Q1 2001

❌

Early 2001: Bin Laden Warns of Massive Attack on US in Training Camp Speech
During a post-9/11 trial in Germany, Shadi Abdellah, a militant who briefly served as one of bin Laden’s bodyguards, will claim that in early 2001, “Bin Laden spoke in a speech of an attack against the United States and said there would be thousands of dead.… When there was an attack, we weren’t told. They just said to us, ‘pray for your brothers.’” Abdellah spent time at al-Qaeda training camps from early 2000 until May 2001, so presumably this speech was in May or before. Abdellah will be captured in Germany in 2002 for a role in helping to plot attacks against Jewish targets there (see April 2002). [GUARDIAN, 11/28/2002; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 11/2/2004] Bin Laden will make other similar public comments hinting at a massive attack against the US later in the summer of 2001 (see Summer 2001). While it is unknown if US intelligence is aware of such speeches before 9/11, by July 2001 the CIA will report that a source in Afghanistan has said, “Everyone is talking about an impending attack” (see July 2001). Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Shadi Abdellah Category Tags: Warning Signs

Early 2001: FBI Slow to React to French Report on Bin Laden’s Finances French experts give an in-depth report on bin Laden’s financial network to a senior FBI official, according to a source close to French intelligence. A month later, the FBI official admits to his French colleagues that the document still hasn’t been translated into English. [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 10/14/2001] It is not known what the FBI does with the report after that, if anything. Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation Category Tags: Terrorism Financing

Early 2001: CIA Asset Tests Al-Qaeda Training Camp for Chemical Weapons As part of a new US intelligence effort to prevent al-Qaeda getting weapons of mass destruction, “a third-country national working for the CIA” goes into an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan where chemical weapons are possibly being made. The agent takes soil samples, but later analysis does not show any dangerous chemicals. According to counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, the “CIA took pride in the risks the third-country national had run in going to the camp.” [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 178-179] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Richard A. Clarke, Al-Qaeda Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants

Early 2001: Top Military Leaders Attend Briefings on Able Danger In January, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Henry Shelton is given a three hour briefing on Able Danger. Shelton supported the formation of Able Danger back in 1999 (see Fall 1999). The content of the briefing has never been reported. Then in March, during a briefing on another classified program called Door Hop Galley, Able Danger is again brought up. This briefing, given by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, is attended by Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Richard Schiefren, an attorney at DOD; and Stephen Cambone, Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. [GOVERNMENT SECURITY NEWS, 9/2005; OFFICE OF CONGRESSMAN CURT WELDON, 9/17/2005 SOURCES: CURT WELDON] In mid-September 2005, Weldon will say, “I knew that the Clinton administration clearly knew about this. Now I know of at least two briefings in the Bush administration.” He calls these two briefings “very troubling.” He wants to know what became of the information presented in these briefings, suggesting it shouldn’t have been destroyed as part of the other Able Danger data purges. [DELAWARE COUNTY DAILY TIMES, 9/16/2005; OFFICE OF CONGRESSMAN CURT WELDON, 9/17/2005] Entity Tags: Bush administration, Clinton administration, Henry Hugh Shelton, Thomas Wilson, Stephen A. Cambone, Richard Schiefren, Able Danger, Anthony Shaffer Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Able Danger

Early 2001: Bush Staffers Less Concerned with Terrorism

Donald Kerrick. [Source: White House] Clinton and Bush staff overlap for several months while new Bush appointees are appointed and confirmed. Clinton holdovers seem more concerned about al-Qaeda than the new Bush staffers. For instance, according to a colleague, Sandy Berger, Clinton’s National Security Adviser, had become “totally preoccupied” with fears of a domestic terror attack. [NEWSWEEK, 5/27/2002] Brian Sheridan, Clinton’s outgoing Deputy Defense Secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, is astonished when his offers during the transition to bring the new military leadership up to speed on terrorism are brushed aside. “I offered to brief anyone, any time on any topic. Never took it up.” [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 3/30/2004] Army Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick, Deputy National Security Adviser and manager of Clinton’s NSC (National Security Council) staff, still remains at the NSC nearly four months after Bush takes office. He later notes that while Clinton’s advisers met “nearly weekly” on terrorism by the end of his term, he does not detect the same kind of focus with the new Bush advisers: “That’s not being derogatory. It’s just a fact. I didn’t detect any activity but what [Clinton holdover Richard] Clarke and the CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] were doing.” [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002] Kerrick submits a memo to the new people at the NSC, warning, “We are going to be struck again.” He says, “They never responded. It was not high on their priority list. I was never invited to one meeting. They never asked me to do anything. They were not focusing. They didn’t see terrorism as the big megaissue that the Clinton administration saw it as.” Kerrick adds, “They were gambling nothing would happen.” [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 3/30/2004] Bush’s first Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Henry Shelton, later says terrorism was relegated “to the back burner” until 9/11. [WASHINGTON POST, 10/2/2002] Entity Tags: Hugh Shelton, National Security Council, Al-Qaeda, Bush administration, Clinton administration, Donald Kerrick, Brian Sheridan, Counterterrorism and Security Group, Sandy Berger Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Early 2001: Taliban Disinformation Project Is Cancelled The heads of the US military, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have become frustrated by the lack of CIA disinformation operations to create dissent among the Taliban, and at the very end of the Clinton administration, they begin to develop a Taliban disinformation project of their own, which is to go into effect in 2001. When they are briefed, the Defense Department’s new leaders kill the project. According to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Henry Shelton, “[Defense Secretary] Rumsfeld and Deputy [Defense] Secretary Paul Wolfowitz were against the Joint Staff having the lead on this.” They consider this a distraction from their core military missions. As far as Rumsfeld is concerned, “This terrorism thing was out there, but it didn’t happen today, so maybe it belongs lower on the list… so it gets defused over a long period of time.” [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 3/30/2004] Entity Tags: Taliban, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, US Department of Defense, Hugh Shelton, Central Intelligence Agency, Clinton administration Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11

Early 2001-September 11, 2001: Bush Administration Loses Interest in Apprehending Taliban-Linked Arms Dealer Victor Bout

Lee Wolosky. [Source: Center for American Progress] By the end of the Clinton administration, an effort by some US officials to arrest international arms dealer Victor Bout is gathering steam (see Early Spring 1999-2000). National Security Council (NSC) adviser Lee Wolosky has been gathering evidence of Bout’s airplanes being used to smuggle weapons and possibly drugs for the Taliban. Shortly after the Bush administration takes office, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, Wolosky, and other NSC deputies hold a briefing about Bout’s activities for Condoleezza Rice, the new national security adviser. Rice appears interested, and authorizes the NSC team to continue to pursue an attempt to get an arrest warrant for Bout strong enough to secure a conviction. [FARAH AND BRAUN, 2007, PP. 186-187] However, Rice focuses on diplomatic solutions and does not allow any actual covert action against Bout. The FBI also does not have an open investigation into Bout and does not appear particularly interested in him. “Look but don’t touch,” is how one White House official will later describe Rice’s approach. [NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, 8/17/2003; FARAH AND BRAUN, 2007, PP. 193] In late spring 2001, Wolosky briefs Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley about Bout and global organized crime. He receives a go-ahead to present a full briefing to President Bush on the topic, but no specific date is set. Wolosky is still trying to arrange a date when the 9/11 attacks occur. The Bush administration’s interest in Bout was already fading before 9/11, and after 9/11 the remaining interest in him is lost, despite Bout’s ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Wolosky soon quits. “We knew we were being phased out,” he will later say. [FARAH AND BRAUN, 2007, PP. 193-194] Bout moves to Russia not long after 9/11, but Rice decides that Russia should not be pressured about arms trafficking in general and Bout in particular. One source who talks to Rice claims that she reasons the US has “bigger fish to fry.” [NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, 8/17/2003] Entity Tags: Victor Bout, George W. Bush, Stephen J. Hadley, Condoleezza Rice, Lee Wolosky, Richard A. Clarke, National Security Council, Bush administration Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Victor Bout

January 2001-Summer 2001: Hijackers Live in Toronto Apartment Building with Al-Marabh

Ahmed Shehab. [Source: Ahmedshehab.com] The landlord and at least twelve tenants of a Toronto high rise building see Marwan Alshehhi living there in the spring of 2001. Other witnesses recall seeing Alshehhi and/or Mohamed Atta in or near the building. Nabil al-Marabh is sporadically staying in the same building in an apartment unit owned by his uncle, Ahmed Shehab, a prominent local imam. None of the witnesses appear to have sighted any of the other hijackers. Alshehhi and Atta are also seen by eyewitnesses around this time at a Toronto photocopy shop owned by Shehab, and there are even some who see Atta occasionally working there (see January 2001-Summer 2001). [TORONTO SUN, 9/28/2001; TORONTO SUN, 9/28/2001; ABC NEWS 7 (CHICAGO), 1/31/2002] The apartment where al-Marabh stayed will not be raided by police until about two weeks after 9/11, and one week after reports of al-Marabh’s connections to the hijackers has been in the newspapers. The Toronto Sun will report, “Many [building] residents questioned why police waited so long to raid [the] apartment after al-Marabh was arrested. Several tenants alleged they had seen a man late at night during the past week, taking away boxes from the apartment.” [TORONTO SUN, 9/28/2001] Al-Marabh also shares a Toronto apartment with Hassan Almrei, a Syrian who the Canadian authorities are already suspecting for possible militant ties (see September 13, 2000 and After). One article says that are roommates in 2001, and it would likely mean early 2001 since al-Marabh leaves Toronto during the summer. Canadian authorities will later arrest Almrei and discover that he has extensive connections with al-Qaeda (see October 19, 2001). [ABC NEWS 7 (CHICAGO), 1/31/2002] Some of the 9/11 hijackers may have been in Toronto as late as the end of August 2001. A motel manager in Hollywood, Florida, will later say that Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah stay at his motel on August 30, 2001. He will say they gave a non-existent Toronto address and drove a car with Ontario, Canada, license plates. They claimed to be computer engineers from Iran, and said they had just come down from Canada to find jobs. [WASHINGTON POST, 10/4/2001; TORONTO SUN, 10/5/2001] Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ahmed Shehab, Hassan Almrei, Nabil al-Marabh Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Nabil Al-Marabh

January 2001-Summer 2001: Hijackers Witnessed Preparing False IDs in Toronto Photocopy Shop with Al-Marabh

The Toronto photocopy shop owned by Nabil al-Marabh’s uncle. [Source: CTV] Many eyewitnesses see Marwan Alshehhi and Mohamed Atta at a Toronto photocopy shop owned by Nabil al-Marabh’s uncle Ahmed Shehab, a prominent local imam. Some of the dozens of eyewitness accounts say Atta sporadically works in the shop. There is a large picture of bin Laden hanging in the store. Alshehhi and Atta are also seen by other eyewitnesses in a Toronto apartment building during this same time period (see January 2001-Summer 2001). [TORONTO SUN, 10/21/2001] In a series of raids after 9/11, many partially completed fake IDs will be found in the store and at al-Marabh’s apartment. A stack of tightly-controlled immigration forms enabling one to immigrate to Canada will also be found. [TORONTO SUN, 9/28/2001; TORONTO SUN, 10/5/2001; TORONTO SUN, 10/16/2001] According to the Toronto Sun, “Forensic officers said there are similarities in the paper stock, laminates, and ink seized from the downtown store and that which was used in identification left behind by the [9/11 hijackers].” [TORONTO SUN, 10/16/2001] Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Ahmed Shehab, Marwan Alshehhi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Nabil Al-Marabh

January 2001: Future 9/11 Commission Executive Director Zelikow Not Offered Full-time Job with Bush Administration, Returns to University Future 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow is not offered a job in the Bush administration, and returns to the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia to teach. Zelikow had worked on the transition team (see January 3, 2001), and thought he would receive an important position in the new administration. He told his friends he thought he was in line for the position of deputy national security adviser to Condoleezza Rice, with whom he had written a book in the mid-1990s (see 1995). Most people in the Bush administration admire his ability, but find him hard to work with. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card will even describe Zelikow as a “bully” historian. Author Philip Shenon will later comment that Zelikow is “perplexed that his talents had not been recognized by the people who handed out the best jobs in the Bush administration.” After returning to university, Zelikow will lobby the White House to make the university where he works the official repository of its oral history. His point of contact at the White House is political adviser Karl Rove. [SHENON, 2008, PP. 42-44] Entity Tags: Andrew Card, Karl Rove, Philip Shenon, Philip Zelikow Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 9/11 Commission, Role of Philip Zelikow

January-September 10, 2001: Bush Administration Slow to Develop New Policy Regarding Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Al-Qaeda After the Bush administration takes office in January 2001, it is slow to develop new approaches to Pakistan and Afghanistan. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice orders a new policy review for al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, but sets no deadline for it to be completed. State Department officials will later say that Secretary of State Colin Powell shows little interest in the policy review. It takes four months for the Bush administration to even nominate a new assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs. President Bush and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf exchange formal letters with each other shortly after Bush takes office, but the letters have little impact. In January, US ambassador to Pakistan William Milam prepares two cables to brief the new Bush administration about Pakistan, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. There is no response from Washington and no request for further information, even though Milam is the point person for meetings with the Taliban. The US embassy is not consulted at all about the new policy review, indicating just how low a priority the review is. A senior US diplomat will later say: “Al-Qaeda was not on the radar screen in Washington. Nobody thought there was any urgency to the policy review. Papers were circulated, dates were made to meet, and were broken—it was the usual bureaucratic approach.” The first significant meeting related to the review takes place in April, but little is accomplished (see April 30, 2001). The first cabinet-level meeting relating to the policy review takes place on September 4, just one week before the 9/11 attacks. US policy towards Pakistan is discussed, but no firm decisions are reached (see September 4, 2001). After 9/11, Rice will say: “America’s al-Qaeda policy wasn’t working because our Afghanistan policy wasn’t working. And our Afghanistan policy wasn’t working because our Pakistan policy wasn’t working. We recognized that America’s counterterrorism policy had to be connected to our regional strategies and our overall foreign policy.… Al-Qaeda was both a client of and patron to the Taliban, which in turn was supported by Pakistan. Those relationships provided al-Qaeda with a powerful umbrella of protection, and we had to sever that.” [RASHID, 2008, PP. 56-60] Entity Tags: Pervez Musharraf, Al-Qaeda, Bush administration, George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Taliban, William Milam Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI

January 2001: CIA Report on USS Cole Bombing Only Finds Circumstantial Evidence of Bin Laden Link, Fails to Mention Some Connections The CIA’s Counterterrorist Center completes a report on the bombing of the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000). The report, drafted by CIA officer Clark Shannon, finds that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are circumstantially tied to the attack. However, the report fails to mention details known to the CIA involving figures later connected to the 9/11 plot. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General will later observe, “The report did not mention [hijacker Khalid Almihdhar’s] visa, [hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi’s] travel to the United States or the Khallad [bin Attash] identification from the Kuala Lumpur photographs” (see January 2-5, 2000, March 5, 2000, and January 4, 2001). [US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 283 ] Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Office of the Inspector General (DOJ), Clark Shannon, Khalid Almihdhar, Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit

January 2001: High Ranking Official Refuses to Hear about Able Danger Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer will later claim that DIA Deputy Director of Human Intelligence William Huntington is briefed by Shaffer at this time about a project named Dorhawk Galley. Some information about Able Danger’s methodology comes up. According to Shaffer, Huntington refuses to hear it and announces, “I can’t be here, I can’t see this.” Huntington immediately leaves Shaffer’s office and refuses to hear the information. Commenting on the episode, Shaffer later notes, “By doing this, he could later feign ignorance of the project should it have been compromised to the public. It is my belief that he is an example of the cultural problem—senior bureaucrats who are more focused on their own career and having ‘plausible deniability’ to never allow anything ‘controversial or risky’ to ‘touch them.’” Shaffer will also state, “It is of grave concern that Mr. Huntington is the one who is behind the troubling coincidence regarding my security clearance being suspended in March of 2004, just after reporting to my DIA chain of command [to include Mr. Huntington] of my contact with the 9-11 Commission, and my offer to share the Able Danger information to the 9-11 commission.” [US CONGRESS, 2/15/2006; US CONGRESS, 2/15/2006] Entity Tags: Able Danger, Anthony Shaffer, Dorhawk Galley, William Huntington Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Able Danger

Between January and February 2001: Atta and Alshehhi Allegedly Practice Nighttime Landings at Clearwater Airpark

Clearwater Airpark. [Source: Douglas R. Clifford / St. Petersburg Times] Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi reportedly spend at least 30 minutes practicing landing a single-engine plane at Clearwater Airpark, Florida, after it has closed for the night. This is according to Daniel Pursell, the chief instructor at Huffman Aviation, the Venice flight school attended by the two during the latter half of 2000 (see July 6-December 19, 2000). What they are doing at Clearwater is unknown. Their activities draw the attention of a police aide acting as a night watchman, who leaves a voice message at Huffman complaining about the incident. The plane is subsequently identified as having been rented by Atta and Alshehhi. Pursell, along with fellow instructor Thierry Leklou, reprimands them when they return to Venice the following morning. According to the St. Petersburg Times, the two leave Huffman shortly afterwards. This incident first surfaces publicly in 2006, when Pursell testifies at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. However, others will dispute his allegations. Local police say no incident reports were filed describing the event, and neither the FAA nor city have any record of unauthorized landings during this period. According to Bill Morris, Clearwater’s marine and aviation director, a police aide would have called for backup and recorded the plane’s details in a log, rather than calling Huffman. He says even if the aide had wanted to contact the plane’s owner, it would have been impossible to ascertain who this was at night, as allegedly occurred, because the FAA’s offices would have been closed. [CNN, 3/23/2006; ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 3/30/2006; CLEARWATER CITIZEN, 4/6/2006] Furthermore, Atta and Alshehhi supposedly finished training at Huffman Aviation in December 2000, and the school’s owner Rudi Dekkers will claim Huffman last heard from them around the end of that month. [US CONGRESS, 3/19/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 17 ] However, a similar incident to this is known to have occurred previously, where Atta and Alshehhi abandoned one of Huffman’s planes at Miami International Airport (see December 26, 2000). [CNN, 3/23/2006] And according to the 9/11 Commission, after passing their instrument rating airplane tests on November 6, 2000, the pair was “able to sign out planes. They did so on a number of occasions, often returning at 2:00 and 3:00 A.M. after logging four or five hours of flying time.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 15 ] The St. Petersburg Times reports that Atta and Alshehhi “would rent a plane from Huffman and be gone for days at a time, Pursell said. They could fly to 20 airports across the state and never be noticed.” [ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 3/30/2006] Entity Tags: Thierry Leklou, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Daniel Pursell, Clearwater Airpark Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

