t5 b43 jan 26-27 hearing notes 1 of 2 fdr- draft staff statement 104

8/14/2019 T5 B43 Jan 26-27 Hearing Notes 1 of 2 Fdr- Draft Staff Statement 104

1/13

Draft StaffStatement

Entry of the 9/11 Hijackers Into the United States

Mem bers of the Comm ission, yourstaff has developed initialfindings on how theindividualswho ca rried out the 9/11 attacks entered the United S tates. We have alsodeveloped initialfindings on terrorists whofailed in their efforts to enter the UnitedStates. Thesefindings lead us to some tentative judgm ents on the way the United Statestargets thetravelof international terrorists. Thesefindings and judgmentsmay help yourconduct of today's public hearing and willinform the development of yourrecommendations.

The findings and judgments I report todayare theresults of our work so far. We remainready to revise our understanding of these topics as our work continues.This staffstatement represents the collectiveeffort of several members of ourstaff. SusanGinsburg, Thoma sEldridge,and JaniceKephart-Robertsdid most of the investigativework reflected in this statement.

Our staff was fortunate. We could build upon a large and strong body of work carried outby ma ny talented public servantsat the Depar tmen tof State , the Centra l In te l l igenceA g e n c y,the former Immigra t ionand N a t u r a l i z a t i o nService and the DepartmentofHomelandSecur i ty, and the Federal Bureauof Investigation.The American peopleshould be proud of the many extraordinary professionals now serving them. To theextent we have criticisms, they are comments less on the talent available and more onhow that talentis used.

I. Travel Intelligence an d Terrorism

We do not begin with A merican law or policy. We begin by a nalyzing the terroristenemy. To an international terrorist, few topics are more im portant than where and howthey travel. A nyone imm ersed in thedebriefings of A l Qa'ida terrorists will be struck byhow central this is, how vital to their tra decra ft. The ability to travel and the chara cter oftravel documents is one of the most important factors in operational recruitment,including the recruitment o f the 9/11 hijackers. It wa s a critical, perha ps the mostimportant,reason for reliance on so many Saudi citizens.

Think about the problem from their perspective. They live in places w here theyfeelrelativelysafe or anonymous. W hen they travel internationally, they must come to thesurface. They must pass, again and a gain, through porta ls of one kind or another w herethey are exam ined by government ag ents. Only when they reach their destination canthey once again disappear into the'ocean.'

Yet, for an internationa l terrorist, travel is essential. A mong the9/11 hijackers it was thepilots who traveled the most. A mong the distant coordinators,Ramzi BinalshibhandKhalid Sheikh Mohammed movedfrequently fromplace to place. S o A lQa'ida devotesenormous effort to trave l issues. B efor e 9/11a principal unitof the organization worked


2/13

on little else. Al Q a'ida terrorists sought to hide their true identities and keep their travelhistories off the record. Theydid not want othersto know, fo r example, that theyhadvisited suspect places like Afghan istan. Theycarefully planned how to acquire,manipulate,and use travel docum ents like visas and passports.

Ease of entry to a country was, an d is, a significantfactor in terrorist operationalplanning. They research entry rulesan d border processesto select the best docum entsand entry points.

Al Qa'ida terrorists wouldoften travel underan alias, and m a n y possessed m u l t i p l ealiases as well as var ia t ions in t h e i rnames. They wo uld impersonate inno cent peoplewhose passports they stealand alter. They would take and usepassportsof terroristsk i l l e din batt le in Afghanis tan .They wo uld fabricate entire passportsto replicate the dataof others. They wo uld use counterfeit travel stamps and visas to create'false trails' intheir passports. They wou ld carry multiple passports withth e same serial number andsmall variations in biographical info rmation ,so-called [or that are]"cloned" passports.They \d so they can]use onepassport fo r going to some countriesand a [duplicate]s i m i l a rpassport for others.

How do Al Qa'ida terrorists get their passports? Some are obtained legitimately. Someare blanks , documentsw i t hor without serialnumbers [or 'blanks'] that may have alreadybeen reported lost or stolen. AlQa'ida terrorists especially like to get documentsfrom'visa waiver' countries. Theseare countries, like thosein Western Europe, [that havedeals in which their]whose nation als do not need visas to come to the United States.Some other passportsare obtained from friendly or corrupt governmentofficials or fromterrorists' friends who work inside governmen t agencies. Some are obtained or doctoredwith the aid of a l Qaeda's own orother documenttraffickers or forgers.

