mfr nara- t7- tsa- hawley john steven- 10-8-03- 00608

8/14/2019 Mfr Nara- t7- Tsa- Hawley John Steven- 10-8-03- 00608

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COMM IS SION SENSIT IVEUNCLASSIFIED l f K o ~ ( / t 1 A / kvent: John Steven H aw ley, T SA L iaison to the D epartm ent of State (D SIT A)D ip lomatic S ecu rity / In tellig en ce an d T hreat A nalysis

Ty pe : I nte rv iewD ate: O ctob er 8 , 2003Special A ccess Issues: N on eTeam:Prepared by: L isa Sullivan and review ed by team m em bersParticip ants (n on-C ommission): Jo hn H aw ley, T SA ; and B rand on S traus, T SA C ou nselP articipan ts (C ommission): Jo hn R aidt, Sam B rink ley, and L isa S ulliv an

[U ] John Hawley started his career at the FAA in 1991. He was hired by M ike M orsew ork in the in telligence w atch as a duty officer in Indications and W arnings. H e readtraffic, p re ss, an d em ail, an d p ut to geth er d aily in tellig en ce b riefs, in fo rm atio n c ircu lars.A nother aspect of the job w as to assist in the dissem ination of docum ents. In 2000, hew as assig ned to th e S tate D ep artm en t.

He added that staying in the W atch as long as he did (9 years) w as not unusual.R otating out to policy or operations w as difficult the W atch w as alw ays short ofpersonn el. T hey w ere co nstrain ed by bud getary an d clearance issues.[U ] The liaison posts w ere created out of a recommendation from the G ore Commissionin 1998. D avid Albright w as the first to go to State for FAA , then Chris G lasow , thenJack S alata) then W hite, then him . T ypically , the rotatio n lasts 2-4 years. T he positionwas a part of the intelligence division at FAA , and now at TSA . H is primary focus "rem ain s In dicatio ns and W arning s. B asically, this im plies sending em ails to R egionalSecu rity O fficers (R SO s) to follow up o n in dicatio ns and threats received in other w ays.[U ] In dicatio ns an d Warn in gs lo ok s at in tellig en ce th ro ug h se veral d ifferen t len ses.W hen applied to aviation Haw le said he takes a broad view . Before jo in ing the FAA ,he worked th t the NSA. where wee w as ~ so in the reserves, w hichrequire im to ta e wo wee sac ive u y, suc\h as at the Coast Guard 's in telligencefacility in C alifo rnia, w here he w as expo sed to drug sm uggling issu es (circa 199 6-199 7).H e reported to have returned to the FA A from that experience with a broaderview ofissues that im pact aviation security because oft~e close association betw een drug

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smuggling and terrorist activities. For example, smugglers would often uncover part of aplane to conceal drugs in structure, thereby jeopardizing the flight.[U] As a means of broadening their perspective on issues that impact aviation security,Hawley prepared data and intelligence on the drug smugglers' use of aviation in apresentation. FAA thought this issue was something it could not adequately addressbecause of manpower and financial issues.Liaison Posts and Intelligence Sharing[U] Hawley characterized his experience at State Department as an "eye opener,"compared to his exposure at the FAA. He said there was more intelligence "comingacross" at State. He was like a "kid in a candy store." He couldn't believe what he wasseeing and thought "shouldn't FAA be aware of this?" Sometimes intelligence itemswould be slugged to th e FAA, sometimes they weren't. What FAA needed to do wasupdate the list sent to the intelligence community in order to receive more intelligence.[U] Potentially prompted by the USS Cole bombing, an updated list in 2000 (sent to theJIC) was delivered to the intelligence community. There were previous updates. Heindicated there was a recognition on the part of the FAA of a changing threatenvironment.[U] was noted to Hawley that the FAA was a consumer of intelligence, as is StateDepartment. He was asked what the difference was in the flow of intelligence the .field to the two agencies, and between the two agencies themselves.

Hawley said the difference is huge. Indications and Warnings, which is a part of theintelligence community has a pipeline to DOS. FAA is not a formal member of theintelligence community and has no link to I and W.

