The 2 Year Delay in Getting ASSET X to Bring Us to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

We’ve known for some time that CIA found Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with the help of a walk-in source. Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer describe the source as “Baluchi” in their book, The Hunt for KSM–someone, like KSM, from Baluchistan.

But the Torture Report provides a different take for the delay in having him lure in KSM, which McDermott and Meyer describe as more than a year and the Torture Report describes ASSET X, the source in question, as approaching the CIA in spring 2001. (This heavily redacted narrative starts on page 328) The CIA did not meet with him until after 9/11, probably some time after September 26, 2001. Per the Senate Report (the CIA disputes that they knew what he could bring them until after starting to torture), before the end of the year, ASSET X “proposed multiple times to the CIA that he use his contacts to locate KSM through [redacted]–the same approach that would lead the CIA to KSM more than 15 months later.” He apparently argued for a “more aggressive and proactive approach” than the CIA, but was persuaded otherwise. Then ALEC Station rejected ASSET X’s monetary demands.

So they lost him. For 9 months.

In July 2002, a detainee in foreign government custody confirmed that ASSET X “should know how to contact KSM.”

The CIA appears to have sent ASSET X to do something else before going after KSM, during which period his handler — whom McDermott and Meyer say was an Iranian-American flying into Pakistan whenever ASSET X wanted to meet — got reassigned. When a new officer took over handling ASSET X, he almost lost him.

ASSET X was thus handled by a new CIA officer who was unfamiliar with ASSET X’s potential utility in tracking KSM. Seeking guidance on how to proceed with ASSET X, the new CIA case officer sent several cables to CIA Headquarters, which he later described as disappearing into a “black hole.” According to an interview of a CIA officer involved in the operation, the cables were being sent to a special compartment at CIA Headquarters which had been previously used by the team [redacted]. With the dispersal of that CIA team, however, the compartment was idle and no one at CIA Headquarters was receiving and reading the cables being sent to the special compartment. When the CIA case officer received no response to the cables he was sending to CIA Headquarters, he made preparations to terminate the CIA’s relationship with ASSET X. According to interviews, in [redacted] 2002, the CIA officer [redacted] and was on his way to meet ASSET X to terminate the asset’s relationship withthe CIA. By chance, the CIA officer who had previously handled ASSET X [redacted] was visiting [redacted]. This visiting CIA officer overheard the discussion between the chief of Base and the CIA case officer concerning the CIA’s termination of ASSET X as a CIA source. The discussion included names that ASSET X had been discussing with the case officer [redacted]—names that the visiting officer recognized [redacted]. The visiting CIA officer interceded and recommended that the CIA Base delay the termination of ASSET X as a CIA source. At the next meeting ASSET X again demonstrated that he had direct access to KSM’s [redacted]. As a result, the CIA decided not to terminate ASSET X’s work as a CIA source.

ASSET X then traveled on his own and set up a meeting with KSM, which set off something the report redacts entirely. The debate over whether to go after KSM’s associates or directly after him appears to have continued, however.

The internal debate within the CIA continued, however, with the [redacted] and ASSET X and his CIA handlers urging the CIA to delay action and wait for an opportunity for ASSET X to locate KSM. ALEC Station initially supported immediate action to capture any KSM associate ASSET X could lead them to, before reversing its position on February [redacted] 2003. The next day, ASSET X arrived in Islamabad [redacted] where he was surprised to find KSM.

After some reservations (not included in McDermott and Meyer’s description), ASSET X appears to have again been able to locate KSM, after which Pakistani authorities conducted a raid and caught the 9/11 mastermind.

That is, even aside from CIA’s claims that they didn’t know ASSET X could bring them to KSM without further evidence gained through torture, there seems to have been delay and debate about how to do it and in what priority. But it appears the guy who eventually led the CIA to KSM had offered up his services even before 9/11.

It just took two years before the CIA would act on his ability to bring them to KSM.

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8 replies
  1. scribe says:

    Why am I not surprised? Yet another – previously undisclosed – opportunity to have stopped 9/11 before it happened.
    .
    Sometimes it’s amazing US intelligence can even tell what day of the week it is.
    .
    But I’ll bet all the clowns involved in this got their Intelligence Stars!

