Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden

Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden

Monday 23 May 2011

by: Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout

Smoke billows from the World Trade Center in New York, on September 11, 2001. (Photo: Ruth Fremson / The New York Times)

A great deal of con­trover­sy has aris­en about what was known about the move­ments and loc­a­tion of Osama bin Laden in the wake of his kill­ing by US Speci­al For­ces on May 2 in Ab­bot­tabad, Pakis­tan. Ques­tions about what in­tel­lig­ence agen­cies knew or didn't know about al-Qaeda ac­tivit­ies go back some years, most pro­minent­ly in the con­trover­sy over the ex­ist­ence of a joint US Speci­al For­ces Com­mand and De­fen­se In­tel­lig­ence Agen­cy (DIA) data min­ing ef­fort known as "Able Dang­er."

What hasn't been dis­cus­sed is a Sep­temb­er 2008 De­part­ment of De­fen­se (DoD) in­spec­tor gener­al (IG) re­port, sum­mariz­ing an in­ves­tiga­tion made in re­spon­se to an ac­cusa­tion by a Joint For­ces In­tel­lig­ence Com­mand (JFIC) whistleb­low­er, which in­dicated that a sen­ior JFIC com­mand­er had hal­ted ac­tions track­ing Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11. JFIC is tas­ked with an in­tel­lig­ence mis­s­ion in sup­port of Uni­ted States Joint Force Com­mand (USJFCOM).

The re­port, tit­led "Re­view of Joint For­ces In­tel­lig­ence Com­mand Re­spon­se to 9/11 Com­miss­ion," was de­clas­sified last year, in re­spon­se to a Freedom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­quest from Stev­en Af­tergood at the Federa­tion of American Scient­ists.

The whistleb­low­er, who the IG re­port iden­tified as a form­er JFIC em­ployee re­presen­ted only by his co­dename "IRON MAN," claimed in lett­ers writt­en to both the DoD in­spec­tor gener­al in May 2006 and, lack­ing any ap­parent ac­tion by the IG, to the Of­fice of the Nation­al Di­rec­tor of In­tel­lig­ence (ODNI) in Oc­tob­er 2007, that JFIC had with­held op­eration­al in­for­ma­tion about al-Qaeda when queried in March 2002 about its ac­tivit­ies by the DIA and high­er com­mand of­fici­als on be­half of the 9/11 Com­miss­ion. The ODNI pas­sed the com­plaint back to the IG, who then op­ened an in­ves­tiga­tion under the aus­pices of the de­puty in­spec­tor gener­al for in­tel­lig­ence.

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In a Novemb­er 27, 2007, lett­er from Ed­ward Maguire at the ODNI to Gen. Claude Kicklight­er at the DoD's IG of­fice, Maquire iden­tif­ies the whistleb­low­er as "a DIA em­ployee in the De­fen­se HUMINT Man­age­ment Of­fice, Poli­cy and Plans Di­vis­ion," who was "per­sonal­ly in­vol­ved in JFIC in­tel­lig­ence ac­tivit­ies re­lated to al-Qa'ida and the 9/11 at­tacks and had first hand know­ledge of cir­cumstan­ces sur­round­ing that al­leged false re­port­ing to the Sec­reta­ry of De­fen­se and Con­gress."

Maguire also of­fered to send clas­sified materi­al to the DoD IG that was in pos­sess­ion of the Di­rec­tor of Nation­al In­tel­ligen­ce's (DNI) in­spec­tor gener­al. He also told Kicklight­er that the DNI had not per­for­med even a pre­limina­ry in­qui­ry on the al­lega­tions.

The IG re­port, which does not ex­plain the 18-month delay in op­en­ing an in­ves­tiga­tion, cleared JFIC of any wrongdo­ing and de­clared that the in­tel­lig­ence agen­cy had "pro­vided a time­ly and ac­curate reply in re­spon­se to the 9/11 Com­miss­ion." In evi­dent re­spon­se, IRON MAN in­dicated to the IG in­ves­tigat­ing staff that "he had never seen the 9/11 Com­miss­ion ques­tions or JFIC's re­spon­se, but that Con­gress should have asked for files con­cern­ing the track­ing of Usama Bin Ladin."

Ac­cord­ing to the IG re­port, the 9/11 Com­miss­ion "had not re­ques­ted the di­rect sub­miss­ion of any files or re­ques­ted in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the track­ing of Usama Bin Ladin." The re­port said the com­miss­ion ques­tions "were very specific," and asked what the JFIC knew about "im­minent at­tack" or "hijack­ers in­vol­ved" in the 9/11 ter­ror­ist at­tack.