For these reasonswe must be cautious in reaching conclus ionsabouthow much we knowabout the passports or aliases the9/11 attackers used. That said,four of the hijackers'passports have survived in whole o r in part. Two w ere recoveredfrom the crash site ofUn ited Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. One [was recovered]from a hijacker onAm erican Airlines Flight11 [I t fluttered to the street after the plane hit the Wo rld TradeCenter] was j A passerby] picked [it]up by a passerbyw h o and] gave it to an NYPDdetective shortlybefore the World Trade Center towers collapsed. A fourth passport wasrecovered from luggage thatdid not make it from a Portland flight to Boston ontotheconnectingflight, which as American Airlines11. In addition to these four, some copiesof passport informationwere recovered in a post-9/11 raid in Pakistan. We havereviewed findings about all of these documents availablefrom laboratories at C I A .DHS.a n dF B I .

Let's pause for a mo ment and consider what this means fo r counterterrorisnl. W e believethat t he developmentand analys is of terrorist gww^ travel intelligenceof all kinds is ofthe first importance. [W e call it TRAVELINT. In counterterrorisnl wo rkit is just asimportantas the more famous'INT's' of the intelligence w orld, suchas HUMINT (orhuman agents),SIGINT (or signalsintelligence).] It is now seen as a nicheeffort, an


3/13

interesting but not central focus that is worked on by [side] specialists here and there.\e\. and very fortunately, th e level of sys temat ic in te l l igenceeffort on suchproblems since 9/11 is vastly greater.

W e think th e conceptual breakthrough has not happened y et at the pol icy leve l .Thei n f o r m a t i o ndeveloped by terrorist m ob il i ty specialis tshas not been f u l l yabsorbed by thein te l l igence c o m m u n i t yas a whole , border inspection authorities,nor incorporated intoproblem-solv ing wi th fore igngovernmen t sthrough bilatera l , regional and internatio naldiscussions. W e hope this statement and the one later today will demonstrate that no tonly in te l l igence , hut policy aboutinternat ional trav el rules and supportingd o c u m e n t a t i o nI 'TRAVELINT]is central to deny ing access by terrorists to countries thatthey ha\ targeted. Indeed, disrupting terrorist mobility is at least as important asdisrupting terrorist finances, and the opportunities and potential payoffs are probablygreater. Its place in the way we think about counterterrorism should be elevatedaccordingly.

II. Identity and Passports

To break down some of the travel problem, think about three stages. For mostinternational travel, a terrorist has to have a passport. For some countries, like the UnitedStates, a terrorist also must obtain a document permitting him to visit. This is called avisa. Finally the terrorist must actually enter the country and keep from getting detainedor deported by immigration or internal security officials.

Some of these problems can be evaded if a terrorist bypasses legal procedures and entersthe country surreptitiously, as do many illegal aliens who enter [America] the UnitedStates from Mexico and Canada . None of the 9/11 attackers entered or tried to enter thecountry this way, though w e know terrorists are considering com ing th rough M ex icoands om e h a \ entered w itho ut inspec tion fromCanada , [and perhaps using this option]. B uttoday we will focus on the illegal use of legal entry systems. We will start with passportsand identity. We have handed out a list of the names of 9/11 attackers to help you follow[some of the unfamiliar names] our discussion.

A word about passports. To a significant degree these vital documents struggle toincorporate the very latest security refinements of the 19th century. It is easier to trackthe use of a stolen credit card than a stolen passport.

W e have seen convincing evidence that two of the hijackers, Satam al Suqamiand AbdulAziz al Omari, presented doctored passports. To avoid getting into the classified details,

w e will just [use the law's language and] state that these were "manipulated in afraudulent manner." They were manipulated in ways we believe trained U.S. officialswouldbe able to spot today as revealing a direct [likely] link to Al Qa'ida. Since thepassports of 15 of the hijackers did not survive, we cannot make firm factual statementsabout their documents. But from what we know about Al Qa'ida passport practices andinformationwe believe it is possible that six more of the hijackers presented passportsthat had some of these same clues to their association with Al Qa'ida.


4/13

Other kinds of passport markings can be highly suspicious. To avoid getting into theclassified details, we will just call these"suspicious indicators." Two of the hijackers,Khalid al Mihdar and Salemal Hazm i, presented passports that had such suspiciousindicators. Again, we believe that today trained U.S.officials wo uld be able to spot theseindicators and take appropriate action. Eachof these tw o hijackers are known to havepossessed at least two passports. All of their know n passports had these suspiciousindicators. We have seen evidence that three other hijackers, Naw af al Hazm i, Ahmed alNami, an d Ahmad al Haznawi may have presented passports co ntaining these suspiciousindicators. But their passports did not survive the attacks, so we cannot be sure.

Two of the Saudi 9/11 hijackers may ha ve obtained their passports through patronageconnections with Saudiofficials. We now know that there were significant securityweaknesses in the Saudi governm ent's issuance of Saudi passports in the period w hen thevisas to the hijackers wereissued. Through patrona ge conn ections or bribes, terroristshad access to large num bersof blank Saudi passports. M any containedno issuing serialnumbers, a weakn ess that terrorists can manipulate. Saudi passports were thereforeoftenthe passportof choice for Al Qa 'ida terrorists, even those- like Khalid SheikhMohammed- who were not Saudi citizens.

The obvious question is whether all of these characteristic ma nipulations and indicatorswere known to theU.S. governmentbefore 9/11. We are sure that word of any suchclues had not been circulatedto [the officials in the field] theborder inspection serviceo f f i c i a l swho saw these passports. As to whether the knowledge of these particular cluesexisted in the intelligence com mu nitybefore 9/11, we do not yet know the answer to thatquestion. [One reason we are unsure, though, is becausebefore 9/11 neither intelligencenor border authorities regularly analyzed travel documentsto seewhether theybore suchtelltale clues.]

From th e mid-1970s, when terrorists beganto l a u n c hattacks in the Middle East andEurope, intelligenceand border authorities knew that terrorists usedforged or alteredtravel docum ents. Before 9/11 the FBI and CIA knew AlQa'ida engaged in suchpractices. They knew thisfrom training m anuals recovered in themid-1990s. Theyknew this from t racking and interrogating captured A lQa'ida operatives. Some of thisknowledgewas used in individualc r i m i n a lcases prosecuted in the l : .S.

By [In] the 1980s the CIA haddeveloped a "Red Book" to guide and train consular,i m m i g r a t i o nand customs officers [document examinersat other agencies, likethe StateDepartment or INS], in spotting terrorists. To the best of our knowledge, the'Red Book'was last published in 1992. [So the quality of the guidance and trainingbefore 9/11 waslower thanit had been ten years earlier.] Before 9/11 we cannot find evidence of anycentrally coordinated and systematiceffort to exploit such"TRAVELINT" to create anddistribute a set of telltale clues tha t consularofficers or imm igration inspectors could usein order to spot Al Qa'ida operatives or otherwise exploit AlQa'ida's travel vulnerability.If this informationhad been developed, [both] the State Department, and theformerImmigrationand Naturalization Service (INS)and the Customs Sen-ice, whose personnel


5/13

arc now part ofDHS,] c o u l d have [an] established th e capacity fo r training a nd alertingtheir officers in the field. Before 9/11 these agenc ie s "efforts focusedmainly oni r u d u i o n a !i m m i g r a t i o ne n f o r c e m e n ta nd organized visa f raud rings [and traditionalim m igrationenforcem ent].

Since 9/11 this picture has improved. We have not completed our factualevaluations ofthese improvements. The CIA is [system ha s been energized to ] looking harder a tintelligence related to terrorist mobility. The D e p a r tm e n tof State is incorpora t ingnewi n fo rma t ion into the i r processes,as is the D e p a r t m e n to f Hom eland Secur i ty.[The D H Shas taken the lead in spurring a whole new kind of international cooperation to modernizeand integrate travel documents and travel information.] As we finish ou r evaluation ofthese efforts the Commission should consider possible policy recommendations in thisarea.

Visas

Before 9/11, and today, the State Department is principally responsible for administeringU.S. immigration laws outside of the United States. A branch of our diplomatic corps,consularofficers, issue several kinds of visas fo r visitors and forpermanent immigrants.In 2000 these diplomats processed about 10 million applications for visitors' visas [to] atabout230 posts overseas. The U.S. has agreements with a number of countries in whichtheir citizens and ours do not need to obtain visas for a visit. None of the 9/11 hijackershad passports from such countries. [Al Qa'ida certainly takes notice if the organizationencounters a recruit who has a passport from such a 'visa waiver' country. ]

A visa applicant provides their passport and aphotograph. [The passport is checked] ASta t e Depar tm en te m p l o y e ec h e c k s th e passpor t for any apparent questionable features.[If the applicant applies in person, a State Department employee can see and interviewthem.] A C o n s u l a rOff i ce r cou ldca l l the a p p l i c a n t in for an i n t e rv i ew.The applicant'sessential information goes into a State database. The information is then checked againsta large "consular lookout" database, which includes a substantial watchlist of known andsuspectedterrorists called TIPOFF.

