The Jeddah Embassy and the 9/11 Attacks
Disclaimer
The purpose of this paper is to examine actions of United States government officials and/or agencies, according to official and mainstream media sources, for failures or potential failures to perform one or more of the following:
1. Properly execute justice
2. Operate with reasonable transparency
3. Appropriately address instances of dereliction of duty
4. Appropriately address instances of corruption
Every detail found in each section can also be found in one or more of the sources listed at the end of that section. This paper does not assert that every detail of every section is true. In fact, every detail cannot possibly be true since some details contradict others. This paper also does not assert that all sources cited espouse the overall narrative of their sections or of the paper as a whole. In fact, occasionally sources cited are skeptical or derisive of said narratives. Meaningful rebuttals, counter-rebuttals, etc., to the main points covered in this paper have been included to the best of my ability and awareness.
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Summary
In the late 1980’s, Jeddah consulate officer Michael Springman was reportedly forced by high-level State Department officials to break the law by permitting hundreds of unqualified Islamic militants to travel to the United States for paramilitary training by the CIA before being sent to Osama bin Laden in Pakistan for insertion into the Afghan-Soviet War.
Prior to 9/11, fifteen of the nineteen hijackers got their visas at the Jeddah consulate – twelve of which were granted by a single consular official named Shayna Steinger. The hijackers’ applications did meet any of the basic requirements for visa approval, in addition to containing numerous glaring errors and critical omissions. Three of the hijackers’ passports even had indicators that they were associates of Al Qaeda.
The State Department refused to comment on whether the visas should have been granted. However, reports by the congressional Joint Intelligence Inquiry and the 9/11 Commission Staff agreed that 9/11 would not have occurred had the Jeddah consulate officers merely followed U.S. immigration law.
Steinger officially attributed her dereliction to busyness and established consular routine, but later confessed in private to Michael Springman that she only did what she was ordered to do. Michael Springman publicly asserted via various mainstream media outlets that the CIA-Al Qaeda pipeline he was forced to facilitate in the late 1980’s remained open through 9/11 and that the hijackers appeared to have been funneled through it. Springman’s years of whisleblowing and Freedom of Information Act requests were stonewalled by the State Department and the CIA and he terminated without coherent explanation.
Jeddah Consulate Officer Forced to Give Visas to Islamic Militants
In 1987, Michael Springman was the head of the visa bureau at the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He was responsible for approving or denying visa applications for foreigners wishing to travel to the United States. Per the Immigration and Nationality Act, applicants had to have a legitimate reason for traveling to the United States and be able to demonstrate ties that would compel them to return home, such as a job, a family, property, and/or a business. Strangely, Springman observed in interview with Fox News:
“Nearly everybody except myself and two other people worked for the CIA or the NSA or some other intelligence service.”
In 1988, Springman denied two Pakistanis visas because they claimed to be traveling to a trade show they could not name in a city they could not identify. A short while later, the head of the consular section ordered him to grant the visas anyway. When Springman asked why, he was told, “national security reasons.”
Over the next 18 months, against his ongoing objections, Springman was ordered by different high level State Department officials to approve visas for about 100 unqualified applicants who demonstrated no ties either to Saudi Arabia or any other country. When he resisted, Springman was told, “Issue the visa or be unemployed.”
When Springman returned to the United States, he reported everything to State Department headquarters, to the General Accounting Office, to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and to the Inspector General's office. He was met with silence. He filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests with the State Department and the CIA, but was stonewalled. His employment with the State Department was suddenly terminated, but no coherent reason for his termination was given.
He then learned from his government contacts that the unqualified visa applicants had been recruited by the CIA for training in the United States before being sent to Osama bin Laden in Pakistan to fight in the Soviet-Afghan War. Springman told BBC Newsnight:
“What I was protesting was, in reality, an effort to bring recruits, rounded up by Osama Bin Laden, to the US for terrorist training by the CIA. They would then be returned to Afghanistan to fight against the then-Soviets.”
He told the Associated Press:
“They were running people to the [Jeddah] consulate from the CIA’s [Jeddah] recruiting office.”
He told Fox News:
“…what I was doing was challenging a CIA program to bring people to the United States for terrorist training, people recruited by the CIA and its asset, Osama bin Laden… to get them trained and send them back to Afghanistan to fight the then Soviets.”
