S/S 2 0 0 4 0 8 8 9 7

United State

Washington, D.C. 20520

]
April 23, 2004 '•

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

MEMORANDUM FOR DANIEL MARCUS

GENERAL COUNSEL
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED
STATES

SUBJECT: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the

United States Request for Documents Request No. 15

This is in response to Request No. 15 from the National Commission on

Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States for Department of State documents.

The attached consists of two pages of unclassified information providing the

requested data on individual officer issuance and refusal rates in Riyadh and
Jeddah from January 1, 1997, through September 11, 2001, as well as posts'
overall issuance and refusal rates broken down by third country nationals and
Saudi citizens.

The Department of State does not provide visa refusal statistics to the public.
Such statistics are open to misintepretation. Refusal statistics relate to the
activities of individuals. We want to avoid any misunderstandings that would
result if individual governments were to look at a nation's overall refusal rate and
seek to compare these rates with that of another country. Such conclusions would
be of no value as explained below. Consequently, we ask that you not include this
information in public statements or reports.

Please.also note that the attached document contains information that is

protected from disclosure under Section 222(f) of the Immigration and Nationality
Act, 8 U.S.C. 1202(f), and, in accordance with that law, may only be used for the
"formulation, amendment, administration, or enforcement of the immigration,
nationality, or other laws of the United States."

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

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2

It is important to note that statistics tell only part of a story. It is not unusual
in a visa unit for various officers to have disparate refusal rates and yet still
maintain common adjudication standards. An individual officer's refusal rate may
vary depending on the role he or she carries out in the section as well as the
demographic mix of visa applicants at a particular post. In some cases an officer
may spend a preponderance of his or her time on certain types of visas or
categories of visa applicants, using adjudication standards common to all officers
at post, which nonetheless may result in either a higher or lower refusal rate than
might otherwise be the case. For example, there may be differences between the
numbers or types of cases adjudicated by a supervisor versus a line officer, or an
officer fluent in one language versus another. While the statistics transmitted in the
attachment provide a snapshot of refusal rates, they must be viewed with an
understanding of the difficulty of drawing conclusions based solely on the
numbers.

The Department of State is providing the names of the officers and a

breakdown of their refusal rates for review by the Commission but not for public
release. Some additional explanatory comments concerning the attached document
are necessary:

Visa Statistics: All refusals, regardless of grounds, have been included. In

cases where an adjudicating Foreign Service Officer was not recorded, the
certifying officer or authorized user was recorded. A small number of cases
remained that had no User ID at all recorded with the adjudication data.
They are still included in the attached document, with a blank user ID.
These anomalies stem from an earlier, less sophisticated version of our visa
systems, which was corrected in the more modernized NIV system
introduced in Jeddah and Riyadh in mid-1998. Some data converted from
the earlier system may have not have converted into the new system
completely.

Adjudicating Officers: In some cases, the database does not link a name to a
user ID, and the information is no longer available. This is because the
earlier visa system (PCN-NIV) was in use in Riyadh and Jeddah prior to
mid-1998. At that time, Jeddah and Riyadh were converted to the
modernized visa application, which permitted the Department to capture
more information on visa adjudications and make it available on-line
through the Consolidated Consular Database.

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3

We hope this information is useful to you. As always, please do not hesitate

to contact us if you have further questions.

Karl Hofmann
Executive Secretary

Attachments:
1. Index and Department of State documents.
2. Incoming request.

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

 200409134
United Stated Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
www.state.gov

April 23, 2004

UNCLASSIFIED When Separated From Attachments

MEMORANDUM FOR DANIEL MARCUS

GENERAL COUNSEL
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS
UPON THE UNITED STATES

SUBJECT: Unredacted Telegrams

Attached are two cables which Mr. Scott Allan requested in unredacted
form.

Karl Hofmann
Executive Secretary

Attachments:

1.01 State 111711 dated June 27, 2001 (NODIS).

2. 01 Islamabad 3628 dated June 29, 2001 (NODIS).

UNCLASSIFIED When Separated From Attachments

 200408469

United Stateg^Departmerit of State

Washington, D.C. 20520

April 16, 2 0 0 4
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

MEMORANDUM FOR DANIEL MARCUS

GENERAL COUNSEL
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE
UNITED STATES

SUBJECT: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United

States Request for Documents (Request No. 7, 1 .b.)

This is in response to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the

United States Request for Documents No. 7, l.b., and Tom Eldridge's email requests for
Department of State documents. Per Mr. Eldridge's request, State has also attached the
2001 "Report from the Visa Office."

Attached is the second installment of documents in response to request No. 7.

This installment consist of 6 documents.

Please note that some of the material is marked "Sensitive but Unclassified."
Although this material is not classified in and of itself, its designation as "Sensitive but
Unclassified" requires special handling. In addition, the attached information is
protected from disclosure under Section 222(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act,
8 U.S.C. 1202(f), and, in accordance with that law, may only be used for the
"formulation, amendment, administration, or enforcement of the immigration,
nationality, or other laws of the United States." Therefore we request that the
Commission protect these documents from unauthorized disclosure.

We hope this information is useful to you. As always, please do not hesitate to

contact us if you have further questions.

Karl Hofmann
Executive Secretary
Attachments:
1. Department of State documents
2. Incoming request

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED