Report Details FBI's 9/11 Missteps

In the weeks and months before Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI had some clues, but didn't see them. It had a lead from one of its own agents, but didn't follow it.

A sobering inside look at pre-Sept. 11 intelligence operations by the Justice Department's inspector general chronicles — in some instances in hour-to-hour detail — how the FBI missed at least five opportunities to uncover vital information that might have led agents to the hijackers.

The report is blunt, reports CBS News Correspondent Joie Chen. It calls the FBI efforts prior to Sept. 11 a significant failure. The hard facts in the report mirror many findings of the 9/11 commission. But the stark failures laid out in great detail raise questions about whether the bureau will be able to remake itself.

"The way the FBI handled these matters was a significant failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks," Inspector General Glenn Fine said in the report released Thursday.

An FBI agent suggested to the chain of command two months before the attacks that there was a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the United States to study ways to take down U.S. aircraft.

Failure to fully heed the agent's theory was indicative of an agency that failed to accord strategic analysis the attention it deserved, the report said.

Even when the bureau had hard information shortly before the attacks about the presence in the United States of eventual hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar, "the FBI's investigation then was conducted without much urgency or priority," the report concluded.

The investigation of Mihdhar "was given to a single inexperienced agent," the report said.

Responding to the IG's criticism, the FBI said it has since taken substantial steps to deal with the issues the report raised.

"I think the FBI has moved a long way in transforming itself to more effectively deal with the terrorist threat," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, responding to the report, told CBS News Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm. "One of the highlights of the report was the fact that we were unable to share information. As the result of certain laws such as the Patriot Act, the law intelligence community is now able to share information with the intelligence community. And we are able to connect the dots and we've put ourselves in a much better position to effectively protect America against a similar attack."

Earlier this week it was reported that the 10 former 9/11 commissioners were to present a letter to White House chief of staff Andrew Card requesting detailed information about how various government agencies – including the FBI, CIA, Pentagon and State Department – have dealt with recent terrorist threats.

Acting through a new, nonprofit group, the ex-panel members began a series of forums Monday to assess how the 41 suggestions they made last summer are being implemented – and both the White House and Congress could be in for tough criticism.

A hearing Monday focused on the CIA and the FBI, which received sharp rebukes in the commission's final report.

"We're going to ask a lot of questions," said Thomas Kean, who was chair of the original 9/11 panel and is now a board member of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project.

A New York Times article said the commissioners' actions represent an unusual attempt to remain politically viable long after the end of their official investigation.

"There are a lot of our recommendations that have not been implemented," said Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey. And with terrorists threatening new attacks, he said, "we don't have a lot of time left to act."

The IG's review, a year old, is only now being released because of a court fight with lawyers for imprisoned terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui over how much of it should be disclosed. The portions on Moussaoui were deleted.

According to the report, CIA employees and four FBI agents assigned to the CIA's bin Laden unit on Jan. 5, 2000, accessed incoming cables containing a substantial amount of information about Mihdhar, including that he was traveling and that he had a U.S. visa. Those facts weren't disseminated to the FBI.

The information was written up that day by one of the FBI agents assigned to the CIA's bin Laden unit. The FBI agent sought, but was never able to get, the required go-ahead from the CIA's deputy chief of the unit to send the draft to the FBI. Ten days later, Mihdhar and Hazmi were in Los Angeles.

All of the CIA and FBI personnel who were involved in the matter now say they remember nothing about the document that wasn't sent. The document is called a Central Intelligence Report, or CIR.

"When we interviewed all of the individuals involved with the CIR, they asserted that they recalled nothing about it," the report stated.

Mihdhar came under CIA scrutiny because the National Security Agency had picked up communications that al Qaeda operatives were planning travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Mihdhar showed up at the meetings.

Once in the United States, Mihdhar and Hazmi lived openly in San Diego and "should have drawn some scrutiny from the FBI," the report said.

The head of the San Diego FBI office responded that the report greatly exaggerates the possibility that local agents could have prevented the attacks.

The two Saudis rented a room in the home of a longtime FBI terrorism informant, and also befriended a fellow Saudi who had drawn FBI scrutiny in the past.

The informant identified the two men to his FBI handler only by their first names, and the report criticizes the FBI handler as "not particularly thorough or aggressive" in following up.

The two men also befriended Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who had established himself in the area. The FBI briefly investigated him in 1998 when the manager of his apartment complex reported that al-Bayoumi had received a suspicious package, had strange wires in his bathroom and hosted frequent weekend gatherings of Middle Eastern men.