January 2001: Death of Operative Puts New FBI Focus on Boston Cell

Bassam Kanj. [Source: FBI] Bassam Kanj is killed in a battle in Lebanon. Kanj lived on and off in Boston for nearly 15 years, and was a friend of al-Qaeda operatives Nabil al-Marabh, Raed Hijazi, and Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi. All four of them fought together in Afghanistan in the late 1980s (see Late 1980s), then worked at the same Boston taxi company in the 1990s (see June 1995-Early 1999). In late 1998, Kanj left Boston for Lebanon where he apparently recruited a couple hundred people to take part in a rebellion to overthrow the Lebanese government. He is killed during a five day battle, along with 21 others. Two days after the battle, a Lebanese newspaper identifies him as an al-Qaeda operative who had received financial support from bin Laden. This leads to a renewed focus on him in the US. In February 2001, the Boston Globe will report, “The FBI is continuing to look at Kanj’s and Hijazi’s activities in the Boston area in hopes of learning more about their contacts inside bin Laden’s far-flung organization.” Michael Rolince, chief of international terrorism operations for the FBI, will tell the Globe that both men had a “higher station” than most in al-Qaeda, and will add, “We are still trying to sort out who played what role.” [BOSTON GLOBE, 2/5/2001] Presumably, this leads the FBI to take another look at Nabil al-Marabh, who had been roommates with both Hijazi and Kanj and is already wanted for a variety of al-Qaeda contacts. An individual matching al-Marabh’s description is even mentioned in a prominent New York Times story about al-Qaeda in January 2001. The article states, “In early 1997, Hijazi moved to Boston, where he had a friend from his years in Afghanistan.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/15/2001] Yet apparently there is no concerted effort to find al-Marabh, who will even be set free after being arrested trying to illegally enter the US (see June 27, 2001-July 11, 2001). The Boston FBI began investigating Elzahabi for militant ties in 1999, but lost track of him when he went to fight in Chechnya (see 1997 and 1999). But apparently he is not detected reentering the US shortly before 9/11 (see Mid-August 2001). Entity Tags: Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, Nabil al-Marabh, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bassam Kanj, Michael Rolince, Raed Hijazi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Millennium Bomb Plots, Nabil Al-Marabh

January-March 2001: Wright Told to ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’

Kathleen McChesney. [Source: FBI] FBI agent Robert Wright is continuing to protest and fight the cancellation of the Vulgar Betrayal investigation (see August 2000). In January 2001, he claims that his supervisor tells him, “I think it’s just better to let sleeping dogs lie.” FBI agent John Vincent backs up the allegation. [ABC NEWS, 12/19/2002] In March 2001, Wright meets with the Chicago special agent-in-charge, who appears to be Kathleen McChesney, given that Wright calls this person “she” and McChesney held that position since January 1999. [FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, 12/2001; FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE, 6/2/2003] He tells her that “the international terrorism unit of the FBI is a complete joke.” Within three weeks, the FBI opens another disciplinary investigation on Wright, charging that he had supplied classified information to an assistant US attorney. Wright is later cleared of the charges. In 2002, Wright will claim, “This was a pathetic attempt… before the Sept. 11th attacks, to further silence me from going public about the FBI’s negligence and incompetence.” [CNN, 6/19/2003; NEW YORK POST, 7/14/2004] A lawyer speaking for Wright after 9/11 will blame Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Michael Chertoff for refusing to take Wright’s concerns seriously before 9/11. Chertoff will later be promoted to head the Department of Homeland Security. [FOX NEWS, 5/30/2002] Entity Tags: Vulgar Betrayal, Federal Bureau of Investigation, John Vincent, Kathleen McChesney, Michael Chertoff, Robert Wright, International Terrorism Unit Category Tags: Robert Wright and Vulgar Betrayal, Terrorism Financing, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

January-June 2001: 9/11 Hijackers Pass Through Britain for Training or Fundraising

Ahmed Alnami in prayer. [Source: Spiegel TV] Eleven of the 9/11 hijackers stay in or pass through Britain, according to the British Home Secretary and top investigators. Most are in Britain between April and June, just passing through from Dubai, United Arab Emirates (see April 22-June 27, 2001). However, investigators suspect some stay in Britain for training and fundraising (see June 2001). The eleven are Satam Al Suqami, Waleed Alshehri, Majed Moqed, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, Ahmed Alnami, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Wail Alshehri, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, and Saeed Alghamdi. Ahmed Alghamdi was one of several that should have been “instantly ‘red-flagged’ by British intelligence,” because of his links to Raed Hijazi, a suspected ally of bin Laden being held in Jordan on charges of conspiring to destroy holy sites. Apparently, the investigation concludes that other “muscle” hijackers and leaders like Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi did not pass through Britain at this time. [LONDON TIMES, 9/26/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 9/27/2001; BBC, 9/28/2001; SUNDAY HERALD (GLASGOW), 9/30/2001] However, police will investigate whether Atta visited Britain in 1999 and 2000, together with some Algerians. [DAILY TELEGRAPH, 9/30/2001] The London Times will also write, “Officials hope that the inquiries in Britain will disclose the true identities of the suicide team. Some are known to have arrived in Britain using false passports and fake identities that they kept for the hijack.” [LONDON TIMES, 9/26/2001] Entity Tags: Raed Hijazi, Saeed Alghamdi, Waleed M. Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Wail Alshehri, Marwan Alshehhi, Satam Al Suqami, Hamza Alghamdi, Majed Moqed, Ahmed Alghamdi, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Alnami, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism

January-March 2001: CIA Director, National Security Counsel Briefed on Able Danger In addition to briefings about Able Danger with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (see Early 2001) and other military leaders (see March 2001), Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer claims that there are other briefings about the project in the same early 2001 time frame. In one briefing, Shaffer says CIA Director George Tenet approves “our conduct of this special project—I did specifically mention the Able Danger effort to him regarding the use of its methodology to separate out US Person issues.” Shaffer also claims that the National Security Counsel (NSC) is briefed twice on Able Danger around this time. He says, “I cannot recall the specific dates of, or individuals present at, the briefing.” [US CONGRESS, 2/15/2006] Entity Tags: National Security Council, Able Danger, George J. Tenet, Anthony Shaffer Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Able Danger

January-February 2001: Flight School’s Repeated Warnings About Hijacker Hanjour Ignored by FAA

Hani Hanjour, from a 2000 US visa application. [Source: 9/11 Commission] In January 2001, the Arizona flight school JetTech alerts the FAA about hijacker Hani Hanjour. No one at the school suspects Hanjour of terrorist intent, but they tell the FAA he lacks both the English and flying skills necessary for the commercial pilot’s license he has already obtained. For instance, he had taken classes at the University of Arizona but failed his English classes with a 0.26 grade point average. A JetTech flight school manager “couldn’t believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had.” A former employee says, “I’m still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all.” They also note he is an exceptionally poor student who does not seem to care about passing his courses. [NEW YORK TIMES, 5/4/2002; CBS NEWS, 5/10/2002] An FAA official named John Anthony actually sits next to Hanjour in class and observes his skills. He suggests the use of a translator to help Hanjour pass, but the flight school points out that goes “against the rules that require a pilot to be able to write and speak English fluently before they even get their license.” [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 5/10/2002] The FAA verifies that Hanjour’s 1999 pilot’s license is legitimate (see April 15, 1999), but takes no other action. However, his license should have been rejected because it had already expired in late 1999 when he failed to take a manadatory medical test. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/15/2001; CBS NEWS, 5/10/2002] An Arizona FAA inspector later says, “There should have been a stop right then and there.” He will claim that federal law would have required Hanjour to be re-examined. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 6/13/2002] In February, Hanjour begins advanced simulator training, “a far more complicated task than he had faced in earning a commercial license.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 6/19/2002] The flight school again alerts the FAA about this and gives a total of five alerts about Hanjour, but no further action on him is taken. The FBI is not told about Hanjour. [CBS NEWS, 5/10/2002] Ironically, in July 2001, Arizona FBI agent Ken Williams will recommend in a memo that the FBI liaison with local flight schools and keep track of suspicious activity by Middle Eastern students (see July 10, 2001). Entity Tags: Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, John Anthony, Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, JetTech Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Hani Hanjour, Phoenix Memo, Key Hijacker Events, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training, Hijacker Contact w Government in US

January-March 2001: Intelligence Unit Tracking Al-Qaeda is Closed Down; Change in Leadership Factors in Closure A secret military intelligence unit called Able Danger, which is tasked with assembling information about al-Qaeda networks around the world, is shut down. Some accounts say the program is shut down in January, some say February, and some say March. [NORRISTOWN TIMES HERALD, 6/19/2005; TIMES HERALD (NORRISTOWN), 9/12/2005; US CONGRESS, 9/21/2005] The unit has identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as members of an al-Qaeda cell operating in the United States (see January-February 2000). According to James D. Smith, a Pentagon contractor involved with the unit, the inspector general shuts down the operation “because of a claim that we were collecting information on US citizens,” and it is illegal for the military to do this. [WTOP RADIO 103.5 (WASHINGTON), 9/1/2005] Others familiar with the unit later say it is closed down because it might have led to the exposure of another data mining project that was investigating US citizens allegedly illegally transferring sensitive US technology to the Chinese government. [WTOP RADIO 103.5 (WASHINGTON), 9/1/2005] Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer blames the change in leadership brought by the new Bush administration. “Once the four star [General Schoomaker] went away, it was pretty much like the world closing around us [Schoomaker retired in November 2000, but returned as Army Chief of Staff in 2003]. There was no political will to continue this at that point in time. Plus, my direct leadership: Colonel [Jerry] York and General [Bob] Harding had moved on as well. Therefore, I had a new chain of command above me. They were very risk adverse. This [Able Danger] operation, as with other operations which were very high risk / high gain, some of which are still ongoing—seemed to not be appreciated by the incoming leadership.” [AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 6/17/2003; GOVERNMENT SECURITY NEWS, 9/2005] For example, Shaffer will say that Col. Mary Moffitt, who replaces Col. Gerry York around this time (“spring 2001”), “dismantled the Defense [human intelligence] support to Able Danger just months before the 9-11 attacks… [and ] became focused on shutting down our support to Able Danger under the guise of ‘reorganization’ and in the end, disestablished Stratus Ivy [the unit Shaffer headed] and its cutting edge focus.” [US CONGRESS, 2/15/2006] Entity Tags: James D. Smith, Mary Moffitt, Al-Qaeda, Able Danger Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Able Danger

January-August 2001: Airlines Receive FAA Warnings, But Later Claim They Were Given No Real Hints of Possible Terrorist Attacks The FAA gives 15 warnings to domestic airlines between January and August 2001, but about one general security warning a month had been common for a long time. [CNN, 5/17/2002] Even a government official later calls the content of these 15 warnings “standard fare.” [MIAMI HERALD, 5/17/2002] As one newspaper later reports, “there were so many [warnings] that airline officials grew numb to them.” [ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 9/23/2002] In May 2002, in response to recent revelations about what was known before 9/11, the major airlines will hold a press conference claiming they were never warned of a specific hijacking threat, and were not told to tighten security. For instance, an American Airlines spokesman states that the airline “received no specific information from the US government advising the carrier of a potential terrorist hijacking in the United States in the months prior to September 11, 2001. American receives FAA security information bulletins periodically, but the bulletins were extremely general in nature and did not identify a specific threat or recommend any specific security enhancements.” [MIAMI HERALD, 5/17/2002] Bush administration officials later state that the terror information they are receiving is so vague that tighter security does not seem required. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 5/18/2002] However, it seems that even these general warnings are never passed on to airline employees. Rosemary Dillard, a supervisor for American Airlines, states, “My job was supervision over all the flight attendants who flew out of National, Baltimore, or Dulles. In the summer of 2001, we had absolutely no warnings about any threats of hijackings or terrorism, from the airline or from the FAA.” [NEW YORK OBSERVER, 6/20/2004] The content of these seemingly harmless warnings remain classified after 9/11. They are said to be exempted from public disclosure by a federal statute that covers “information that would be detrimental to the security of transportation if disclosed.” [NEW YORK OBSERVER, 6/20/2004] Entity Tags: American Airlines, Bush administration, Federal Aviation Administration, Rosemary Dillard Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Warning Signs, US Air Security

January 2001 and after: Security Services Increase Surveillance of Jemaah Islamiyah after Bombing Campaign Following a wave of bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines in late 2000 (see December 24-30, 2000), regional intelligence services increase surveillance of al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). Police find that a call claiming responsibility for the bombing was made from a phone registered to JI operative Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi and trace calls from this phone to JI leader Hambali and one of his subordinates, Faiz abu Baker Bafana. Philippines authorities then keep al-Ghozi under surveillance for a year, before arresting him in January 2002. [CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 2/14/2002] Hambali is named in the media as a JI leader around this time (see January 24, 2001). Entity Tags: Faiz abu Baker Bafana, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, Hambali Category Tags: Hambali, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia

Early January 2001: CIA Passes Photos of Hijackers Alhazmi and Almihdhar for Source to Identify The CIA’s Counterterrorist Center passes a photo of hijacker Khalid Almihdhar and a photo of hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi taken at al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit (see January 5-8, 2000) to the CIA station in Islamabad, Pakistan. The station is to show the photos to a source, later referred to as “Omar,” to see if he can identify Khalid Almihdhar or al-Qaeda manager Khallad bin Attash, as Omar has previously identified bin Attash in another photo (see November 22-December 16, 2000). According to cables drafted at this time, the overseas station requested the photo of Almihdhar because it thinks that Almihdhar and bin Attash might be the same person (see Mid-Late December 2000). It is unclear why the photo of Alhazmi is also passed at the same time. The CIA has numerous other photos taken at the Malaysia summit as well as video (see January 5, 2000), but these are not passed. [US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 269-270 ] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, CIA Islamabad Station, Nawaf Alhazmi, Tawfiq bin Attash, Counterterrorist Center, “Omar”, Khalid Almihdhar Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit

Early January 2001: Al-Qaeda Threat Highlighted for Powell

Brian Sheridan. [Source: PBS.org] Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke briefs Secretary of State Colin Powell about the al-Qaeda threat. He urges decisive and quick action against the organization. Powell meets with the Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG)—made up of senior counterterrorism officials from many agencies—and sees to it that all members of the group agree al-Qaeda is a serious threat. For instance, Deputy Defense Secretary Brian Sheridan says to Powell, “Make al-Qaeda your number one priority.” [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 227-30] Clarke will later note that he does not provide this briefing to President Bush because he is prevented from doing so. When Clarke resigns in 2003, he receives an effusive letter of praise from Bush for his service (see January 31, 2003). Clarke will later quote Bush (see March 28, 2004), telling NBC’s Tim Russert: “Let me read another line from the letter… ‘I will always have fond memories of our briefings for you on cybersecurity.’ Not on terrorism, Tim, because they didn’t allow me to brief him on terrorism.” [MSNBC, 3/28/2004] Entity Tags: Tim Russert, Richard A. Clarke, Colin Powell, Al-Qaeda, Counterterrorism and Security Group, George W. Bush, Brian Sheridan Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

January 3, 2001: Richard Clarke Briefs Condoleezza Rice on Al-Qaeda Threat Richard Clarke, counterterrorism “tsar” for the Clinton administration, briefs National Security Adviser Rice and her deputy, Steve Hadley, about al-Qaeda. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002] Outgoing National Security Adviser Sandy Berger makes an unusual appearance at the start of the meeting, saying to Rice, “I’m coming to this briefing to underscore how important I think this subject is.” He claims that he tells Rice during the transition between administrations, “I believe that the Bush administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.” Clarke presents his plan to “roll back” al-Qaeda that he had given to the outgoing Clinton administration a couple of weeks earlier. [TIME, 8/4/2002] He gets the impression that Rice has never heard the term al-Qaeda before. [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 227-30; GUARDIAN, 3/25/2004] Clarke is told at the meeting that he will keep his job but the position is being downgraded and he will no longer have direct access to the president (see January 3, 2001). Entity Tags: Sandy Berger, Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice, Al-Qaeda, Richard A. Clarke, Stephen J. Hadley Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11

January 3, 2001: Clarke Demoted by Rice and Future 9/11 Commission Executive Director

Condoleezza Rice and Philip Zelikow. [Source: Public domain] National Security Adviser Rice decides this day to retain Richard Clarke, counterterrorism “tsar” for the Clinton administration, and his staff. However, she downgrades his official position as National Coordinator for Counterterrorism. While he is still known as the counterterrorism “tsar,” he has less power and now reports to deputy secretaries instead of attending Cabinet-level meetings. He no longer is able to send memos directly to the president, or easily interact with Cabinet-level officials. [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 227-30; GUARDIAN, 3/25/2004] Clarke will not be able to meet with President Bush even a single time before 9/11 to discuss al-Qaeda (see January 25, 2001-September 10, 2001). In 2004, Rice will reveal that the person she tasks with considering changes to Clarke and his staff is Philip Zelikow, the future Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission. Zelikow recuses himself from those parts of the 9/11 Commission’s investigation directly relating to his role in this and other matters. However, 9/11 victims’ relatives are not satisfied. For instance, one relative says, “Zelikow has conflicts. I’m not sure that his recusal is sufficient. His fingerprints are all over that decision [to demote Clarke].” [UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 4/9/2004] Entity Tags: Philip Zelikow, Condoleezza Rice, Richard A. Clarke Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, 9/11 Commission, Role of Philip Zelikow

January 3, 2001: Yemen Authorities Receive Malaysia Photographs from CIA, but FBI Does Not Yemeni authorities receive photographs of operatives who attended al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit. The exact number of photographs they receive is not known, but they include three photos, of 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and a man who looks like one of their associates, Fahad al-Quso, that are later shown to the FBI (see June 11, 2001). It is unclear who provides the photos to the Yemenis, but the CIA has them and is interested in the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen (see October 12, 2000), so presumably they come from the CIA. The photos are highly relevant to the FBI, as they connect extremists known to be involved in the Cole attack to Almihdhar and Alhazmi, but even though the FBI is in charge of the Cole investigation, the CIA continues to withhold the information from the FBI for months (see January 5, 2001 and After, February 1, 2001, Late May, 2001 and August 30, 2001). The Yemenis’ response to the photographs is unknown. [US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 293 ] The CIA is aware by June 2001 that Almihdhar is the son-in-law of Ahmed al-Hada, a Yemeni extremist who runs a communications hub for Osama bin Laden (see Late August 1998), but it is not known whether they obtain this information now or at some other time. [WRIGHT, 2006, PP. 343] Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Central Intelligence Agency, Fahad al-Quso, Khalid Almihdhar, Yemen Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit

January 4, 2001: Mohamed Atta Travels to Spain
9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta flies from Miami, Florida, to Madrid, Spain. He has allegedly been in the US since June 3, 2000, learning to fly in Florida with Marwan Alshehhi. [MIAMI HERALD, 9/22/2001] Spanish authorities will later say he meets Barakat Yarkas, head of a Spanish al-Qaeda cell, on the trip. After Yarkas is arrested in late 2001, an interview with him by a high court judge will indicate that “numerous lines to Sept. 11 principals passed through [him].” [BOSTON GLOBE, 8/4/2002] Atta returns to the US on January 10 (see January 10, 2001), and will make a second trip to Spain in July of the same year (see July 8-19, 2001). Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Mohamed Atta

January 4, 2001: Informer Sees Known Al-Qaeda Leader in Malaysia Summit Photos

Nawaf Alhazmi (left) and Khallad bin Attash (right) are said to have been confused by an informer. [Source: FBI] An overseas CIA officer shows a source known as “Omar,” who provides information on al-Qaeda, photographs of hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi taken at the al-Qaeda Malaysia summit (see January 5-8, 2000). Omar has previously identified a photo of al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash (see November 22-December 16, 2000) and the officer thinks that bin Attash and Almihdhar might be the same person (see Mid-Late December 2000). Omar says that the photo of Alhazmi, who the CIA apparently do not recognize at this time, actually shows bin Attash. As Omar cannot identify Almihdhar, but says he can identify bin Attash, this indicates Almihdhar and bin Attash are not the same person. The identification causes the CIA to believe that bin Attash attended al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit. Although this belief is based on a mistaken identification, it is actually correct, as bin Attash was present at the summit—the CIA has photos of bin Attash there, but fails to show them to Omar. This identification is important because bin Attash is a known bin Laden operative connected to the USS Cole attack and East African embassy bombings. The CIA also knows that Almihdhar and Alhazmi were at the summit, so this could connect them to the Cole attack. [US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 268-271 ] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Nawaf Alhazmi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Khalid Almihdhar, “Omar”, Tawfiq bin Attash, CIA Islamabad Station Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Other Possible Moles or Informants, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Key Hijacker Events

January 5, 2001: French Report Al-Qaeda Plan to Hijack Plane Possibly Headed to US; CIA Apparently Informed

Alain Chouet. [Source: La Repubblica] A five page summary French intelligence report dated on this day is entitled “Hijacking of an Airplane by Radical Islamists.” The report details tactical discussions since early 2000 between bin Laden, Chechen rebels, and the Taliban about a hijacking against US airlines (Early 2000 and October 2000). The plot considers hijacking a US airliner flying from Frankfurt to the US or hijacking a French or German airliner. The French intelligence comes from Uzbek spies who have infiltrated the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a militant group based in Uzbekistan next door to Afghanistan and closely tied to bin Laden and the Taliban. Some of the spies ended up in al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. The French report makes clear that the information was independently verified from other sources, including satellite telephone intercepts and possibly spies recruited in France. [LE MONDE (PARIS), 4/15/2007; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 4/16/2007; LE MONDE (PARIS), 4/17/2007] When this French report will be leaked to the press in 2007, French officials will insist that the information in it would have been forwarded to the CIA at the time. For instance, Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, responsible at the time for communications between French and other foreign intelligence services, will say the information would have gone to Bill Murray, chief of the CIA Paris station. Lorenzi says, “That, typically, is the kind of information that would certainly have been forwarded to the CIA. It would even have been an error not to have done it.” [LE MONDE (PARIS), 4/15/2007] Alain Chouet, head of the French intelligence subdivision tracking terrorist movements, also says the information was certainly passed to the CIA. “We transmitted everything to our American counterparts, everything that could have posed a threat, and they did the same with us.” Chouet thinks it is possible the information was deliberate misdirection by al-Qaeda, because it does not mention multiple hijackings or suicide pilots. No CIA officials have gone on record saying that they received the warning. [LE MONDE (PARIS), 4/15/2007; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 4/16/2007] However, the Chechens are likely connected to Chechen leader Ibn Khattab, who has a long history of collaboration with bin Laden (see 1986-March 19, 2002), and by April 2001 an FBI report says that Ibn Khattab and bin Laden are seriously planning an attack together, possibly against US interests (see Before April 13, 2001). In May 2001, President Bush will be given a warning entitled, “Terrorist Groups Said Cooperating on US Hostage Plot,” which could involve a hijacking to free al-Qaeda prisoners in the US (see May 23, 2001). The plot described by French intelligence is also designed to free al-Qaeda prisoners in the US, though this may just be coincidence as the terrorist groups in Bush’s warning have not been publicly named. [LE MONDE (PARIS), 4/17/2007] Entity Tags: Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, Alain Chouet, Bill Murray, Al-Qaeda Category Tags: Warning Signs, Key Warnings

January 5, 2001 and After: CIA Does Not Tell FBI about Identification of Al-Qaeda Leader by Informer, but Allegedly Thinks It Has Done So After an informer later referred to as “Omar” tells the CIA that al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash was at al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit (see January 4, 2001), the CIA fails to communicate this information to the FBI, even though it is important for their investigation of the USS Cole bombing and connects 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi to the Cole bombers. Omar is a joint FBI/CIA source, but the FBI assistant legal attaché responsible for him will later say he does not know of this identification and documentation he drafts at this time indicates he is unaware of it. It is unclear why the FBI agent is unaware of the identification, although he does not speak Omar’s language and may have been out of the room making photocopies when Omar identified bin Attash in a photo of the Malaysia summit for his CIA counterpart. The CIA officer who shows the photos will later say he has no independent recollection of any particular meeting with Omar. However, when Omar previously identified a photo of bin Attash provided by Yemeni authorities on December 16, 2000 (see November 22-December 16, 2000), the CIA officer had the source repeat the identification specifically for the benefit of the FBI assistant legal attaché and the cable he drafted about the meeting said this clearly. In addition, the assistant legal attaché will later say that he recalls the specific circumstances of the previous debriefing and will be able to recount them, including the identification of bin Attash in the photograph provided by the Yemenis. The CIA officer drafts three cables about the January 4 meeting; one internal cable provides little detail about the meeting, but says bin Attash was identified in one of the photos, a cable to the general US intelligence community fails to mention the identification of bin Attash, as does a third cable, which is sent to the CIA. However, according to statements made by CIA officials after 9/11, at this time the CIA thinks that the FBI knows that bin Attash has been identified in the photos. For example, Director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center Cofer Black will tell the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, “[O]ur records establish that the Special Agents from the FBI’s New York Field Office who were investigating the USS Cole attack reviewed the information about the Kuala Lumpur photo in late January 2001.” However, there is no documentary record of information about the second identification placing bin Attash in Kuala Lumpur with the two hijackers being passed to the FBI. In addition, in July 2001 CIA manager Tom Wilshire will suggest passing this information to the FBI (see July 13, 2001), possibly meaning he thinks it is not passed at this time. [US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 264-278 ] Entity Tags: Tawfiq bin Attash, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, Cofer Black, “Omar”, Federal Bureau of Investigation, CIA Islamabad Station, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit

After January 4, 2001: 9/11 Hijackers Alhazmi, Almihdhar, and Al-Qaeda Leader Not Watchlisted, Despite Connection to Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit After an informant identifies a photo of al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash for the CIA, indicating that he was at al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit (see January 4, 2001), the CIA fails to place him on the US watch list. The identification links bin Attash, who was involved in the attack on the USS Cole, to 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. The CIA has already been informed that Alhazmi entered the US in March 2000, yet once again they fail to watchlist either Alhazmi or Almihdhar. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry will point out, “In January 2001, Khalid Almihdhar was abroad, his visa had expired, and he would have to clear a watch list check before obtaining a new visa to re-enter the United States.” [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 9/22/2002; US CONGRESS, 7/24/2003, PP. 148-150 ] CNN later notes that at this point the CIA, at the very least, “could have put Alhazmi and Almihdhar and all others who attended the [summit] in Malaysia on a watch list to be kept out of this country. It was not done.” [CNN, 6/4/2002] One of bin Attash’s aliases, Salah Saeed Muhammed bin Yousaf, will be placed on the US watch list on August 23, at the same time as Alhazmi and Almihdhar (see August 23, 2001), but US authorities apparently will not be aware that this is actually one of his aliases at that point. [US CONGRESS, 7/24/2003, PP. 152 ; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 538; US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 302 ] Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Central Intelligence Agency, Tawfiq bin Attash Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Key Hijacker Events

January 7, 2001: Rumsfeld Report Echoes ‘New Pearl Harbor’ Language Donald Rumsfeld publishes a report as chairperson of the Rumsfeld Commission that makes proposals for the US Space Command. Rumsfeld is in the process of becoming defense secretary for the incoming Bush administration. His commission’s report says with respect to attacks in space: “The question is whether the US will be wise enough to act responsibly and soon enough to reduce US space vulnerabilities. Or whether, as in the past, a disabling attack against the country and its people—a ‘Space Pearl Harbor’—will be the only event able to galvanize the nation and cause the US government to act.” Author Peter Dale Scott will later note the similarity between this language and that of a Project for the New American Century (PNAC) think tank report published several months before, signed by Rumsfeld and others, that warned of impediments to overhauling the US military “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor” (see September 2000). Scott will comment that such quotes indicate that the US oil industry and military had achieved a quiet consensus by this time that “America would need full-spectrum dominance to guarantee access to oil and other resources in the rest of the world. This program would require massive expenditures, perhaps as much as a trillion dollars, and this could not be expected from Congress—except in response to an attack as massive and frightening as Pearl Harbor.” [SCOTT, 2007, PP. 24] Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, US Space Command, Peter Dale Scott Category Tags: US Dominance

January 10, 2001: Two Attas Enter the US on the Same Day?

Atta’s immigration record for his arrival on January 10, 2001, after alteration in early May. [Source: 9/11 Commission] The Miami Herald will report: “INS documents, matched against an FBI alert given to German police, show two men named Mohamed Atta [arrive] in Miami on January 10, each offering different destination addresses to INS agents, one in Nokomis, near Venice, the other at a Coral Springs condo. He (they?) is admitted, despite having overstayed his previous visa by a month. The double entry could be a paperwork error, or confusion over a visa extension. It could be Atta arrived in Miami, flew to another country like the Bahamas, and returned the same day. Or it could be that two men somehow cleared immigration with the same name using the same passport number.” [MIAMI HERALD, 9/22/2001] Officials will later call this a bureaucratic snafu, and insist that only one Atta entered the US on this date. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/28/2001] In addition, while Atta arrives on a tourist visa, he tells immigration inspectors that he is taking flying lessons in the US, which requires an M-1 student visa. [WASHINGTON POST, 10/28/2001] The fact that he had overstayed his visa by over a month on a previous visit also does not cause a problem. [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 9/27/2001] The INS will later defend its decision, but “immigration experts outside the agency dispute the INS position vigorously.” For instance, Stephen Yale-Loehr, co-author of a 20-volume treatise on immigration law, will assert: “They just don’t want to tell you they blew it. They should just admit they made a mistake.” [WASHINGTON POST, 10/28/2001] Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mohamed Atta, Stephen Yale-Loehr Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Hijacker Contact w Government in US

January 10-25, 2001: Rice Rejects Resuming Use of Surveillance Drone to Track Bin Laden

The Predator drone. [Source: US military] (click image to enlarge) Even before President Bush’s official inauguration, Clinton holdover counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke pushes National Security Adviser Rice and other incoming Bush officials to resume Predator drone flights over Afghanistan (originally carried out in September and October 2000) in an attempt to find and assassinate bin Laden. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002; CBS NEWS, 6/25/2003] On January 10, Rice is shown a video clip of bin Laden filmed by a Predator drone the year before. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002] Aware of an Air Force plan to arm the Predator, when Clarke outlines a series of steps to take against al-Qaeda on January 25 (see January 25, 2001), one suggestion is to go forward with new Predator drone reconnaissance missions in the spring and use an armed version when it is ready. [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004] The original Air Force development plan calls for three years of Predator testing, but Clarke pushes so hard that a Hellfire missile is successfully test fired from a Predator on February 16, 2001. The armed Predator will be fully ready by early June 2001 (see Early June-September 10, 2001). [CBS NEWS, 6/25/2003; NEW YORKER, 7/28/2003] However, Rice apparently approves the use of the Predator but only as part of a broader strategy against al-Qaeda. Since that strategy will still not be ready before 9/11, the Predator will not be put into use before 9/11. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 6/22/2003] Entity Tags: Stephen J. Hadley, Richard A. Clarke, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency, Osama bin Laden Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden

January 11, 2001: Rumsfeld Warns of Surprise Attack Like Pearl Harbor At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense-designate Donald Rumsfeld warns of the danger of a surprise attack like Pearl Harbor happening again. He testifies, “We all know that history is filled with instances where people were surprised. There were plenty of signals, plenty of warnings, plenty of cautions. But they weren’t taken aboard. They didn’t register. They weren’t sufficient to cause a person to act on those.” He continues, “We know that the thing that tends to register on people is fear, and we know that that tends to happen after there’s a Pearl Harbor, tends to happen after there’s a crisis. And that’s too late for us. We’ve got to be smarter than that. We’ve got to be wiser than that. We have to be more forward-looking.” As ABC News later comments, “eight months to the day after his warning of a surprise attack, Rumsfeld’s fears became reality with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.” [CNN, 1/11/2001; SCARBOROUGH, 2004, PP. 165-166; ABC NEWS 7 (CHICAGO), 3/25/2004] Rumsfeld will again refer to the danger of military surprises four months later, during meetings with the House and Senate Armed Services Committees (see May 23-24, 2001). Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Warning Signs

January 11-18, 2001: Overstaying Visa No Obstacle for Alshehhi

Marwan Alshehhi. [Source: FBI] Hijacker Marwan Alshehhi flies from the US to Casablanca, Morocco, and back, for reasons unknown. He is able to reenter the US without trouble, despite having overstayed his previous visa by about five weeks. [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 9/27/2001; US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 5/20/2002] Curiously, Mohamed Atta’s cell phone is used on January 2 to call the Moroccan embassy in Washington, DC. Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Hamburg associate, is also in Morocco at the same time as Alshehhi, but there’s no documentation of them meeting there. [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 17] Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Abdelghani Mzoudi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta

January 17, 2001: Hijacker Atta Wires Money from US to Bin Al-Shibh in Germany Lead hijacker Mohamed Atta uses the name variant Mahmoud Elsayed to wire $1,500 to Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Germany. The money is wired from a Western Union office in Temple Terrace, near Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast. The 9/11 Commission will comment, “There is no known explanation for this transaction, which seems especially odd because bin al-Shibh had access to Alshehhi’s German account at the time.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 143 ; US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/3/2006 ] Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Ramzi bin al-Shibh Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Al-Qaeda in Germany

January 19, 2001: UN Sanctions on Taliban Do Not Stop Illegal Trade Network New United Nations sanctions against Afghanistan take effect, adding to those from November 1999 (see November 14, 1999). The sanctions limit travel by senior Taliban authorities, freeze bin Laden’s and the Taliban’s assets, and order the closure of Ariana Airlines offices abroad. The sanctions also impose an arms embargo against the Taliban, but not against Northern Alliance forces battling the Taliban. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 12/19/2000] The arms embargo has no visible effect because the sanctions fail to stop Pakistani military assistance. [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004] The sanctions also fail to stop the illegal trade network that the Taliban is secretly running through Ariana. Two companies, Air Cess and Flying Dolphin, take over most of Ariana’s traffic. Air Cess is owned by the Russian arms dealer Victor Bout (see Mid-1996-October 2001), and Flying Dolphin is owned by the United Arab Emirates’ former ambassador to the US, who is also an associate of Bout. In late 2000, despite reports linking Flying Dolphin to arms smuggling, the United Nations will give Flying Dolphin permission to take over Ariana’s closed routes, which it does until the new sanctions take effect. Bout’s operations are still functioning and he has not been arrested. [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 1/20/2002; GAZETTE (MONTREAL), 2/5/2002] Ariana will essentially be destroyed in the October 2001 US bombing of Afghanistan. [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 11/18/2001] Entity Tags: United Nations, Victor Bout, Ariana Airlines, Osama bin Laden, Flying Dolphin, Air Cess, Northern Alliance, Taliban Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Terrorism Financing, Victor Bout

January 19, 2001: US and Pakistan Discuss Operation to Snatch Bin Laden The US considers mounting an operation to snatch Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan and discusses this with Pakistan, but this operation apparently will not be attempted before 9/11. Pakistan is asked to support the operation, which is to be conducted by US special forces inside Afghanistan, and the matter is discussed by US general Tommy Franks and Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in January 2001. However, the Pakistani government advises the US that such an operation would be counterproductive and would further inflame religious sentiment in the region. [UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 8/17/2001] The plan apparently will be foiled when details about it are leaked to a Pakistani newspaper in August 2001 (see August 17, 2001). Entity Tags: Pervez Musharraf, Osama bin Laden, Thomas Franks, Pakistan, United States Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden, Pakistan and the ISI

Before January 20, 2001: Pre-Inaugural Discussions about Removing Saddam Hussein There are discussions among future members of the Bush administration, including Bush himself, about making the removal of Saddam Hussein a top priority once they are in office. After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will say that the Bush team had been planning regime change in Iraq since before coming to office, with newly named Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (see December 28, 2000) and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz (see January 11, 2001) taking the lead. “Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq,” he will write in his book Against All Enemies. “My friends in the Pentagon had been telling me that the word was we would be invading Iraq sometime in 2002.” [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 7-9; UNGER, 2007, PP. 192] During an appearance on Good Morning America on March 22, 2004, he will say, “[T]hey had been planning to do something about Iraq from before the time they came into office.” [GOOD MORNING AMERICA, 3/22/2004] Evidence of pre-inaugural discussions on regime change in Iraq comes from other sources as well. Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, who heads the Islamic Center of America in Detroit, will tell the New York Times in early 2004 that he spoke with Bush about removing Saddam Hussein six or seven times, both before and after the 2000 elections. [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004] In 2007, author Craig Unger will write: “In certain respects, their actions were a replay of the 1976 Team B experiment (see Early 1976 and November 1976), with one very important difference. This time it wasn’t just a bunch of feverish ideologues presenting a theoretical challenge to the CIA. This time Team B controlled the entire executive branch of the United States.” [UNGER, 2007, PP. 192] Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, Craig Unger, Saddam Hussein, ’Team B’, George W. Bush, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