Track­ing Bin Laden had been un­der­tak­en by a sec­ret unit with­in the JFIC, the As­ym­metric Threats Di­vis­ion, for­med in 1999 "to take a non-traditional approach to an­alysis." Known by its DoD ac­ronym, DO5, it was tas­ked with pro­vid­ing "cur­rent in­tel­lig­ence brief­ings and pro­duced the Worldwide Ter­ror­ist Threat Sum­ma­ry in sup­port of the USJFCOM In­tel­lig­ence staff [J2]." Al­most no pub­lic sour­ce materi­al ex­ists on DO5 ac­tivit­ies, ex­cept what is in the IG re­port.

The IG re­port does not deny the track­ing of Bin Laden, but notes that the JFIC was to pro­vide gener­al and di­rect in­tel­lig­ence sup­port to USJFCOM and sub­or­dinate joint for­ces com­mands and that it did not have a mis­s­ion to track Osama bin Laden or pre­dict im­minent tar­gets of ter­ror­ism on US soil.

Nevertheless, DO5 was in­vol­ved in in­tel­lig­ence con­cerns domes­tical­ly. It pro­vided as­sis­tance to the Joint Task Force - Civil Sup­port (JTF-CS), which, like DO5, was for­med in 1999 and based out of Fort Mon­roe, Vir­ginia. The JTF-CS was tas­ked with as­sist­ing the DoD re­spon­se to domes­tic ter­ror in­cidents, in­clud­ing "man­ag­ing the con­sequ­ences of a domes­tic chem­ical, bi­olog­ical, radiolog­ical, nuc­lear and high-yield ex­plosive (CBRNE) situa­tion." At one point, DO5 as­sis­ted the JTF-CS by "es­tablish­ing fic­tion­al ter­ror­ist or­ganiza­tions that would mimic real world ter­ror­ist groups" that were utilized as part of JTF-CS "ex­er­cises."

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The ob­scur­ity of DO5's mis­s­ion was sum­med up by a form­er JFIC de­puty di­rec­tor of in­tel­lig­ence, who told in­ves­tigators that DO5 had "no theat­er specific mis­s­ion." Ac­cord­ing to the an­sw­ers the JFIC pro­vided to the 9/11 Com­miss­ion, the JFIC re­ceived over 2,200 mes­sages daily "from other agen­cies, JFCOM com­ponents, or ser­vices." It did "not con­duct any uni­later­al col­lec­tion" of any in­tel­lig­ence domes­tical­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to the nar­rative in the IG re­port, a pre­vi­ous JFIC de­puty di­rec­tor of in­tel­lig­ence said that the JFIC com­mand­er, iden­tified el­sewhere in the re­port as Capt. Janice Dun­das, US Navy, "di­rec­ted him to stop track­ing Usama Bin Ladin. The Com­mand­ing Of­fic­er stated that the track­ing of Usama Bin Ladin did not fall with­in JFIC's mis­s­ion." At the same time, JFIC an­alysis of pur­ported Afghanis­tan "ter­ror­ist train­ing camps" was also cur­tailed, with an ex­plana­tion that such ac­tivit­ies were out­side the agen­cy's Area of Op­era­tions and "that the is­sues where [sic] not in JFIC's swim lane."

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the As­ym­metric Threats Di­vis­ion was "rea­lig­ned" in summ­er 2001 under the "In­tel­lig­ence Watch Cent­er." The In­tel­lig­ence Watch Cent­er may be the Com­bined In­tel­lig­ence Watch Cent­er as­sociated with NORAD, which is an "in­dica­tions and warn­ing cent­er for worldwide threats from space, mis­sile and strategic air ac­tiv­ity, as well as geopolit­ical un­rest that could af­fect North America and US for­ces/in­terests ab­road." This would be con­sis­tent with the work DO5 did with the JTF-CS.

The order to stop track­ing Bin Laden, therefore, came some­time bet­ween the origin of DO5 in 1999 and its rea­lign­ment just prior to, or right after 9/11. In 2005, the JFIC it­self was re­named the Joint Trans­for­ma­tion Command-Intelligence, still sub­or­dinate to and serv­ing USJFCOM.

