Mid-May 2001: CIA Assigns Officer to Examine Malaysia Summit in Her Free Time

CIA manager Tom Wilshire recommends that an officer be assigned to review information about al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit, to see if there are any connections between it and the attack against the USS Cole. The task is assigned to Margaret Gillespie, an agent on loan from the FBI. Author Lawrence Wright will comment: “… but [Wilshire] did not reveal that some of the participants might be in the United States. More important, he conveyed none of the urgency reflected in [an e-mail he sent his superiors around this time]; he told [Gillespie] that she should examine the material in her free time. She didn’t get around to it until the end of July.” Due to the request’s lack of urgency, it takes Gillespie three months to work out what Wilshire already knows—that some of the 9/11 hijackers have entered the US—at which point she immediately alerts the FBI to their presence (see August 21-22, 2001). [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 297-8 ; New Yorker, 7/10/2006 ]