January 20-September 10, 2001: Bush Administration Sees Rogue States with Missiles as Top Security Threat instead of Al-Qaeda

Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley (R) and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (L) speak to reporters in Moscow after taking part in negotiations with Russia regarding an anti-ballistic missile shield on May 11, 2001. [Source: Yuri Kochetkov/ Corbis] While still campaigning to become president, George W. Bush frequently argued the US should build an anti-ballistic missile shield (see October 12, 2000). After Bush is made president, the development of such a shield and getting out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty the US has signed that would prevent such a shield, becomes the top US security priority (see May 26, 1972 and December 13, 2001). Senior officials and cabinet members make it their top agenda item in meetings with European allies, Russia, and China. Five Cabinet-level officials, including Condoleezza Rice, travel to Moscow to persuade Russia to abandon the ABM Treaty. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith is there on September 10 to make the same case. [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 9/5/2004] Ballistic Missiles 'Today's Most Urgent Threat' - In a major speech given on May 1, 2001, Bush calls the possible possession of missiles by rogue states “today’s most urgent threat.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 5/2/2001] In a June 2001 meeting with European heads of state, Bush names missile defense as his top defense priority and terrorism is not mentioned at all (see June 13, 2001). It will later be reported that Rice was scheduled to give a major speech on 9/11, in which, according to the Washington Post, she planned “to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and [made] no mention of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or Islamic extremist groups.” However, the speech will be cancelled due to the 9/11 attacks (see September 11, 2001). [WASHINGTON POST, 4/1/2004] Criticism and Controversy - Bush’s missile shield stance is highly controversial. For instance, in July 2001 a Guardian article is titled, “US Defies Global Fury Over Missile Shield.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 5/2/2001] Domestic critics suggest the missile shield could start a new arms race and cost over $500 billion. [REUTERS, 5/3/2001] Diverting Attention from Terrorism - Some argue that Bush’s missile focus is diverting attention from terrorism. For instance, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) tells Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a June 2001 hearing that the US is spending too much money on missile defense and not “putting enough emphasis on countering the most likely threats to our national security… like terrorist attacks.” [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 9/5/2004] On September 5, 2001, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd writes: “And why can George W. Bush think of nothing but a missile shield? Our president is caught in the grip of an obsession worthy of literature” and notes that “sophisticated antimissile interceptors can’t stop primitive, wobbly missiles from rogue nations, much less germ warfare from terrorists.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 9/5/2001] On September 10, 2001, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) warns that if the US spends billions on missile defense, “we will have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat, while the real threats come into this country in the hold of ship, or the belly of a plane.” In 2004, a San Francisco Chronicle editorial will suggest that if the Bush administration had focused less on the missile shield and had “devoted more attention, more focus and more resources to the terrorist threat, the events of Sept. 11 might have been prevented.” [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 9/5/2004] Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush, Russia, Douglas Feith, Condoleezza Rice, China, Al-Qaeda, Carl Levin, Donald Rumsfeld, Joseph Biden Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

January 20-September 10, 2001: President Bush Briefed on Al-Qaeda over 40 Times National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice later testifies to the 9/11 Commission that in the first eight months of Bush’s presidency before 9/11, “the president receive[s] at these [Presidential Daily Briefings] more than 40 briefing items on al-Qaeda, and 13 of those [are] in response to questions he or his top advisers posed.” [WASHINGTON POST, 4/8/2004] The content of the warnings in these briefings are unknown. However, CIA Director George Tenet claims that none of the warnings specifically indicates terrorists plan to fly hijacked commercial aircraft into buildings in the US. [NEW YORK TIMES, 4/4/2004] Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will later emphasize, “Tenet on 40 occasions in… morning meetings mentioned al-Qaeda to the president. Forty times, many of them in a very alarmed way, about a pending attack.” [VANITY FAIR, 11/2004] These briefings are normally given in person by CIA Director George Tenet, and are usually attended by Vice President Cheney and National Security Adviser Rice. In the Clinton administration, up to 25 officials recieved the PDB. But in the Bush adminisration before 9/11, this was sharply reduced to only six people (see After January 20, 2001). Other top officials have to make due with an Senior Executive Intelligence Brief generally released one day later, which is similar to the PDB but often contains less information (see August 7, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 256, 533] Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Al-Qaeda, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George J. Tenet, Condoleezza Rice Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Key Warnings, Warning Signs, Bush's Aug. 6, 2001 PDB, Presidential Level Warnings, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

January 21, 2001: George W. Bush Inaugurated as President

George W. Bush taking the oath of office. [Source: White House/ Wally McNamara] George W. Bush is inaugurated as president, replacing President Bill Clinton. [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/21/2001] Entity Tags: George W. Bush Timeline Tags: Hurricane Katrina Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, US Dominance

After January 20, 2001: Counterterrorism Chief: Bush Tries to Impress Older White House Staffers White House counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke meets with President Bush and others to discuss the administration’s approach to cyber-security and terrorism. Clarke will later express his surprise at the way Bush conducts himself: “We had a couple of meetings with the president, and there were detailed discussions and briefings on cyber-security and often terrorism, and on a classified program. With the cyber-security meeting, he seemed—I was disturbed because he seemed to be trying to impress us, the people who were briefing him. It was as though he wanted these experts, these White House staff guys who had been around for a long time before he got there—didn’t want them buying the rumor that he wasn’t too bright. He was trying—sort of overly trying—to show that he could ask good questions, and kind of yukking it up with [Dick] Cheney. The contrast with having briefed his father [George H. W. Bush] and [Bill] Clinton and [Al] Gore was so marked. And to be told, frankly, early in the administration, by Condi Rice and [her deputy] Steve Hadley, you know, ‘Don’t give the president a lot of long memos, he’s not a big reader’—well, sh_t. I mean, the president of the United States is not a big reader?” [VANITY FAIR, 2/2009] Entity Tags: Stephen J. Hadley, Bush administration, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Richard A. Clarke, George W. Bush Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11

January 21, 2001: Bush Administration Takes Over; Many Have Oil Industry Connections

The Chevron oil tanker named after National Security Advisor Rice. [Source: ABC News] George W. Bush is inaugurated as the 43rd US President, replacing Bill Clinton. The only Cabinet-level figure to remain permanently in office is CIA Director Tenet, appointed in 1997 and reputedly a long-time friend of George H. W. Bush. FBI Director Louis Freeh stays on until June 2001. Numerous figures in Bush’s administration have been directly employed in the oil industry, including Bush, Vice President Cheney, and National Security Adviser Rice. Rice had been on Chevron’s Board of Directors since 1991, and even had a Chevron oil tanker named after her. [SALON, 11/19/2001] It is later revealed that Cheney is still being paid up to $1 million a year in “deferred payments” from Halliburton, the oil company he headed. [GUARDIAN, 3/12/2003] Enron’s ties also reach deep into the administration. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/18/2002] Entity Tags: William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush, George J. Tenet, Louis J. Freeh, Enron Category Tags: Pipeline Politics

January 21-September 10, 2001: Transportation Secretary Says Bush Administration Does Nothing to Fight Terrorism In 2003, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta will later be asked by the 9/11 Commission, “Did this higher level of [terrorist] chatter [before 9/11]… result in any action across the government? I take it your answer is no.” He will reply, “That’s correct.” [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 5/23/2003] Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission, Norman Mineta Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

January 22, 2001 and After: Neoconservatives Begin Push for Invasion of Iraq An orchestrated push in the media begins to make the case for the need to invade Iraq. The San Diego Union-Tribune reprints a Weekly Standard article by William Kristol and Robert Kagan that tells readers (after comparing President Bush favorably to Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Harry Truman, and lauding Bush’s “steely determination”) that US military action “could well be necessary to bring Saddam down.” They write: “At some point, Bush could well find himself confronted by an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction. During these past few years, it was relatively easy for congressional Republicans to call for arming and funding the Iraqi opposition. That remains a good idea. But the more sober of Bush’s advisers, like Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz (see February 18, 1992 and February 27, 2001), have recognized that this alone will not do the trick. Some use of American military force, both from the air and on the ground, could well be necessary to bring Saddam down, no matter how wonderfully the Iraqi opposition performs. Whether he chooses it or not, Bush may quickly be faced with the same decision his father had to make in 1990. He has in his cabinet at least one person who counseled inaction the last time [referring to Secretary of State Colin Powell]. If the crisis comes, Bush, like his father, will not be able to rely only on the judgment of the men and women around him: He will have to act from his own instincts and his own courage.” [WEEKLY STANDARD, 1/22/2001; UNGER, 2007, PP. 206] In the coming weeks, an onslaught of print and television op-eds and commentaries, some from Bush administration officials, will advocate the overthrow of Hussein (see February 27, 2001, February 16, 2001, April 9, 2001, and July 30, 2001). Entity Tags: Robert Kagan, William Kristol Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links, US Dominance

January 22-26, 2001: 9/11 Hijacker Jarrah Takes Trip to Jacksonville; Purpose Unknown 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah takes a trip to Jacksonville, Florida, where he stays for three days at the Ramada Inn. The purpose of this trip is not known, although he will return again one month later (see February 25-March 4, 2001). It is unclear how he arrives in Jacksonville, as there is no record of him taking a flight there. However, he is known to have arrived in Newark from Tampa on January 16, and to have bought a ticket on January 15 for a flight from Newark to Tampa on January 22, the day he arrives in Jacksonville. He departs the US on January 26, flying from Jacksonville to Newark and then to Dusseldorf, Germany. [FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, 10/2001, PP. 120-121 ; US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006, PP. 5-6, 22 ] Marwan Alshehhi, and possibly Mohamed Atta, stopped in Jacksonville around October 2000 (see (October 2000)). Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Shortly Before February 1, 2001: CIA Bin Laden Unit Asked to ‘Touch Base’ with Cole Investigators about Identification of Al-Qaeda Leader, but Key Information Leading to Two 9/11 Hijackers Is Not Passed A CIA officer in Islamabad, Pakistan, asks Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, to “touch base” with FBI agents investigating the bombing of the USS Cole who are preparing to come to Islamabad to interview a joint FBI/CIA source about the identification of one of the Cole bombers, but the suggested briefing is either never given, or lacks a crucial detail. Alec Station is aware that the source, referred to later as “Omar,” has identified al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash as being present at al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit (see January 4, 2001) and that the FBI agents are going to Islamabad specifically to document another identification of bin Attash by Omar (see November 22-December 16, 2000). The cable from Islamabad even notes that Omar is “currently of very high interest to our [FBI] colleagues,” but Alec Station fails to notify the Cole investigators that bin Attash attended the summit in Malaysia. This is important because it connects bin Attash to 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who also attended the summit (see January 5-8, 2000). [US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 275-8 ] The CIA officer will meet the FBI agents in Pakistan, but will also fail to mention the identification of bin Attash at the Malaysia meeting to them (see February 1, 2001). Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Tawfiq bin Attash, Khalid Almihdhar, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Omar”, CIA Islamabad Station, Alec Station Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit

January 24, 2001: Media Reports Tie 9/11 Plotter to Bombings in Indonesia Following a series of bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines at the end of the previous year (see December 24-30, 2000), Southeast Asian authorities begin to investigate the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) with more urgency (see January 2001 and after). One of the prime suspects in the bombings is Hambali, a JI leader, and his name appears in the media. Initially, Hambali is thought to have fled to Saudi Arabia. [NEW STRAITS TIMES, 1/25/2001; NEW STRAITS TIMES, 1/27/2001; JAKARTA POST, 2/7/2001; JAKARTA POST, 2/9/2001] The Malaysian government finds more information out about him in the spring and puts out an all points bulletin for him (see April-May 2001). The FBI had previously connected Hambali to the Bojinka plot (see May 23, 1999) of Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Hambali attended the Malaysia summit in January 2000 at which al-Qaeda apparently planned various attacks, including 9/11. The summit was monitored by Malaysian intelligence, which recognized Hambali as an attendee (see Shortly After January 8, 2000) and a report on the summit was passed on to the CIA (see January 5-8, 2000). However, the publicity Hambali receives at this point apparently does not lead to a re-examination of the Malaysia summit. Entity Tags: Jemaah Islamiyah, Hambali Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Hambali, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, 2002 Bali Bombings, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia

January 24, 2001: Italians Hear of Brothers Going to US for ‘Very, Very Secret’ Plan, Other Clues On this day, Italian intelligence hears an interesting wiretapped conversation eerily similar to the one from August 12, 2000 (see August 12, 2000). This one occurs between al-Qaeda operatives Mahmoud Es Sayed (see Summer 2000) and Ben Soltane Adel, two members of al-Qaeda’s Milan cell. Adel asks, in reference to fake documents, “Will these work for the brothers who are going to the United States?” Sayed responds angrily, saying: “don’t ever say those words again, not even joking!… If it’s necessary… whatever place we may be, come up and talk in my ear, because these are very important things. You must know… that this plan is very, very secret, as if you were protecting the security of the state.” This will be only one of many clues found from the Italian wiretaps and passed on to US intelligence in March 2001 (see March 2001). However, they apparently will not be properly understood until after 9/11. Adel is later arrested and convicted of belonging to a terrorist cell, and Es Sayed will flee to Afghanistan in July 2001. [GUARDIAN, 5/30/2002] Entity Tags: Ben Soltane Adel, Al-Qaeda, Mahmoud Es Sayed Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Warning Signs, Foreign Intelligence Warnings, Al-Qaeda in Italy, Remote Surveillance

January 25, 2001: WTC Construction Manager Says Tower Could Sustain Multiple Plane Impacts
Frank De Martini. [Source: New York Times] Frank De Martini, an architect who works as the World Trade Center’s construction manager, is interviewed for a History Channel documentary about the WTC towers. He says, “I believe the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door, this intense grid, and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing the screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.” [DWYER AND FLYNN, 2005, PP. 149] De Martini will be in his office on the 88th floor of the North Tower when it is hit on 9/11. He will die when the tower collapses, after helping more than 50 people escape. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 8/29/2003; NEW YORK TIMES, 8/29/2003] Entity Tags: Frank De Martini, World Trade Center Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: WTC Investigation

January 25, 2001: Clarke Warns Rice Al-Qaeda Cells Are Inside US and Are ‘Major Threat’ Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke’s plan to deal with al-Qaeda is given to National Security Adviser Rice on this day. It includes a warning that al-Qaeda cells already exist in the US. The plan was outlined in a document he prepared in December 2000 (see January 25, 2001), which stated that US intelligence believes there are al-Qaeda “sleeper cells” in the US and that they’re not just a potential problem but “a major threat in being.” Clarke noted in the document that two key al-Qaeda members involved in the Millennium plot were naturalized US citizens (presumably a reference to Raed Hijazi and Khalil Deek) and that one suspect in the 1998 embassy bombings had “informed the FBI that an extensive network of al-Qaeda ‘sleeper agents’ currently exists in the US” (see August 12-25, 1998). It also said that Ahmed Ressam’s attempted December 1999 attack revealed al-Qaeda supporters in the US (see December 15-31, 1999). Finally, the Clarke warned that more attacks have almost certainly been set in motion. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 260, 535] Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Richard A. Clarke Category Tags: Warning Signs, Millennium Bomb Plots, Key Warnings, Khalil Deek

January 25, 2001: Clarke Presents Plan to Roll Back Al-Qaeda, but Response Is Delayed

Richard Clarke. [Source: Robert Flores/ Defense Information Systems Agency] Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke submits a proposal to National Security Adviser Rice and “urgently” asks for a Cabinet-level meeting on the al-Qaeda threat. [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 230-31] He forwards his December 2000 strategy paper and a copy of his 1998 “Delenda Plan” (see August 27, 1998). He lays out a proposed agenda for urgent action: Approve covert assistance to Ahmed Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban. [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004] Significantly increase funding for CIA counterterrorism activity. [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004] Respond to the USS Cole bombing with an attack on al-Qaeda. (The link between al-Qaeda and that bombing had been assumed for months and is confirmed in the media two days later.) According to the Washington Post, “Clarke argue[s] that the camps [are] can’t-miss targets, and they [matter]. The facilities [amount] to conveyor belts for al-Qaeda’s human capital, with raw recruits arriving and trained fighters departing either for front lines against the Northern Alliance, the Afghan rebel coalition, or against American interests somewhere else. The US government had whole libraries of images filmed over Tarnak Qila and its sister camp, Garmabat Ghar, 19 miles farther west. Why watch al-Qaeda train several thousand men a year and then chase them around the world when they left?” No retaliation is taken on these camps until after 9/11. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002] Go forward with new Predator drone reconnaissance missions in the spring and use an armed version when it is ready (see January 10-25, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004] Step up the fight against terrorist fundraising. [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004] Be aware that al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the US are not just a potential threat, but are a “major threat in being.” Additionally, more attacks have almost certainly been set in motion (see January 25, 2001). [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002] Rice’s response to Clarke’s proposal is that the Cabinet will not address the issue until it has been “framed” at the deputy secretary level. However, this initial deputy meeting is not given high priority and it does not take place until April 2001. [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 230-31] Henry Shelton, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman until 9/11, says, “The squeaky wheel was Dick Clarke, but he wasn’t at the top of their priority list, so the lights went out for a few months. Dick did a pretty good job because he’s abrasive as hell, but given the [bureaucratic] level he was at” there was no progress. [BENJAMIN AND SIMON, 2002, PP. 335-36; LOS ANGELES TIMES, 3/30/2004] Some counterterrorism officials think the new administration responds slowly simply because Clarke’s proposal originally came from the Clinton administration. [TIME, 8/4/2002] For instance, Thomas Maertenson, on the National Security Council in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, says, “They really believed their campaign rhetoric about the Clinton administration. So anything [that administration] did was bad, and the Bushies were not going to repeat it.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 3/24/2004; STAR-TRIBUNE (MINNEAPOLIS), 3/25/2004] The Bush administration will finally address the gist of Clarke’s plan at a cabinet-level meeting on September 4, 2001, just one week before 9/11 (see September 4, 2001). Clarke will later comment that the plan adopted “on Sept. 4 is basically… what I proposed on Jan. 25. And so the time in between was wasted.” Entity Tags: Henry Hugh Shelton, Northern Alliance, Richard A. Clarke, Condoleezza Rice, Clinton administration, Al-Qaeda, Bush administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Thomas Maertenson, Taliban, Ahmed Shah Massoud Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden

January 25, 2001-September 10, 2001: Counterterrorism ‘Tsar’ Clarke Unable to Talk to President Bush about Terrorism before 9/11 Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke submits a comprehensive plan to deal with al-Qaeda within days of President Bush’s inauguration (see January 25, 2001). He wants to meet with Bush directly to discuss it with him, but he is unable to do so before 9/11. Clarke will later recall, “I asked for a meeting with the president several times beginning, in fact, before [National Security Adviser] Rice even took office in the transition briefing. I said I have given this briefing to the vice president, I’ve given it to the secretary of state, I’ve given it now to you, I would like to give it to the president. And what I was told was I could brief the president on terrorism after the policy development process had been completed.” He does have one meeting with Bush before 9/11, but only to discuss cyber security because Clarke is planning to quit his current job to focus on that issue instead (see June 2001). When asked why he didn’t bring up al-Qaeda at that meeting, Clarke will reply, “Because I had been told by Dr. Rice and her deputy that this was a briefing on countering the cyber threats and not on al-Qaeda and that I would have my opportunity on al-Qaeda if I just held on, eventually they would get to it, probably in September.” [ABC NEWS, 4/8/2004] The Bush administration had downgraded Clarke’s position in early January 2001 and he was no longer able to send memos directly to the president as he could during the Clinton administration (see January 3, 2001). Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Presidential Level Warnings, Warning Signs

(January 25-Early March, 2001): Atta and Alshehhi Move to Georgia and Attend Flight School According to the FBI and 9/11 Commission, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi move temporarily to Georgia on January 25, 2001, staying briefly in Norcross and Decatur, near Atlanta. The FBI says it believes they remain in the Atlanta area during February and March. [US CONGRESS, 9/26/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 229] According to several news reports, between late February and early March, Atta and Alshehhi twice visit the Advanced Aviation Flight Training School in nearby Lawrenceville. They pay $171 in total and on both occasions rent a small Piper Warrior plane for an hour. They are accompanied by an instructor on the first occasion, but fly alone the second time. According to the school’s owner Bruce Buell, the two are “well-dressed, polite and friendly.” Two days after 9/11 Chrissy Ross, a flight dispatcher at the school, will recognize Atta’s name when the identities of the suspected hijackers are made public. She calls the FBI, whose agents then come and take all the school’s records. [CNN, 9/26/2001; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/19/2001; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/19/2001] However, the FBI claims Atta and Alshehhi visit Advanced Aviation about a month earlier than news reports suggest, on January 31 and February 6. [US CONGRESS, 9/26/2002] Entity Tags: Advanced Aviation Flight Training School, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

January 27, 2001: Confirmation of Al-Qaeda’s Role in USS Cole Bombing Triggers No Immediate US Response The Washington Post reports that the US has confirmed the link between al-Qaeda and the October 2000 USS Cole bombing (see October 12, 2000). [WASHINGTON POST, 1/27/2001] This conclusion is stated without hedge in a February 9 briefing for Vice President Cheney. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002] In the wake of that bombing, Bush stated on the campaign trail, “I hope that we can gather enough intelligence to figure out who did the act and take the necessary action.… There must be a consequence.” [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002] Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz later complains that by the time the new administration is in place, the Cole bombing was “stale.” Defense Secretary Rumsfeld concurs, stating that too much time had passed to respond. [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004] The new Bush administration fails to resume the covert deployment of cruise missile submarines and gunships on six-hour alert near Afghanistan’s borders that had begun under President Clinton. The standby force gave Clinton the option of an immediate strike against targets in Afghanistan harboring al-Qaeda’s top leadership. This failure makes a possible assassination of bin Laden much more difficult. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/20/2002] Entity Tags: William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Osama bin Laden, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Al-Qaeda, Bush administration, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

January or July 28, 2001: Hijackers Rent Post Office Box in Florida, Some Reports Say Months before They Officially Arrive Hijackers Hamza Alghamdi and Mohamed Alshehri rent a post office box in Delray Beach, Florida. The timing is uncertain. Some reports indicate this occurs in January, which would be several months before they arrive in the US according to the FBI and 9/11 Commission (see April 23-June 29, 2001). [WASHINGTON POST, 9/30/2001; US CONGRESS, 9/26/2002; MINNEAPOLIS ST. PAUL CITY PAGES, 6/30/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 528] However, a document used as evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui will say the mailbox is actually rented on July 28, 2001. [US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006, PP. 7 ] Entity Tags: Hamza Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers

January 30, 2001: First National Security Council Meeting Focuses on Iraq and Israel, Not Terrorism The Bush White House holds its first National Security Council meeting. The focus is on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [BAMFORD, 2004, PP. 261] This meeting sets the tone for how President Bush intends to handle foreign affairs. Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke wants to focus on the threat from al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism, especially in light of the recent attack on the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000). But Bush isn’t interested in terrorism. [UNGER, 2007, PP. 201] Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to be 'Tilted Back Towards Israel' - Instead, Bush channels his neoconservative advisers, particularly incoming Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (see February 18, 1992 and April-May 1999), in taking a new approach to Middle East affairs, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Referring to President Clinton’s efforts to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Bush declares: “Clinton overreached, and it all fell apart. That’s why we’re in trouble. If the two sides don’t want peace, there’s no way we can force them. I don’t see much we can do over there at this point. I think it’s time to pull out of the situation.… We’re going to correct the imbalance of the previous administration on the Mideast conflict. We’re going to tilt it back towards Israel.” His view is that the Israeli government, currently headed by Ariel Sharon, should be left alone to deal as it sees fit with the Palestinians. “I’m not going to go by past reputations when it comes to Sharon. I’m going to take him at face value. We’ll work on a relationship based on how things go.” Justifying his position, he recalls a recent trip he took to Israel with the Republican Jewish Coalition. “We flew over the Palestinian camps. Looked real bad down there.… I don’t see much we can do over there at this point.” Secretary of State Colin Powell, surprised by Bush’s intended policy towards the 50-year old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, objects. According to Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neil, Powell “stresse[s] that a pullback by the United States would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army.” When Powell warns the president that the “consequences of that [policy] could be dire, especially for the Palestinians,” Bush shrugs. “Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things,” he suggests. [BAMFORD, 2004, PP. 265-266; MIDDLE EAST POLICY COUNCIL, 6/2004] In this and subsequent meetings, Bush’s National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, “parrot[s]… the neocon line,” in author Craig Unger’s words, by discussing Iraq. “Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region,” she says, clearly alluding to regime change and overthrow in that nation (see March 8, 1992, Autumn 1992, July 8, 1996, Late Summer 1996, Late Summer 1996, 1997-1998, January 26, 1998, February 19, 1998, September 2000, Late December 2000 and Early January 2001, and Shortly after January 20, 2001). [UNGER, 2007, PP. 201] Possible WMD Sites in Iraq Spark Bush to Order Plans for Ground Assaults - The meeting then moves on to the subject of Iraq. Rice begins noting “that Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region.” She turns the meeting over to CIA Director George Tenet who summarizes current intelligence on Iraq. He mentions a factory that “might” be producing “either chemical or biological materials for weapons manufacture.” The evidence he provides is a picture of the factory with some truck activity, a water tower, and railroad tracks going into a building. He admits that there is “no confirming intelligence” on just what is going on at these sites. Bush orders Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Hugh Shelton to begin preparing options for the use of US ground forces in Iraq’s northern and southern no-fly zones in support of a native-based insurgency against the Hussein regime. [BAMFORD, 2004, PP. 267; MIDDLE EAST POLICY COUNCIL, 6/2004] Author Ron Suskind later sums up the discussion: “Meeting adjourned. Ten days in, and it was about Iraq. Rumsfeld had said little, Cheney nothing at all, though both men clearly had long entertained the idea of overthrowing Saddam.” Defense Intelligence Agency official Patrick Lang later writes: “If this was a decision meeting, it was strange. It ended in a presidential order to prepare contingency plans for war in Iraq.” [MIDDLE EAST POLICY COUNCIL, 6/2004] Regime Change Intended from the Outset - US Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, later recalls: “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go.… From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime. Day one, these things were laid and sealed.” O’Neill will say officials never questioned the logic behind this policy. No one ever asked, “Why Saddam?” and “Why now?” Instead, the issue that needed to be resolved was how this could be accomplished. “It was all about finding a way to do it,” O’Neill will explain. “That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this.’” [CBS NEWS, 1/10/2004; NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004; GUARDIAN, 1/12/2004; VANITY FAIR, 5/2004, PP. 234] Another official who attends the meeting will later say that the tone of the meeting implied a policy much more aggressive than that of the previous administration. “The president told his Pentagon officials to explore the military options, including use of ground forces,” the official will tell ABC News. “That went beyond the Clinton administration’s halfhearted attempts to overthrow Hussein without force.” [ABC NEWS, 1/13/2004] Unger later writes, “These were the policies that even the Israeli right had not dared to implement.” One senior administration official says after the meeting, “The Likudniks are really in charge now.” [UNGER, 2007, PP. 201] Funding the Iraqi National Congress - The council does more than just discuss Iraq. It makes a decision to allow the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an Iraqi opposition group, to use $4 million to fund efforts inside Iraq to compile information relating to Baghdad’s war crimes, military operations, and other internal developments. The money had been authorized by Congress in late 2004. The US has not directly funded Iraqi opposition activities inside Iraq itself since 1996. [GUARDIAN, 2/3/2005] White House Downplays Significance - After Paul O’Neill first provides his account of this meeting in 2004, the White House will attempt to downplay its significance. “The stated policy of my administration toward Saddam Hussein was very clear,” Bush will tell reporters during a visit to Mexico In January 2004. “Like the previous administration, we were for regime change.… And in the initial stages of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with desert badger or fly-overs and fly-betweens and looks, and so we were fashioning policy along those lines.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Hugh Shelton, Paul O’Neill, George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George J. Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, Craig Unger, Iraqi National Congress Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

January 30, 2001: Hijacker Jarrah Possibly Questioned at Request of CIA, Then Released Hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah is questioned at Dubai airport over suspected radical Islamist links in January of 2000 or 2001. Initial accounts place the stop in 2001, after Jarrah had received flight training in the US. [SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002; CORBIN, 2003] However, other accounts place this a year earlier (see January 30, 2000). [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 496; VANITY FAIR, 11/2004; MCDERMOTT, 2005, PP. 186-7; CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 9/28/2005] In the 2001 version, Jarrah has already started flight training and has a US visa, whereas in the 2000 version he merely tells UAE officials of his plans to get a US visa and receive flight training there. [CORBIN, 2003; HISTORY CHANNEL, 2004] There is evidence to suggest Jarrah is not in Dubai on January 30, 2001 (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001). In addition, there is evidence to suggest Jarrah was in Afghanistan in January 2000 (see January 18, 2000). Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, United Arab Emirates, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Late January 2001: Islamic Militants Converge at Beirut Conference

Four members of the American delegation to the “First Conference on Jerusalem” (from right to left): Ahmed Yusef, Abdurrahman Alamoudi, Yaser Bushnaq, and Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad. [Source: Minaret of Freedom Institute] (click image to enlarge) Hundreds of the world’s most extreme Islamic militants attend an unprecedented conference in Beirut, Lebanon called “The First Conference on Jerusalem.” Participants include leaders of al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Algeria, Sudan, Qatar, and Yemen. The conference is held with the purpose of uniting militant groups for holy war against Israel and the US. The participants create a new organization called “the Jerusalem Project,” with the goal of winning total Muslim control over Jerusalem. The participants produce a document which calls for a boycott on US and Israeli products and states, “The only decisive option to achieve this strategy [to regain Jerusalem] is the option of jihad [holy war] in all its forms and resistance… America today is a second Israel.” [JERUSALEM POST, 6/22/2001; FOX NEWS, 5/17/2002] At least four of the attendees come from the US. One of them, Abdurahman Alamoudi, is a prominent lobbyist in the US for Muslim causes. Yet there is no indication Alamoudi faces any investigation in the US after attending this conference. In fact, in June 2001, Alamoudi will apparently take part in a meeting with Vice President Cheney at the White House for a briefing on the Bush administration’s domestic and foreign policies of interest to the American Muslim community. [JERUSALEM POST, 6/22/2001; ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 3/11/2003; MINARET OF FREEDOM INSTITUTE, 2/8/2005] Another participant in the conference is Ahmad Huber, a director of the Al Taqwa Bank, which will be shut down in the months after 9/11 for suspected terrorism ties. Huber is known for his connections to both neo-Nazi and radical Muslim groups (see 1988). After 9/11, Huber will claim that he met some al-Qaeda leaders in this conference and will praise them for being “very discreet, well-educated, and very intelligent people.” [FINANCIAL TIMES, 11/8/2001; PLAYBOY, 2/1/2002] Huber says that in the five years before 9/11, the bin Laden family sponsors Al Taqwa’s attendance at several international Muslim conferences, possibily including this one. He nonetheless claims the family is estranged from Osama bin Laden. [LE MONDE (PARIS), 5/3/2002] It has not been reported if Alamoudi met with Huber or any al-Qaeda leaders while at the conference. Alamoudi will later be sentenced to 23 years in prison in the US for illegal dealings with Libya (see October 15, 2004). Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Jerusalem Project, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Air Cess, Ahmad Huber, Al Taqwa Bank, Ariana Airlines, Abdurahman Alamoudi, Hamas, Bin Laden Family Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, Al Taqwa Bank, Bin Laden Family

Late January 2001: US Intelligence Told to Back Off from Bin Laden and Saudis

A. Q. Khan receiving a medal. [Source: Associated Press] The BBC later reports, “After the elections, [US intelligence] agencies [are] told to ‘back off’ investigating the bin Ladens and Saudi royals, and that anger[s] agents.” This follows previous orders to abandon an investigation of bin Laden relatives in 1996 (see February-September 11, 1996), and difficulties in investigating Saudi royalty. [BBC, 11/6/2001] An unnamed “top-level CIA operative” says there is a “major policy shift” at the National Security Agency at this time. Bin Laden could still be investigated, but agents could not look too closely at how he got his money. One specific CIA investigation hampered by this new policy is an investigation in Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan and his Khan Laboratories. Khan is considered the “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability. But since the funding for this nuclear program gets traced back to Saudi Arabia, restrictions are placed on the inquiry. [PALAST, 2002, PP. 99-100] Also in early 2001, FBI agent Robert Wright, attempting to pursue an investigation into Saudi multimillionaire Yassin al-Qadi, is told by FBI superiors, “it’s just better to let sleeping dogs lie”(see January-March 2001). Reporter Greg Palast notes that President Clinton was already hindering investigations by protecting Saudi interests. However, as he puts it, “Where Clinton said, ‘Go slow,’ Bush policymakers said, ‘No go.’ The difference is between closing one eye and closing them both.” [PALAST, 2002, PP. 102] Entity Tags: Abdul Qadeer Khan, National Security Agency, Bin Laden Family, Yassin al-Qadi, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Osama bin Laden Timeline Tags: A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network Category Tags: Robert Wright and Vulgar Betrayal, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism Financing, Bin Laden Family, Pakistani Nukes & Islamic Militancy, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

January 31, 2001: Bipartisan Commission Issues Final Report on Terrorism, but Conclusions Are Ignored

Gary Hart (left) and Warren Rudman (right) testify before a Senate committee in 2002. [Source: Reuters / Win McNamee] The final report of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH), is issued. The bipartisan panel was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Hart and Rudman personally brief National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell on their findings. The report has 50 recommendations on how to combat terrorism in the US, but all of them are ignored by the Bush administration. Shelved by White House - According to Hart, Congress will begin to take the commission’s suggestions seriously in March and April, and legislation is introduced to implement some of the recommendations. Then, “Frankly, the White House shut it down.… The president said, ‘Please wait, we’re going to turn this over to the vice president‘… and so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day.” The White House will announce in May that it will have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism, despite the fact that this commission had just studied the issue for 2 1/2 years. Interestingly, both this commission and the Bush administration were already assuming a new cabinet level National Homeland Security Agency would be enacted eventually, even as the public remained unaware of the term and the concept. [SALON, 9/12/2001; SALON, 4/2/2004] Cannot Get Meeting with Bush - At the meeting with Rice, Rudman says he wants to see President Bush, and is planning to deliver a “blunt and very direct” warning to him that he needs to deal early in his presidency with the question of domestic terror threats. Rice initially agrees to pass on Rudman’s request for a meeting with Bush, but nothing happens. Rudman will contact Rice’s office several times, but still no meeting is arranged. Rudman will later say he is “disappointed” by this, adding, “There’s no question in my mind that somebody at the White House dropped the ball on this.” [SHENON, 2008, PP. 56-57] Ignored by 9/11 Commission - Hart will be incredulous that neither he nor any of the other members of this commission are ever asked to testify before the 9/11 Commission. [SALON, 4/6/2004] The 9/11 Commission will later make many of the same recommendations as this commission. However, it will barely mention the Hart/Rudman Commission in its final report, except to note that Congress appointed it and failed to follow through on implementing its recommendations. [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 107, 479] Entity Tags: US Congress, Newt Gingrich, Warren Rudman, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Gary Hart, Commission on National Security/21st Century, Bush administration, 9/11 Commission, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell Category Tags: Key Warnings, Warning Signs, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

February 2001: Italians Intercept Phone Call about Islamists Trying to Get into US Mahmoud Es Sayed (aka Abu Saleh), a member of an Italian al-Qaeda cell being monitored by the authorities there, calls an associate, Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman, in Yemen to discuss travel to the US. Abdulrahman is a section chief in Yemen’s Political Security Organization (see August 12, 2000), but Italian authorities overhear Es Sayed telling Abdulrahman’s younger brother, “I heard you were going to America.” The brother replies: “I’m sorry to say we’re not able to get in. It is our most important wish and our big target.” [WALL STREET JOURNAL, 12/20/2002] Italian authorities had previously overheard conversations between Es Sayed and Albdulrahman in which they discussed a massive strike against the enemies of Islam involving aircraft (see August 12, 2000). The US will soon be warned of this (see March 2001). Entity Tags: Mahmoud Es Sayed, Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Italy, Yemeni Militant Collusion, Remote Surveillance

February 2001: Almihdhar Possibly Travels to Iran According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Almihdhar may take a flight from Syria to Iran and continue from there to a point near the Afghan border. The 9/11 Commission will mention this flight in a section dealing with possible co-operation between Iran, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda on travel issues—Iran was allegedly allowing al-Qaeda operatives to pass through it on their way to and from Afghanistan without stamping their passports (see October 8-13, 2000, After October 12, 2000, and Mid-November, 2000)—but there are no direct links between this flight and Iranian operatives. The 9/11 Commission’s statement that Almihdhar entered Iran at this time will be based on intelligence reports from the NSA, mostly drafted shortly after 9/11. The NSA has been intercepting Almihdhar’s calls for some time, so it may have obtained this information from these intercepts (see and Late August 1998 and Early 2000-Summer 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 241, 529; SHENON, 2008, PP. 370-3] Entity Tags: National Security Agency, Khalid Almihdhar Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Yemen Hub, Other Government-Militant Collusion