Other Al­lega­tions

Ac­cord­ing to the IG re­port, IRON MAN claimed that the JFIC had "origin­al materi­al created by DO5 re­levant to al-Qa'ida," and that the JFIC had con­struc­ted "numer­ous origin­al re­ports." But the IG in­ves­tigators found that in­ter­views with other JFIC per­son­nel and a re­view of his­tor­ical DO5 brief­ings did not sup­port these al­lega­tions. They claimed that DO5, which "re­cruited JFIC per­son­nel from the com­mand based upon their co­un­terin­tellig­ence and co­un­terter­ror­ism ex­pert­ise," mere­ly "monitored and com­piled in­tel­lig­ence re­port­ing" from other agen­cies.

IRON MAN told IG in­ves­tigators that he be­lieved that his agen­cy, JFIC, would deny the ex­ist­ence of the As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion and its an­alyses. But the IG re­port aut­hors claimed, "JFIC cor­rect­ly iden­tified the DO5 in its re­spon­se to ques­tion 8" from the 9/11 Com­miss­ion and ex­plained, in ad­di­tion, that the JFIC noted that "D05's em­phasis was on force pro­tec­tion for the USJFCOM com­ponents."

But in the reply to ques­tion 8 re­produced in the IG re­port, there is no men­tion of eith­er DO5 or the As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion. The an­sw­er states, "JFIC's Counter-terrorism focus has chan­ged over the years," and that from fall 1999 until Sep­temb­er 11, 2001, the JFIC's co­un­terter­ror­ism focus switched to "As­ym­metric Threats OC­ONUS [out­side the con­tinent­al US] to in­clude ter­ror­ism and CBRN [Chem­ical, Bi­olog­ical, Radiolog­ical and Nuc­lear] is­sues," with the aforemen­tioned em­phasis on USJFCOM force pro­tec­tion. Now­here does it in­dicate the ex­ist­ence of DO5 and there is no rea­son to be­lieve that 9/11 Com­miss­ion mem­b­ers were ever aware of its ex­ist­ence. The JFIC was never men­tioned in the sub­sequent 9/11 Com­miss­ion re­port.

In ad­di­tion, IRON MAN's al­lega­tions also in­cluded char­ges that the JFIC and specifical­ly DO5, had de­veloped in­for­ma­tion that the World Trade Cent­er and the Pen­tagon were the most li­ke­ly domes­tic tar­gets of an al-Qaeda at­tack. The IG re­port dis­putes this and claims, with less than de­finitive as­suran­ce, "Evi­d­ence in­dicated that the JFIC did not have know­ledge re­gard­ing im­minent domes­tic tar­gets prior to 9/11 or specific 9/11 hijack­er op­era­tions."

The IG re­port in­dicated that IG in­ves­tigators spoke with a numb­er of key rank­ing JFIC per­son­nel, as well as the pre­vi­ous USJFCOM di­rec­tor of in­tel­lig­ence, the JFIC Com­mand­ing Of­fic­er and per­son­nel from the As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion.

Ear­li­er this year, a blogg­er, Susie Dow, who has been fol­low­ing the story of Kirk von Ac­kermann , a US Army contra­ctor in Iraq who dis­ap­peared on the road bet­ween Tik­rit and Kir­kuk in Oc­tob­er 2003, as­ser­ted that von Ac­kermann had ear­li­er be­lon­ged to JFIC's As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion. Von Ac­kermann's vehic­le was found by the side of the road with a com­put­er and a brief­case con­tain­ing $40,000 in cash. An Army Crimin­al In­ves­tigative Di­vis­ion in­ves­tiga­tion later con­cluded that he was the vic­tim of a pro­b­able kid­napp­ing, while rumors per­sis­ted that he was pos­sib­ly going to blow the whistle on DoD cor­rup­tion.

An as­sociate of von Ac­kermann, Ryan Man­elick, a form­er Air Force In­tel­lig­ence of­fic­er, was shot and kil­led out­side a US milita­ry base near Baghdad two months later. Man­elick had ear­li­er told vari­ous peo­ple that he was in fear for his life. Both von Ac­kermann and Man­elick wor­ked for the contra­ctor Ultra Ser­vices, based in Tur­key. No par­ticular link bet­ween von Ac­kermann or Man­elick and the IRON MAN al­lega­tions has ever been pro­posed.

Dow has writt­en on the two contra­ctors for the web­site e Pluribus Media. In a May 6 post­ing at her own web site, "The Mis­s­ing Man," Dow noted the IG re­port's con­clus­ion: "The an­alysis com­pleted by the Joint For­ces In­tel­lig­ence Com­mand, specifical­ly the As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion, was not applic­able to the ques­tions asked by the 9/11 Com­miss­ion."

