Who Is Margaret Gillespie? With Introduction By Kevin Fenton

Thanks to www.cooperativeresearch.org

Kevin Fenton
4/4/2008

The FBI Agent Who Discovered Two 9/11 Hijackers Were in the US
Margaret Gillespie was an FBI agent who, while detailed to Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, was involved in the search for Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi in the summer of 2001. She attended the stormy 11 June meeting between the CIA and FBI and, at the suggestion of CIA manager Tom Wilshire, performed a low-key review of al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit, where the CIA let two of the 9/11 hijackers slip through their fingers in early 2000. Because Wilshire only told her to perform the review in her “free time,” she did not find and realise the significance of CIA cables indicating Almihdhar and Alhazmi had entered the US until 21 August 2001 – even though the review started in May. However, she immediately called the FBI, alerting them they should look for the two, and had Almihdhar, Alhazmi, an alias for their associate Khallad bin Attash, and an Iraqi named Ahmad Hikmat Shakir watchlisted on August 23.

The CIA had been hiding Almihdhar, Alhazmi and bin Attash from the FBI since January 2000, when Wilshire, who then knew Almihdhar had a US visa and was likely to travel to the US, blocked a report to the FBI informing them of the visa. After 9/11, various interpretations were placed on the CIA’s notification to the FBI that Almihdhar and Alhazmi had entered the US, because the notification was close in time to other events thought to be significant, the departure of John O’Neill from the FBI, the departure of an FBI team investigating the USS Cole bombing to Yemen, the arrival of an alleged warning about the hijackers from Mossad, and the closeness to the 9/11 attacks.

Five Options
In my opinion, it is impossible to say for certain why the information about Almihdhar and Alhazmi was passed at this precise time, so I will just lay the possibilities out and indicate which I think is the most likely.

(1) Notification of Almihdhar and Alhazmi’s entry into the US was delayed because of the personal antipathy of CIA employees to FBI counterterrorism manager John O’Neill. O’Neill resigned from the FBI on 22 August, the very day the FBI was informed of Almihdhar and Alhazmi, and there clearly was a great deal of friction in the relationship between O’Neill and Alec Station.

(2) Notification was delayed because the CIA wished to keep the news from the FBI team investigating the Cole bombing, in particular lead investigator Ali Soufan, who left for Yemen on 22 August. The CIA clearly did want to keep information about Almihdhar and Alhazmi from Soufan and falsely claimed three times not to know anything about the January 2000 summit in Malaysia when Soufan asked them about it. Soufan and the rest of his team in Yemen appear not to have learned about Almihdhar and Alhazmi before 9/11, but the rump of the team that remained in New York did.

(3) Notification of Almihdhar and Alhazmi’s entry into the US was passed at this time because of an Israeli warning about Alhazmi and Almihdhar. Mossad is said to have uncovered information about the hijackers and passed it to the CIA, prompting the CIA to give up some of the information it had about the two to the FBI.

(4) Notification of Almihdhar and Alhazmi’s entry into the US was passed at this time because the CIA, which, in this version, intended for Almihdhar and Alhazmi to perform some sort of attack, knew the attack would be soon and that the FBI did not have enough time to find the hijackers and stop the plot. While it is unlikely that the FBI could have discovered the entire plot and arrested all the actors in the three weeks before 9/11, it certainly could have found some of them and arrested them on other charges – Almihdhar for his part in the Cole bombing, lead hijacker Mohamed Atta for a driving offence, others for immigration violations. This would probably have disrupted the plot to the extent it was cancelled.

Coincidence?
(5) The final option is that it is just a coincidence; Gillespie realised the two had entered the US and notified the FBI immediately. This is supported by some of the circumstances, although questions still remain. First, while wrongdoing – specifically, the CIA hiding Almihdhar and Alhazmi from the FBI – was going on around her, there is no indication she was actually involved in the wrongdoing herself. She seems more of a bystander to it.

Second, the CIA’s information access records are said to indicate that Gillespie accessed the relevant cables at this time, not before. While it may be theoretically possible to alter or manipulate such records, there is currently no evidence of this. Another possibility that cannot be discounted is that Gillespie was “encouraged" to find the cables at the relevant time by another officer who was part of the plan to hide the two hijackers from the FBI. For example, she may have been told to spend more time on the search of records relating to the Malaysia meeting, or may have been given a pointer as to where to look for the relevant cables.

Third, when Gillespie found the cables, she immediately called the FBI to give them informal notification, without asking her superiors for permission. When Miller found the cable about Almihdhar’s visa in early 2000 he tried to pass the information to the FBI by a formal report, which was subject to approval by his superior, Wilshire, who instructed the report not be sent. As Gillespie’s notification was informal, it was not subject to approval. Quite possibly, if one of the six CIA officers who withheld the information from the FBI (Wilshire, his boss Rich B, Clark Shannon, an officer identified as “James” in the Justice Department Inspector General’s 9/11 report, and officers in Islamabad and Sana’a) had had the chance, he would have blocked the notification.

Fourth, as noted above in (4), the FBI’s Cole investigation still had time to find Almihdhar and arrest him, and possibly other hijackers, disrupting the plot. If the purpose of hiding Almihdhar from the FBI was to allow him and his associates to perform an attack, passing the notification at this time was a big risk and could have thwarted the attack. Wilshire, who had by this time gone on loan to the FBI, and an FBI headquarters agent named Dina Corsi had to work very hard to keep resources away from the hunt for Almihdhar, arguing with several field agents, in particular Steve Bongardt of the New York office, who wanted more resources devoted to the search. These arguments exposed Wilshire, who was involved in the Zacarias Moussaoui case at the same time, to a greater risk of discovery. (Note: in late August 2001 Wilshire was aware that (a) a large al-Qaeda attack was drawing near, (b) Almihdhar was a likely participant in such attack, and (c) Almihdhar was in the US. This meant that Wilshire should and probably did realise the forthcoming large attack would be in the US. However, he continued to protect Almihdhar from a proper search by the bureau).

As I indicated above, there is no way to resolve this conflict for certain, but in my view option (5) – the proximity to the departure of O’Neill from the FBI and the Cole investigators to Yemen, and the alleged warning from Mossad is just a coincidence – is the likeliest explanation.

End Part I