasey does not say which of Yousef's two trials the testimony was at. [Wall Street Journal, 8/22/2007; CQ Transcripts Wire, 10/18/2007] This incident is not known and is not confirmed by other sources. It is unclear who the two militants were, and why the militant who received the cell phone battery would be unable to purchase it himself. Osama bin Laden is said to have received a doctored battery for his satellite (not cell) phone in Afghanistan, and this is said to have helped the US track him (see May 28, 1998). However, this apparently happened after Yousef was sentenced in the last of the two cases to come to trial, so it is unclear how this could have been mentioned at the trial (see January 8, 1998). A rumor later circulated that bin Laden had stopped using the satellite phone with the allegedly doctored battery based on a leak of intelligence to the press, but that appears to be an urban myth (see Late August 1998).
Entity Tags: Michael Mukasey
On the eve of a visit to London, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia says that his intelligence service warned Britain of an impending plot before the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), but that British authorities failed to act on the warning. King Abdullah says, "We sent information to [Britain] before the terrorist attacks in Britain but unfortunately no action was taken. And it may have been able to maybe avert the tragedy." He also says that Britain did not take terrorism seriously for a while. However, British authorities deny all this. [BBC, 10/29/2007] Details of the warning are not specified. However, this may be a reference to one or two discussions between Saudi Arabia and Britain in early 2005 about information indicating there was to be an attack in London (see December 14, 2004-February 2005 and April 2005 or Shortly Before).
Entity Tags: Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud
Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed. [Source: Associated Press]The trial of 28 people accused of a role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings comes to an end, and 21 are found guilty. However, only three are convicted of murder and are given life sentences: Jamal Zougam, Othman El Gnaoui, and Emilio Suarez Trashorras. Seven of the principal bombers blew themselves up one month after the bombings (see 9:05 p.m., April 3, 2004). None of the accused confessed, making convictions difficult. Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed was accused of being the bombing mastermind. While living it Italy, he reportedly bragged, "I was the leader of Madrid," and "the Madrid bombings were my project, and those who died as martyrs there were my beloved friends." But his defense attorneys argued successfully that the tapes were mistranslated and so they were thrown out as evidence. A counterterrorism expert says the court appeared to have a very strict standard of admissible evidence. However, Ahmed is serving a ten-year prison sentence in Italy based on unrelated charges. [Washington Post, 11/14/2004; MSNBC, 10/31/2007; New York Times, 11/1/2007] Many victims' relatives complain that the sentences are too lenient. And a spokesperson for Spain's main opposition party comments, "We still don't know who gave the order, we still don't know who built those bombs, and we still don't know who was the coordinator of these cells that carried out these attacks." [BBC, 11/1/2007] Some of the other verdicts: Hamid Ahmidan - 23 years. Rachid Aglif - 18 years. Abdelmajid Bouchar - 18 years. Basel Ghalyoun - 12 years. Mohammed Larbi ben Sellam - 12 years. Fouad el Morabit - 12 years. Mouhannad Almallah - 12 years. Rafa Zouhier - 10 years. Youssef Belhadj - 12 years. Antonio Toro - Acquitted. Carmen Toro - Acquitted. [El Mundo (Madrid), 11/1/2007]
Entity Tags: Rachid Aglif, Mouhannad Almallah, Othman El Gnaoui, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, Rafa Zouhier, Mohammed Larbi ben Sellam, Emilio Suarez Trashorras, Hamid Ahmidan, Abdelmajid Bouchar, Antonio Toro, Basel Ghalyoun, Carmen Toro, Fouad el Morabit, Jamal Zougam, Youssef Belhadj
Richard Convertino. [Source: Associated Press]Richard Convertino is acquitted by a Detroit federal court jury of subverting justice in a 2003 trial (see June 2003-August 2004). Convertino had been accused of withholding photographs from defense attorneys that might have undermined their 2003 prosecution and convictions of four alleged al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in Detroit. In 2003, defense attorneys wanted photos of a Jordanian hospital, hoping the photos would not match a crude drawing Convertino argued was a terrorist planning sketch. Convertino said there were none, and claims he never saw them, but photos of the hospital were later found. [Detroit Free Press, 11/1/2007] However, a later FBI analysis determined the sketch did closely match the photos after all, so the photos would have actually strengthened Convertino's case, not weakened it. The guilty verdicts against three of the four men - Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, Karim Koubriti, and Ahmed Hannan - were later overturned, in large part due to the dispute over the photos (see June 2003-August 2004). The Associated Press will later comment that evidence that the sketch and photos did match "renews questions about whether the government correctly arrested the four men as a terrorist cell…" [Associated Press, 4/21/2006] Convertino alleges the charges against him were politically motivated to punish him for complaining before Congress about a lack of resources in the trial. He has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Justice Department. [Detroit Free Press, 11/1/2007] A judge dismisses one remaining charge against Convertino a month later. [Associated Press, 12/12/2007] It appears the Justice Department also battled with Convertino and his prosecution team and prevented him from using evidence that could have strengthened his case (see Early 2003).