When the State Department was confronted with these allegations, its reply was not lengthy. According to the Associated Press:
“The State Department had no comment on Springman’s allegations except to say final authority over visa decisions rests with the consular officer in charge, not with Springman.”
Springman went on to record his experiences at the Jeddah Consulate in detail in his 2015 book, “Visa for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts that Rocked the World.”
Sources:
Associated Press, 7/16/2002, “Ex-Official Details U.S. Operations”
BBC Newsnight, 11/6/2001, “Has Someone Been Sitting on the FBI?”
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1/1/2003, “Michael Springman Interview”
Fox News (The Big Story with John Gibson), 7/18/2002, Interview With Michael Springman, by John Gibson
Michael Springman, 2015, “Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World”
Tampa Bay Times, 9/10/2005, “Loopholes Leave U.S. Borders Vulnerable”
Jeddah Consulate Officer Shayna Steinger Provides Visas to 9/11 Hijackers
Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers got their visas at the U.S. consulate which Michael Springman once oversaw in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Twelve of the fifteen were granted their visas by a single consular official named Shayna Steinger.
In 2002, Joel Mowbray, contributing editor of the political journal, National Review, filed a Freedom of Information Act Request to obtain the Jeddah hijacker visa applications and then interviewed six experts who unanimously agreed that all fifteen should have been rejected out of hand under existing law. The report was immediately picked up by ABC News and the New York Post.
The experts included four former consular officers, one current consular officer, and a senior official at Consular Affairs (CA) in the State Department which oversees all consulates and visa issuances. The six experts strongly asserted that, even allowing for human error, no more than a few of the applications should have slipped through. One of the experts, Nikolai Wenzel, said the visa issuances “amount[ed] to criminal negligence.” The reports defied the prevailing belief that Al Qaeda had carefully trained the hijackers to beat the system. Mowbray asserted:
“They didn't have to beat the system, the system was rigged in their favor…”
In the first place, State Department law provision 214(b) stated prior to the 9/11 attacks that consular officers should assume that all applicants for nonimmigrant visas actually intend to illegally immigrate to the United States. Therefore, to be considered for a visa, an applicant had to demonstrate both the ability to fund the trip and national ties that would compel them return, such as a job, family, property, and/or a business [need Springman source here]. In the words of the State Department’s Deputy Press Secretary, Phil Reeker, 214(b) was “quite a threshold to overcome.”
Yes this apparently did not apply to the 9/11 hijackers. For example, brothers Wail and Waleed al-Shehri claimed to be a student and nominally employed worker going on a four-to-six-month vacation to the U.S. with an estimated cost of $15,000 minimum. However, Shayna Steinger, the consular officer who approved the applications, made no entry in the section asking whether proof of their ability to fund the trip had been demonstrated.
Secondly, every one of the approved applications was incomplete and erroneous. For example, only one of the 15 provided a destination address, despite this being a required field. The other 14 provided vague or nonsensical responses such as “California,” “New York,” “Hotel,” or “No.” As another example, Wail al-Shehri, whose application was approved by Steinger, said his occupation was “teater,” the name and address of his employer was “South City,” and his travel destination in the United States was “Wasantwn.” As a third example, hijacker Abdulaziz Alomari claimed to be married and a student, but provided no spouse name and no school name or address. He also provided no gender, no nationality, no evidence of ties to any country, no evidence of an ability to finance the trip, and said he planned to stay for two months at the “JKK Whyndham Hotel.”
The expert who served as a senior Consular Affairs official told the National Review that, at minimum, the Jeddah officers should not have ended their in-person interviews with the hijackers until the applications forms had been properly completed. (Most of the hijackers were interviewed, although several were able to acquire visas through the “Visa Express” program introduced to Saudi Arabia just 4 months before 9/11.)
Nevertheless, the State Department insisted the Jeddah consular officers did nothing wrong and would not allow them be interviewed by the press. When State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was asked about these reports in an October 9th press conference, he repeatedly declined to comment the consular officers’ performances and redirected the conversation to new procedures the State Department implemented after the 9/11 attacks. When one reporter would not drop the issue, Boucher finally insisted that the hijackers were qualified to receive visas simply because the consular officers said so. Here is part of that exchange:
Reporter: “…You guys have come under some pretty intense fire today about the issuances of visas to the hijackers… one former State Department official is quoted as saying that there was criminal negligence involved, and I'm wondering what you make of this allegation.”
