Genral Intelligence Agency

Washington, D.C. 20505

22 IuLy 201 0

R*eference : F -201 0-01 409

Dear

This is a final response to your 19 June 2010 Freedom

of lnformation Act
(Fo{A) request, received in the offi." of the Information
unJ pri,ru.y Coordinator
on 30 June 2010, for "a copy of the binder given
by Michael scheuer to the 9/11
Commission's executive director philip Zellkow.,,

with regard to your request, responsive records, shourd they

exist, would be
contained in operationar files. The clAlnformation
a.t, so u.s.c. $ 431, as amended,
exempts CIA operationai fi1es frorn the search,
review, publication, and disclosure
requirements of the Freedom of Infonnation
Act.

Sincerely,

&''^*h'
Delores M. Nelson
Infonnation and Privacy coordinator
u
 Author's Note
tainly cannot answer to the satisfaction of all. I faced it before while a serv-
l,
ing member of the CIA s Senior Intelligence Service, however, and it may
help the current reader if I explain how I then tried to be credible to my
audience using much of the same material that informs this book.
On the day of the 9/11 attacks it was clear that the CIA and the other lC
components would be investigated for their "failures." As it turned out, I
)
and my CIA colleagues participated in three such investigations: one by the
CIA s inspector general; another by a joint congressional panel cochaired
by then-senator Bob Graham (D-Florida) and then-congressman Porter
Goss (R-Florida); and the independent investigatory commission headed
by Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton. Faced with these investi-
gations, the veteran CIA officers who were most closely involved in track-
ing bin Laden and providing the White House with opportunities to capture
or kill him, decided that their testimony-whether under oath or not-
would be useless if they could not provide documents to back up what was
told to the commissioners and their staffers.u Cognrzant of our imperfect
memories, and well aware of the always-overriding desire of such postdis-
aster investigatory cornmissions to flay the lowest-ranking civil servants,T
those of us at the center of operations against bin Laden and al-Qaeda col-
lectively decided to provide official documents to support testimony when-
ever possible. We naively believed that if the commissioners had been sent
to protect the leaders of both parties and their lieutenants in the bureau-
crelcy, they could ignore what we said-*chalking it up to hearsay-but that
they would be hard pressed, in the context of three thousand dead Ameri-
cans, to ignore what was contained in official documents. We were wrong.
Let me here part company with my former CIA colleagues and say that
henceforth I am speaking only for myself. Most of my colleagues are
still working at the CIA and are therefore forbidden from speaking publicly
about the issues raised in this book. If they did so, they would be subject to
disciplinary action or dismissal. I also must add that nothing I have written
in this book is based on any conversation with any officer still employed by
the CIA or other lC component that occurred after the effective date of my
resignation, November 12,z}A{.Letme say it clearly: I alone am respon-
sible far aII of the contents of this book and it contains no information from
any still-serving IJ.S. intelligence officer.*
As I was preparing to brief, answer questions, or give testimony to the
trio of glll investigatory panels, I wanted to be able to tell the truth as I
14
Author's Note
knew it and as the documents showed it. To that end, I prepared a compi-
lation of between 480 and 500 pages of official documents to take along
with me whenever I was appearing before either commissioners or staffers.
The documents included cables to and from CIA facilities overseas, inter-
nal CIA memoranda, e-rrnil messages between and amoqg CIA oflicers,
after-action reports, and a smattering of official documents from other gov-
ernment agencies.e
The binder in which I placed my documents, I must stress, did not con-
tain notes I wrote down from rnemory long after the events, but rather con-
tempor&ty, official, and electronically retrievable documents that would
either support or not support what I had to say. To make the process work as
smoothly as possible for the Kean-Hamilton commission, I decided to
pass the entire binder to those commissioners and their staffers so it would
be in front of them whenever we spoke.'0 It took me three attempts to get it
passed to the glll
Commission through the clearinghouse that DCI George