Entity Tags: Karim Koubriti, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Farouk Ali-Haimoud, Ahmed Hannan, Abel-Ilah Elmardoudi, US Department of Justice, Richard Convertino
Saudi Arabia's national security adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan says that before 9/11 the Saudi government was "actively following" most of the 19 hijackers "with precision." Prince Bandar, formerly Saudi ambassador to the US, also says that the information Saudi Arabia had may have been sufficient to prevent 9/11: "If US security authorities had engaged their Saudi counterparts in a serious and credible manner, in my opinion, we would have avoided what happened." A US official says that the statement made by Prince Bandar should be taken with a grain of salt. [CNN, 11/2/2007] Saudi officials had previously said that they watchlisted two of the Saudi hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, in the late 1990s (see 1997 and Late 1999) and their interest in Nawaf Alhazmi may have led them to his brother, Salem. All three of these hijackers were also tracked by the US before 9/11 (see Early 1999, January 5-8, 2000, Early 2000-Summer 2001 and 9:53 p.m. September 11, 2001). Saudi Tracking - Almost a year after Prince Bandar makes this claim, author James Bamford will offer information corroborating it. Bamford will write that Saudi officials placed an indicator in some of the hijackers' passports and then used the indicator to track them. The Saudis did this because they thought the hijackers were Islamist radicals and wanted to keep an eye on their movements. [Bamford, 2008, pp. 58-59] Details of the tracking by the Saudis are sketchy and there is no full list of the hijackers tracked in this manner. According to the 9/11 Commission, Almihdhar and the Alhazmi brothers had indicators of Islamist extremism in their passports. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 33 ] Two other hijackers may also have had the same indicator. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 564] The three who had the indicator are: - Nawaf Alhazmi, who obtained a passport containing an indicator in the spring of 1999 (see March 21, 1999), and then left Saudi Arabia (see After Early April 1999). Khalid Almihdhar, who obtained passports containing an indicator in the spring of 1999 and June 2001 (see April 6, 1999 and June 1, 2001), and then repeatedly entered and left Saudi Arabia (see After Early April 1999, Late 2000-February 2001, May 26, 2001, and July 4, 2001). Salem Alhazmi, who obtained passports containing an indicator in the spring of 1999 and June 2001 (see April 4, 1999 and June 16, 2001), and then repeatedly entered and left Saudi Arabia (see After Early April 1999, November 2000, June 13, 2001, and (Between June 20 and June 29, 2001)). The two who may also have had the indicator are: - Ahmed Alhaznawi, who obtained a passport possibly containing an indicator before mid-November 2000 (see Before November 12, 2000) and then repeatedly entered and left Saudi Arabia (see After November 12, 2000, (Between May 7 and June 1, 2001), and June 1, 2001). Ahmed Alnami, who obtained passports possibly containing an indicator in late 2000 and spring 2001 (see November 6, 1999 and April 21, 2001) and then repeatedly entered and left Saudi Arabia (see Mid-November, 2000 and May 13, 2001). What the indicator actually looks like in the passports is not known.