Before 9/11, the main focus of the whole immigration system, including the visa process,was to keep intending immigrants from improperly entering the United States. In the visaprocess, the most common form of fraud is to get a visa to visit the U.S. as a tourist andthen stay to work and perhaps become a resident. So consular officers concentrate oninterviewing visa applicants whom they suspect might leave and not come back home.

In Saudi Arabia, before 9 - 1 1 . Saudi citizens were (are]not seen as "bad risks" forbecom ingunlawful immigrants. They rarely overstayed their visas or tried to workillegally in the U.S. The same was true for citizens of the United Arab Emirates. So,with some minor variations, diplomats in both countries tended to screen applicantsagainstTIPOFF, but they would not interview them unless there was something about theapplicationsthat seemed [worrisome] p r o b l e m a t i c .Visa applicants from these countriesfrequently had their applications submitted by third parties, like travel agencies, and often


6/13

wouldnot fill out their applications completely, beyondthe biographical informationneeded for name checks.

The U.S. postsin Saudi Arabia institutedthe [a] Visa Express programin June 2001. Ithad little effect on visa [policy]outcomes. It required applicantsto apply through travelagencies instead of by mail or in person. One reason the program was established w as tokeep crowds of peoplefrom congregating outside the posts, which was a security risk to[them and to theposts] th e posts and to thecrowds themselves . W e have found noevidence thatthe Visa Express program had any effect on the interviewor approval ratesfo r Saudi applicants, or that it reduced the scrutiny given to their application s. It actuallylengthenedthe processing time.

W i t hthe except ion of M e x i c o ,though, before 9/11, [though,] biometricinformation -like a fingerprint- was [almost never]not r o u t i n e l ycollected from a visa applicant.[And, since Saudi applicantsdid notapply in person,] Terrorists therefore eas i ly couldexploit opportunitiesfor fraud. W e offer one example.

Khalid Sheikh M ohamm ed was the chief tactical planner and coo rdinator of the9/11attacks. He has a long historyof terrorist activity.Before his capture in Pakistan inM arch of2003,he had lon g been sought by U.S. authorities and w as indicted for terroristactivityby federal authorities in the Southern District of New York in 1996.

Khalid Sheikh M ohammed obtaineda visa to visit the United Stateson July 23, 2001,about six weeksbefore the 9/11 attacks. He did so using an alias,AbdulrahmanalGhamdi. He did sowith a Saudi passport, althoughhe is not aSaudi citizenand we donot believe he was even in Saudi Arabia at the time. He had someone else submit hisapplicationand a photo (taken of him in disguise) through the Visa Express program.How ever, thereis no evidence thathe ever used this visato enter the United States.

The hijackers obtained thei r visas overa ten year period. The terrorist pilots acquiredtheir visasin the year 2000. The others, withtw o exceptions, obtained their visasbetween the fall of 2000 an d June 2001. All told, beg inn ingin 1997. an d includingmultiplevisas, the 19 hijackers submitted 24 applications and received 23visas. Two ofthese were issued in Berlin. Tw o were issued in the United Arab Emirates. The restwere issued in Saudi Arabia. One of thepilot's applications, that of HaniHanjour inSeptember2000, w as denied temporarily untilhe produced mo re evidencein support ofhis student visa application. It w as then approved.

To the best of our knowledge, State consularofficers followedtheir standard operatingproceduresin every case. They checked their lookout database, inclu din gthe TIPOFFwatchlist. At the time they appliedfor visas, noneof these people- or at least none ofthe identities givenin their passportswere in the database. W e will say more abou t thisin anotherstaff statement later today.


7/13

Of these 24 visa applications,4 were destroyed routinely along with other old documentsbefore their significance was known. W e have reviewed the remaining 20. All thehijackers sought tourist visas exceptfor Hanjour, who obtained a student visa.

All 20 of these applications wereincomplete in some way, in that a data field was leftblank or not answered fully. This did not affect the visa adjudication process becausethedata left out was thekind of data often left out by applicants,[o r left blank by the travelagencies filling out the forms for them]. The State officials generally did not think theseitems were materialto making a decision about whetherto issue the visa. Officials weremost concerned about gettingthe key biographical data they neededfor their namechecks.