~] "IRIS" is not in the SClF at FAA. Now it has a "CT" link. When Hawley firststarted there, everything was paper copies of the traffic. FAA did not have a "soft" CTlink until the late 1990s.[U] As liaison at State, Hawley would constantly email Robert White (the FAA liaison toCTC at CIA) about what intelligence reports to send to FAA. CIA resisted efforts, toshare any information with FAA on UBL (Usama Bin Laden).[U] There were also reports that Hawley thought the FAA should receive from FBI thatwere not shared. He said that he came across circulars with specific names that JackSalata (the FAA liaison to FBI at the time) thought were not significant to the FAA.Hawley suggested that Salata was "firm about it ; he didn't want to discuss it."[U] Hawley went on to say that White, the liaison to State prior to him, had been fairlyaggressive about getting relevant intelligent shared w ith FAA. According to Hawley,


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people at CIA were disturbed by W hite's persistence; they "w anted to know w ho he wasand w hy he w arited things sent from CIA to FAA." :[U J "O ReON", w hich stands for O riginator C ontrol, meantthat the source agency for apiece of intelligence controlled the dissem ination of that inform ation to a n consumers.This meant that H aw ley at State m ay see som ething produced by FBI or CIA that hethought the should be made aware could not pass the information him self. Forthis reason, he frequently pressed the other agency liaisons on the issue.[UJ Salata was concerned about docum ent fraud in light ofW TC in '93. He expressedthis in a memo sent to Claudio Manno. He wasn't the only one looking at this. H einteracted w ith others w ho w ere certainly cognizant of the issue.Knives~Hawley did not recall the 1992 m em o from ACI to thd "700s" concerning the use ofknives in hijackings by terrorists. He said thatl ras on the day watch, and hem ight recall such a m em o.

Greg Ahem was the first liaison to FB1. He would com plain to Pat Durgin that theB ureau w asn't sharing anything w ith him. Initially, Salata w as "shelved" in the sam eway.

In Haw ley's opinion, Jack Salata worked hard. He w as good at his job. Hawleysaid at one tim e, Jack Salata w as considered "persona non grata" (his badges w ere takenaway) at FB I because he shared som e information regarding an investigation. "Jack w asnot a detailee, rather a detainee," H aw ley quipped.~] Hawley said that Salata managed to ingratiate him self and got his position moved tothe Radical Fundam entalist group. "That w as the place to be," H aw ley said. Hecommented: "a really liaison is personality driven. One has to make them trust youto get anything back to FA A w ithout being PN G (Persona N on G rata)."~he impression at was that Salata was actively working on things that hethought would be shared with the outside law enforcement channels. The LAXcase, for instance, Salata w orked on. H e told H aw ley not to share inform ation w ith theState D epartm ent that he w as discussing am ongst the intelligence analysts regarding thecase.

H aw ley's only criticism of Salata was that he "was so long out of the office that hemay have lost touch with his roots." Sometimes, the press was the first source ofinform ation FA A received of potential threats that FBI w as w orking on.

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Hawley thought there was no reason to protect. information that was shared in thetourt room. That was the public domain. At times, FAA would have to send someone tothe court room to take notes on hearings because they could not get the information fromthe FBI directly. "FAA had to go retrieve the information itself and do the analysisbecause the Bureau was not forthcoming." He cited the Youseftrial in New York in the1990s as an example.~ The "Ressam trial" in Los Angeles in themid 1990's was another instance Hawleyrecalled in which the FAA felt it was necessary to attend the trial to ensure they receivedinformation in a timely fashion that related to the case. Hawley wanted to know rightaway. He didn't want to wait for the trial transcripts. He said that lack should have beentracking these things.

\, ~ When asked to follow up on intelligence reports, the Commission asked Hawley if\.. he thought the FBI would conduct one cursory check against the national database of\ names. HaWle, could answer the question but.he said a good person to talk to would be

(retired and living in North Carolina now). "He was a bulldog on followup intelligence case files."Intelligence Case Files[U] FAA Intelligence maintained an index of all the daily logs given to ACS-l. Theintelligence division began numbering its case files in 1991. Case files were opened on"anything you want to follow up on, even a piece of press."[U] From his days as a Watch officer, Hawley said that when information came in, hewould open a case file as he saw fit. There was no written standard on what constitutedopening a file and what did not. That was a judgment-call on the part of the watchofficer. would be put in a central place that everyone in the Watch had access to. Noone had a personal case load. Cases weren't assigned to a single person in the event thatthe officer handling a case was out for three days.[U] Specific actions were required once a case was opened. would not be closed untilcertain things were determined. For outstanding issues, there was a Watch log that listedspecific things that needed to be done. There was follow-up and organization. Theorganization of the watch was not such that things did not fall through the cracks onoccasion.[U] Prioritization of threats evolved over time. High priority cases were never filed. Theywould be on the table and continuously worked.~ As a liaison officer, Hawley had no way of knowing how the watch officer'sprioritized the information he relayed back to to track. He said the introduction of"ICE mail" (a form of email used by the intelligence community) has made it easier totrack issues between agencies. .


