US acted to conceal evidence of intelligence failure before 9/11

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7. Attorney General Michael Mukasey

On March 27, 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, speaking at the Commonwealth Club in defense of the Bush Administrations surveillance program and proposing changes to FISA, made the statement that before the 2001 terrorist attacks

“We knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went. You’ve got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn’t come home, to show for that.” (Egelko, 2008).


In a letter to Attorney General Mukasey from Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; Rep. Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties; and Rep. Bobby Scott, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security (hereinafter “Conyers Letter”), Rep. Conyers responds to Attorney General Mukasey’s statement:

This statement is very disturbing for several reasons. Initially, despite extensive inquiries after 9/11, I am aware of no previous reference, in the 9/11 Commission report or elsewhere, to a call from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States which, if it had been intercepted, could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. In addition, if the Administration had known of such communications from suspected terrorists, they could and should have been intercepted based on existing FISA law. For example, even assuming that a FISA warrant was required to intercept such calls, as of 9/11 FISA specifically authorized such surveillance on an emergency basis without a warrant for a 48 hour period. If such calls were known about and not intercepted, serious additional concerns would be raised about the government’s failure to take appropriate action before 9/11. (Conyers, Nadler, Scott, 2008).


In a statement provided to Glenn Greenwald (2008) at Salon, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, the vice chair of the 9/11 Commission, stated:

I am unfamiliar with the telephone call that Attorney General Michael Mukasey cited in his appearance in San Francisco on March 27. The 9/11 Commission did not receive any information pertaining to its occurrence.


Additionally, Greenwald (2008) provides an email response from Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission Executive Director (and former Counselor to Condolleeza Rice) (ellipses in original):

Not sure of course what the AG had in mind, although the most important signals intelligence leads related to our report -- that related to the Hazmi-Mihdhar issues of January 2000 or to al Qaeda activities or transits connected to Iran -- was not of this character. If, as he says, the USG didn't know where the call went in the US, neither did we. So unless we had some reason to link this information to the 9/11 story....

In general, as with several covert action issues for instance, the Commission sought (and succeeded) in publishing details about sensitive intelligence matters where the details were material to the investigative mandate in our law.


Greenwald (2008) offers two possible scenarios regarding Mukasey’s statement. Either

(1) The Bush Administration concealed this obviously vital episode from the 9/11 Commission and from everyone else, until Mukasey tearfully trotted it out last week; or
(2) Mukasey, the nation’s highest law enforcement officer, made this up in order to scare and manipulate Americans into believing that FISA and other surveillance safeguards caused the 9/11 attacks and therefore the Government should be given unchecked spying powers.