Three of the 19 hijackers submitted applications that contained false statements that couldhave been provento be false at the time they applied. The applicationsof Hani Hanjour,Saeed al Gham di, and Khalid al Mihdar stated that they had not previously applied for aU.S. visa when, infact, they had. In H anjou r's case thefalse statement was made inconjunctionwith an earlier visit, in 1997, not hisfinal visa application in 2000.Hanjourand Mihdar also made afalse statement ab out whether they had previously traveled to theUnited States.

We do not know w hether thesefalse statements were madein furtherance of the terroristplot. They might have b een tryingto hide the fact they had previously traveled usingdifferent passports. But thefalse statements might have b een the result of languageproblemsor incorrect filling out of the form by a third party f a c i l i t a t o r[travel agent], acommon practicefor Saudi citizens.

Had these false statements been discovered and questioned, the three individuals mighthave reassured U.S. officialsif they had admitted their prior visas and travel, and claimedthe statements were inadvertent or made b y a travel agent. W hy would this bereassuring? Because it would have shown they had gone to the U.S. and returned,reducingany concern that they mightbe intending im migrants.But the discovery of thefalse statements could wellhave led at least to an interview on t h i s topic. And such aninterview carries with it some small chance that one of the men m ight have slipped orrevealed some other worrying clue.

Mihdar's case is still m oreproblematical. While it is true he had not been entered intothe TIPOF F watchlist at the time of his second v isa application in June2001, the post hadother sources of derogatoryinformation about him. In January 2000 the A mericanconsulate in Jeddah had been asked ab outMihdar'svisa status in conjunction with a thenurgent terrorist intelligence investigation. U.S.officials at that consulate and at theEmb assy, in Riyadh, respondedhelpfully. So when M ihdar applied again, the routinecheck against the worldwide TIPOFF watch list took place. [But the standard operatingprocedure could not or did not include the issuingpost's check of its own databases ab outhim, including data heldby other agenciesat the post.] But no system them in placei n c l u d e d a notation of th e prior check. Thus, in effect, th e post - as an institutioncould


8/13

not 'remember' r e l e v a n tj i t s own] suspicionsa year and ahalf earlier about this sameperson, w ho was traveling again with the same biographical information .

At most, two of the hijackers wereactually interviewed in person in connection with theirvisa applications.Hanjourwas in terviewed twice. Satam al Suqami was apparentlyinterviewedin Riyadh. Another hijacker, Ahmed alNami, was apparently in terviewedbriefly, bu t jus t to clarify an entry on his application. The three consularofficersinvolvedhave some mem ory of these interviews. All stated that thereason for theinterview had nothing to do with terrorism. Non e thought that, if they had spent moretime on the interview, they would have com e to anydifferent conclusion about theapplication. They saw nothing s uspicious.

[O n the plusside,] It is worth noting that several participants in the 9/11 plot tried to getvisas, andfailed. This has not been publicizedbefore. One story, which is that some ofthe terrorists o r would-be hijackers w ere on a terrorist w atchlist, is untrue. None of thesepeople were denied vis as on grounds related to terrorism or because their names were ona watchlist.

The participants in the plot whofailed to get visas w ere Ramzi Bin alshibh, Saeed alGamdi,ZakariyaEssabar, and Abdul AzizAli. This Saeed al Gamdi has a name similarto the Saeed al Ghamdiwho became a hijacker. Theyare different people.

W e start with Ramzi Binalshibh. Binalshibh was an important participant. He apparentlyintended to train as a pilot along with his H amburgfriends,Mohammed A tta and Marwanal Shehhi. Binalshibhis from Yemen. He applied for a visa three timesin Berlin an donce in Yemen. Hefirst applied in Berlin on the same day as Atta. He was interviewedtwice anddenied twice, both times because it wasbelieved he did nothave strong ties toGermanyand hemight be intendingto immigrateunlawfully to theU.S. Yemen is amuch poorer country than Saudi Arabia. Binals hibh tried againin Berlin, this timefor astudentvisa. He was denied again for lack of adequate documentation. Ess abar, aMoroccan, also triedin Berlin and failedbecause he lacked adequate documentation.I ngeneral , t h i r dcountry \a applicants in Berl inwere held to s i g n i f i c a n t l yhigher s tandardsi n terms ofdocumenta t ionand a required showingof t iesthan were Saudi an d Emiratic i t i z e n sapp ly ing from theirown countr ies .

