Memo of State Department IG Interview of Consular Officer Who Issued 11 Visas to 9/11 Hijackers

8/14/2019 Memo of State Department IG Interview of Consular Officer Who Issued 11 Visas to 9/11 Hijackers

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9 / 1 1 Working- level Employee|\EBUT UNCLASSIFIED1 1 D E P A R T M E N T O F STATE\\ B O A R D OF G O V E R N O R S\\eofInspectorGeneral

; \m o f Conversation\e 6f NTVs to 9/11 US Consulate General. Dubai. January 20. 2003

i \s UAE\ O f f i c e Da te\ | Bert Kriee and Doug Ellice\ . SA\ Inspector

I [traveled from Beirut to Dubai to meet the inspectors there. She was interviewed onMonday morning in the conference room of the Cons ulate General, She related that she testifiedoij August 6,2002, in Washington, DC, before staff mem bers of the Burton committee [get f u l lname of committee]. She has no t been party to any other interviews; however, not the Bureau ofConsular Affairs, the B ureau of Diplom atic Security, or the FBI have interviewed her about herissuance of nonimmigrant visas to 10 of the hijackers. Asked about the February, 2002 visit toaffected pos ts by CA delegate Gretchen Welch, she responded th at Welch had conductedinfoitnal discussions about new visa clearance procedures and did not question|____jaboutwhat had happened.| \d inJeddah on July 1,2000 tobegin herfirstForeign Service assignment.She hadaone-day overlap with herpredecessor! | Atpost she learned that Jeddahhad a policy o f interview by exception for Saudi nationals. She was told that the only reasonSaudi Arabia did not qualify for the Visa Waiver Pilot Program (VWPP) was because of its stricttreatment of Am erican visa applicants. Were the K ingdom to be m ore forthcom ing with visareciprocity for Am erican visitors, it would have q ualified the visa wa iver program by virtue ofthe tiny percentage o f Saudi visa holders who overstayed or were turned back hom e by INS.There was,| jsaid, a "virtual visa waiver program" for Saudi citizens. On those rareoccasions that a S audi application raised specific concerns and was no t clearly approvable,would the applicant be asked to appear for an interview. This often resulted in the Fo reignMinistry phoning the Consul General or the Consular Section Chief to ask why a personalappearance was necessary. She showed us a copy of 2000 Riyadh 02002, wh ich made m entionof the general inapplicability o f Section 214(b) to Saudi nationals.Her biggest visa challenge, shesaid, wasnon-Saudi applicants - Third-Country Nationals, orTCNs. Under the Visas Express program, TCN applicants were also interview ed by exception,but they were required to subm it supporting documents w ith their applications that Saudis werenot, and TCNs w ere interviewed much m ore often. Saudis w ere asked to submit only theirpassports and applications no evidence was required to support claimed socioeconomic ties,since all Saudis were presum ed to have such s elf-evidently strong ties as to need no proof.Saudis apparently were unable to cope with wo rking hard in the U.S.,and invariably returnedhom e to their easy life in the Kingdom. Saudis were dismissed without an interview, and told


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when to pick, up their visas; Only a handful were called back for a personal interview. All TCNapplicants, on theother hand, were interviewed, even, she added, those who were probablyeligible based on their possession of previous visas.Jeddah consular staff believed that they were a little "tougher" on adjudicatingNTVs thanEmbassy Riyadh. During the summer of 2001^ the section chiefJ [was on home leave,so) J t h n j |was working alone. Alltold, she hadissued about 20,000 visasduring he r tenure at Jeddah. Sh e routinely worked until 10 p.m. to catch up on the large numberof yisa applications. Nevertheless, she wanted to continue Jeddah's practice of interviewing first-time Saudi applicants for student visas. During that busy summefj ~|worked veryhard, doing 400 - 500cases every day. Shesaid that she had no time to look beyond the nameand the date of birth on the visa application forms. She knew that some of them wereincomplete, but believed that this did not matter because the Saudi applicants were eligible forvisas in any ease. Furthermore, the INSlJidiiThave access to those applications anyway. Iftlidnot matter exactly which hotel they would use in the U.S., for example.! jsaid thatConsul General Baltimore was a good boss and supportive, but knew little about consular work.He did not interfere in consular section policies.There were no travel agency programs used in Jeddah before Visas Express. Only Saudia, thenational airline headquartered in Jeddah and the Saudi Government used a drop-off system forsubmitting applications. There were no other personal appearance waiver programs. Mostindividuals walked hi to the consulate an d dropped of f their applications. Saudis were dismissed,andTCNs were interviewed.

I \s opposed to some of the details of the Visas Express program, which wasinitiated on June 1,2001, but not for reasons related to terrorism. Sh e felt that Riyadh imposedthe Visas Express program on them. Sh e believes that Riyadh made the program mandatorybecause^ the Consul General in Riyadh, Tom Furey, had excellent experience with a similarprogram in Mexico. Th e program also eliminated the need for interviews of first time studentvisa applicants. She also felt that it was "a bone tossed to the Riyadh RSO" who was becomingconcerned about the security threat posed to the post by the large crowd of visa applicants.Before Vis^s Express was instituted, most TCN applicants hi Jeddah applied in person at theconsulate. Visas Express mandated that allvisa applications be submitted through travelagencies, whjch therefore made it necessary for all TCNs to make tw o trips, one to the travelagency and a second to the consulate. It was therefore inefficient, she thought, and it obliged herto review some 300 applications daily.] ]had no objection to Visas Express forSaudis since it kept those people, w ho would not be interviewed in any event, away from theconsulate. She"repeated that her objections to Visas Express had nothing lu do with Saudiapplicants, their eligibility, or security concerns, only the program's effect on the handling ofTCN applicants. | [drafted acable to convey her reservations about Visas Express,but did not send it once a "kudos cable" came back from C A praising the new program.

