YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → 9/11 & Iraq Whistleblower - Coleen Rowley, FBI Attorney & Agent

9/11 & Iraq Whistleblower - Coleen Rowley, FBI Attorney & Agent — Transcript

by Health Policy Politics · 6,041 words · 845 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00[Music]
0:06not only was I a legal person in the FBI
0:09but I had I was our ethics teacher and
0:12as it turns out I had given a PowerPoint
0:14ethics presentation to our office a week
0:16before 9/11 and the you know there were
0:20a couple of slides in that ethics
0:22presentation one of which is you know we
0:24owe our highest loyalty to the US
0:26Constitution never say or do anything to
0:30prevent institutional embarrassment
0:33remember your highest soil tea is to the
0:35Constitution that was one and then there
0:37was another one do not puff shade skew
0:40massage tailor firm up or otherwise you
0:43know exaggerate the facts and both of
0:47those were being violated just really
0:50essentially within days and I wasn't the
0:52only one to give that power point that
0:53was given nationwide a week before 9/11
0:56so essentially what you're saying is the
0:59PowerPoint presentation the ethics went
1:01out the window when all of this stuff
1:03happened the week after when I finally
1:05saw that you know we were in flagrant
1:07violation is when it hit me you know
1:09this is interesting in light of the
1:10recent issue where the FBI has been
1:12improperly obtaining thousands of phone
1:15conversations business and financial
1:17records without prior judicial approval
1:19this is against the the Patriot Act
1:22they've been abusing the Patriot Act now
1:24do you think that this is like an
1:25overreaction as a result of what
1:27happened with 9/11 you know the common
1:28phrase is 9/11 changed everything well
1:32it does change everything but it's kind
1:34of a self-fulfilling neo-cons say we
1:38make our own reality so if you make your
1:40own reality and you say 9/11 changes
1:42everything well then it does and
1:44certainly you have a pendulum that
1:46swings from from actions that are over
1:49here and certainly we want to have
1:51emergency exceptions always that's one
1:53of the key things to have as an
1:55emergency exception so that you don't
1:56have those barriers in those obstacles
1:58but you have a pendulum that swings from
2:01here way over and what I argue is that
2:06when it swings way over to this over
2:09collection attacking countries that had
2:13nothing to do with 9/11 torturing which
2:17isn't even
2:18good for it's not even good to get good
2:21intelligence all of these things that
2:23we've done in a senseless reckless
2:26non-thinking way don't help us I'm the
2:30teacher of the of the agents and I
2:31always say this is a green light and I
2:34always felt bad because I knew that as
2:36this was happening it took a couple
2:37years for it to fully swing this way but
2:40as what's happening you saw it happening
2:42and you knew that people were going to
2:44get in trouble now these these national
2:46security letters I had a role in those
2:48initially when they were first done and
2:51they were initially they started off
2:52judicious you know there were only 8,000
2:56done in 2001 then they went up to I
2:59don't I don't know all the years but the
3:01final year in 2005 56,000 and so since
3:05since 9/11 there's been probably well
3:08over 200,000 and these national security
3:13letters for people who don't know they
3:15you obtain credit records bank records
3:17your telephone tools your email records
3:20not the content of your emails but the
3:23to and from you obtain with those and
3:25actually post office records it was
3:27broadened once in Patriot Act 2 so what
3:31we're doing is we're flooding the system
3:33with a ton of information and this is
3:36just one area where it's it's an
3:38overreaction and this was a pretty risky
3:40thing to put this memo out as it turns
3:42out I now recognize if the media hadn't
3:44gotten at Time magazine got it pretty
3:46quick I think New York Times I'm not
3:47sure what other but if they had not
3:49actually gotten hold of this memo in all
3:52probability I could have been fired once
3:55the media had it we'd almost forced the
3:58director Muller to not fire me although
4:01there was about a week where this was a
4:04little bit in question they called
4:06Muller and Ashcroft that weekend on the
4:09Sunday morning new shows and director
4:12Muller pretty quickly said no no what