Abdul AzizAli isbelieved to be related to KhalidSheikh Mohammedand washeavilyinvolved in the financial side of the 9/11 plot. Using his Pakistani pas sport, he tried toget a U.S. visa in Dubai about two w eeksbefore the attacks. As a Pakistani in a thirdcountry, U.S.officials would havebeen dubious from the start, and he wasdenied as apossibleintending immigrant.

Saeed al Gamdi, also known as"Jihad" al Gamdi, apparently intended to participate inthe 9/11 attacks. He is aSaudi an d applied for a tourist visain Jeddah on November8,2000, the same date as9/11 hijacker Ahmad al Haznawi. Haznaw i was approved, but alGamdi was denied, apparently after an in terviewwi th a consularofficer, th e only would-be Saudi hijacker whofailed to get a visa.


9/13

The State Department was and is deeply committed to keeping terrorists from gettingvisas. The Department, and in particular C o n s u l a rAffa i r s w o r k i n g w i t ha little knownofficial named John Arriza in its Bureau of Intelligence and Research, has accomplishedg r o u n d b r e a k i n g[solid, innovative] work in building and sustaining the TIPOFF watchlistthe on ly t ruet e r ror i s t w a t c h l i s t in the U.S. governmen tb e f o r e 9 11.

We are troubled, however, that the Department and its Consular Affai rsbureau states thatbefore 9/11 they did not believe that Saudi citizens were security risks. In this matterthey were essentially passive. Our research does not show that anyone formal lytold thebureau that Saudi citizens were potential terrorists. So officials did not treat them thatway.

If the Consular Affai rsbureau had tried to take more precautions, it would haveencountered some i n s u r m o u n t a b l e|uncomfortable] budget realities. Visa applicationsrose by nearly a third, another 2.5 million a year, just between 1998 and 2001. Trainedstaff did not rise with it. The Congress had cut funding for Foreign Service officersduring the 1990s, especially the early 1990s. In Jeddah and Riyadh, for example, eachconsular officer had responsibility for processing, on average, about 30,000 applicationsper year and routinely interviewed about 200 people a day. W h e n a s k i n g[To ask] theD e p a r t m e n to f Sla te and Consular Affai rs to take a more proactive role as part of anational security team, this [is the] context m u s t b e cons ide red .

Entry into and Exit from the United States

With a visa, a traveler can travel to a port of entry into the United States. There,however, the traveler must seek admission into the U.S. from an inspector of what used tobe called the INS, an agency w h o s e p e r s o n n e lnow form [that now is] part of DHS. Wewill refer to INS in describing events before9/11. The property being brought into theU.S. is checked by inspectors of the U.S. Customs Service. This agency's p e r s o n n e lare! is also] no w also part of DHS.

The 19 hijackers entered the U.S. a total of 33 times. They arrived through ten differentairports, though more than half came in through Miami, JFK, or Newark. A visitor withthe usual tourist visa was usually admitted for a stay of six months. All the hijackerswere admitted for such stays, except one had a student visa and was admitted for a stay oftwo years. Another only sought and was admitted for a stay of twenty days.

When f l i g h t s foreigners] f rom a b r o a d arrive at aport o f entry in the U.S., the INSguidelines called for a total processing time of about 20 minutes f ro m p o i n tofdeba rka t i on . In this time, th e inspector usually had about one to one and ahal f minutesto size up the person and make a decision on admissibility and length of stay.

The four pilots passed through INS and Customs inspections a total of 17 times before9/11. Hanjour attended school in the U.S. in three stints during the 1990s. His finalarrival was in December 2000, through the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport, from


10/13

which he made his way to San Diego. The other three pilots, Atta,al Shehhi, and ZiadJarrah, initially cam ein May-June2000 an d arrived for the last time betw eenMay andAugust2001. All made a num ber of trips abroad during their extended stays in the U.S.Al Shehhi and Atta usually traveled together.

The other hijackers were less active travelers.Of the other 15, only Mihdar came,left,and came again. Naw afal Hazmi [and Mihdar] camein January 2000 w i t hM i h d h a randstayed. Mihdar left in June 2000. Ten of the others camein pairs between AprilandJune 2001. Three more arrived through Miam i on M ay 28. M ihdar returned to the U.S.on July 4, 2001.