"Which leads me to be­lieve the 9/11 Com­miss­ion did not ask the cor­rect ques­tions," Dow said.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Monday 23 May 2011

by: Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout

Smoke billows from the World Trade Center in New York, on September 11, 2001. (Photo: Ruth Fremson / The New York Times)

A great deal of controversy has arisen about what was known about the movements and location of Osama bin Laden in the wake of his killing by US Special Forces on May 2 in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Questions about what intelligence agencies knew or didn't know about al-Qaeda activities go back some years, most prominently in the controversy over the existence of a joint US Special Forces Command and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) data mining effort known as "Able Danger."

What hasn't been discussed is a September 2008 Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general (IG) report, summarizing an investigation made in response to an accusation by a Joint Forces Intelligence Command (JFIC) whistleblower, which indicated that a senior JFIC commander had halted actions tracking Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11. JFIC is tasked with an intelligence mission in support of United States Joint Force Command (USJFCOM).

The report, titled "Review of Joint Forces Intelligence Command Response to 9/11 Commission," was declassified last year, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Steven Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists.

The whistleblower, who the IG report identified as a former JFIC employee represented only by his codename "IRON MAN," claimed in letters written to both the DoD inspector general in May 2006 and, lacking any apparent action by the IG, to the Office of the National Director of Intelligence (ODNI) in October 2007, that JFIC had withheld operational information about al-Qaeda when queried in March 2002 about its activities by the DIA and higher command officials on behalf of the 9/11 Commission. The ODNI passed the complaint back to the IG, who then opened an investigation under the auspices of the deputy inspector general for intelligence.

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In a November 27, 2007, letter from Edward Maguire at the ODNI to Gen. Claude Kicklighter at the DoD's IG office, Maquire identifies the whistleblower as "a DIA employee in the Defense HUMINT Management Office, Policy and Plans Division," who was "personally involved in JFIC intelligence activities related to al-Qa'ida and the 9/11 attacks and had first hand knowledge of circumstances surrounding that alleged false reporting to the Secretary of Defense and Congress."

Maguire also offered to send classified material to the DoD IG that was in possession of the Director of National Intelligence's (DNI) inspector general. He also told Kicklighter that the DNI had not performed even a preliminary inquiry on the allegations.

The IG report, which does not explain the 18-month delay in opening an investigation, cleared JFIC of any wrongdoing and declared that the intelligence agency had "provided a timely and accurate reply in response to the 9/11 Commission." In evident response, IRON MAN indicated to the IG investigating staff that "he had never seen the 9/11 Commission questions or JFIC's response, but that Congress should have asked for files concerning the tracking of Usama Bin Ladin."

According to the IG report, the 9/11 Commission "had not requested the direct submission of any files or requested information regarding the tracking of Usama Bin Ladin." The report said the commission questions "were very specific," and asked what the JFIC knew about "imminent attack" or "hijackers involved" in the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Tracking Bin Laden had been undertaken by a secret unit within the JFIC, the Asymmetric Threats Division, formed in 1999 "to take a non-traditional approach to analysis." Known by its DoD acronym, DO5, it was tasked with providing "current intelligence briefings and produced the Worldwide Terrorist Threat Summary in support of the USJFCOM Intelligence staff [J2]." Almost no public source material exists on DO5 activities, except what is in the IG report.

The IG report does not deny the tracking of Bin Laden, but notes that the JFIC was to provide general and direct intelligence support to USJFCOM and subordinate joint forces commands and that it did not have a mission to track Osama bin Laden or predict imminent targets of terrorism on US soil.

Nevertheless, DO5 was involved in intelligence concerns domestically. It provided assistance to the Joint Task Force - Civil Support (JTF-CS), which, like DO5, was formed in 1999 and based out of Fort Monroe, Virginia. The JTF-CS was tasked with assisting the DoD response to domestic terror incidents, including "managing the consequences of a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive (CBRNE) situation." At one point, DO5 assisted the JTF-CS by "establishing fictional terrorist organizations that would mimic real world terrorist groups" that were utilized as part of JTF-CS "exercises."

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The obscurity of DO5's mission was summed up by a former JFIC deputy director of intelligence, who told investigators that DO5 had "no theater specific mission." According to the answers the JFIC provided to the 9/11 Commission, the JFIC received over 2,200 messages daily "from other agencies, JFCOM components, or services." It did "not conduct any unilateral collection" of any intelligence domestically.

