Sd B4 State Dept Fdr- Letter From State Hofmann Re Docs Provided And In Progress 091

09/05/2003 05:40 FAX 202 647 5620

Executive Secretariat

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S/ES Room 7224 HST U^. Department of State, Wishfagton. D.C. 20520-7512

FAX

9/5/03 Number of pages excluding cover sheet:

To:

From:

Mr. Dan Marcus General Counsel

Karl Hofmann Executive Secretary State Department

National Commission on Terrorist ALLacks upon tho United Phone: Faxphone:

202-296-5545

Phone:

202-647-5301

Fax phone:

202-647-5620

CC:

REMARKS:

Q Urgent

For your information

**REVISED - PLEASE IGNORE EARLIER VERSION

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Please clear/comment

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United States Department of State Washington,D.C. 20520

UNCLASSIFIED

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September 5, 2003

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 Document Requests: Responses to the Most Important Categories of Documents

This is in response to your August 26, 2003 memorandum outlining the most important categories of documents identified by the Commission. Let me state at the outset that the Department has provided approximately 32,000 pages in response to the Commission's requests thus far, and we are continuing our search and retrieval efforts. The Department has not intentionally withheld any responsive information, and anticipates withholding none. However, as you can appreciate, conducting a comprehensive search of our electronic and paper records, including files that have already been retired and removed from the Department in accordance with federal records management guidelines, is time consuming. We will continue to respond as rapidly as possible to the Commission's requests. The following is a detailed summary of the materials we have provided in response to your August 26 memorandum: Document Request No. 1, Items 1-5 and 9 - During the period August 1-29, the Department sent six installments totaling 1,411 documents responsive to items 1, 3, 4, 5, and 9. Item 2, concerning documents received from the National Security Council and/or Executive Office of the President, were referred to the White House for a determination on access restrictions, which I have communicated to you in separate memoranda dated September 3, 4 and 5, 2003, Document Request No. 2, Item 11 - On September 2, the Department of State sent the fifth installment of documents to the Commission in response to Document Request No. 2. This installment contained 37 documents with information responsive to item 11 of Document Request No. 2. Documents in the fifth

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UNCLASSIFIED 2 installment of particular interest to the Commission were memoranda to "7tn Floor Principals" with visa issuance policy discussions and post 9/11 refugee policy and procedures. (Installments 1-4, containing documents responding to items 2-10 and 12-18, were sent to the Commission between July 16 and August 28, 2003.) Document Request No. 3, Items 1-4 - Three installments consisting of 329 documents have been sent to the Commission in response to Document Request No. 3. On August 15, the first installment which contained documents responsive to items 1 and 4 was delivered to the Commission. The second installment of documents, delivered to the Commission on August 22, contained information responsive to items 2 and 3. The third installment of documents, delivered to the Commission on August 29, contained memoranda responsive to document request items 1, 2, 3, and 4. Document Request No. 4, Items 2, 4, 6, 11, 13 - On September 3, information responding to items 11 and 13 was delivered to the Commission. An installment of 538 documents covering items 2, 4, and 6 (as well as items 10, 12, 14-17, 19 and 23) was delivered to the Commission today. (Two installments with information covering items 1 and 3 were sent to the Commission on August 8 and 11, including 296 GAO documents responsive to item 1.) An additional 3730 documents have been indexed and are in the final review stage for release, as follows: request nos. 1 and 3 - 1,500 documents request no. 4 - 2,230 documents. Further, our document review teams are continuing to process for indexing and release documents totaling some 9,225 pages, which are estimated to be responsive to your five requests as follows: request request request request request

no. no. no, no. no.

1 2 3 4 5

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250 pages 1,125 pages 2,250 pages 5,000 pages 600 pages.

I expect these remaining materials to be provided to the Commission no later than September 30, 2003. We hope this information is useful to you. As always, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have further questions.

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UNCLASSIFIED

Karl Hofmann Executive Secretary

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