For all these entries a primary INS inspector wo uld work a lane of incoming travelers andcheck the people and their passports. They wo uld try to assess theperson's demeanor.No one noted any anomalies in these passports. The inspector would use the passportdata, especially if it was m achine readable (and Saudi passports w ere) to check variousINS and Customs databases. Those databases wou ld show if the person was linked toan y prior violations of immigration law.

As mentioned above, 5 of the 19 hijackers entered the U.S. more than once. Some ofthem hadviolated immigration law,but the INS did notknow it .

Ziad Jarrah, who later piloted United A irlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania,entered inJune 2000on a tourist visaand then prom ptly enrolledin flight school. Inschool for sixmonths, he never filed an applicationto change his imm igration status fromtourist to student. Had the INS known he was out of status, they could have denied himentry on any of the three subsequent occasions he departed and returned wh ile he was astudent.

Marwan alShehhi camein through N ewarkin late M ay 2000, followed a week laterbyMohammedAtta. Both cameon tourist visasand soon enteredflight school in Florida.In September theydid file applicationsto change their status.Before 9/11 regulationsallowed tourists to change their status at any time, so they were legal. But they bothslightly overstayed theirauthori/ed periodso f"admission [visas]by at least a month. Attaand al Shehhi thenleft and returned in January 2001, still on their tourist visas, becausetheir applications to change their status werestill backlogged for action. But the INS didnot know when theyhad left the U.S. and thereforedid not know aboutthe overstays, sothat subjectdid not come up when they sought readmission.

Atta and al Shehhi did get some attention, though,because they said they were comingback to finish flightschool. Thiswas untrue, since theyhad finished their prior F l i g h tt r a i n i n gand received t h e i rcommercia l p i l o tlicenses the previous month[program]. Buttheir story clashed with thei r attempt to reenter on tourist visas. The rules required themto get proper student visas while they had been overseas. Their earlier pendingapplication for achange of status was considered abandoned once theyleft the U.S. Attaand al Shehhi were referred by the prim ary inspectors to secondary inspection.

10


11/13

At secondary,more experienced inspectors could conduct longer interviews, check moredatabases, take fingerprints, examine personal property, and call on other agencies forhelp. The inspectors involved state they do not remember these encounters. The reportsindicatethat both men told their story about going to flight school and their pendingapplicationsfor a change of status. In this case the secondary inspectors admitted A ttaand al Shehhi as tourists.

A hijacker enteringthe U.S. for thefirst time, Saeedal Ghamdi, alsowas referredtosecondaryinspection when he arrived in late June2001. He had no address on his1-94form. He spoke little English. He had a one-way ticket and about $500. The inspectorwonderedwhether he was a possible intending imm igrant. Al Gham di finally convincedthe inspector that he was a tourist and had enough m oney.

W e do know of one success by im migration secondary inspection thataffected the 9/11plot. An [apparent]Al Qa'ida operative, Mohammedal Kahtan i .arrivedat Orlandoairporton August 4, 2001. Mohamm ed Atta was waiting there to meet him. K ahtani wasreferredto secondary inspectionfor reasons similarto the alGhamdi case mentionedabove. He then encountered an experienced and dedicated inspector, Jose M elendez-Perez. W ewill hearhis story later this morning.

At least six 9/11hijackersviolated imm igration laws during their stays in the U nitedStates. Earlier we m entioned ZiadJarrah's failure toadjust his status while he was inflight school and the violations by Atta and al Shehhi. HaniHanjourcame on a studentvisa in December 2000 but then did not attend a school. Naw af al Hazm i overstayed histerm of admissionby nine months. Satamal Suqami overstayedhis term of admissionbyfour months. None of these violations were detected or acted upon by INS inspectors oragents.

Two programs might have helped detect such violations. One dealt with violations ofstudentstatus. The other dealt with overstays. Both programs had stalled during the1990s.

Nationalsecurity concerns about foreign students are not new. By the late 1980s the INSestablisheda Student/School Systemto track students,but thesystemdid notwork. Afterthe 1993 W orld T rade Center bomb ing, when it was discovered that a participant in theplot had been a studentwho had overstayed his visa, the Departmentof Justice asked INSCommissionerDoris Meissner to devise a better way to track students. INSofficialsrecommendeda newstudent tracking systemand a studentID card that usedbiometricidentifiers.