Entity Tags: Bandar bin Sultan
Rafid Ahmed Alwan. [Source: CBS News]CBS News reveals the identity of the infamous Iraqi defector, "Curveball," whose information was used by the Bush administration to build its case for Iraqi biological weapons. Curveball's real identity is Rafid Ahmed Alwan, an Iraqi who defected to Germany in November 1999, where he requested asylum at a refugee center near Nuremberg (see November 1999). The evidence Curveball provided was detailed, compelling, and completely false, but instrumental in driving the US towards invading Iraq. Former senior CIA official Tyler Drumheller, who was unable to convince either his superiors in the agency or senior officials in the White House that Curveball was untrustworthy (see September 2002), says of Curveball's contribution to the rhetoric of war, "If they [the Bush administration] had not had Curveball they would have probably found something else. 'Cause there was a great determination to do it. But going to war in Iraq, under the circumstances we did, Curveball was the absolutely essential case." CBS reporter Bob Simon says Curveball is "not only a liar, but also a thief and a poor student instead of the chemical engineering whiz he claimed to be." The CIA eventually acknowledged Alwan as a fraud. The question remains, why did he spin such an elaborate tale? Drumheller thinks it was for the most prosaic of reasons. "It was a guy trying to get his Green Card, essentially, in Germany, playing the system for what it was worth. It just shows sort of the law of unintended consequences." Alwan is believed to be still living in Germany, most likely under an assumed name. [CBS News, 11/4/2007]
Entity Tags: Bundesnachrichtendienst, Bob Simon, Tyler Drumheller, CBS News, 'Curveball', Bush administration (43)
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion
Ahmed Idris Nasreddin is quietly removed from the US and UN terrorist financier lists. Neither the US nor the UN publicly announces the decision or explains why his name is no longer on an updated list of financiers. Nasreddin, a 78-year old businessman based in Italy and Switzerland, was formally listed in 2002 due to his ties with the banned Al Taqwa Bank (see November 7, 2001). That bank was considered one of the top funders for al-Qaeda and other militant groups until it was banned in late 2001. When asked by the Los Angeles Times about the delisting, the Treasury Department says the original listing was appropriate but Nasreddin was delisted because he submitted signed statements certifying he had terminated all business relationships with Al Taqwa and related entities and individuals. Former State Department official Victor Comras complains: "They seem to be saying that he was a bad guy but that he has renounced being a bad guy. If that's the criteria, wow, a lot of people will try to get off the list. All they have to do is say, We're not doing it anymore." [Los Angeles Times, 11/28/2007]
Entity Tags: Al Taqwa Bank, Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, Victor Comras, US Department of the Treasury, United Nations
A federal appellate court bars an Islamic charity accused of assisting terrorists from using a US government document to prove that it had been illegally spied upon (see February 28, 2006). The charity, the now-defunct Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (see Late May, 2004), has been accused by the government and the UN Security Council of being affiliated with al-Qaeda; the charity's officials deny the charges. In its finding, the three-judge panel rules in favor of the government's argument that protecting "state secrets" (see March 9, 1953) is of overriding importance in the case. Other courts have ruled that the Bush administration can refuse to disclose information if "there is a reasonable danger" it would affect national security. Al Haramain's lawyers argued that the document is necessary to prove that it was illegally monitored. According to the ruling, the judges accept "the need to defer to the executive on matters of foreign and national security and surely cannot legitimately find ourselves second-guessing the executive in this arena." Reaction Divided - Opinion is divided on the ruling. Constitutional law professor Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke University says the court's deference to the "executive branch in situations like this [is] very troubling." Another constitutional law professor, Douglas Kmiec of Pepperdine, says "the opinion is consistent with" an earlier ruling that struck down a challenge to the government's surveillance program filed by the American Civil Liberties Union; Kmiec says the rulings indicate that "federal courts recognize that the essential aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program both remain secret and are important to preserve as such." Mixed Results - The appellate court does not give the government everything it asked for. It rejects the Justice Department's argument that "the very subject matter of the litigation is a state secret." That finding may prove important in the other surveillance cases where the government is arguing that even to consider legal challenges to warrantless wiretapping endangers national security. The appeals court sends the case back to a lower court to consider whether or not the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires approval by a special court for domestic surveillance, preempts the state secrets privilege. The court also severs the Al Haramain case from other, similar lawsuits challenging the government's secret surveillance program. [Los Angeles Times, 11/17/2007]