February 2001: Former CIA Director Attempts to Link Iraqi Government to 1993 WTC Bombing Former CIA director James Woolsey visits Britain to look for evidence tying Saddam Hussein to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He is looking to support the theory (see Late July or Early August 2001) that Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 WTC bombing, was actually an Iraqi agent who had assumed the identity of a Pakistani student named Abdul Basit. This theory was proposed in a 2000 book praised by Woolsey (see October 2000). He will also make a visit for the same purpose in the weeks after 9/11 (see Late September 2001). On at least one of the trips, Woolsey visits the Swansea Institute, where Basit studied, to see if Basit’s fingerprints match those of Yousef, who is now serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison. Matching fingerprints would discredit the theory. According to Knight Ridder, “Several of those with knowledge of the trips said they failed to produce any new evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks.” [KNIGHT RIDDER, 10/11/2001] But despite a lack of evidence, politicians in Washington interested in the theory will manage to reopen the files into Yousef around August 2001 anyway (see Late July or Early August 2001). An article by Woolsey pushing the theory about Yousef will be published just two days after 9/11 (see September 13, 2001). Entity Tags: James Woolsey, Abdul Basit, Saddam Hussein, Ramzi Yousef Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence Category Tags: 1993 WTC Bombing, Ramzi Yousef, Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

February 2001: Al-Qaeda Source Indicates Bin Laden Disappointed with Lack of US Response to Cole Bombing According to a US intelligence report drafted in October 2001, a source reports in February 2001 that a person he identifies as “the big instructor” complains frequently that the US has not yet attacked. This is apparently a reference to the lack of a US response to the USS Cole bombing by al-Qaeda (see October 12, 2000). The 9/11 Commission will say that the “big instructor” is “probably a reference to bin Laden.” The Commission will add, “According to the source, bin Laden wanted the United States to attack, and if it did not he would launch something bigger.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 191, 507] Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, 9/11 Commission Category Tags: Warning Signs, 2000 USS Cole Bombing

(February-April 2001): Hijacker Atta Possibly Has American Girlfriend; Several Witnesses Confirm Story, Though Supposed Girlfriend Later Denies the Connection

Amanda Keller. [Source: Unknown] A man, possibly Mohamed Atta, stays for a time at the apartment of a 21-year-old blonde-haired pizza restaurant manager named Amanda Keller. Keller lives in the Sandpiper Apartments in Venice, Florida, the same complex in which Atta reportedly shared a (presumably) separate apartment with Marwan Alshehhi and four others months earlier (see (Mid-July 2000 - Early January 2001)). Stephanie Frederickson, a resident at the Sandpiper Apartments, later remembers Keller and Atta. She claims Keller moved in next door to her. She goes on to say, “Then one day in the middle of March she brought home Atta.” Her recollection of Atta mirrors that of others. She will call him “a really nasty guy,” and say that he “had no patience, and seemed mad at the world.” Charles Grapentine, the manager of the Sandpiper Apartments, later recalls seeing Atta at the complex for about three weeks in April, and confirms that he was living with Keller. Keller’s mother, Susan Payne, also meets Atta and later says, “I didn’t like him; he just seemed strange.” As well as his stay at the Sandpiper Apartments, the man, possibly Atta, briefly rents a home in North Port. Its owners, Tony and Vonnie LaConca, know him only as “Mohamed.” They will be questioned in the days after 9/11 by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), and describe him as 25 years old, “very polite,” “very handsome,” and with “beautiful, unblemished skin.” From talking with “Mohamed” and Keller, the couple learns he is training for a commercial pilot’s license at Huffman Aviation, the Venice flight school attended by Atta in 2000 (see July 6-December 19, 2000). The Sarasota Herald-Tribune will claim that Keller’s companion is not Mohamed Atta, but another man of Middle Eastern descent who also took flying lessons in Venice. But authorities will refuse to reveal the full name of this “unidentified fifth man,” and investigators are reportedly unable to find him. [CHARLOTTE SUN, 9/14/2001; SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE, 9/23/2001; HOPSICKER, 2004, PP. 57, 60-65 AND 76] According to official accounts, plus the testimony of Huffman Aviation’s owner Rudi Dekkers, Atta left the Venice flight school around the end of 2000, months before “Mohamed” stays in the apartment of Keller. [US CONGRESS, 3/19/2002; US CONGRESS, 9/26/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 17 ] Investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker later locates and interviews Amanda Keller, and she claims that the Middle Eastern man who was briefly her boyfriend was indeed Mohamed Atta (see March 2004). However, in 2006 she will retract this claim and say she lied to Hopsicker. She will say, “It was my bad for lying. I really didn’t think about it until after I did it.” [SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE, 9/10/2006] Keller, Charles Grapentine, and Stephanie Frederickson will all later allege that the FBI intimidated them after 9/11, and told them to keep quiet about what they knew (see (September 12, 2001-2002)). Entity Tags: Stephanie Frederickson, Tony LaConca, Vonnie LaConca, Susan Payne, Daniel Hopsicker, Mohamed Atta, Amanda Keller, Charles Grapentine Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Mohamed Atta

February 2001: Key Leader of Al-Qaeda in Europe Arrested Abu Doha, a key figure in al-Qaeda’s European network, is arrested at Heathrow airport in London. He is attempting to board a plane for Saudi Arabia, but several false passports are found in his hand luggage. A search of his London flat reveals passport photographs depicting him in various disguises, 20 credit cards, a telescopic rifle sight, and what police describe as terrorism paraphernalia. He is found to be involved in various plots around the world, including a section of the Millennium Plot that comprised a bombing of Los Angeles airport (see December 14, 1999), so the US soon asks for his extradition. He is also later said to have worked on plots to bomb the US, British, and Australian embassies in Singapore in December 2001, a planned attack on the Paris-Dakar rally in January 2000, a plot to attack the 1998 World Cup in France (see Late 1997-Early 1998), and other attacks. Abu Doha was close to Abu Hamza al-Masri, an informer for British intelligence (see Early 1997 and May 1999). Abu Doha’s deputy, Rabah Kadre, is also arrested. Although he has been under surveillance by British authorities since 1998 (see 1998), he is released, apparently because British authorities think they have insufficient evidence against him. He will later leave Britain, but be arrested following his re-entry (see November 2002). The British intelligence service MI5 will later say that Kadre is “Abu Doha’s successor” as a leader of the Europe-wide network. [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 117-118, 240] Entity Tags: UK Security Service (MI5), Abu Doha, Rabah Kadre Category Tags: Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism, Key Captures and Deaths

February 2001: Bush Administration Abandons Global Crackdown on Terrorist Funding According to Time magazine, “The US was all set to join a global crackdown on criminal and terrorist money havens [in early 2001]. Thirty industrial nations were ready to tighten the screws on offshore financial centers like Liechtenstein and Antigua, whose banks have the potential to hide and often help launder billions of dollars for drug cartels, global crime syndicates—and groups like Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization. Then the Bush administration took office.” [TIME, 10/15/2001] After pressure from the powerful banking lobby, the Treasury Department under Paul O’Neill halts US cooperation with these international efforts begun in 2000 by the Clinton administration. Clinton had created a Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center in his last budget, but under O’Neill no funding for the center is provided and the tracking of terrorist financing slows down. Spurred by the 9/11, attacks, the center will finally get started three days after 9/11 (see October 2000-September 14, 2001). [FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 7/2001; TIME, 10/15/2001] Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will later claim that efforts to track al-Qaeda’s finances began to make significant headway in 2000, after Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin stepped down and was replaced by Larry Summers. But, Clarke will claim, “When the Bush administration came into office, I wanted to raise the profile of our efforts to combat terrorist financing, but found little interest. The new President’s economic advisor, Larry Lindsey, had long argued for weakening US anti-money laundering laws in a way that would undercut international standards. The new Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O’Neill, was lukewarm at best toward the multilateral effort to ‘name and shame’ foreign money laundering havens, and allowed the process to shut down before the status of Saudi Arabian cooperation was ever assessed.” [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 195-196] Entity Tags: Clinton administration, Paul O’Neill, Richard A. Clarke, Bush administration, US Department of the Treasury, Larry Summers, Lawrence Lindsey, Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

February 2001: US Fails to Back Plan to Overthrow Taliban Abdul Haq, a famous Afghan leader of the mujaheddin, convinces Robert McFarlane, National Security Adviser under President Ronald Reagan, that Haq and about 50 fellow commanders could lead a force to start a revolt against the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan. However, Haq wants to do this under the authority of Zahir Shah, the popular former king of Afghanistan, whom the US does not support. The CIA fails to give any support to Haq. Says one CIA official to McFarlane a few months later, “We don’t yet have our marching orders concerning US policy; it may be that we will end up dealing with the Taliban.” Haq goes ahead with his plans without US support, and is killed in October (see October 25, 2001). [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 10/28/2001; WALL STREET JOURNAL, 11/2/2001] Entity Tags: Robert C. McFarlane, Taliban, Abdul Haq, Zahir Shah, Central Intelligence Agency Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden

February 2001: Two Hijackers Seen Living in San Antonio with Swapped Identities At least six people with no connections to one another later claim they recognize hijackers Satam Al Suqami and Salem Alhazmi living in San Antonio, Texas, until this month. The management of an apartment building says the two men abandoned their leases at about this time, and some apartment residents recognize them. However, all the witnesses say that Suqami was going by Alhazmi’s name, and vice versa! [KENS 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS (SAN ANTONIO), 10/1/2001] One pilot shop employee recognizes Alhazmi as a frequent visitor to the store and interested in a 757 or 767 handbook, though he also says Alhazmi used Suqami’s name. [KENS 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS (SAN ANTONIO), 10/3/2001] The apartment-leasing agent also recalls a Ziad Jarrah who once lived there in June 2001 and looked the same as the hijacker. [SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS, 9/22/2001; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/22/2001] Local FBI confirm that a Salem Alhazmi attended the nearby Alpha Tango Flight School and lived in that apartment building, but they say he is a different Salem Alhazmi who is still alive and living in Saudi Arabia. [KENS 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS (SAN ANTONIO), 10/4/2001] However, that “Salem Alhazmi” says he has never been to the US and has proven to the authorities that he did not leave Saudi Arabia in the two years prior to 9/11. [WASHINGTON POST, 9/20/2001] The FBI does not explain Satam Al Suqami’s presence. Neither hijacker is supposed to have arrived in the US before April 2001. Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Satam Al Suqami, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Salem Alhazmi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers

February 2001: Bin Laden’s Sisters Seen Handing Money to Al-Qaeda Member A former CIA counterterrorism expert later claims that an allied intelligence agency sees “two of Osama’s sisters apparently taking cash to an airport in Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates], where they are suspected of handing it to a member of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization.” This is cited as one of many incidents showing an “interconnectedness” between bin Laden and the rest of his family. [NEW YORKER, 11/5/2001] Entity Tags: Bin Laden Family, Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda Category Tags: Saudi Arabia, Terrorism Financing, Bin Laden Family

February 2001: London Home of Prominent Al-Qaeda Imam Is Raided, Police Find Cash for Chechen Fighters

Abu Qatada. [Source: Reuters] British police raid the house of radical London imam Abu Qatada and find the equivalent of $250,000 in cash under his bed. Abu Qatada claims that the money is for the construction of a new mosque. However, $1,174 is in an envelope marked “for the Mujaheddin in Chechnya.” [BBC, 8/11/2005] At the time, Qatada has no money-making job and is living with a wife and four children on government benefits worth $150 a week plus other housing aid. [NEW YORK TIMES, 10/26/2002] Spanish intelligence has known for years that al-Qaeda leader Barakat Yarkas has been frequently traveling to London and giving Qatada money for Chechnya that was raised in Spain (see 1995-February 2001). It is not known it the Spanish shared this intelligence with the British. Authors Sean O’Niell and Daniel McGrory will later write, “Jihad supporters have since confirmed that Abu Qatada was known throughout Britain as a conduit for funds destined for the Chechen fighters. Some of that money had been raised—directly and indirectly—in British mosques. There were straightforward appeals for the Chechen struggle, and rather more opaque pleas for charitable donations which were then siphoned off to the militants.” [O'NEILL AND MCGRORY, 2006, PP. 67-8] Abu Qatada has a relationship with British counterintelligence (see June 1996-February 1997 and Early December 2001). Entity Tags: Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade, Abu Qatada, Barakat Yarkas Category Tags: Abu Qatada, Islamist Militancy in Chechnya, Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism

February 2001: Al-Qaeda Is Expecting US to Invade Afghanistan, Wants War in Iraq and Somalia as Well

Ahmed Zaidan. [Source: PBS] Ahmed Zaidan, a journalist for Al Jazeera, is invited to a wedding also attended by al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atef in Afghanistan (see February 26, 2001), and while there he talks to Atef about al-Qaeda’s military strategy. He will later recall that Atef told him, “He was explaining to me what’s going to happen in the coming five years.… There are two or three places in the world which [are] the most suitable places to fight Americans: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. We are expecting the United States to invade Afghanistan. And we are preparing for that. We want them to come to Afghanistan.” Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, will later comment, “Did they want us involve in the war on the ground in Islamic countries? Absolutely. Part of the goal was to make sure that Muslims perceived America as the infidel invader of Muslim lands.” [WILLIAM CRAN, 4/15/2007] It is not known if any Western intelligence agencies were aware of this strategy prior to 9/11. However, other al-Qaeda-linked figures will make similar comments to reporters before 9/11 (see April 2001 and August 2-3, 2001). Entity Tags: Mohammed Atef, Michael Scheuer, Ahmed Zaidan Category Tags: Warning Signs, Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links, Iraq War Impact on Counterterrorism

February-March 2001: Politicians Warned about Terrorism Funding in US In September 1999, FBI agent Robert Wright hired David Schippers as his lawyer to represent him in his troubles with the FBI (see August 3, 1999). Schippers was the House Judiciary Committee’s chief investigator in the Clinton impeachment trial. Schippers later will claim that at this time he begins contacting congresspeople that he knows from the impeachment trial with concerns about terrorism. He later recalls, “I was talking primarily about the infiltration of Hamas [inside the US]—how they’re moving the money. I have evidence on that. I have all kinds of material.” In an obvious reference to the Vulgar Betrayal investigation, he also will assert that he knew US intelligence had “established the sources of the money flow of bin Laden” as early as 1996, but by 1999 had faced high-level obstructions into investigating these matters. But he will claim, “I couldn’t get anybody to talk to me.” [WORLDNETDAILY, 10/21/2001; AHMED, 2004, PP. 258-260] Schippers later claims he will continue to warn politicians about terrorism funding in the US, while also warning them about a potential al-Qaeda attack on lower Manhattan based on information he will receive in May 2001 (see May 2001; July-Late August 2001). Entity Tags: US Congress, Hamas, Federal Bureau of Investigation, David Schippers Category Tags: Robert Wright and Vulgar Betrayal, Terrorism Financing

February 2001-March 2001: Withdrawal of DIA Support Contributes to End of Able Danger Program

Maj. Gen. Rod Isler. [Source: US Defense Department] The new Director of Operations for the DIA, General Ron Isler, has Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer brief him on a series of operations. According to Shaffer, Isler strongly objects to Shaffer assisting Able Danger. “I said, ‘Well, sir, with all due respect, this is an important operation focused on the global al-Qaeda target,’ and he said, ‘You’re not hearing me, Tony. This is not your job.’” After further disagreement, Shaffer recalls the argument ending, “‘Tony, I’m the two star here. I’m the two star. I’m telling you I don’t want you doing anything with Able Danger.’ ‘Sir, if not us then who?’ ‘I don’t know, but it’s not your job.’ And that effectively ended my direct support and my unit’s [Stratus Ivy] support to Able Danger.” Recalling how this helped end Able Danger, Shaffer says, “I remember the last conversation I had with Captain Scott Phillpott on this was a desperate call from him asking me to try to help use one of my operational facilities to at least try to exploit the information [Able Danger had collected] before it got lost.” However, Isler says he cannot recall any discussion with Shaffer about Able Danger. [GOVERNMENT SECURITY NEWS, 9/2005] Entity Tags: Anthony Shaffer, Able Danger, Scott Phillpott, Ron Isler Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Able Danger

February-July 2001: Trial Presents FBI with Information About Pilot Training Scheme A trial is held in New York City for four defendants charged with involvement in the 1998 US African embassy bombings. All are ultimately convicted. Testimony reveals that two bin Laden operatives had received pilot training in Texas and Oklahoma and another had been asked to take lessons. One bin Laden aide becomes a government witness and gives the FBI detailed information about a pilot training scheme. This new information does not lead to any new FBI investigations into the matter. [WASHINGTON POST, 9/23/2001] Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Federal Bureau of Investigation Category Tags: Warning Signs, 1998 US Embassy Bombings

(February-March 2001): New Administration Shuts Down Surveillance of Saudi Arabians The Defense Intelligence Agency began a project to monitor Saudi Arabian targets in the 1990s. The project, called Monarch Passage, was originally intended to track Saudi assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, but is expanded to become a comprehensive communications spying program against Saudi businessmen and members of the Royal Family. However, it is shut down in the early days of the Bush administration. [STORIES THAT MATTER, 1/7/2006] Entity Tags: Bush administration, Monarch Passage Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Remote Surveillance, Saudi Arabia, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Early February 2001: Moussaoui Given US Visa despite Presence on French Watch List The US Embassy in London grants a US student visa to Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen. The Los Angeles Times will later note this is granted “even though he was on a special French immigration watch list of suspected Islamic extremists.” [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 10/14/2001] Entity Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui

Early February 2001: Richard Clarke Urges Vice President Cheney to Take Action Against Al-Qaeda Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke briefs Vice President Cheney about the al-Qaeda threat. He urges decisive and quick action against al-Qaeda. Cheney soon visits CIA headquarters for more information about al-Qaeda. However, at later high-level meetings Cheney fails to bring up al-Qaeda as a priority issue. [TIME, 8/4/2002; CLARKE, 2004, PP. 227-30] Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency, Richard A. Clarke Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Presidential Level Warnings, Warning Signs