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' , ' - SENSITIVE BUTUNCLASSIFIED page 3Referring to the hijackers towhom she issued visas without an interviewj [said that,upon reflection, she had decided that even if she had interviewed them she would more thanlikely have issued the visas. Mentioning the incomplete applications, she stated that thoseapplications could Jiave 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. Astatement was made in October 2001 that henceforth there would be a "zero-tolerance policy" forincomplete applications atSaudi posts.[felt this proved that therewas no suchpolicy beforehand. Passing applications back and forth until they were completed satisfactorilydid not seem to be, in her opinion, anefficient use of scarce humanresources. She mentionedthat one time a couple planning a tourist visit to the USAmisspelled thepurpose of their tripontheir application forms as "terrorism". Shecalled thehusband in for an interview, and the errorwas corrected.

I [said that shereviewedthe visa apph'eaTaonsofthe terrorist hijackere mdrecattedthat therewejre no direct "hits" in the Class lookout system pertaining to any of them. Speakingof the one terrorist that she did interview;JIani HaniourJ baid mat he struck her as atypical "middle-class" student applicant who was not "well connected." She said that the casesof Saudis she saw tended to fall into one of three socioeconomic classes, and many of the malestudents were in themiddle. Nomatter which of the threeclasses they fell into, however, Saudiswere exempt from therequirement placed onTCNs toprovide supporting documents - such ascertified letters from employers, arid bankstatements.! [believed that th e fact thatSaudis were told to apply without supporting documents confinnecTher earlier statement thatSaudi Arabia was a virtual visa waiver country. "All a Saudi needs to prove is that he is aSaudi." Hani Hanjour was interviewed because herequested a three-year stay in theU.S. on hisvisa application while a normal request at that time would have been for a maximumof only twoyears.Questioned about resources] paid that she wished she had more staff, one moreFSN, but only to avoid overtime and to provide even morecareful attention to TCN cases,especially maids. She did not consider mat thehijackers received visas because the sectionwastoo busy.The juniorofficer w ho sometimes helped her had a higher refusal rate than sh e did. Sh eexpressed the opinion that h? was denying applicants "for the wrongreasons" and in clearcontravention of some established adjudication guidelines. For example, he denied student visasto applicants seeking to attend schools nf nnpr repute, telling them to "apply again next year withan 1-20 from a REAL school."] ^said that there was a clear statement from CA thatthis kind of refusal was inappropriate, but theother officer persisted. He was counseled toadjusthis adjudication practices tocomply with th e policies set out in the Foreign Aflaiis Manual. Asked what resources she considered were in too short supply, she said that she wished she hadmore overlap and timewith her predecessor. There are many layers of Saudi society, and itwould have helped tohave anexperienced mentor to show her the way at first It took her a



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while topickup thenuances of this society. She had studied Arabic at the Foreign ServiceInstitute for nine months and acquired a 2/1+ grade for spoken and reading comprehension.When asked directly if she was ever encouraged tolower her refusal rate, she said she was not.Theother junior officer was spoken to, shesaid, but hemerited the talking-UK There werenovalidation studies done of Saudi NTV holders and there were no known cases of Saudisoverstaying their visits to theU.S. The virtual Saudi visa waiver, sheconcluded, was apparentlyappropriate, given the lack of Saudi illegakin the U.S.

I |then discussed events after September 11. She expressed surprise that her name hasnot beenpublicized, and that onlynow was shebeing asked toexplain what shedid.In themonths after theevents, it bothered her that therewas somuch confusion andinconsistency in Mission and Department statements about whether or not anything had changedregarding visa adjudicationpolicies. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, thepost was toldnot to change its procedures. But when the U.S. press picked up a story that nothing hadchanged, which was based on a telegram she had drafted, thepost was chided by CA for "making

\ e Department look bad." When thepost explained its cableto CA, pointing out that nopolicies\d in fact been changed, the Bureau suggested that future cables should be cleared with CAbefore being actually sent to the Department.I \ said that after September 11h she felt worse about the visas she was still issuing thanshedid about the ones she had previously issued to the hijackers. The hijackers clearlyAPPEARED to be eligible, given the policies and procedures in place before September 11h.But after September 11*, shesaid she found herself continuing to issue superficially similarcases. The Department stated publicly that procedures had been tightened, but they reallyhadnot, "and I was stillpushing theissue button everyday - issue, issue, issue. Have I," sheworriedout loud, "already issued visas sinceSeptember 11h to theNEXT bunch of terrorists?"In late October 2001, Embassy Riyadh informed CA that therewas now a "zero-tolerance" forincomplete applications. CA apparently misunderstood this as well as the earlier message thatmore Saudi males were being interviewed, and asked for a front-channel message citing themission's "new, higher refusal rate." CA stated that "we cannot appear to be doing business asusual", j ^waschagrinned because Jeddah's refusal ratehad not gone up appreciably.Consulate Jeddah was now indeed processing fully completed applications, and was interviewingmoremales, but they were still "pushing the issue button."


Memo of State Department IG Interview of Consular Officer Who Issued 11 Visas to 9/11 Hijackers

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