  2. Garrett says:

    This small detail is interesting:

    With the dispersal of that CIA team, however, the compartment was idle and no one at CIA Headquarters was receiving and reading the cables being sent to the special compartment.

    Secret cables sent to a secret compartment, except with no one on the other side.

    • Anon says:

      If the established practice was for a CIA case officer dealing with a source is to send cables to a specific team then we can presume that the subject of that team had something to do with what was known about that source.
      .
      If the orders were specific to ASSET X then that means that team dealt with issues related to KSM/Al Quaeda, issues related to Balochistan, or perhaps untested assets, right? If it was the general rule that the case officer followed in absence of knowledge about ASSET X’s purported relationship to KSM then that rules out the first alternative.
      .
      With that in mind is it known whether the CIA ever had a USS Cole team? Or a team related to the other stans? It seems unlikely that the CIA would cancel a country team entirely without reassigning them although they could forget to give a forwarding address. But a team dedicated to Al Queda either supporting (left over from Charlie Wilson’s War) or targeting (after the USS Cole) seems more likely.
      .
      I recall reading an unsubstantiated claim that the CIA had cancelled their Al Quaeda team before 9/11. Perhaps there is some truth to that after all.

  3. Don Bacon says:

    Boiling Frogs published on KSM a couple years ago, with this here:

    Before 9/11 [the CIA] was in close cooperation and engaged in joint operations with the later-designated 9/11 culprits in Balochistan [which is where KSM is from].

    The CIA is still active in Balochistan.

  4. wallace says:

    quote”After some reservations (not included in McDermott and Meyer’s description), ASSET X appears to have again been able to locate KSM, after which Pakistani authorities conducted a raid and caught the 9/11 mastermind.”unquote

    Mastermind. right. Please, could someone point me to the actual information that proved KSM was the so called “mastermind”? From my recollection, this was CIA’s “claim”, no? Now that he’s been tortured with impunity, the government claims there’s no way to bring him to “trial”. So…in that fantasy land called “rule of law”..how does one prosecute and prove in a court of law he is guilty of this charge? Maybe I missed school the day they taught about military commissions…you know..that thing based on the Spanish Inquisition.

    scribe said:
    quote”Sometimes it’s amazing US intelligence can even tell what day of the week it is.”unquote

    Of course not. They can neither confirm nor deny time exists. ..nor reality. But they CAN confirm they are idiots. After all… they don’t even know you can freeze to death after soaking in ice water while tied to a wall in just a sweatshirt in 36 degree weather overnight.

    sheeezusfuckingchrist.. If lying were weather the CIA would be a fucking 5.9 hurricane. All I know is if SOMEONE in the CIA isn’t prosecuted for murder, this country hasn’t got a rule of law leg to stand on anymore. Hopefully..it will be that sub-human CIA scumbag ..Matthew Zirbel.

    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/15/charmed-life-cia-torturer/#comments

    AND all of his co-conspiritors at CIA and it’s contractors, DOD, DOJ, Congress, and the Bush Administration, the MSM, and those american taxpayers that paid for it…er..wait. I’ll settle for Zirbel..and a firing squad.

  5. wallace says:

    quote:”That is, even aside from CIA’s claims that they didn’t know ASSET X could bring them to KSM without further evidence gained through torture, there seems to have been delay and debate about how to do it and in what priority.”unquote

    Delay. un hun. Of course. They had to make sure KSM had the memo from Cheney first. ..before they started torturing ..er…exploiting him.

    Speaking of liars of biblical proportions…

    quote”Years of such misinformation bubbled to the surface during the first briefing about interrogations to the full Senate Intelligence Committee, in 2007, by then-CIA Director Michael Hayden. He made so many factual misstatements about the program, the techniques, the number of detainees and the intelligence, that the Senate study devotes a 37-page appendix to fact-checking his testimony.”unquote

    http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-lied-about-why-they-tortured-the-accused-911-mastermind-2014-12

    Meanwhile..someone is getting nervous…

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/15/ksm-torture-report_n_6330636.html

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/10/how-the-torture-report-could-unravel-prosecution-of-alleged-911-masterminds

    Well sooprise..sooprise..sooprise. not.

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