Entity Tags: United Nations Security Council, US Department of Justice, Erwin Chemerinsky, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Al-Qaeda, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (Oregon branch), Douglas Kmiec, Bush administration (43), Terrorist Surveillance Program
On November 25, 2007, the London Times publishes an article about Luai Sakra, an al-Qaeda leader imprisoned in Turkey who allegedly was also a CIA informant before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001). The Times reports, "According to Sakra, [9/11 hijacker] Nawaf Alhazmi was a veteran operative who went on to pilot the plane that hit the Pentagon [Flight 77]. Although this is at odds with the official account, which says the plane was flown by another hijacker, it is plausible and might answer one of the mysteries of 9/11," namely, why the FBI claims Hani Hanjour was the pilot of that plane, when many reports suggest Hanjour was a bad pilot. [London Times, 11/25/2007] Although none of the official accounts such as the 9/11 Commission report claim that Alhazmi was a pilot, there is considerable evidence to suggest that he was: In December 1999, Alhazmi was taught how to use a computer flight simulator program while in an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan (see Early December 1999). On April 4, 2000, Alhazmi took one day's worth of flying lessons, and his instructor later claims he did quite well and was already almost capable of taking off and landing on his own (see April 4, 2000). One month later, he took a second one day flying lesson, however his instructor will later call him "dumb" and unskilled (see May 5 and 10, 2000). Near the end of 2000, he told two unconnected associates that he was in Arizona and learning to fly with Hanjour (see (December 2000-January 2001)). On March 19, 2001, he bought flight deck videos for Boeing 747s and a Boeing 777 (see November 5, 2000-June 20, 2001). On March 23, 2001, he bought an aeronautical chart covering the northeastern US (see March 23, 2001). In July 2001, he and Hanjour appear to have rented an aircraft together in New Jersey. Alhazmi's credit card was used to pay for the aircraft rental, as well as fuel in Maryland (a072001haninawafflight). Neighbors will later claim that just days before the 9/11 attacks, Alhazmi was practicing flying on a computer flight simulator program. [KGTV 10 (San Diego), 9/14/2001] In 2002, al-Qaeda associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh will claim in an interview several months before his arrest that Alhazmi was one of the 9/11 pilots.
Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Luai Sakra, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Hani Hanjour
Republican senator and presidential candidate John McCain (R-AZ) says that during World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and hanged for war crimes involving the waterboarding of American prisoners of war. "There should be little doubt from American history that we consider that [waterboarding] as torture otherwise we wouldn't have tried and convicted Japanese for doing that same thing to Americans," McCain says. He notes that he forgot to bring this piece of information up during the previous night's debate with fellow Republican candidates; during the debate, he criticized former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) for refusing to say what interrogation techniques he would rule out if president. "I would also hope that he would not want to be associated with a technique which was invented in the Spanish Inquisition, was used by Pol Pot in one of the great eras of genocide in history, and is being used on Burmese monks as we speak," McCain says. "America is a better nation than that." Waterboarding is banned by US law and international treaties. "If the United States was in another conflict, which could easily happen, with another country, and we have allowed that kind of torture to be inflicted on people we hold captive, then there's nothing to prevent that enemy from also torturing American prisoners," McCain adds. [Associated Press, 11/29/2007]
Entity Tags: Willard Mitt Romney, John McCain
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