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Intelligence to Security Directives and Information Circulars:~ Outside of the office of intelligence and within FAA there were problems resultingfrom tu rn ing v iab le intellig ence in to d ocuments fo r distrib ution . In form atio n C ircu larsw ere issued w ithout m uch controversy. Security D irectives w ere problem atic because theFAA w as effectively telling the airlines w hat to do, so they w ere often contested.lom eone (he did not know who) in Policy and O perations wanted to stop or limitthe num ber of Security D irectives issued because they overburdened the air carriers in1996, 1997. H aw ley could not point to any m em o; it w as a verbal understanding thatSDs should be toned down, and "suggestions" on security should be folded into Hecan't remember any specific SDs to demonstrate the point. '[U] Hawley said he never helped develop language regarding threats for the rulernakingprocess. From A CI, Jam es Padgett had the m ost interaction w ith policym akers at

T o change policy, the intelligence division needed to support the proposal w ith"credible and specific" reports. T he Security D irectors, for the m ost part, had lawenforcem ent backgrounds. A ll of them m aintained contacts in that community. If theissued a directive that required certain changes in response to an intelligence report,the SD w ouJd confirm or discredit the inform ation through their ow n channels ofverification. This m entality exhibited by the SD s m ade it that m uch harder for the FAAto regulate the industry .[9S] December 1994, there was the Air France hijacking out of Algeria. FAA hadstarted a case file on it. From his perspective as an analyst, it w as interesting that theterrorists used crew uniform s to storm the plane, and that they w ere able to take off.T hey learned later that h ijack in g a plane with a full tank of gas was part of the plot. Inresponse to the hijacking incident, Bob W hite. (liaison to CIA for FA A) developed avideo presentation on the incident because of the notew orthiness of m any aspects of thecase; p articularly th at it w as a well-e xe cu te d an d c oo rd in ate d te am h ija ck in g.~ Haw ley didn't know if advanced skill sets, such as pilot training) became a part ofthe criteria that intelligence collectors looked for in potential terrorists; nor did he know ifthe asked the intel1igence community to look for such information.Cock pit intrusions and how they were trackedrThe FAA Operations Center produced incident reports that included cockpitintrusions and also instances of air rage. From his position in Intelligence D ivision, he did .not rem em ber seeing reports on incidents w ith passengers. T hey opened a case file inin tellig en ce e ve ry tim e a flight crew or pilot uniform or cockpit keys w ere reportedstolen. H e mentioned that you can buy the uniform at any shop.u;?5] He also shared his concern that the use of the jump seat was abused, in his opinion .Prior to 9-11, he felt that the FAA w as "not on top of this issue." H e shared details of an

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~ Hawley told the FAA about the reporl:Jrom the flight attendant. The FAA liaison tothe FBI was not aware of the/report, \evep th:qugh the Bureau had a "302" documentingthe story. ,.:' .... "'\1%On July 6 1993, a suspicious incident involving an Iranian National led the FAA toIssue an Information Circular to the airlines and.airports (IC-93-09) that was ultimatelyallowed to expire, There/were other ~uspi~ious 'I,\quiries,~ When asked there was a cent ra l r epo si to ry .f or i nf ormat ion that was madeavailable to operations, regulators, intelligence officers, and policymakers, Hawley saidthere was no system inplace that ensured everyone'was working off the same page.Hawley was always troubled by what: information because he was not sure what wasshared with the flight .standards division. He.said tha~1 Fould know aboutsharing information with flight standards,. ."

Vectors, t , " "~ He said that James Padgett would be the person to talk to about formalizing threat

vectors i The approach was more like "trend analysis" than "formal riskanalysis." Threa~':Vectors were of strategic importance, Padgett got input from hisanalysts (Hawley saidl tram F A A . \ Intelligence may be able to providemore information on this process; working with Padgett). Hawley also thought theCommission should ask for all of the FAA intelligence notes worth from that period.There is an index of the notes that can be requested through TSA. Sometimes the noteswent to 6th floor. S-60 had a CIA representative t~at had the sa~e stuff.

