Associated Press
WASHINGTON — New information surfaced Monday that the FBI learned about an eventual Sept. 11 hijacker from the CIA as early as January 2000.
The flurry of new information regarding what the FBI and CIA had learned before the terrorists struck comes as the congressional intelligence committees prepare to begin their inquiry today into the attacks — and the government agencies that didn’t prevent them.
A CIA official, speaking Monday on condition of anonymity, disputed reports that the agency had kept information from the FBI on Sept. 11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar’s meeting with al-Qaida operatives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000.
This official said the CIA had identified Almihdhar, by name, as one of the attendees at the then-upcoming meeting of suspected al-Qaida members in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which took place in mid-January 2000. They also knew his passport number, birth date, and that he had a multiple-entry visa allowing him into the United States.
The CIA official read from an FBI counterterrorism agent’s Jan. 6, 2000, e-mail to CIA officials, in which the agent asks whom to ask for more information on Almihdhar. The CIA’s response contains the name of two FBI officials who had been briefed on the suspected terrorist. A second CIA internal communication, sent Jan. 5, also says the FBI had been informed of the Malaysia meeting.
Some officials, remarking on a Newsweek story on the CIA’s handling of the Malaysia meeting, had accused the agency of keeping the information to itself, preventing the FBI from tracking the terrorists once they entered the United States.
Bits of intelligence like this, now regarded as potential Sept. 11 warnings, have put the FBI and CIA under fire, with questions being raised as hindsight is applied to each new hint.
The Senate and House intelligence committees will meet in closed session at the Capitol today, in the first of a series of hearings looking at missed warnings and the government’s response.
More closed hearings are planned for Wednesday and Thursday, but only one witness is expected to appear: Cofer Black, the CIA’s counterterrorism chief during the Sept. 11 attacks, is expected to answer committee questions on Thursday.
The closed hearings are being held to protect secret sources of intelligence. Open hearings will begin June 25. The inquiry focuses on the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency.
"It’s going to look like a mosaic that was not put together at the right time," said Richard Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "A lot of the failures will go back to the lack of communication between various agencies."
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