In 1996 Congress authorized a system to be installed by 1998, but then did notappropriate the m oney to build it. The INS nonetheless scraped together$10 million andlaunched asuccessfulpilot program in the Atlanta area in June 1997. It included 21schools, including a flight school.Officials at the NSC , at CIA, and at FBI w ereinterestedin the project. A year later it was readied for national development.

11


12/13

The educationof foreign studentsis a multibilliondollar business that serves a variety ofacademicand comm ercial interests, as well as important international goals. Advocatesof those interests were troub led by this pilot project to trackforeign students, arguing thatit wo uld be burdensom e and costly for all involved . In 1998 the testing of thebiometricstudent ID card was postponed. The project's manager was replaced. The programstalled. Senators took an interest in repealing the1996 law and [blockingfurtherappropriations]obstruct ingf u r t h e rIN S f u n d i n gfor it. Thus, whenthe 9/11 hijackerswere enteringthe U.S. in 2000 and 2001,there was nostudent tracking system availableto detect those violationsof immigration law.

The INS also began w orking in the late 1980s on a system to track the entry and exit offoreignvisitors, especiallyafter the State Department w idened the use of its visa w aiverprogram. In 1996 the Congress passeda law requiringthe Attorney Generalto developan automated entry andexitprogram to collect records on every alien arriving anddeparting the United States. Principally concerned about illegal economic m igrationacross the southern border, Congress had appropriated $40 million for this program by1998 .

Millions of people cross Am erica's borders. Advocates for border comm unities wereconcerned a boutthe adoptionof such an entry-exit tracking system, fearing interferencewith tradeand routine movement.IN S officials decidedto forego such a system at theland borders. They also decided to autom ate only the entry process, but thefirst efforts toautomatethe 1-94form were notsuccessful. Hence the program C ongress had envisionedin 1996 did notexist in 2001. It isnotable that,in August2001,once it wasrealized thatNawafal Hazm i also had entered in the United States in January 2000 with Khalid alMihdar, there was no IN S system that could determine whether al Hazmi hadleft or wasstill here.

The Department of Homeland Security has recently annou nced the installation of thefirststage of new entry-exit tracking system, called US VISIT, at airports and some seaports.W e are not yetreadyto evaluatethe designof this new system.

W e mu st also add that any discussion of the enforcement of immigration laws m ust beseen in the context of a much larger policy debate about imm igration po licy.Before 9/11the IN Shad about 2,000 agents. The top enforcement priority was to remove aliens withcriminalrecords from the United States. Absent some other factor, someone's overstayin the U.S. might not have attracted much enforcemen t attention, even if a system hadbeen in place to detect it. Our purpose is not to pass judgm ents about U.S. immigrationpolicy. W hat we can do is highlight, again, the way those policy choicesaffected the waron terrorismbefore9/11, and canaffect the war on terrorism today.

Conclusion

The D irectorof the FBItestified that"[e]ach of thehijackers ... came easilyand lawfullyfrom abroad." The Directorof Central Intelligence described17 of the 19hijackersas"clean." W ebelievethe informationwe have provided today givesthe Commissionthe

12


13/13

opportunityto reevaluate those stateme nts. W e looked at the travel docum ents that werebeing used, the visaprocess, the entries into the U.S., and the com pliance withimmigrationlaw while theattackers were here.

We believe that terrorists are mo st vulnerable when they move or com mun icate. The twovulnerabilities are linked, since a comm on response to con cern about com mun ications isto travel and meet ind ividuals in person. Problem s in traveling, in turn, can lead to riskycommunications. This happenedin the 9/11 plot, but these v u l n e r a b i l i t i e swere no t f u l l ye x p l o i t e dby our governmen t .

hi this statement and ano ther later today, we hope we h ave shown that [a concern]a t t e n t i o nto i n t e r n a t i o n a lru l e s f o r l e g i t i m a t etravel is essential f or prevent ing easym o b i l i t yh\, [not just a matter of protectingour borders]. A comprehensiveapproachto terrorist m obility,from intelligence collection,to border management andinternationalagreements, willoffer excellent opportunitiesagainst the criminal documentforgers, clandes t inetravel f a c i l i t a t o r san d corrupt passport ,border, and t ransportat iono f f i c i a l s\vho provide the travel inf rastr uctur e thatenables terrorists toach ieve theirglobal reach, [effective intelligence collectionan d operations againstan y terroristorganizations that seek globalreach.]

13

t5 b43 jan 26-27 hearing notes 1 of 2 fdr- draft staff statement 104

Documents