February 1, 2001: Rumsfeld Wants to Get Rid of Hussein in Iraq; Envisions Iraq After Hussein Is Gone The Bush White House holds its second National Security Council meeting. Like the first meeting (see January 30, 2001), the issue of regime change in Iraq is a central topic. [CBS NEWS, 1/10/2004; NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004] Officials discuss a memo titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,” which talks about troop requirements, establishing war crimes tribunals, and divvying up Iraq’s oil wealth. [ [SOURCES: PAUL O’NEILL] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld interrupts Colin Powell’s discussion of UN-based sanctions against Iraq, saying, “Sanctions are fine. But what we really want to discuss is going after Saddam.” He continues, “Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with US interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond it. It would demonstrate what US policy is all about.” [SUSKIND, 2004, PP. 85-86 SOURCES: PAUL O’NEILL] According to Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Rumsfeld talks at the meeting “in general terms about post-Saddam Iraq, dealing with the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, the reconstruction of the country’s economy, and the ‘freeing of the Iraqi people.’” [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004 SOURCES: PAUL O’NEILL] Other people, in addition to O’Neill, Bush, and Rumsfeld, who are likely in attendance include Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers. [US PRESIDENT, 2/13/2001] Entity Tags: Paul O’Neill, George W. Bush, George J. Tenet, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

Early 2001: CIA Reduces FBI Access to NSA’s Al-Qaeda Intercepts The CIA’s bin Laden unit, Alec Station, reduces the FBI’s access to NSA material tracking al-Qaeda members. The FBI had previously used such intercepts to map al-Qaeda’s global network (see Late 1998-Early 2002). The NSA intercepts at least one call from the 9/11 hijackers in the US to an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen after this (see Mid-October 2000-Summer 2001 and (August 2001)), but does not tell the FBI. Authors Joe and Susan Trento will comment that by doing this and withholding the hijackers’ identities from the FBI, “the CIA effectively ended any chance in the months leading up to 9/11 of discovering that [Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi] were actually al-Qaeda agents destined to play major roles in the 9/11 attacks.” The CIA repeatedly fails to tell the FBI what it knows about Alhazmi and Almihdhar (see 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000, January 5, 2001 and After, and June 11, 2001). [TRENTO AND TRENTO, 2006, PP. 194] There is a long history of the NSA not wanting other US government agencies to have access to NSA material about al-Qaeda (see December 1996, Late August 1998, Between 1996 and August 1998, and Before September 11, 2001). Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Nawaf Alhazmi, Susan Trento, Khalid Almihdhar, Alec Station, National Security Agency, Joseph Trento Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Remote Surveillance, Yemen Hub, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

February 1, 2001: Cole Investigators Interview Source over Identification of Al-Qaeda Leader, CIA Conceals Key Information Leading to Two 9/11 Hijackers Lead FBI case agent Ali Soufan and another agent investigating the bombing of the USS Cole interview a source, referred to later as “Omar,” who previously identified a photo of one of the bombers as al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash (see November 22-December 16, 2000), but a CIA officer present at the interview fails to add a crucial detail. The interview, which apparently takes place in Pakistan, is held to document the previous identification by Omar of bin Attash, who led the attack on the Cole, based on a photograph provided by Yemeni authorities. The CIA officer present at the meeting is also aware that Omar has identified bin Attash in a surveillance photo taken of al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit (see January 5-8, 2000 and January 4, 2001). The identification of bin Attash in the photo taken at the summit is important because it connects bin Attash to 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who were also at the summit, and because it casts light on bin Attash’s interaction with the other Cole bombers. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General will later say it believes “that had the FBI known about the identification of [bin Attash] in the Kuala Lumpur photographs, they would likely have sought information about the other participants in the meeting, including Almihdhar and Alhazmi, which could have increased the FBI’s chances of locating them before the September 11 attacks.” The same CIA agent had previously failed to notify the FBI of the identification of bin Attash in the Malaysia summit photo (see January 5, 2001 and After), as had the CIA’s bin Laden unit (see Shortly Before February 1, 2001). [US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 275-8 ] Entity Tags: CIA Islamabad Station, Ali Soufan, Office of the Inspector General (DOJ), Tawfiq bin Attash, Central Intelligence Agency, “Omar”, Federal Bureau of Investigation Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit, Key Hijacker Events

February 2001 and After: Al-Qaeda Communications Hub in Yemen Is Disclosed in Global Media, but Hijacker Continues to Call It During the trial of men accused of the 1998 East African embassy bombings, an FBI witness mentions that one of the defendants, Mohamed al-Owhali, told investigators that he had stayed in a Yemen-based al-Qaeda communications hub run by Ahmed al-Hada. He also revealed that he had called the hub before and after the Nairobi bombing. (Note: al-Hada’s surname is transliterated as “al-Hazza” during the trial.) The existence of the communications hub in Yemen is then reported by the US State Department, CNN, the Guardian, and UPI over the next few months. [UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 2/13/2001; US DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 3/7/2001; UNITED STATE OF AMERICA V. USAMA BIN LADEN, ET AL., DAY 14, 3/7/2001; CNN, 5/2/2001; OBSERVER, 8/5/2001] The hub was also previously mentioned at a big trial of Islamic Jihad operatives in Cairo (see 1999). The 9/11 hijackers have been calling the communications hub by phone since early 1999, at least (see, e.g., Early 1999). The calls are being intercepted by the NSA and some of them have originated from within the US (see Early 2000-Summer 2001). Perhaps unaware that the hub’s existence has been disclosed, they will make at least one more call to the hub (see (August 2001)). Entity Tags: Mohamed al-Owhali, Khalid Almihdhar, National Security Agency, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem Alhazmi, Ahmed al-Hada Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: 1998 US Embassy Bombings, Remote Surveillance, Yemen Hub, Alhazmi and Almihdhar

February 6, 2001: White House Told of New Rise in Terrorist Threats A Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (SEIB), entitled “Sunni Terrorist Threat Growing,” is sent to top White House officials. It indicates a heightened threat of Sunni extremists, particularly in the Middle East and Europe, against US facilities and personnel. (Bin Laden is the most wanted Sunni extremist by this time.) The briefing states this is considered the most significant spike in threat reporting since the Millennium. The SEIB is usually released one day after the corresponding President Daily Briefing is given to the president and contains similar content (see January 20-September 10, 2001), so it is probable Bush is given this warning. Based on this warning, a terrorist threat advisory will be shared throughout the US intelligence community on March 30, and the FBI will send out a warning to its field offices in April (see April 13, 2001). [US DISTRICT COURT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA, 5/4/2006, PP. 1 ] Entity Tags: White House, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Warning Signs, Presidential Level Warnings

February 7, 2001: Tenet Warns Congress about Bin Laden CIA Director Tenet warns Congress in open testimony that the “threat from terrorism is real, it is immediate, and it is evolving.” He says bin Laden and his global network remains “the most immediate and serious threat” to US interests. “Since 1998 bin Laden has declared that all US citizens are legitimate targets,” he says, adding that bin Laden “is capable of planning multiple attacks with little or no warning.” [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 2/7/2001; SUNDAY HERALD (GLASGOW), 9/23/2001] Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, US Congress, George J. Tenet Category Tags: Warning Signs, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

February 7, 2001: DIA Director Predicts Major Terrorist Attack on US Interests in Next Two Years

Thomas Wilson. [Source: Defense Intelligence Agency] Navy Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testifies before Congress. He analyzes the current state of the world and lists some of the threats he sees facing the US. He says a terrorist attack is the most likely threat. He predicts that within the next two years there will be a “major terrorist attack against United States interests, either here or abroad, perhaps with a weapon designed to produce mass casualties.” He predicts higher-casualty attacks as terrorists gain “access to more destructive conventional weapons technologies and [weapons of mass destruction].” [AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 2/22/2001; AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 2/22/2001] Entity Tags: US Congress, Thomas Wilson Category Tags: Warning Signs

February 8-March 12, 2001: Hanjour Practices on Boeing 737 Simulator, but Has Problems Hani Hanjour practices on a Boeing 737-200 simulator for a total of 21 hours at the JetTech International flight school in Phoenix, Arizona. Hanjour also attends ground school and pays just under $7,500 for the training. Despite only completing 21 of his originally scheduled 34 hours of simulator training, according to the FBI this is the best-trained of the four hijacker pilots (see Spring-Summer 2001). However, an instructor comments: “Student made numerous errors during performance… including a lack of understanding of some basic concepts… Some of the concepts involved in large jet systems cannot be fully comprehended by someone with only small prop plane experience.” [US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA; ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006 ] The school contacts the FAA to warn it of Hanjour’s poor English and flying skills (see January-February 2001). Entity Tags: JetTech, Hani Hanjour Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Hani Hanjour, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

February 9, 2001: Bin Laden’s Financial Network Supposedly Laid Bare US officials claim significant progress in defeating bin Laden’s financial network, despite significant difficulties. It is claimed that “bin Laden’s financial and operational networks has been ‘completely mapped’ in secret documents shared by the State Department, CIA, and Treasury Department, with much of the mapping completed in detail by mid-1997.” [UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 2/9/2001] While it is unclear exactly how much the US knew about bin Laden’s finances before 9/11, it is known that the names and details of many organizations funding bin Laden were known as far back as 1996 (see January 1996). Shortly after 9/11, Richard Palmer, head of the CIA’s Moscow station in the 1990s, will say of al-Qaeda, “We could have starved the organization if we put our minds to it. The government has had the ability to track these accounts for some time.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 9/20/2001] The New York Times will later conclude that by 9/11, “The American government had developed a good deal of information about al-Qaeda’s finances, but it was not widely shared among agencies.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 12/10/2001] Entity Tags: United States, Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Richard Palmer Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Terrorism Financing

February 9-21, 2001: NSA Supposedly Mapped, Disrupted, and Monitored Bin Laden’s Network In a series of articles for UPI, journalist Richard Sale reveals many details about the NSA’s electronic surveillance of al-Qaeda. “The United States has scored notable successes in an information war against the organization of terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden. US hackers have gone into foreign bank accounts and deleted or transferred money and jammed or blocked the group’s cell or satellite phones.” It is also mentioned that “Bin Laden is surrounded by US listening posts.” The articles discuss the extent to which the NSA’s Echelon satellite network is monitoring al-Qaeda, and even seems to make an oblique reference to monitoring the al-Qaeda safe house in Yemen that enabled the NSA to discover valuable information on hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar (see December 29, 1999). The articles also reveal that since 1995, bin Laden tried to protect his communications with a “full suite of tools,” but “codes were broken.” An expert adds that “you don’t use your highest level of secure communications all the time. It’s too burdensome, and it exposes it to other types of exploitation.” The articles also imply that Echelon is used in illegal ways. An anonymous former senior US intelligence official says, “This isn’t about legality. This is about trying to protect American lives.” [UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 2/9/2001; UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 2/13/2001; UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 2/21/2001] While bin Laden’s communications were certainly thoroughly monitored before 9/11 (see November 1996-Late August 1998), no evidence has come to light since 9/11 that the US was hacking into bank accounts or jamming signals. Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Echelon, Khalid Almihdhar, National Security Agency, Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11, Remote Surveillance, Yemen Hub

February 13, 2001: Interagency Counterterrorism Communications Now Channeled Through Rice President Bush issues a little-noticed directive that dramatically changes the way information flows among top Bush administration officials. It states that attendees of National Security Council (NSC) meetings shall continue to include the president, vice president, secretary of state, treasury secretary, defense secretary, CIA director, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and assistant to the president for national security affairs. However, other officials, including the “heads of other executive departments and agencies, as well as other senior officials” are excluded from the automatic right to attend NSC meetings. Instead, they “shall be invited to attend meetings of the NSC when appropriate.” National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is given a pivotal position. In addition to attending all NSC meetings, she is responsible for determining the agenda of all the meetings. The directive also states, “The existing system of Interagency Working Groups is abolished.” Instead, Rice will coordinate a series of eleven new interagency coordination committees within the NSC. She is designated the executive secretary of all eleven committees, meaning that she will schedule the meetings and determine agendas. She is made chairperson of six of the committees, including “Counter-Terrorism and National Preparedness,” “Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence,” and “Records Access and Information Security.” Professor Margie Burns will later ask rhetorically, “How could the White House ever have thought that abolishing the interagency work groups was a good idea, if security was the objective? Why was so much responsibility placed on the shoulders of one person, Condoleezza Rice, whose [only] previous experience had been at Stanford University and Chevron?” [US PRESIDENT, 2/13/2001; CHRONICLES MAGAZINE, 1/2004] Entity Tags: Condoleezza Rice, National Security Council, Margie Burns, George W. Bush Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

February 13. 2001: Bush Expands US Security to Mean ‘Advancement of US Interests Around the Globe’ President Bush’s first national security directive, NPSD-1, dramatically reorganizes the National Security Council. The directive redefines “security” as not only the defense of the US and its borders, but also explicitly defines it as “the advancement of United States interests around the globe. National security also depends on America’s opportunity to prosper in the world economy.” The directive removes many senior advisers and staff from the flow of information and centralizes almost all security information directly to Bush through National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (see February 13, 2001). [US PRESIDENT, 2/13/2001] Entity Tags: Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, National Security Council Category Tags: US Dominance

February 15, 2001: Atta and Alshehhi Offered Jobs as Co-Pilots with New Florida Airline Rudi Dekkers, who owns the Venice, Florida flight school attended by Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, sets up his own commuter airline called Florida Air (FLAIR), which flies out of Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. FLAIR, which also goes by the name Sunrise Airlines, will only be in service for a couple of months in 2001, and eventually has its operating authority revoked by the Department of Transportation. [VENICE GONDOLIER SUN, 3/3/2001; TRANSPORTATION, 2/14/2002, PP. 6963 ; VENICE GONDOLIER SUN, 1/25/2003; ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 7/25/2004] Yet, at the same time as he is establishing FLAIR, Dekkers fails to pay his rent for Huffman Aviation flight school on time six months in a row, from February to July 2001, blaming this partly on tight cash flow. [CHARLOTTE SUN, 9/13/2001] According to the 9/11 Commission, at some point in their flight training Rudi Dekkers offers Atta and Alshehhi jobs as co-pilots for FLAIR. [9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 38 ] Yet they are supposed to have completed training at Huffman Aviation two months earlier, in December 2000, after which Dekkers claims he never saw them again. [US CONGRESS, 3/19/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 227; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 17 ] Considering he reportedly offers him a job with his airline, it seems odd that Dekkers later claims having much disliked Atta when he was at Huffman. He will say he thought Atta was “very arrogant,” and that “My personal feeling was Atta was an asshole first class… I just didn’t like the guy… Sometimes you have that impression from when you meet people in the field and that was my first impression.” [AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, 10/21/2001; BBC, 12/12/2001] Entity Tags: Florida Air, Mohamed Atta, Rudi Dekkers, Marwan Alshehhi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

February 15, 2001: Atta and Pakistani Fighter Pilot Associate Denied Airplane Security Job Because of Criminal Record According to a book by Jurgen Roth, described by Newsday as “one of Germany’s top investigative reporters,” on this day Mohamed Atta applies for a job with Lufthansa Airlines at the Frankfurt, Germany, airport. The security post he applies for would give him access to secure areas of the busy international airport. However, when Lufthansa checks his criminal record they find that in 1995 he had been under investigation for petty drug crimes (see 1995), so his application is turned down. Three days later, an Iranian citizen dropping Atta’s name also applies for the same job, and is also turned down. On March 5, a third man applies, with Atta at his side. He tells Lufthansa that he has been a pilot in the Pakistani Air Force. Apparently both the Iranian and Pakistani are members of an Islamic study group with Atta at the Hamburg university they are all attending. While the name of the Pakistani pilot is not revealed in this account, a Pakistani Air Force pilot named Atif bin Mansour is known to have applied together with Atta for a room for a new Islamic study group in early 1999 (see Late 1998-August 10, 1999). After 9/11, Lufthansa Airlines will say they can neither confirm nor deny this account, because all such records for rejected applicants have been routinely deleted. [ROTH, 2001, PP. 9F; NEWSDAY, 1/24/2002] In 2007, it will be reported that French intelligence learned before 9/11 of a meeting in early 2000 in which al-Qaeda planned the hijacking of an airliner departing from Frankfurt, and one of the target airliners considered was Lufthansa (see Early 2000). Entity Tags: Pakistani Air Force, Lufthansa Airlines, Atif bin Mansour, Jurgen Roth, Mohamed Atta Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Pakistan and the ISI, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

February 19-February 20, 2001: Hijackers Make Unexplained Trip to Virginia Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi make a brief trip to Virginia Beach, where they cash a check for $4,000 and rent a mailbox. Newsweek later reports that federal investigators believe Mohamed Atta visits Norfolk, Virginia, site of a huge US Navy base, at this time: “The Feds believe that Atta was scoping out an aircraft carrier as a target.” However, the 9/11 Commission will comment, “We have found no explanation for these travels.” [NEWSWEEK, 9/24/2001; NEWSWEEK, 10/29/2001; 9/11 COMMISSION, 6/16/2004, PP. 7; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 229, 523; US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006 ] Atta and Alshehhi will return to Virginia Beach a few weeks later (see April 3-4, 2001 and around). Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, 9/11 Commission Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta

February 20, 2001: Evidence Suggests Indonesian Military Assisted Al-Qaeda Affiliate with Christmas Eve Bombings

Location of the Indonesian cities hit in the Christmas Eve bombings. [Source: SBS Dateline] A series of 38 church bombings on Christmas Eve, 2000, killed 19 people in 11 Indonesian cities. The al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is blamed (see December 24-30, 2000). However, in February 2001, the respected Indonesian newsweekly Tempo publishes a cover story suggesting links between the bombings and the Indonesian military, the TNI. The article points out that Edi Sugiarto, who was quickly arrested and confessed to assembling 15 of the bombs used in the town of Medan, has long run a car repair shop in the province of Aceh, where a separatist group named GAM has been fighting for many years. Members of TNI and Indonesia’s special forces, Kopassus, regularly went to his shop for repairs and just to hang out. As a result, GAM claimed he was a TNI lackey and burned down his shop and house in 1997. Phone records also indicate that Sugiarto called Fauzi Hasbi seven times before the bombings. Hasbi is a leader of JI, but Tempo outs him as an Indonesian government mole. In 2005, two years after Hasbi’s death, the Australian television program SBS Dateline will provide additional evidence of Hasbi’s long-time links to the TNI (see 1979-February 22, 2003). Fasbi also called Jacob Tanwijaya, a businessman well connected with the TNI, 35 times. That businessman in turn talked on the phone to Lt. Col. Iwan Prilianto, a Kopassus special forces intelligence officer, over 70 times. However, these potential military links are never investigated and only Sugiarto and other alleged JI figures are arrested and later convicted for a role in the bombings. SBS Dateline will later report that “reputable sources claim [Sugiarto] was so severely tortured before his trial he would have admitted to anything.” [TEMPO, 2/20/2001; SBS DATELINE, 10/12/2005] Fasbi also made at least one call to another key figure in the bombings. The International Crisis Group, an international think tank, will later comment, “[I]t is hard to avoid the suspicion that someone in the armed forces must have known that at least the Medan part [of the bombings] was in the works…” [INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP, 12/11/2002] Entity Tags: Kopassus, Tentara Nasional Indonesia, Jemaah Islamiyah, Fauzi Hasbi, Iwan Prilianto, Jacob Tanwijaya, Edi Sugiarto Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, Hambali, 2002 Bali Bombings, Indonesian Militant Collusion, Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks

