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From the details of this case, or from the other opportunities we catalogue
in the text box, one can see how hard it is for the intelligence community to
assemble enough of the puzzle pieces gathered by different agencies to make
some sense of them and then develop a fully informed joint plan.Accomplish-
ing all this is especially difficult in a transnational case.We sympathize with the
working-level officers, drowning in information and trying to decide what is
important or what needs to be done when no particular action has been
requested of them.
Who had the job of managing the case to make sure these things were done?
One answer is that everyone had the job.The CIA's deputy director for oper-
ations, James Pavitt, stressed to us that the responsibility resided with all
involved. Above all he emphasized the primacy of the field.The field had the
lead in managing operations.The job of headquarters, he stressed, was to sup-
port the field, and do so without delay. If the field asked for information or
other support, the job of headquarters was to get it--right away.
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This is a traditional perspective on operations and, traditionally, it has had
great merit. It reminded us of the FBI's pre-9/11 emphasis on the primacy of
its field offices.When asked about how this traditional structure would adapt
to the challenge of managing a transnational case, one that hopped from place
to place as this one did, the deputy director argued that all involved were
FORESIGHT--AND HINDSIGHT
355
Operational Opportunities
1. January 2000: the CIA does not watchlist Khalid al Mihdhar or
notify the FBI when it learned Mihdhar possessed a valid U.S.
visa.
2. January 2000: the CIA does not develop a transnational plan for
tracking Mihdhar and his associates so that they could be fol-
lowed to Bangkok and onward, including the United States.
3. March 2000: the CIA does not watchlist Nawaf al Hazmi or
notify the FBI when it learned that he possessed a U.S. visa and
had flown to Los Angeles on January 15, 2000.
4. January 2001: the CIA does not inform the FBI that a source
had identified Khallad, or Tawfiq bin Attash, a major figure in
the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, as having
attended the meeting in Kuala Lumpur with Khalid al Mihd-
har.
5. May 2001: a CIA official does not notify the FBI about Mihd-
har's U.S. visa, Hazmi's U.S. travel, or Khallad's having attended
the Kuala Lumpur meeting (identified when he reviewed all of
the relevant traffic because of the high level of threats).
Final 10-11.4pp 7/17/04 4:12 PM Page 355