4:15was she won't be fired but Ashcroft it
4:20took about three times of asking him
4:22before he finally kind of just you know
4:25went like this now before your testimony
4:28before the Senate committee you had a
4:30meeting with director Muller can you
4:32tell us about that
4:33June 6th which was the night before I
4:36was going to testify I think that was it
4:39was pretty unprecedented that I had been
4:41called the Congress in the FBI if you
4:43get call first of all you're always high
4:45level high the director testifies
4:47sometimes lower assistant directors
4:50testify sometimes maybe even the head of
4:53organized crime or something would
4:54testify no gs-14 we had we had some
5:01supervisor whistleblowers the year
5:03before who testified about a double
5:04standard but even they I'm not quite
5:07sure if they're their stuff they're
5:08material that they were presenting
5:10wasn't previewed I'm not sure about that
5:12mine I didn't allow to be previewed so
5:15Here I am kind of a row unknown quantity
5:17and we'd had our Phoenix agent doing
5:19this the two weeks before and the the
5:22the FBI of course tries to get the
5:24person on their side so I don't know why
5:27mr. Muller you know wanted to talk to me
5:29the night before I testified but I'm
5:31assuming you know he probably wanted to
5:34you know kind of get a read on what I
5:36was gonna say and stuff and we had about
5:37a Oh half 20 minute maybe 25 minute talk
5:41and he said kollene I'm just like you
5:45I'm you know well you know you know I'm
5:48sure this is partially true he said I
5:50I'm very critical I like to hear about
5:52mistakes and fix them if there's ever a
5:55time that you see something you know bad
5:58or wrong you know I would love to hear
6:00about it so I heard that on June 6 and
6:04of course getting into February 2003
6:07just you know flash forward a few months
6:11now I've got director Muller standing
6:14idly by as Vice President Cheney says
6:18that Muhammad Atta the 9/11 hijacker met
6:21with Iraqi or with or Iraqi intelligence
6:24in Prague and director Muller knows
6:27there's a ticket stub that shows
6:29Mohammad Atta was in the United States
6:31and that Iraqi intelligence never met
6:34with the 9/11 he knows there's no
6:36connection between the 9/11 hijackers
6:40we got sixty-nine again it's kind of
6:42hard to talk now from this it's almost
6:44history but but on the eve of the
6:47invasion of Iraq 69 percent of our
6:51country believed that Saddam Hussein was
6:54connected to Osama bin Laden and it was
6:58carefully put out that way and George
7:01Tenet not just a Muller
7:02but Muller and Tenant we're standing
7:05there allowing this to happen when they
7:08should have been you know they should
7:09have been whistleblowers and in essence
7:11so I decided ok I remembered back to
7:14June 6 he said any time and you know if
7:18there's anything you know whistleblower
7:20you can't do it for little minor matters
7:23you have to definitely have to pick your
7:25battles it has to be serious
7:26life-and-death but if anything was
7:28serious life-and-death it's it's
7:29starting and unjustified ill-conceived
7:32going to be counterproductive war that's
7:35not you know it's not even based on the
7:36facts that people are saying so I wrote
7:39a memo in February that I emailed to him
7:42on February 26 of 2003 this real you
7:47know kitchen throw the kitchen sink in
7:49every argument I could think of and not
7:51only argument but factually based things
7:54that had already happened since 9/11
7:56that were wrong that the post 9/11
7:59roundup was in there the orange alerts
8:01were in there I thought of everything
8:03that I could think of that would argue
8:05that this is actually made the
8:07comparison of Waco to invading Iraq and
8:10actually if you think about it it was
8:12kind of apt at the time because here you
8:14had madman which is true you had Saddam
8:16is a madman well the David Koresh in
8:19Waco was a madman with weapons and - and
8:21all in but yet we had the good
8:23intentions of saving the people in Waco
8:25but yet it turned out horrible so I had
8:28had made this big analogy and in my
8:30paper sent it to him February 26 and
8:33never got a word advantage no no
8:36response back the day's ticked by and
8:39then I get to March 7th and now of
8:43course we're on the you have all of our
8:45troops ready to invade and I didn't know
8:47what to do so I went to the paper when
8:49did you first hear the name Zecharia smo
8:51sally let's see this would have been
8:52August 16
8:53the flight school had called our agents
8:56they went out and they investigated and
8:58within a couple of days they already
9:00really had a very good idea that this
9:03was something quite suspicious the
9:05agents did a great job they had a lot of
9:07facts they put it down in about 16 pages
9:09they sent out leads immediately to to
9:13England and to France and I don't know
9:15how many people now have read the 9/11
9:17Commission report but the 9/11
9:20Commission report has a lot of this in
9:22there the various suspicious things it's
9:24a lot more than what you saw in the
9:26paper and then the the here's the bad
9:28thing our headquarters we were seeking
9:32then a warrant to search not only his
9:35laptop computer but his personal effects
9:37the law has you know average people
9:41unless you're a defense attorney don't
9:42know all these technicalities of when
9:44you can search and when you can't but if
9:46you have somebody who's involved in
9:48espionage or terrorism you can get a
9:52secret court warrant and it's the most
9:54appropriate it applies but you got to go
9:57through headquarters an agent can't do
9:59that on their own you can't go to a
10:00district judge and and this is where all
10:02the problems with bureaucracy and there
10:05were a lot of reasons for it might you
10:09know what happened is over time the
10:11agents then got information from France
10:13specifically that really added to the
10:17probable cause I said that my memo and
10:19yet the warrant still was being denied
10:22now when when the 9/11 happens
10:27I ran to a television that was just a
10:29office away from mine and saw the plane
10:34I suppose it was a replay so one of the
10:36planes flying into the bill to the World
10:38Trade Center and it was really
10:40essentially about a minute minute and a
10:41half it was like oh my gosh you know
10:43this is happening oh yes so it's related
10:47to the person here I mean it was that
10:49quick it was about a minute and and I in
10:51fact my paralegal was was behind me and
10:54I said this is this has to be related to
10:56the the case we have here and so at the
10:59same time calls were being made to the
11:01case agents and then calls to
11:02headquarters and I got you know caught
11:05up in this when I was called the
11:07night of August 16th where it was the
11:09night that Mousawi was taken into
11:10custody I was called I was already in
11:13bed I think I went to bed early about 9
11:14o'clock that night and in the phone
11:16rings and it sees agents I don't get
11:18called
11:19at home hardly ever unless it's really
11:21something important so that that right
11:24there is a tip-off that this is
11:25something important tell us what led to
11:27your decision to write the memo to
11:28director Muller for a long long period
11:31of time there was little if any impetus
11:34to investigate to basically unravel the
11:38mistakes part of ethics it's the painful
11:41a key part of ethics but it certainly is
11:44a big part is unraveling mistakes it
11:46first requires admitting the mistake I
11:49mean right off the start if you remember
11:50after 9/11 condi rice said well it's a
11:55little documentary it's called 9/11
11:57press for truth and they have all that
11:58old footage of a condi rice saying well
12:02I don't think anyone would have known
12:04that someone would command hijack a
12:07plane and fly it into a building guess
12:10what all kinds of people knew there had
12:13been prior plots I mean you start
12:15looking at this actually condi rice
12:16herself it had been involved in
12:18protection for the g8 they had even
12:21exercises a lot along these lines there
12:23had been a anyways there was all good
12:25that was one thing our FBI director said
12:28something for about three weeks he said
12:30well no one could have prevented 9/11 if
12:34we had any idea maybe we could have
12:37prevented 9/11 we had any any inkling of
12:40this and of course he was actually
12:43called on the day of 9/11 about the
12:45Moussaoui case the agents in Minnesota
12:49were so worried that the case itself
12:53would be covered up in order to prevent
12:55this embarrassment that you know that
12:57there here there was a terrorist
12:59connection already known and there are
13:03things about this terrorist connection
13:04for instance moose but our acting
13:06supervisor August 23rd 24th in arguing
13:12with headquarters to go for this warrant
13:14and the guy was saying no no we can't do
13:17it our acting supervisor had said this
13:20is a guy who could
13:21I into the World Trade Center and that
13:24was Sid in August 2001 can you imagine
13:26how embarrassing this is and of course
13:28Muller knows it he knows that was even
13:30said very quickly now and of course so
13:33it's over three weeks he's saying well
13:36we if we had known we may have been able
13:38to prevent it I tried to call the
13:40director and this is after 9/11 to get
13:43him to stop saying that because I said
13:45oh my gosh when this comes out and I
13:48knew there had been emails flying
13:50between our office and headquarters I
13:52didn't know there were 70 emails when
13:56our agent testified recently in the
13:58Mousawi case it comes out there's 60 70
14:00emails I knew that they that the
14:03communication that they had tried to
14:07seek was several pages long and included
14:09a lot of facts and I knew part you know
14:11I knew a lot of the arguments that had
14:12taken place but I didn't know all of it
14:14so when he said that I tried to call the
14:17director's office and you know I got to
14:19somebody where I know he knew because
14:21they he had just been in that office and
14:23they would tell him and stuff and of
14:24course he continued to say it he
14:26continued to say it until the case
14:29leaked to the press and the case leaked
14:31to the press one of our agents were one
14:33of our supervisors was testifying in
14:35Congress and the press learned of it I
14:37think was Newsweek I can't remember and
14:39they started asking him questions of
14:40embarrassing things he was almost caught
14:42beginning with this lying thing he was
14:45very close to being caught in in
14:47outright not telling Congress the truth
14:48because he was going with what he
14:50thought he had to say this is all in the
14:53first three and a half weeks
14:54well after then the Mousawi case leaked
14:57then the official things were changed
15:00dramatically to the other thing well
15:02even though we know this we couldn't
15:04prevented it there was no probable cause
15:06that held for about eight months eight
15:08and a half months and beginning in the
15:11spring of 2002 an inquiry started by the
15:15Joint Intelligence Committee and there
15:18were hearings FBI director Muller and
15:20others were called a little bit that we
15:22were had to hand over documents I don't
15:25know how many documents were being
15:26handed over freely but the word
15:29documents and timeline was being created
15:30some of the timeline was a cherry kind
15:33of a cherry picking thing were some
15:34facts that
15:35were advantageous to the line that we
15:38couldn't have done anything were in
15:39there and some of the facts that were
15:41not so advantageous to the argument that
15:44we could have done something we're left
15:45out and so when I had the chance when I
15:48got called that I was going to be
15:51debriefed by the staff of the Joint
15:54Intelligence Committee I literally did
15:57not sleep for two nights and part of it
16:00was I wanted to make sure I was going to
16:02tell the truth I knew that I knew the
16:03agents were to the agent that was the
16:07investigator only had three years in the
16:09FBI and his supervisor only had five and
16:13I was the legal person with twenty years
16:16as it turns out the crux of this was a
16:19legal argument and this Foreign
16:21Intelligence Surveillance Act court a
16:23probable cause so I knew that my part of
16:26this was going to go to the crux of it
16:28which was the legal argument in our
16:30headquarters was kind of resting its
16:31head on so I determined out on the
16:34second night of not sleeping about 3:30
16:37a.m. and I said oh my gosh this is
16:39ridiculous I keep going over in my head
16:42everything I'm gonna have to tell them I
16:44don't want to forget anything I am going
16:46to write it down I'm gonna jot initially
16:49I just started saying I'm gonna jot it
16:51all down so I don't forget anything and
16:53I went to the office I got up at 3:30 I
16:55got up because I wasn't sleeping got up
16:58drove to the office in about 4:30 I
17:00began typing on mic on my computer as it
17:04got I typed all day long with
17:06interruptions of course but from about
17:084:30 tell about 8:30 at night I was
17:11typing this I had about 8 9 pages done
17:14and about that time it dawned on me I
17:17got to do something more and and what
17:20dawned on me was that we had not had an
17:22investigation you know we are are FBI
17:26had an Office of Professional
17:27Responsibility like its own internal
17:29affairs and if anyone had asked them to
17:33investigate it hadn't happened and I
17:36also knew the about the Phoenix memo by
17:38that time at the course before 9/11 no
17:41one in our office knew that a whole
17:43other office in Phoenix had already
17:47written up a memo
17:49asking the FBI to look into flight
17:50school training no one knew that before
17:529/11 but of course we we learned of it a
17:54week I think about a week or two later
17:55not only was our office but here was
17:58another memo and it turns out there's
18:00even something more than that
18:02and that is that two hijackers had who
18:05are on the CIA's terrorist terrorist
18:07list had come in here to California the
18:09landlord for the place they were living
18:11was an FBI source I mean there's it's
18:13it's just incredible
18:15we had an FBI agent in New York now when
18:18you're asking for facts to be unraveled
18:21this will always be the case I didn't
18:23know all of this I knew about the
18:25Mousawi case and then he knew certain
18:27things were being covered up but I
18:28didn't know the whole gamut but I knew
18:30enough to know that we had to really
18:33unravel this and again there was a lot
18:36of resistance to having a full
18:37investigation well before we get to some
18:40of the points in the memo here because I
18:41think it's important to remind people
18:42some of these points let's have a brief
18:45timeline of events here with us who
18:47received the memo and in what order
18:49well when I saw on May 21st I only had I
18:53don't know about four or five days lead
18:56time from the first call and two of
18:58those night nights I didn't I wasted by
18:59not starting so I only really had about
19:01three days to put this together I flew
19:04to Washington DC on May 21st I was you
19:08know knowing I was going to give this
19:10memo and that it was that's what I meant
19:12that that little comment and the thing
19:13was I know it was gonna ruffle some
19:15feathers I had no idea it was gonna
19:18become public but I knew that you know
19:20by saying these things about my
19:21management it was not gonna be happy
19:23time so I wasn't quite nervous about the
19:24whole thing I to the staffers themselves
19:28but our this is so long you don't want
19:30to hear it I was in the FBI space when
19:33this interview took place with the
19:35staffers and the staffers themselves
19:37were all retired a Secret Service CIA
19:40Department of Justice and FBI and and
19:44actually I wasn't even sure that my memo
19:46would make it out of the staff one of
19:49the people that was the head of the the
19:50staff doing the FBI was a 31 year law
19:53and retired FBI agent legal counsel and
19:56I don't know that this is the case i but
19:59he had been alleged to have obstructed a
20:01prior in
20:02arjan on waco the Danforth inquiry and
20:06he was the one doing the 9/11 and I
20:10think he's a good guy knew him and stuff
20:11but I still I had this the tiniest bit
20:13of doubt so I had minders from the FBI
20:16in this interview so when this interview
20:19it's about two and a half to two and a
20:20half hours I tried to remember and I
20:22told him most of these things but when
20:24the interview was done they said do you
20:26have anything else to add and and I
20:30pulled out of my case I said well if I
20:33did forget anything I wrote it all down
20:35in this memo and so I gave them the memo
20:38and then I proceeded I had copied our
20:40internal affairs so I had to find that
20:43office in the FBI and of course the memo
20:45itself was directed to the director so I
20:47had to find the directors office and of
20:49course the FBI the Hoover Building is
20:51this maze and I walking through the FBI
20:54at that point my knees were just about
20:56like much trying to find these places
20:57and knowing I was handing this memo off
21:00and then as soon as in there after I'd
21:03found those two offices and dropped him
21:04off the night before I left to fly to
21:08Washington I tacked I didn't I said you
21:10know what I'm only handling handing this
21:12off and mostly internally and again
21:15being afraid of the staff possibly not
21:18getting filtering it I said you know
21:20what I'm gonna take it directly to some
21:22of the senators on the Joint
21:24Intelligence Committee what I didn't
21:26appreciate to be honest at the time and
21:28I've now of course had many occasions to
21:31listen to people like Ellsberg and
21:33others that have explained that you know
21:35these three branches of government often
21:37treat each other as the enemy and I
21:39frankly did not understand that the
21:41executive branch and the legislative
21:43branch especially when an inquiry was
21:46going on the reason I picked Dianne
21:48Feinstein and Richard Shelby it turns
21:51out I don't think Richard Shelby was the
21:53best person to give it to but I gave it
21:54to him and the only reason I picked
21:56those two is I saw that they want people
21:58asking questions in the Joint
21:59Intelligence Committee and I went then I
22:02went to the Senate heart building and
22:03found their offices and handed their
22:05staff when in closed envelopes
22:07I went home flew back home a day later
22:11the it was a whole 24 hours later that I
22:17get this call about six o'clock in the
22:19evening that CNN has heard that there is
22:23some memo written and I went oh my gosh
22:26the next day after that I had somebody
22:29in our headquarters call me who had
22:31heard our administer our head people I'm
22:35not sure who would this would have been
22:36but I'm assuming the highest levels
22:38talking about firing me you say in the
22:40first part here the issues director
22:42Muller are fundamentally ones of
22:44integrity and go to the heart of the FBI
22:46is a law enforcement mission and mandate
22:48the Minneapolis agents who responded to
22:51the call about masami's flight training
22:53identified him as a terrorist threat
22:54from a very early point as the
22:57Minneapolis agents reasonable suspicions
22:59quickly ripened into probable cause they
23:02became desperate to search the computer
23:04laptop that had been taken from Mousawi
23:07even after the attacks had begun the
23:10Supervisory Special Agent in question
23:12was still attempting to block the search
23:14of moussaoui's computer characterizing
23:17the World Trade Center attacks as a mere
23:19coincidence
23:20within Minneapolis as prior suspicions
23:22about misawa how could this guy possibly
23:25think that this was a coincidence that
23:27just at least couldn't be explored or
23:29looked at we can talk about denial
23:32because it occurs on every level all the
23:35time
23:36global warming is a great example I mean
23:39I think it's a natural human thing that
23:42when bad things happen look at Jeffrey
23:45Wigand and tobacco smoke denial for how
23:48many years that that smoking cigarettes
23:50causes cancer and so this is not in
23:53again this was pretty darn quick but I
23:55actually was on the phone I suppose it's
23:58an hour hour and a half into the attack
24:01I don't even know exactly where we were
24:03in the time line when we then call
24:05headquarters to try this finally at that
24:08point say oh my gosh
24:10you've been putting you've been saying
24:12no no no it's happened I mean I know
24:15this is executives it's happened now we
24:17have got to get the war
24:18now come on and the person in my lung
24:21might phrase to the person who was the
24:24person the supervisor not allowing this
24:26to go forward I said at this point if
24:29this is not related it has to be the
24:32hugest coincidence and he picked up on
24:35the on it and said yes I think that's
24:37what it is a coincidence
24:39and don't do anything of course
24:42headquarters that is is their purpose is
24:44to coordinate different office actions
24:47and so they would always say well don't
24:49your office do anything you might ruin
24:51some other office I mean that's always
24:52the thing that said you know don't do
24:53anything without without our say-so and
24:55it took what it what it actually took to
24:58get the yes from them was the Pentagon I
25:01walked from that telephone call into the
25:04other office of my boss and he's on a
25:07line with that person super superior and
25:10about that time within about ten minutes
25:12or so the plane goes into the Pentagon
25:14and and at that point we see it on the
25:17television and he says oh a third third
25:21plane has just gone into the Pentagon
25:23and they finally it took the three
25:25planes before they said yes go for that
25:27warrant let me return to the memo here
25:29briefly you say here in point eight in
25:31the day or two following September 11th
25:33you director Muller made the statement
25:35to the effect that if the FBI had only
25:37had any advance warning of the attacks
25:39this is what you talked about before we
25:41meaning the FBI may have been able to
25:43take some action to prevent the tragedy
25:45fearing that this statement could easily
25:47come back to haunt the FBI upon
25:49revelation of the information that had
25:50developed pre September 11th about
25:53Masoli
25:53I and others in the Minneapolis office
25:56immediately sought to reach your office
25:57through an assortment of higher-level
25:59contacts in order to quickly make you
26:02aware of the background of the Mousawi
26:04investigation and to forewarn you so
26:07that your public statements could be
26:08accordingly modified when such
26:10statements from you and other FBI
26:12officials continued we thought that
26:14somehow you had not receive the message
26:16and we made further efforts finally we
26:19face the sad realization that the
26:21remarks indicated someone possibly with
26:23your approval had decided to circle the
26:25wagons at headquarters in an apparent
26:28effort to protect the FBI from
26:29embarrassment and the relevant
26:31beyond officials from scrutiny
26:33everything I have seen you continued and
26:36heard about the FBI stance and the FBI's
26:38internal preparations in anticipation of
26:40further congressional inquiry had
26:43unfortunately confirmed my worst
26:45suspicions in this regard
26:46now you're talking further along in the
26:48memo where they made a corrected
26:50statement and you say the official
26:51statement is now to the effect that even
26:54if the FBI had followed up on the
26:56Phoenix lead to conduct checks of flight
26:58schools and the minneapolis request to
27:00search misawa's personal effects in
27:02laptop nothing would have changed and
27:04such actions certainly could not have
27:06prevented the terrorist attacks and
27:08resulting loss of life with all due
27:11respect you say this statements about is
27:13the first it's a comforting statement
27:17though to thousands of government
27:20employees that we couldn't have
27:22prevented 9/11 and pretty much meant
27:26most people had some something they had
27:29done wrong and they went from the lowest
27:31levels the visa stampers
27:34we had visa stamped and sent to Mohamed
27:37Atta
27:37two months after 9/11 we had the
27:42security people now you've seen on video
27:44tapes that let auto-buy even though they
27:46stopped him briefly those were the low
27:48levels and of course then you get to the
27:50mid levels like the the maybe the
27:52management and the FBI you get to the
27:54director levels at the director level
27:57one thing that I didn't know when I
27:59wrote the memo I didn't know that George
28:02Tenet had been briefed on the case now
28:04it took the 9/11 Commission to actually
28:06point-blank ask this now and he wasn't
28:09just CIA director there's there's so
28:12much disinformation and misinformation
28:14to George Tenet
28:16was the director of Central Intelligence
28:18of all 15 agencies in this case when it
28:23infected it was it was stopped at a
28:26mid-level in the FBI but it went right
28:29to the top and the CIA and he was
28:32briefed in a PowerPoint sometime August
28:34again it was August 23rd 24th I think it
28:37was entitled fundamentalist learns to
28:39fly on the morning of 9/11 there had
28:42been one tiny little leak somebody
28:45having breakfast with him that somebody
28:46ran in and said George mr. Tennant
28:49there's an attack and the first words
28:51out of his mouth was I wonder if it's
28:53related to the Minnesota so he was like
28:56us he had that first he knew right off
28:58the bat now why didn't George again all
29:01of these things it's not to find fault
29:04or criticize George Tenet the reason for
29:07unraveling this is because the fix the
29:09remedy that we do afterwards so that we
29:12can try to prevent this from happening
29:14again depends on what the mistake was
29:16now if you know that the information in
29:19fact made it to the right person then
29:21then you don't have the same types of
29:24fixes now one of the fixes after 9/11 is
29:26that we have a new intelligence arm but
29:28in fact that isn't kind of a it doesn't
29:31really help much because it already that
29:32wasn't the problem it had made it to
29:34George Tenet
29:35all the way up there were at least two
29:37or three ways that 9/11 could have been
29:40prevented one is of course if that
29:42Phoenix memo which which requested
29:45information requested investigation of
29:49flight schools and if that had been done
29:51quickly as it was urgent it was an