Tenet established in the CIA for the transfer of such material. I do not know
why the first two attempts were unsuccessful, but on the third try I num-
bered each page by hand and consecutively with a black indelible markel,
then telephoned the commission's executive director, Philip Tnlikow, to con-
firm that it was in his hands. Mr. Zehkow confirmed that the binder had
arrived, but I was never again called on to testify to or brief the commission.
I go into this detail to emphasize that the CIA thoroughly screened the
documents in my binder, redacted them appropriately to protect sources
and methods, and forwarded them to the glLL Commission. The documents
therefore have no potential for damaging IJ.S. national security or for
compromising the CIA s past or ongoing operations. Indeed, they were
cleared of sensitive data by the CIA for the express purpose of allowing
their use to help Americans understand why the 9/1 1 attacks occured. The
documents do, however, hold significant potential for embarrassing senior
U.S. officials-elected, appointed, and civil service-but CIA regulations
state that embarrassment does not constitute grounds for censoring. These
documents, others, and the testimony held by the glII Commission iden-
tify those who did not act to protect Americans and their interests; shows
Americans the truth about foreign enemies, like Saudi Arabia, that U"S.
leaders have for decades consistently identified as friends and allies; and
shames each 9lII commissioner for failing to give Americans a complete
ascounting of the events preceding 9lIL"
15
 Author's Note
Finally, I would like to remind readers that when I refer to the docu-
ments in my bindel I am doing so from memory. I studied those docu-
ments so closely and for so long, however, that I am confident that I am
paraphrasing them correctly. For those interested in pursuing further study
on these issues, I believe that I have described the binder (a black, four-or-
five-inch, three-ring, government-issue binder) well enough to permit a
fairly accurate Freedom of Information Act request for the material, which
again has already been redacted by the CIA to eliminate all the concerns
the CIA had in regard to the possible compromise of sources and methods.
This is one case where the paucity of documents by government officials
lamented by Jefferson is not a problem. Indeed, I think that many of these
documents could be described as what Jefferson called on another occasion
"morsel[s] of history" which are things "so rare always to be valuable."ro
And their publication, along with other documents and testimony held by
the 9/11 Commission, might begin to negate the effort of the George W.
Bush administration and our overall governing elite to "dissuade Ameri-
cans from peering too deeply at the events of glIL
Were they to do so, they
might just pose discomfiting questions about the competence of our lead-
ers, the organrzatron and purposes of government, and the rationale of U.S.
foreign policy."2'
18
&i::
ft,i
PART I
GtrTTIi\G TO g/TL
If the liberties of America are ever completely ruined . . . it will in all
probability be the consequence of a mistaken notiop of prudence,
which leads men to acquiesce in measures of the most clestl1rctive
tendency for the sake of present ease"
Samuel Adarns . 177 l
On September LI, 2001, history began exacting revenge from Americit's
bipartisan governing elite for thirty years of ill-considered, path-of-least-
resistance decisions and policies that had disinvestecl in lJ.S. security, as
well as forits inability to alter the worldview that forms the basis for U.S.
national-security policy-even as they chanted that the Cold Wer \^,;ts
over and fresh foreign-policy thinkirrg was required. The gll i ;:tr., l-s
found IJ.S. leaders ignorant both of America's lack of options t6ai lr., ; i,;cp
created by a quarter-century of decisions taken "for the sake oi Dr.::?llt
ease," and of the dimensions and power of the Islarnist foe their'
:-^!;cies
had nurtured. They also were bor-rndlessly confident that the epl,r-t':rcles
that brought victory in the Cold War would ensllre the quick and utter
destruction of the forces led, inspired,
an,C instigate,C by Osama bin Laden
and al-Qaeda"
Between 1973 and 9111, {J.S. foreign policy in the Muslim wo;I..{ com-
mitted Americans to the untenable position of supporting and p, otecting
the viability of an endless religious war-to-the-death between Isi'relis ancl
Arabs. In economic policy, moreovero Washington ignored rh., ,;rr-ning
shot fired by the Saudi Arabia-led I 913 oil ernbargo and clecirjci1 t9 let rhe
19