Boucher: “I don't make a lot of it… the fact is that with 20/20 hindsight, I'm sure one can always find a reason that you might have turned down a visa… But at the time, we had no… indications that they didn't qualify for a visa.”
Reporter: “…the article… alleges that even under the standards that were applicable at the time, pre-9/11, these applications should have been rejected on their face because they contained either incomplete or factually incorrect information… [But] you're saying… that these people did qualify for visas under the existing rules at the time.”
Boucher: “Yeah.”
Reporter: “They did?”
Boucher: “They did. That was what the consular officers determined. And in the end, that's what matters.”
Reporter: “…so you do not take a position on whether the consular officers who approved these visas were wrong in determining that these people were eligible?”
Boucher: “No.”
A couple months after this exchange, as reported by Fox News, Senators Jon Kyl and Pat Roberts of the Senate intelligence committee excoriated the State Department in a supplementary report to the 2002 congressional inquiry into intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. The report stated:
“…the answer to the question – could 9/11 have been prevented – is yes, if State Department personnel had merely followed the law and not granted non-immigrant visas to 15 of the 19 hijackers in Saudi Arabia. We repeat: If our own laws regarding the issuance of visas had been followed by the State Department, most of the hijackers would not have been able to obtain visas, and 9/11 would not have happened.”
The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel, which contained copies of all hijackers’ visa applications in Appendix A, echoed the Senators’ statement about the success of the attacks hinging on the terrorists’ ability to pass through customs. Page 7 stated:
The success of the September 11 plot depended on the ability of the hijackers to obtain visas and pass an immigration and customs inspection in order to enter the United States… If they had failed… the plot could not have been executed.”
Thirdly, several of the hijackers provided fraudulent responses, fraudulent documentation, or evidence of terrorist ties to Al Qaeda. The preface of the 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel would later summarize:
“Three hijackers carried passports with indicators of Islamic extremism linked to al Qaeda; two others carried passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner. It is likely that several more hijackers carried passports with similar fraudulent manipulation. Two hijackers lied on their visa applications.”
Why did Jeddah consular officers give visas to 9/11 hijackers with Al Qaeda indicators on their passports or fraudulent, manipulated passports? The 9/11 Staff Report blamed this on a lack of training. Page 2 stated:
“Consular officers were unaware of the potential significance of an indicator of potential extremism present in some al Qaeda passports, had no information about fraudulent travel stamps that are associated with al Qaeda, and were not trained in terrorist travel tactics generally.”
This lack of training was surprising considering that terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing traveled to America on Saudi passports with the exact same Al Qaeda indicators, according to pages 46-47 of the report.
Two of the three hijackers with the Al Qaeda passport indicators, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar (per pages 9 & 27 of the staff report), had also been under surveillance by the NSA and CIA since 1999 and were tracked and photographed while attending a high-level Al Qaeda leadership summit in Malaysia in January of 2000. So how were they still able to get U.S. visas in Jeddah? According to the 2002 congressional inquiry final report:
“…[the] CIA did not add the names of these two individuals to the State Department, INS, and U.S. Customs Service watchlists that are used to deny individuals entry into the United States.”
Sources:
ABC News, 10/23/2002, “Sneaking Into America: Sloppy State Dept. Paper Work Let Sept. 11 Hijackers into the U.S.”
Fox News, 12/18/2002, “Senators: State Department Had Key to Stopping 9/11 Attacks”
National Review, 10/9/2002, “Visas that Should Have Been Denied”
National Review Online, 10/10/2002; “State of Denial”
New York Post, 10/9/2002, “Terror’s Easy Entry”
Newsweek, 6/2/02, “The Hijackers We Let Escape”
Tampa Bay Times, 9/10/2005, “Loopholes Leave U.S. Borders Vulnerable”
U.S. Congress, December 2002, “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,” pg. 12
U.S. Congress, December 2002, “Appendix of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001: Staff Report Additional Views Senator Jon Kyl, Senator Pat Roberts,” pgs. 17-18
U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing Transcript, Washington, DC, October 9, 2002, Spokesman Richard Boucher
9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, “The 9/11 Commission Report,” pgs. 525, 563-564
9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel: Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,” pages Preface, 2, 7, 9, 14-15, 24-27, 33, 36-38, 42, 46-47, 49, 180-181
9/11 Commission, “Chronology of Saudi Visa Applications”
Steinger Explains Her Actions; Springman Conjectures
Shayna Steinger, the consular official who approved 12 of the 15 Jeddah visa applications, was interviewed by twice after the attacks. The first was in August of 2002 when she testified before a congressional committee. At one point she was asked about why she initially rejected, but then approved a visa application by Flight 77 (which hit the Pentagon) pilot, Hani Hanjour. She stated that she initially rejected it in September of 2000 because he applied under the Visa Express program, which would have circumvented an interview, but she wanted him to come in for an interview. However, as the 9/11 Staff Report later pointed, this was impossible because the Visa Express program did not exist until the summer of 2001.