29:53urgent memo and if it had been read the
29:55guy denied he read it afterwards I don't
29:57know if it's true or not but he didn't
29:58deny even reading it of course
30:00Alberto Gonzales I know forgets a lot of
30:03things so we may be who knows but but
30:08one way was if the FBI had run had
30:11reacted quickly it's possible that some
30:14of these other people like Mohammed Atta
30:17might have stood out and maybe another
30:18flight instructor as the Minnesota one
30:20would have put us on the trail that's
30:22one way that's probably the least likely
30:24way the second way is that moussaoui's
30:28if it had been searched he is his
30:30personal effects it's not his laptop
30:32there's a lot of misinformation but his
30:34personal effects connect to the the
30:36masterminds thus Ramzi bin al-shibh and
30:39stuff his personal effects it takes
30:40investigation it takes a couple a few
30:43weeks to do that because that's through
30:45a fingerprint and other things but it
30:46connects directly to the plot that's the
30:50second way the third way is just for
30:52George Tenet
30:53with all of the information he has 52
30:57warnings to the
30:59a 5 or 6 which were to access the
31:02cockpit I think or hijack planes all of
31:05this information that's available to him
31:07that he had to order the cockpit or at
31:11least give the information so that the
31:13cockpit doors would be hardened and
31:15bolted there are people now in aviation
31:19that have said this is the easiest way
31:22to prevent that kind of attack is that
31:25and you know other it costs they know at
31:27the time people would say well we
31:28couldn't have possibly done that both
31:29the cockpit doors we did it immediately
31:31after 9/11 it costs about $900 per door
31:35and again it stopped because of people
31:38saying oh it's too much money but of
31:39course in how much cost that came from
31:419/11 and again with all of this
31:44information there's a strong argument
31:46that somebody should have and israel's
31:48airlines already bolted the cockpit
31:51doors here i just like to finish up with
31:52one thing one of the things that you
31:53said on the videotape in your testimony
31:55before the Senate committee was we need
31:57to streamline the FBI bureaucracy in
31:59order to more effectively combat
32:01terrorism to your knowledge has the FBI
32:04changed are we more secure than with
32:07world before 9/11 the FBI is just one of
32:0916 agencies so it really even if the FBI
32:13was doing everything right it would it
32:14went really much matter in the scheme of
32:17things some things have improved I think
32:19in the FBI but then many things have not
32:21it's like one step forward and two steps
32:22back the thing that has been two steps
32:25back and I have already mentioned some
32:28of these things are these things are
32:30counterproductive and if you increase
32:32terrorism now the latest National
32:36Intelligence Estimates
32:38I go back the National Intelligence
32:41Estimates our intelligence community
32:43says that we have greatly increased
32:46terrorism because of the recruiting and
32:48the attacks are about fourfold
32:51worldwide now if you think about this as
32:55a as a let's say we're a soccer team I
32:57don't care how good your goalie is you
33:01can't increase the number of of
33:03terrorists or the opposite it would be
33:05like double-truck don't quadrupling the
33:06other team facing you and that's the
33:09problem here and the poor FBI actually
33:11you can sip
33:12sighs with the FBI now playing the
33:14goalie role in homeland security they're
33:17trying to prevent all acts of terrorism
33:19and meanwhile everybody else has messed
33:21up big time
33:22you can't you cannot increase you cannot
33:25increase the level of terrorism the way
33:27that we've done hurt our ability to work
33:31with allies around the world and
33:33actually those are the things that well
33:35you know all these tools that the 9/11
33:37Commission identified that we should be
33:39using to reduce terrorism and in fact
33:42we've done very bad things and I think
33:44by using solely the military as a tool
33:47and in doing many other overreactions
33:50torture and stuff we've heard our

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of 9/11 & Iraq Whistleblower - Coleen Rowley, FBI Attorney & Agent by Health Policy Politics, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 6,041 words across 845 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.