According to the narrative in the IG report, a previous JFIC deputy director of intelligence said that the JFIC commander, identified elsewhere in the report as Capt. Janice Dundas, US Navy, "directed him to stop tracking Usama Bin Ladin. The Commanding Officer stated that the tracking of Usama Bin Ladin did not fall within JFIC's mission." At the same time, JFIC analysis of purported Afghanistan "terrorist training camps" was also curtailed, with an explanation that such activities were outside the agency's Area of Operations and "that the issues where [sic] not in JFIC's swim lane."

According to the report, the Asymmetric Threats Division was "realigned" in summer 2001 under the "Intelligence Watch Center." The Intelligence Watch Center may be the Combined Intelligence Watch Center associated with NORAD, which is an "indications and warning center for worldwide threats from space, missile and strategic air activity, as well as geopolitical unrest that could affect North America and US forces/interests abroad." This would be consistent with the work DO5 did with the JTF-CS.

The order to stop tracking Bin Laden, therefore, came sometime between the origin of DO5 in 1999 and its realignment just prior to, or right after 9/11. In 2005, the JFIC itself was renamed the Joint Transformation Command-Intelligence, still subordinate to and serving USJFCOM.

Other Allegations

According to the IG report, IRON MAN claimed that the JFIC had "original material created by DO5 relevant to al-Qa'ida," and that the JFIC had constructed "numerous original reports." But the IG investigators found that interviews with other JFIC personnel and a review of historical DO5 briefings did not support these allegations. They claimed that DO5, which "recruited JFIC personnel from the command based upon their counterintelligence and counterterrorism expertise," merely "monitored and compiled intelligence reporting" from other agencies.

IRON MAN told IG investigators that he believed that his agency, JFIC, would deny the existence of the Asymmetric Threat Division and its analyses. But the IG report authors claimed, "JFIC correctly identified the DO5 in its response to question 8" from the 9/11 Commission and explained, in addition, that the JFIC noted that "D05's emphasis was on force protection for the USJFCOM components."

But in the reply to question 8 reproduced in the IG report, there is no mention of either DO5 or the Asymmetric Threat Division. The answer states, "JFIC's Counter-terrorism focus has changed over the years," and that from fall 1999 until September 11, 2001, the JFIC's counterterrorism focus switched to "Asymmetric Threats OCONUS [outside the continental US] to include terrorism and CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear] issues," with the aforementioned emphasis on USJFCOM force protection. Nowhere does it indicate the existence of DO5 and there is no reason to believe that 9/11 Commission members were ever aware of its existence. The JFIC was never mentioned in the subsequent 9/11 Commission report.

In addition, IRON MAN's allegations also included charges that the JFIC and specifically DO5, had developed information that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the most likely domestic targets of an al-Qaeda attack. The IG report disputes this and claims, with less than definitive assurance, "Evidence indicated that the JFIC did not have knowledge regarding imminent domestic targets prior to 9/11 or specific 9/11 hijacker operations."

The IG report indicated that IG investigators spoke with a number of key ranking JFIC personnel, as well as the previous USJFCOM director of intelligence, the JFIC Commanding Officer and personnel from the Asymmetric Threat Division.

Earlier this year, a blogger, Susie Dow, who has been following the story of Kirk von Ackermann , a US Army contractor in Iraq who disappeared on the road between Tikrit and Kirkuk in October 2003, asserted that von Ackermann had earlier belonged to JFIC's Asymmetric Threat Division. Von Ackermann's vehicle was found by the side of the road with a computer and a briefcase containing $40,000 in cash. An Army Criminal Investigative Division investigation later concluded that he was the victim of a probable kidnapping, while rumors persisted that he was possibly going to blow the whistle on DoD corruption.

An associate of von Ackermann, Ryan Manelick, a former Air Force Intelligence officer, was shot and killed outside a US military base near Baghdad two months later. Manelick had earlier told various people that he was in fear for his life. Both von Ackermann and Manelick worked for the contractor Ultra Services, based in Turkey. No particular link between von Ackermann or Manelick and the IRON MAN allegations has ever been proposed.

Dow has written on the two contractors for the website e Pluribus Media. In a May 6 posting at her own web site, "The Missing Man," Dow noted the IG report's conclusion: "The analysis completed by the Joint Forces Intelligence Command, specifically the Asymmetric Threat Division, was not applicable to the questions asked by the 9/11 Commission."

"Which leads me to believe the 9/11 Commission did not ask the correct questions," Dow said.

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Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden

Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden

Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden