9/11 Commission Testimony of Thomas Pickard and J. Cofer Black

GORELICK: Quite apart from the FBI. I wanted to take the FBI -- I purposely asked this question to take the FBI out of the equation.

What we saw, quite frankly, was a geographical focus that once these guys, these operatives got out of a particular geography they disappeared. And back home here, we didn't effectuate the handoff.

And so I do want to move on, but it's my understanding that we had an opportunity then -- and we had others -- to put these two operatives, whom we had identified, on the TIPOFF watch list as early as early 2000. Is that right?

BLACK: Yes, ma'am, it is.

GORELICK: Now, Mr. Pickard, I want to return to the questions that my now-absent colleague Mr. Roemer was asking you about, the communications with the field.

And you indicated that in this period of high threat in July you had -- as part of your annual performance review you talked with the SACs, among other things, about terrorism. And you also indicated that you had a conference call on July 19th in which you discussed, again, a number of other things, but mentioned the terrorist threat.

PICKARD: The July 19th?

GORELICK: Yes. I think the way you answered Commissioner Roemer -- I don't want to put words in your mouth -- was that, Well, you know, these guys, people who were receiving this information have so much coming into them that really sifting what is important is difficult.

I want to drill down on the Minneapolis example, because you indicated that you called the SAC and you said, Why didn't you pick up the phone and call me?

What the people who were working on the Moussaoui case told us was that they were desperate to get the attention of headquarters. This is after your two conversations with the SACs -- desperate. And they went to the SAC, and they said, Would you please call Mike Rollins, the International Terrorism Section chief in headquarters? and the SAC wouldn't do it.

So this is not an issue of sifting. This is an issue of disconnect, I think, between the headquarters and the field. And I would like you, if you can, to square up that behavior with the conversations you think you had with him.

PICKARD: On July 19th, I had all 56 SACs on the phone and I discussed four topics.

First off, I discussed with them Back to Basics ; it was a program that I had instituted with the Inspection Division based upon the problems the FBI had with the Timothy McVeigh documents to make sure that the employers of the FBI understood how pieces of evidence were to be handled, how they were to get into our files and make sure we did not have a recurrence of the Timothy McVeigh.

The second thing I talked to them about was our new director, Director Robert Mueller. I told them that I had a conversation with him, that he was enthusiastic about the job. The employers of the FBI were looking for, Who's the new leader? Who's going to take us into the 21st century?

So I talked to him about my conversation with Director Mueller and his enthusiasm for the job.

The next topic I had talked about was there was concern expressed by the SACs to me. They felt I should be getting out in front of the media talking about the good things about the FBI and things like that.

I told them I was not going to do that. I wanted them to get back to putting the I back in FBI for investigations, and that would increase our presence and increase our stature and things like that.

And then, finally, I told them about the threat level. I told them about that the chatter was still at a high level. I didn't have any further information about the chatter level. But I expected that at any time we could have a terrorist incident and they would be responding somewhere in the world wherever it might be.

They pulled the records yesterday. The conversation lasted approximately 35 minutes. I've given you a two-minute synopsis of that. I can't recall with a lot more specificity what happened there.

I don't understand why -- but I think if, I could talk to you. On the afternoon of September 11th, we had reports all over the map. We had situations where we thought that the Department of State had been bombed. We thought bombs were going off. We thought the Sears Tower was evacuated, and things like that.

I called all 56 SACs again, first off, to get an evaluation of where we stood, what was happening, where we needed resources deployed to, what we could do and what we could also get back to the director so that if he had meetings with the president and he had a number of conversations and meetings with the president that day -- Director Mueller -- I wanted to have the best information we had.

At that time we were worried that, Is al Qaeda going to do something else tomorrow? What is going to be the next thing we're going to get hit with?

When I asked that, immediately I was told about the Minneapolis arrest of Moussaoui. That was about 3 o'clock on September 11th.

Later that day I found out about the Phoenix memo. And then a couple of days later, the agents in New York, when we started identifying the hijackers, they called in and said, We were looking for Mihdhar and al Nuazi (ph). We didn't realize that they were involved in a plot.

GORELICK: May I have one follow-up question, please?

KEAN: Very brief.

GORELICK: Very brief.

KEAN: We're running a little late.

GORELICK: I'm sorry. But I was silent all morning.

