Rumsfeld aide: 3 AA 77 hijackers followed after Cole bombing

An FOIA request filed by blogger Thad Andersen has come up with pieces of documents cited by the 9/11 Commission Report, but previously unavailable. You can find his piece on it here:
http://www.outragedmoderates.org/2006/02/dod-staffers-notes-from-911-obtained.html
To read the actual notes, just click on the links to the .pdf files at the bottom.

What was released was extracts from notes made by Stephen Cambone, who was then the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, but was later made Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. The notes show some of Rumsfeld's actions on the afternoon and evening of 9/11, for example they include Rumsfeld's quote “Go massive... Sweep it all up. Things related and not,” which the 9/11 Commission somehow forgot to mention. The Guardian covered this angle here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,,1716841,00.html

However, another passage in the notes, made at 9:53 p.m., states:
“AA 77 – 3 indiv have been followed
since millennium + Cole
1 guy is assoc. of Cole bomber
2 entered US in early July
(2 of 3 pulled aside + interrogated?)”

This conflicts somewhat with the account given by the 9/11 Commission and that of other bodies, in which not only were no American 77 hijackers being followed, but the US intelligence community had sort of forgotten about them even being in the country.

Which three?
Only four of the five American 77 hijackers were known by the US intelligence community to be terrorists or terrorist associates before 9/11: Al Qaeda veterans Khalid Al Mihdhar and Nawaf Al Hazmi, his brother Salem Al Hazmi and the alleged pilot Hani Hanjour. Majed Moqed was apparently the odd one out, although he appears to have various connections to Al Qaeda (for example his cousin headed the Saudi franchise at one point). However, it appears that the authorities were not aware that Hanjour was on the plane when the notes were written, as his name does not figure on the first list of hijackers published, so the three hijackers Cambone is referring to should be Al Mihdhar and the Al Hazmi brothers. This conclusion is supported by the rest of the text of the note.

Surveillance of the Al Hazmi Brothers and Al Mihdhar
Although the NSA had previously intercepted their calls, Nawaf Al Hazmi and Khaled Al Mihdhar first came under surveillance proper immediately after the millennium plot was supposed to happen. The CIA followed Al Mihdhar from Yemen, which he left 2 days after the failed attack on the USS Sullivans (which he is not supposed to be connected to) and flew to Dubai, where UAE intelligence made a copy of his passport (which contained a US visa) and passed it to the CIA. From there he flew to Kuala Lumpur and met various other Al Qaeda operatives, including the Al Hazmi brothers. The meeting was watched by Malaysian intelligence and the photos were passed to the CIA, which passed some of them on to the FBI. A similar operation was planned to get a copy of Nawaf Al Hazmi's passport at Karachi airport, but it failed because he changed his departure time. After the meeting ended they then flew from Malaysia to Bangkok on 8 January 2000; the 9/11 Commission claims they went to Thailand on a whim, citing questionable evidence obtained under duress from detainees. This is where the CIA allegedly lost them, although they were informed (supposedly some time after they had left) that one of them had flown to LA. However, the CIA allegedly didn't follow this up. This bizarre failure is rendered even more inexplicable when we consider that they were being followed due to fears over the Millennium Plot and that LAX was one of the Plot's main targets. Despite being in the centre of the FBI's counterterrorist coverage, being identified as terrorists linked to other 9/11 plotters by Able Danger and still having their calls monitored by the NSA, no intelligence agency allegedly ever picked them up in the States.

Cambone's note says they were followed "since millennium + Cole". The 9/11 Commission says the surveillance ended more than 10 months before Cole, so there is a clear contradiction between the private note and the public report.

Who Is the Cole Bomber?
Nawaf Al Hazmi and Khalid Al Mihdhar knew two Cole bombers: the operation's commander Khallad bin Attash and the guy who was supposed to videotape the attack, Fahad Al Quso, who was asleep at the crucial moment, which is why there is no video. Reading through the relevant chapter of the report on the FBI's handling of information before 9/11, it appears that the bomber they are talking about here is Khallad, who was pictured with Al Mihdhar in Kuala Lumpur.
Link: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/0506/chapter5.htm

Who entered the US in early July?
Both Salem Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar re-entered or entered the US in late June/July 2001 (see April 23, 2001-June 29, 2001 and July 4, 2001 in the Timeline link at the bottom).

This, and a few other hints here and there, lead me to believe that some, or perhaps even many of the hijackers were under surveillance before 9/11. The question is, if they were under surveillance, why haven't we been told and how come they managed to succeed? Did somebody in the US intelligence community drop the ball? was the plan allowed to go forward by the US intelligence community to enable retaliation? or were somebody's hands tied behind their back so they had to drop the ball?

Timeline for Nawaf Al Hazmi and Khalid Al Mihdhar:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&the_alleged_9/11_hijackers=alhazmiAndAlmihdhar

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