There was yet another press report of Mossad warnings in August 2001, which appeared in Die Zeit in October 2002. The report stated that the names of Mihdhar and Hazmi were given to the CIA by Mossad on August 23, resulting in their Watchlisting on August 24. ¹⁰⁸ Although the report is based upon unspecified "documents obtained by Die Zeit", it is interesting given the contemporaneous (just after September 11) and credible reports of August Mossad warnings cited above. Collectively the reported warnings appear to offer the most likely reason for the Watchlisting of these two future hijackers in August 2001.

The Commission and its Staff, however, make no mention of any Israeli warnings, and take the position, undoubtedly adopting the CIA's public stance, that it was solely a series of reviews beginning in May 2001 that led to the Watchlisting. But as we shall see, this account is both difficult to follow and hard to believe. In any event it shows that no real action was taken to Watchlist Mihdhar or Hazmi until late August, after the Israeli warnings appear to have been received.

The issue is important because any downplaying of Israeli warnings, whether done in order to conceal their or our "sources and methods" or for other reasons, draws attention away from the major question of the adequacy of the Mossad warnings and the surveillance role the Israeli Groups played in the United States in the months leading up to September 11. I shall try to restate the Commission's and its Staff's (and the CIA's official) explanation of the Watchlisting here.

"John", "Mary", "Jane" and "Alice"

In the spring of 2001 there were reported threats of terrorist attacks on U.S. interests abroad as noted more particularly in the first column of Exhibit E. According to the Commission's Staff, in May of that year, a CIA officer called only "John" (to protect his identity) in Staff Statement No. 10 and in the Commission's Final Report "wondered where the attacks might occur." ¹⁰⁹ John's spontaneous interest was said to have been prompted by his recollection that Mihdhar and Hazmi had been present at a Kuala Lumpur meeting in January 2000. It was suspected the attack on the U.S. vessel Cole in October 2000 had been planned at that meeting.

So in the month of May 2001, the story continues, John and a woman at the CIA (whom we shall call "Alice" here), reviewed the CIA's cable traffic concerning the Kuala Lumpur meeting. Alice reportedly discovered that the CIA had learned, in March 2000 (though they had never shared this information with the FBI), that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa and that Hazmi had come to Los Angeles shortly after the Kuala Lumpur meeting. John did nothing at all, however.

Two months later, at a time when the focus was still on threats to U.S. interests outside the United States) ¹¹⁰ in late July or some time in August, John asked "Mary", an FBI agent detailed to the CIA, to review the cable traffic one more time. It is unclear what inspired John to resume that work. He is said to have recalled or discovered that Khallad, a dangerous al Qaeda operative, had been identified as one of those who attended the Kuala Lumpur meeting. But John was not particularly concerned, and told Mary to do the work in her spare time. ¹¹¹

On August 21, 2001, Mary is said to have discovered a bit more than Alice supposedly had in May: Hazmi had come to Los Angeles, as was known, but Mihdhar had used his visa to come as well, along with Hazmi, in January 2000. Working with Jane, an FBI agent assigned to the CIA, Mary also discovered that Mihdhar had left the United States later in 2000, but had just returned, on July 4, 2001. Because of Mary's discoveries, Mihdhar and Hazmi were placed on the Watchlist.

The Uncertain, Untranslated, Unwitnessed, Unremembered and Erroneous Identification of Khallad

As the Commission's Staff has said of this route to the Watchlist, "the details are complex." ¹¹² They are also serendipitous to the point of undermining their credibility.

In the first place, John is said to have recalled or discovered that Khallad had been identified from a photograph in January 2001, by a joint FBI/CIA source, as an attendee of the Kuala Lumpur meeting in January 2000. The FBI agent said to have been present at the January 2001 meeting, however, was unaware, apparently because of language problems, that any such identification had ever been made. ¹¹³ Moreover, "the CIA officer [himself — who supposedly conducted the interview] does not recall this particular identification [at all] and thus cannot say why it was not shared with his FBI colleague."¹¹⁴ As we have seen, Alice, who was said to have "reviewed the cables" in May, "took no action regarding these cables." Neither did John. Indeed, the Commission's Staff noted that Alice "cannot [even] recall this work." ¹¹⁵ The Commission deleted the words regarding Alice's loss of memory from its Final Report without explanation. ¹¹⁶

This untranslated, unwitnessed and forgotten identification that so inspired John to return later in the summer to the work forgotten by Alice seems to have been just as elusive. The joint source had been said in (someone's) report to be less than certain (or "ninety percent certain") ¹¹⁷ that the man in the photograph shown him was Khallad. And indeed, although both the Commission's Final Report and its Staff Statements fail to tell us so, the purported identification itself later proved to be false. The man was not Khallad. ¹¹⁸ So Khallad had not been identified, and until after September 11 his everyday appearance remained as much a mystery as the purported meeting with the joint source that supposedly so inspired John on his way to the Watchlist before the Mossad warnings in August.

As noted above, when Alice's "work" was effectively taken up late in August, the U.S. presence (or likely presence) of Mihdhar and Hazmi was again discovered and, on August 24, 2001, both men were placed on the Watchlist. As noted above, they were then safely secluded and never found.

William (of Ockham)

John, Mary, Jane and Alice may all have been hard at work in Washington, and made a contribution, ¹¹⁹ but Occam's razor ¹²⁰ leads us a far straighter course to the Watchlist by way of the Mossad warnings in August, the likely result of the surveillance activities of the Israeli Groups and their (inadequate) warnings. Both Mihdhar and Hazmi, hijackers of the Pentagon Plane and leaders of the entire hijacker group, would easily have fallen under the surveillance of the Israeli New Jersey Group in Hudson and Bergen Counties, and of the Israeli DEA Groups in San Diego and (in the case of Hazmi) in the Hollywood area and possibly in Oklahoma. And it was only after the Mossad warnings were received that the CIA, finally, on August 27, 2001, told the FBI that Mihdhar and Hazmi were in the United States. ¹²¹