Late December 1999: FBI Exposes Errors in CIA Reporting on Millennium Plots, Finds Key Evidence CIA Ignored

After the FBI learns of the Millennium plots to attack targets in Jordan (see November 30, 1999), it sends a team of agents to investigate. The team looks at the work the local CIA station has done on the bombing and finds that the reports it has been sending to the US are deeply flawed; twelve cables sent to CIA headquarters are subsequently withdrawn. FBI agent Ali Soufan finds a box of evidence delivered by Jordanian partners on the floor of the CIA’s Amman station. Nobody has examined the box, but Soufan finds it contains key evidence, such as a map of the proposed bomb sites. Author Lawrence Wright will comment, “Soufan’s success embarrassed the CIA.” [New Yorker, 7/10/2006 ]