In January of 2003, Steinger was again interviewed by the State Department Inspector General. The content of the interview was recorded in an unclassified State Department memo. When asked about why she did not require evidence of applicants’ national ties and ability to fund the trip, in accordance with provision 214(b), she said:
“Saudis were asked to submit only their passports and applications — no evidence was required to support claimed socioeconomic ties, since all Saudis were presumed to have such self-evidently strong ties as to need no proof.”
When asked why she approved incomplete or incorrect forms, the report said:
“During that busy summer, [redacted] worked very hard, doing 400 - 500 cases every day. She said that she had no time to look beyond the name and the date of birth on the visa application forms. She knew that some of them were incomplete, but believed that this did not matter because the Saudi applicants were eligible for visas in any case… those applications could have been sent back for completion, but that would have changed nothing. They would have been returned completed and the same visa would have been issued.”
However, Steinger apparently gave a very different reason for her 9/11 hijacker visa approvals in a conversation with the former head of the Jeddah visa bureau, Michael Springman. In an 2019 interview with alternative news podcast host James Corbett, Springman stated that he called Steinger on the phone while researching for his 2015 book, “Visa for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts that Rocked the World.” He told her the history of the Jeddah Consulate as documented in his book, and asked whether the 9/11 hijackers may have received the same kind of treatment that the unqualified CIA/Osama bin Laden recruits received in the late 1980’s. In response, Steinger refused to go into much detail, but succinctly stated:
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I just did what I was told.”
Springman’s experiences, along with the ongoing post-9/11 stonewalling of his Freedom of Information Act requests with the State Department and the CIA, apparently left him with such a low opinion of those entities that he repeatedly conjectured in the media about a possible complicit role in 9/11. Here is one exchange between him and Fox News’ John Gibson in July of 2002:
Gibson: “You're not suggesting they [the CIA] knew… that they were going to go fly airplanes into buildings in the United States, do you?”
Springman: “I don't think so, but, with the secrecy the CIA has got going for it and the protection it gets, anything is possible.”
Gibson: “Well, I mean, you really think it's possible. Even the CIA could have had its fingers in a terrorism directed against the United States?”
Springman: “Well, who knows? I've seen it suggested that it was one way of getting the Americans involved… in the Middle East… I don't have any proof of this, but it's something that's been suggested.”
Similarly, here’s an exchange between Springman and his Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) interviewer in January of 2003:
CBC: “So if your theory is true, you can demonstrate a relationship between the CIA and Osama bin Laden dating back as far as 1987.”
Springman: “That's right… And that 15 or so of the people who came from Saudi Arabia to participate in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon had gotten their visas through the American consular general at Jeddah.”
CBC: “Well what does that suggest? That this pipeline was never rolled up, that it is still operating?”
Springman: “Exactly.”
CBC: “And if what you say may be true, many of the terrorists who allegedly flew those planes into those targets got their US visas through the CIA and your US consulate in Jeddah. That suggests an relationship ongoing as recently as September [2001]. What was the CIA presumably recruiting these people for, as recently as September 11th?”
Springman: “That I don't know.”
CBC: “If the CIA had a relationship with the people responsible for September 11, are you suggesting that they are in some way complicit?”
Springman: “Even through omission or failure to act... For all I know… this might not have been the intended consequence. It could have been a mistake, it could have been a misjudgment. Or for all that we know, it could have been an effort to get the US directly involved in some fashion. I mean it's only a few thousand dead, and what's this against the greater gain in the Middle East.”
Sources:
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1/1/2003, “Michael Springman Interview”
Fox News (The Big Story with John Gibson), 7/18/2002, Interview With Michael Springman, by John Gibson
Michael Springman, 2015, “Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World”
Office of the Inspector General (US Department of State), 1/30/2003, “Memorandum of Conversation”
The Corbett Report, 9/9/2019, “9/11 Whistleblowers: Michael Springman”
9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel: Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,” pages 37-38
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