(LAUGHTER)

When you found out that Director Tenet had been briefed in August about an Islamic extremist learning to fly, which was your case, and he knew about it in August and you didn't until after September 11th, how do you feel about that?

And how did you feel about the efficacy of the conversations you had with your subordinates in July?

PICKARD: I was very disappointed that something that would go up to the DCI, that I wouldn't hear about.

But that was because we had a joint terrorism task force in Minneapolis. The officer from the CIA who was working on that task force pushed that up through their chain. The FBI did not push it up.

GORELICK: Thank you.

PICKARD: I also had a conversation with Director Tenet, and he did not bring it up to me, though, either on August 27th.

KEAN: Commissioner Fielding?

FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador Black, you said earlier that it's important to you to be accurate with your customers. And surely the most important customer for intelligence information would be the president of the United States.

And we've had this dialogue today about the PDB of August. And I'm curious, what steps do you have in place or that are taken to make sure of the accuracy of information that your people receive from outside of the CIA?

BLACK: There's an elaborate vetting process. Information is received, raw intelligence is received, it comes into personnel that review it, that do the analysis function.

And there are those that write articles for numerous publications including the PDB. This particular employee, who is home based in the Directorate of Intelligence, was serving in the Counterterrorism Center.

So the raw reports are received. We attempt to estimate the needs of our customer and write products that meet their needs.

FIELDING: But what do you do to check the accuracy of information that comes from outside of your own ambit?

BLACK: Questions are asked. I believe -- I have not spoken to the author of this particular piece -- but I understand that this officer was in contact with the FBI in this instance. I think the assumption would be that the FBI would have confidence in the information that it provided.

FIELDING: I just have one more technical question for you.

BLACK: Yes, sir.

FIELDING: CTC -- is it part of CIA or is it part of DCI?

BLACK: Sir, it's called the Counterterrorism Center.

FIELDING: Yes.

BLACK: And as the former director of the Counterterrorism Center, I reported to the director of central intelligence, but also to the deputy director for operations on a dotted line, as well as a dotted line to the deputy director of intelligence.

FIELDING: OK. I understand.

Now, you've also spoken about resources very eloquently -- lack of resource, I guess. If you didn't have enough resources, did you ask Director Tenet to allocate or reallocate funds from lower priorities?

BLACK: Yes, he was aware of our resource needs, and he did --we were the first among equals of all his highest priorities -- he did shift resources to us. In fact, when I arrived in the Counterterrorism Center believe that we'd had a plus-up of approximately 100 personnel.

We regularly discussed this. We were the recipient of significant support in comparison to the type of support that he was able to provide to other units.

My point here being is that the director of central intelligence did a heroic job with what was available and certainly in comparison to the other competing interests.

My point here is that I think, as we've discussed today, is that this is a very large, formidable target, that we needed to devote more resources to it than the base of the Central Intelligence Agency had.

FIELDING: I understand that this isn't your final decision, but from where you're sitting...

BLACK: Yes.

FIELDING: ... is the problem in the intelligence community, is the problem in the OMB, or is the problem in Congress, as far as limited funding?

BLACK: I think, from my perspective, it would be all of the above and probably more.

FIELDING: Mr. Pickard, at the time that now Director Mueller took over from you and you were the acting director, did you brief him?

PICKARD: He asked that I not brief him on any kind of classified material because he did not feel he would be able to securely maintain it that summer. When he reported in on September 4th, and was sworn in by the attorney general, that whole week, I had set up a series of briefings on classified information for him, and also emergency procedures, everything from in the event of nuclear war to how to call out the hostage rescue teams and other things like that, that the director I felt needed to know as soon as possible upon his arrival.

FIELDING: I see the red light is on, but just, may I ask you, is there a written record of the briefings, or are there written agendas or things like that, that you could supply to the commission and its staff for studying to see what you covered?

PICKARD: I did not participate in those briefings with the director. The assistant directors of each of the divisions, counterintelligence and counterterrorism, did those briefings. And I will ask the FBI to see if they can find those briefings.

FIELDING: And just as an aside, I noted that you were the sixth deputy director in eight years, and then you left at the end of that.

PICKARD: I'm proud to say I held the record. I lasted two years.

FIELDING: Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KEAN: Final questions will be by Commissioner Ben-Veniste.

BEN-VENISTE: Mr. Pickard, on January 21st of this year you met with our staff. Is that correct?

PICKARD: That's correct.

BEN-VENISTE: And according to our staff report, you told them that in June 2001, you met with Attorney General Ashcroft and he told you that you would be the acting FBI director.

PICKARD: That's correct.

BEN-VENISTE: You had some seven or eight meetings with the attorney general?

PICKARD: Somewhere in that number. I have the exact number, but I don't know the total.

BEN-VENISTE: And according to the statement that our staff took from you, you said that you would start each meeting discussing either counterterrorism or counterintelligence. At the same time the threat level was going up and was very high. Mr. Watson had come to you and said that the CIA was very concerned that there would be an attack. You said that you told the attorney general this fact repeatedly in these meetings. Is that correct?

PICKARD: I told him at least on two occasions.

BEN-VENISTE: And you told the staff according to this statement that Mr. Ashcroft told you that he did not want to hear about this anymore. Is that correct?

PICKARD: That is correct.

BEN-VENISTE: Let me ask you about this PDB. You never vetted the PDB. You never saw the PDB. You never knew that it was going to be produced. Correct?

PICKARD: That's correct.

BEN-VENISTE: And it would appear that the author or the individual at CIA who edited this PDB by entitling the PDB Bin Laden determined to strike in the United States wanted to get the president's attention because most of the threat reporting seemed to be that the heightened alert reflected the potential for a threat overseas.

And that this was perhaps the same syndrome as the white van in the sniper case that we saw, where everybody's looking in one direction for one thing, but not looking in the other direction where something might occur.

Now my question to you, sir, is that if you had the information that the president of the United States was requesting what information the FBI had up to that moment about the potentiality for a strike by bin Laden in the United States, would you not have pulsed the FBI to determine from every FBI agent in this country what information they had at that moment that might indicate the possibility of a terrorist attack here.

PICKARD: Yes, I would have.

BEN-VENISTE: And you learned on September 11th, three things, if I understand your testimony. Number one, you learned about Moussaoui.

PICKARD: Right.

BEN-VENISTE: Number two, you learned about the Phoenix memo. Number three, you learned about two of the hijackers who were in the United States, who the FBI was looking for. Had you learned that information soon after August the 6th, was there not a possibility that you could have utilized that information, connected the information, put it together with what you already knew and taken some action?

PICKARD: I don't know. Moussaoui was arrested on August 15th. The information about the other two hijackers came to the FBI's attention, I believe, August 23rd, and later on on August 27th.

To bring these three diverse pieces of information together, absent the afternoon of September 11th, I don't know, with all of the information the FBI collects, whether we would have had the ability to hone in specifically on those three items.

PICKARD: I was not informed that the president was asking.

BEN-VENISTE: I understand that, sir. But if you had known, would you not have -- I think you've answered my question -- you would have pulsed the FBI.

Let me ask you this. Did the president or the attorney general of the United States ever ask to meet with you following August 6th?

PICKARD: No. There was a policy that I was not to go to the White House unless the attorney general or the deputy attorney general or someone from the Department of Justice, either I had informed them or they went with me, and that was as a result of the Travelgate scandal where the FBI asked for information...

BEN-VENISTE: The request never came.

And finally with request with -- Mr. Black -- to the kill or capture answer that you gave earlier to Secretary Lehman: Are you confident that you saw all of the instructions signed by President Clinton as of late 1998 before you took up your duties at the CT center in mid-1999?

PICKARD: All of the memorandums of notification...

BEN-VENISTE: Yes.

PICKARD: ... were retained by our lawyers. And I did have access to them.

BEN-VENISTE: Are you confident that you saw all of them, because, sir, you are mistaken with respect to your answer.

PICKARD: Well -- well, I don't know the universe of what -- I don't know what, necessarily, all the ones. I know the ones that were made available to me -- put it that way.

BEN VENISTE: The problem was that the one that we are referring to here was not made available to us until very recently. It was in the Clinton archived materials and was held very closely.

PICKARD: Yes. I don't know what you're referring to, so I would have to see it to confirm that I was aware of it. So I don't know, sir.

KEAN: Gentlemen, thank you very much. We appreciate your government service and your attendance here and your help with our commission today. Thank you very much.