Based / on what he knows, FAA intelligence was ali~ad of the intelligencecommunity on a lot of these issues related to threat vectoring. l:fid work onhijack and safe havens, and published a paper on t1e topir The hijack of India Air thateventually;landed in Kandahar took place exactly a had forecasted. Hawley said of

r'He was right on the money" and everyone knew it.~] Hawley described it as a "tail wagging the dog" situation. The paradigm shiftedfrom hostages, to safe haven, to suicide terrorism, to airplanes as missiles. Hawleyinsisted that there were clues in the intelligence; the pieces were out there. Theintelligence community "just missed it."~ Taking another tack, he expressed some frustration that the "flight school thing wasnever pursued." He said he never saw that the Phoenix memo and he thought the FAAstill doesn't have a copy of it to this day. The drafter of the memo, Ken Williams, wasknown the officers in the Watch. If the memo had gotten to them, Hawley is almostcertain i t wou ld h av e be en follow ed up on prior to 9-11.


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;eoSlThe U niverse of docum ents that the Commission needs to access should include theles andSljs, D aily Intelligence Summaries, the D aily Security B riefings for the S-60.(that w ere also given to the Secretary), the IC F index, in telligence notes/sum maries, anda ny v id eo presentations that m ay hav e been prod uced.

L oo k at the IC P"4 atabase back aro und 1993. That's w hat he w ould do.The Criminal Activity renorts are the FAA website. is an open-site with awealth of information:1 who is now at FBI, used to produce it.Strategic A ssessm ents - everyth in g th at w en t to the C ong ressio nal Jo in t Inq uiry .

~ H is focus w as force protection , the em bassies, and people traveling . During thesummer of '01, there w as a sense w ithin the intelligence community that "som ething w asgoing to happen." H e felt certain of it. H e w as looking abroad, particularly focusing onthe M iddle East and N ear East.

The view w as w e w ere on a high state of alert because of CIA reporting . June andJuly of 200 1. H e called it a "V ery interesting , very tense summer," "S om ething w asgoing to happen." W hen asked w hy he had that sense, he referenced the intelligencereporting that w as going on at the tim e at the CIA ; he said Tenet issued m em os thatcontributed to the sense. Pat D urgin w as the boss at the tim e, and Robert W hite w as thefocal point because of his position at C IA . A ccording to H aw ley, W hite w ould say thathe w asn't in the ideal location at C IA because he w asn 't w orking UBL from his positionin eT C R eports. H aw ley thought "pretty m uch nothing cam e out of that w orking group."

[~M id-August, Jack talked to the W atch about M oussaoui. was not until after LaborD ay that he sent over inform ation about M oussaoui to the W atch. He said he didn't knowabout M oussaoui for tw o to three w eeks after 9-11, and his info rm ation is seco nd-hand interm s of how the case w as handled. There was som e concern registered that the FBIwasn't forthcom ing. "It's all in the Haw ley said.~ The documentation transm itted to the on M oussaoui prior to that was notshared w ith him . He doesn't know why. There was no structure or formalized processfor keeping updated on w hat everyone w as up to--inform ation sharing. T he FA A stilllearned the co ntent of the M oussao ui case, th e inform atio n out of M in neapo lis, all fro mpubl ic s ou rc es .

L J 2 S J We worked w ith the drafter of the Phoenix memo other issues. He known tothe people in the watch. Had that m emo on pilot training from Special Agent W illiams

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been forw arded to the W atch in the summer, it w ould have raised flags. T he inform ationw as specific abou t pilo ting the aircraft. A cco rding to Jack, M ou ssaoui w asn 't a threat."T aken w ith the Phoenix memo, w ho know s w hat could have happened after theM oussaoui report? " H aw ley honestly thinks they could have done som ething ifhe hadseen the Phoenix m em o prior to 9-11; he w ould have thought im mediately of the M andaplot. That leads you to M urad. He w ould have "run it hard," in his own words. Hard tosay th ey co uld h av e p rev en ted 9-11. "I honestly think they w ould have gone out to flightschools." A CS w ould have sent a letterhead memorandum to the FBI to have them sendag en ts to th e sch oo ls b ecau se FAA doesn't have the authority to go to the schoolthemselves. '~ Haw ley said that the Airmen re gis te r c he ck ~'",c an b e d on e th ro ug h th e FAA flightstandards office. H e recommended that w e talk t~ He n oted , h ow ev er,that pre-9-11 ; they did not have nam es of the bad guys. W hether they could have foundth e plotters at fligh t sch ools w ou ld d epen d on h ow searchab le the databases w ere.Visas, Tip-off, and names associated with the bad guys-~VISA Viper cables were slugged for the He doesn't know what washappening to them once sent to FAA. H e w as asked how nam es of terrorists w ereseparated from drug dealers, for instance. H e said that there w as no filter. N am es cam eup only a few tim es after the M anila Plot. V ery few of them w ere w atch list people. Tofind out if the viper people w ere tied to flight schools you would have to go to the IeF.T he M anila p lo t w as the first ind ication o f fligh t school ang le. T he suicide con ceptsu rface d w ith A ir F ra nce.~ May When he first j oined w ith the State Dept, M ike Sheehan of CTC gave a'presen tation on suicide terro rism that P at M cD onn ell tasked H aw ley to follow-up on. Aparticipant list w as kept. H aw ley w as unable to get a copy of the briefing or retainin fo rm ation o n th e b riefing. "C ou nterin g suicide terro rism " w as the nam e of the briefin g.H e brings it our attention because suicide hijack w as on the radar screen. H e raises thepoint because it show s international suicide terrorism w as on the radar of the A CS. PatM cD onnell was engaged. The FBI through John O 'N eil and Pat M cD onnell had a goodrelation ship. T his w as crucial to sharing of inform ation. "T hese relatio nships n eed tos ta y in ta ct."

S trateg ic th reat v ecto rs to ok su ic id e h ija ck o ff th e list.Recommendations[U] H aw ley felt that 9-11 w as an "Intelligence failure first and forem ost." W e m ade am istake. W e m ust connect the dots. T he dots w ere there. T here's not enough sharingw ith in the IntelJigence C ommunity and w ithin FA A. N ot sure how successful w e aredoing it now . "Intel that is not shared or acted on is w orthless."



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rUl The dots were the flight schools and the Murad data-point in 1995 for sure. The.Phoenix memo show it was on the FBI radar, but nothing was done. Possible use of thejump seat, by the terrorists means access and surveillance. What might have happened ifthe crew had made reports of such incidents?

- r e s ] Hawley mentioned the pre-inaugural tabletop exercises, including exercisesregarding the use of planes as a weapon. Hawley noted that this issue was raised by LeeHamilton with Mik e C an av an during the Commission's hearing. Hawley thought that inDecember 2000 some scenarios that were "pretty damn close to 9-11 plot" werepracticed. Canavan was definitely in charge of that. Hawley said that one of thescenarios may have had something to do with a chartered flight out of Ohio that hadturned the transponder off. Mike Wiechert ran a lot of these exercises. really forcedyou to think outside the box. The topicwas in the FAA's thoughts, the discussions.~ On 9-11) Canavan and Osmus directed policy to draft an SD with extremecountermeasures shown to Jane Garvey. She ran.it by American and United. Americancame back and said "no". Mike Canavan had to tellpolicy that they had to water it down.Who is regulating who? "FAA was a pawn of the industry."[U] Hawley said that bad guys get to read all about the vulnerabilities of our securitysystems in open sources and elsewhere. A report was in house inAfghanistan. Personally, Hawley believes they could have executed-the plot at anyairport. Brian Jenkins spoke about this in a PBS interview. '

'\ ~ Hawley said that a strategic assessment was published on 9-11-01, in th'e'~tr~:\assessment, "if they conduct a hijacking domestically, it will be a suicide hijack'L-...J

!wrote an intelli ence note on Ressam UBL connection that said in the lastara a h

by

[~] In addition, Hawley brought up a good report published in a Seattle paper (on theinternet) which was a 9-part series on Ressam. It was an excellent report, about what hewas doing in Canada. had to come from an FB I authorized leak. There wererevelations in there. "Had we had that prior to 9-11, it would have made the difference."Hawley went on to say that the report in the paper "was news to me." He highlighted itand brought it in to his colleagues. He said that "official channels failed time and again."Finding out information in the press was a "common concern" of theirs. I~ Recently, he moved from Virginia Ave. Rosslyn. He was asked to go through allfiles he didn't need anymore because there was too much stuff to move. The files werejointly owned by his predecessors. He found some interesting stuff sent to the attention ofClaudio Manno on the Manila Plot; the first trade center bombing; and the investigation

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of PAL 434. He also noted a presentation titled the "ACS: Conspiracy to destroy USairlines flying in Asia," delivered by Pat McDonnell to a conference.

An Intelligence Case File was opened on this particular piece of press in priorto the Millennium plot. The U.S. Attorney did not prosecute two Saudi nationals becauseof "profiling" charge. They had run the names and they carne backs clean. Post 9-1 l , oneof the names was "dirty." This is a typical example of the kind of information found in acase file .

mfr nara- t7- tsa- hawley john steven- 10-8-03- 00608

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