February 21, 2001: Mohamed Atta’s Car Is Queried by Police in Georgia A car registered to Mohamed Atta is queried by police in DeKalb County, Georgia. This incident is added to the NCIC, a widely used nationwide police database. [FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, 10/2001, PP. 126 ] Atta and Marwan Alshehhi are currently living in Georgia (see (January 25-Early March, 2001)). Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, National Crime Information Center Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Hijacker Contact w Government in US

February 22-25, 2001: Atta Spends Weekend in Key West on a ‘Continuous Party,’ then Bails Girlfriend out of Jail? Some reports later suggest that around this time Mohamed Atta has an American girlfriend called Amanda Keller (see (February-April 2001)). According to Tony and Vonnie LaConca, a couple that meet Keller and her boyfriend (who they know only as “Mohamed”), the pair and another woman go on a short trip to Key West, Florida. Tony LaConca later recalls, “They were gone for three days. They didn’t sleep—it was a continuous party.” The three indulge in drugs and alcohol, all paid for by “Mohamed,” even though he does not have a job. After returning from the trip, on February 25 “Mohamed” has to bail Keller out of South County Jail, after police take her in because of an outstanding warrant over a “worthless check charge.” [CHARLOTTE SUN, 9/14/2001; CHARLOTTE SUN, 9/11/2003] The Sarasota Herald-Tribune claims that Keller’s companion is not Mohamed Atta, but another man of Middle Eastern descent named Mohammed. [SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE, 9/23/2001] In 2002, Keller will say that her boyfriend was indeed Mohamed Atta, but in 2006 she retracts this claim. [SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE, 9/10/2006] Interestingly, other witnesses later describe Atta as frequently drinking alcohol, smoking, and possibly doing drugs (see (Mid-July - December 2000)). Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Mohamed Atta

Between February 23, 2001 and June 2001: Germans Monitor Call Between Moussaoui and Bin Al-Shibh While Zacarias Moussaoui is living in Norman, Oklahoma, and getting flight training there, he makes a phone call to Germany that is monitored by German intelligence. The call is to Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who is intimately involved in the 9/11 plot and has been a roommate of hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi. [NEW YORK TIMES, 9/29/2001] Bin al-Shibh stayed in London for a week in early December 2000 and met with Moussaoui there (see October 2000-February 2001). Phone records further indicate that there was at least one phone call between Moussaoui and the landlord of the Hamburg apartment where Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers lived. But the timing of the call has not been revealed, nor is it known if that call was monitored as well or not. [INDEPENDENT, 12/11/2001] Entity Tags: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Zacarias Moussaoui Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui, Remote Surveillance

February 23-August 16, 2001: Moussaoui and 9/11 Hijackers Engage in Parallel Conduct After entering the US, Zacarias Moussaoui engages in activities that appear to mirror those of the 9/11 hijackers. Both Moussaoui and the hijackers do the following: Take flight training (see February 23-June 2001 and July 6-December 19, 2000); Physically import large amounts of cash (see October 2000-February 2001 and January 15, 2000-August 2001); Purchase knives with short blades that can be carried onto airliners (see August 16, 2001 and July 8-August 30, 2001); Take fitness training (see August 16, 2001 and May 6-September 6, 2001); Obtain several identification documents (see April 12-September 7, 2001 and August 1-2, 2001); and Purchase flight deck videos from the same shop (see November 5, 2000-June 20, 2001). In addition, Moussaoui is supported by some of the same al-Qaeda operatives as the 9/11 hijackers: Ramzi bin al-Shibh (see July 29, 2001-August 3, 2001 and June 13-September 25, 2000) and Yazid Sufaat (see September-October 2000 and January 5-8, 2000). At Moussaoui’s trial, the prosecution will cite these parallel activities in its argument that Moussaoui was connected to 9/11, rather than some follow-up plot. There is also one reported meeting between Moussaoui and two of the lead hijackers before 9/11 (see August 1, 2001), but this will not be mentioned at the trial (see March 6-May 4, 2006). [US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 3/9/2006] Entity Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui

February 23-June 2001: Moussaoui Takes Lessons at Flight School Previously Used by Al-Qaeda

Airman Flight School. [Source: FBI] Zacarias Moussaoui flies to the US. Three days later, he starts flight training at the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma. (Other Islamic extremists had previously trained at the same flight school or other schools in the area (see September 1999)). He trains there until May, but does not do well and drops out before getting a pilot’s license. His visa expires on May 22, but he does not attempt to renew it or get another one. He stays in Norman, arranging to change flight schools, and frequently exercising in a gym. [MSNBC, 12/11/2001; US CONGRESS, 10/17/2002] According to US investigators, would-be hijacker Ramzi Bin al-Shibh later says he meets Moussaoui in Karachi (Pakistan) in June 2001. [WASHINGTON POST, 11/20/2002] Entity Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Airman Flight School Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui

(Between February 24-August 16, 2001): Moussaoui Writes Blackwater Phone Number in Notebook

A page of Zacarias Moussaoui’s notebook with a phone number for the security contractor Blackwater. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division] Zacarias Moussaoui writes the phone number for the private security contractor Blackwater in his notebook. [US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DISTRICT, 7/31/2006 ] It is unclear why he writes the phone number down or whether he has any actual contact with Blackwater, but terrorism analyst J. M. Berger will later comment: “The discovery may best be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, and a large one at that. The phone number is publicly available and connects to a Blackwater training center in North Carolina. Moussaoui was researching physical and combat training options while he was in the United States. The simplest and most innocent explanation is quite possibly the correct one. Nevertheless, a glimpse of the controversial company’s contact information nestled among Moussaoui’s handwritten notes inspires the jaw to drop in a not-entirely unreasonable manner.” [INTELWIRE(.COM), 8/1/2006] Entity Tags: Blackwater USA, Zacarias Moussaoui, John M. Berger Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Zacarias Moussaoui

February 25, 2001: 9/11 Hijacker Jarrah Is Given Unusual Length of Stay upon Return to US, despite Breaching Immigration Rules 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah arrives in the US for the fifth time and is admitted at Newark as a business visitor, receiving a six-month stay. This is unusual, as inspectors usually give business visitors one to three months, depending on the port of entry, and six months only when the visitor can document the purpose of the stay, which Jarrah apparently does not do. Jarrah actually should not be admitted at all because he is out of status—he breached immigration rules by taking a flight training course despite entering the US as a tourist—but this is apparently not noticed (see June 27-28, 2000). [9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 20 ] Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Hijacker Contact w Government in US

February 25-March 4, 2001: 9/11 Hijacker Jarrah Stays in Jacksonville Again, Frequents Strip Club After returning to the US for the fifth time, 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah flies immediately to Jacksonville, Florida, where he stays at the Ramada Inn for a week. He had previously visited Jacksonville (see January 22-26, 2001), as had Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi (see (October 2000)). While in Jacksonville, he frequents Wacko’s strip club. A worker there will later say that the FBI comes to the club after 9/11 to ask questions and show pictures “of the 9/11 terrorists,” and a dancer recognizes Jarrah from a photo line-up. The information about the hotel stay will be discovered by First Coast News in summer 2004 and they will offer to share it with the FBI. The local office will originally agree to meet the reporters, but then cancel at the last minute, saying that the cancellation had been ordered by their superiors at the Justice Department due to a possible impact on the Zacarias Moussaoui trial. First Coast News will comment, “Questions still remain as to what Jarrah was doing in Jacksonville.” [FIRST COAST NEWS, 8/24/2004; US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006, PP. 5, 22 ] Jarrah’s whereabouts after he leaves Jacksonville are unknown for a week and a half, but he shows up in Decatur, Georgia, on March 15. There he stays at a hotel previously used by Atta and Alshehhi for two weeks using the name variant Ziad Samir. [FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, 10/2001, PP. 128 ] Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

February 26, 2001: Paul Bremer: Bush Administration Paying No Attention to Terrorism Paul Bremer, who will be appointed the US administrator of Iraq in 2003, says in a speech that the Bush administration is “paying no attention” to terrorism. Bremer says, “What they will do is stagger along until there’s a major incident and then suddenly say, ‘Oh my God, shouldn’t we be organized to deal with this?’” He speaks shortly after chairing the National Commission on Terrorism, a bipartisan body formed during the Clinton administration. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 4/29/2004; CBS NEWS, 4/30/2004; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 5/3/2004] Entity Tags: L. Paul Bremer, National Commission on Terrorism, Clinton administration, Bush administration Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

February 26, 2001: Osama Attends Son’s Wedding with Other Bin Laden Family Members

Mohammed bin Laden (center), the son of Osama bin Laden (right), marries the daughter of Mohammed Atef (left). [Source: Al Jazeera] Bin Laden attends the wedding of his son Mohammed in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Although Osama bin Laden is supposedly long estranged from his family, bin Laden’s stepmother, two brothers, and sister are also said to attend, according to the only journalist who was invited. [REUTERS, 3/1/2001; SUNDAY HERALD (GLASGOW), 10/7/2001] Entity Tags: Al-Khalifa bin Laden, Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atef, Mohammed bin Laden Category Tags: Osama Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden Family

Late February 2001: Enron Influences Cheney’s Energy Task Force to Help Troubled Dabhol Plant Vice President Cheney is holding a series of secret energy task force meetings to determine the Bush administration’s future energy policy. Starting at this time, Enron leader Ken Lay and other Enron officials take part in a least half a dozen of these secret meetings. After one such meeting, Cheney’s energy task force changes a draft energy proposal to include a provision boosting oil and natural gas production in India. The amendment is so narrow that it apparently is targeted to only help Enron’s troubled Dabhol power plant in India. [WASHINGTON POST, 1/19/2002] Entity Tags: Enron, Bush administration, Kenneth Lay, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney Category Tags: Pipeline Politics

Spring 2001: US Customs Investigate Three Hijackers Before 9/11

Satam Al Suqami. [Source: FBI] In the wake of the foiled al-Qaeda plot to blow up hotels in Jordan during the millennium celebrations, Jordan gives tips to the US that launch a Customs investigation into one of the plotters, Raed Hijazi, and his US connections. “Customs agents for months traced money flowing from several Boston banks to banks overseas, where officials believe the funds were intended for bin Laden’s network.” In September and October 2000, Jordanian officials gave US investigators evidence of financial transactions connecting Raed Hijazi, Nabil al-Marabh, and future 9/11 hijacker Hamza Alghamdi (see September 2000; October 2000). By spring 2001, Custom agents further connect al-Marabh and Hijazi to financial deals with future 9/11 hijackers Ahmed Alghamdi and Satam Al Suqami. The Washington Post will later note, “These various connections not only suggest that investigators are probing ties between bin Laden and the hijackers, but also that federal authorities knew about some of those associations long before the bombings.” [WASHINGTON POST, 9/21/2001] It appears that the money flowed from al-Marabh to Alghamdi and Al Suqami. [COX NEWS SERVICE, 10/16/2001; ABC NEWS 7 (CHICAGO), 1/31/2002] While accounts of these connections to Alghamdi and Al Suqami will be widely reported in the media in the months after 9/11, a Customs Service spokesman will say he can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the inquiry. [NEW YORK TIMES, 9/18/2001] It appears that the two hijackers are not put on any kind of watch list and are not stopped when they arrive in the US on April 23, 2001, and May 2, 2001, respectively (see April 23-June 29, 2001). British newspapers will note that Alghamdi was one of several hijackers who should have been “instantly ‘red-flagged’ by British intelligence” but in fact is not when he passes through Britain sometime in early 2001 (see January-June 2001). The 9/11 Commission Final Report will fail to mention the Customs investigation and will give no hint that these hijackers’ names were known in the US before 9/11. Entity Tags: Satam Al Suqami, Raed Hijazi, 9/11 Commission, Nabil al-Marabh, US Customs Service, Jordan, Ahmed Alghamdi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, Key Warnings, Warning Signs, Millennium Bomb Plots, Other 9/11 Hijackers, Nabil Al-Marabh

Spring 2001: CIA Official’s Suggestion to ‘Rain Hell’ on Taliban Is Not Well Received by Other US Ofificals

John McLaughlin. [Source: CIA] According to a later account by CIA Director George Tenet, Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin expresses frustration at the lack of action about bin Laden during a meeting of deputy cabinet officials. McLaughlin reportedly says, “I think we should deliver an ultimatum to the Taliban. They either hand bin Laden over or we rain hell on them.” According to Tenet, “An odd silence followed. No one seemed to like the idea. Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, called John after the meeting and offered a friendly word of advice: ‘You are going to get your suspenders snapped if you keep making policy recommendations. That is not your role.’” [TENET, 2007, PP. 145] Entity Tags: John E. McLaughlin, George J. Tenet, Richard Armitage Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden

Spring 2001: CIA Director Tenet Warns Congress an Attempted Terrorist Attack against US Interests Is Likely within a Year CIA Director George Tenet testifies before Congress, saying, “I consider it likely that over the next year or so there will be an attempted terrorist attack against US interests.” He also says, “We will generally not have specific time and place warning of terrorist attacks.” [TENET, 2007, PP. 145] Apparently this is in private Congressional session because a search of the Lexis Nexus article database turns up no media mentions of these quotes until they are mentioned in Tenet’s 2007 book. Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, US Congress Category Tags: Warning Signs

Spring 2001: Attorney General Ashcroft Doesn’t Want FBI Director to Talk About Terrorism

Attorney General John Ashcroft. [Source: US Department of Justice] Attorney General John Ashcroft talks with FBI Director Louis Freeh before an annual meeting of special agents. Ashcroft lays out his priorities, which according to one participant is “basically violent crime and drugs.” Freeh bluntly replies that those are not his priorities and he talks about counterterrorism. “Ashcroft does not want to hear about it,” says one witness. [NEWSWEEK, 5/27/2002] Entity Tags: Louis J. Freeh, John Ashcroft Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

Spring 2001: Arab Man in Texas Offered Money to Take Flying Lessons; Later Claims to Recognize 9/11 Hijacker According to his later testimony, Mustafa Abu Jdai, a 28-year-old Jordanian of Palestinian descent living in Tyler, Texas, answers a job offer posted in a Dallas mosque. He then meets with three Arabic-speaking men who offer to pay him to take flying lessons in Texas, Florida, or Oklahoma. He declines the offer. On September 13, 2001, two days after the 9/11 attacks, Jdai will call the FBI to relate his story. From FBI pictures, he recognizes hijacker Marwan Alshehhi. However, the FBI takes him into custody for overstaying his visa. The FBI says he invented his story and failed a polygraph. Although he is married to an American woman, he will be detained for several months and deported. [TIME, 10/28/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 11/4/2001; WATCH, 8/2002, PP. 16 ] Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mustafa Abu Jdai, Federal Bureau of Investigation Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi

(Spring 2001): Hijacker Jarrah Allegedly Obtains Commercial Pilot’s License

Ziad Jarrah standing next to a Cessna in Florida. [Source: National Geographic] Ziad Jarrah is said to obtain a commercial pilot’s license around this time by flight school owner Arne Kruithof, although neither the FBI nor any other official body will confirm this. Jarrah obtained a private pilot’s license from Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) (see (June 28-December 2000)) in 2000 and then spent a few hours on Boeing simulators later in 2000 (see December 15, 2000-January 8, 2001). FFTC owner Kruithof will later say that he was told Jarrah obtained a commercial license: “He was supposed to come back and finish his commercial pilot license, but he did not. Later, I found out that he did it somewhere else.” However, there is no mention of where he may have obtained such additional training. [FOUDA AND FIELDING, 2003, PP. 133] Entity Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Arne Kruithof Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

Spring-Summer 2001: Hijackers Allegedly Receive Extra Training on Large Aircraft According to an associate of the 9/11 hijackers, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and flight school owner Rudi Dekkers, the hijackers have more training on large jets than the FBI will disclose. The FBI will say that the four hijacker pilots never fly real large jets before 9/11 and have a total of approximately 17 sessions on large aircraft simulators, mostly on older models: Both Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi each take two sessions lasting 90 minutes on a Boeing 727 simulator and one session on a simulator for a Boeing 767, the type of aircraft they fly on 9/11 (see December 29-31, 2000); Ziad Jarrah, who flies a Boeing 757 on 9/11, has five sessions on 727s and 737s (see December 15, 2000-January 8, 2001); Hani Hanjour, who flies a Boeing 757 on 9/11, practices for a total of 21 hours on a Boeing 737-200 simulator (see February 8-March 12, 2001). When he learns what the FBI believes is the extent of the hijackers’ training, bin al-Shibh will complain in a fax sent to a reporter after 9/11: “How do aviation experts evaluate the skill with which the aircraft were flown, especially the Pentagon attack—accurate and professional as it was? Is it credible that the executers had never before flown a Boeing? Is it credible they only had some lessons on small twin-engine aircrafts and some lessons on simulators?” Referring to the period in early 2001 after the pilots spend a few hours practicing on simulators, bin al-Shibh will say, “What they needed was more flying hours, more training on simulators of large commercial planes such as Boeing 747s and Boeing 767s, as well as studying security precautions in all airports.” However, apparently bin al-Shibh does not mention exactly when or where such additional training took place, if in fact it did. [FOUDA AND FIELDING, 2003, PP. 24-6, 38, 134] Interviewed two days after 9/11, Dekkers, at whose flight school Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi initially trained (see July 6-December 19, 2000), will comment, “After the training they had here they went to another flight school in Pompano Beach and they had jet training there, simulator or big planes, but there is where they conducted the training to do what they had to do.” Dekkers will say that he has heard this “from several directions.” However, the Pompano Beach school is not named. [DEKKERS, 9/13/2001] Entity Tags: Rudi Dekkers, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Hani Hanjour, Mohamed Atta, Ramzi bin al-Shibh Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

Spring-Summer 2001: Bin Laden Tells Mother He Cannot Call Her Again Due to Upcoming ‘Great Events’ Der Spiegel will later report that in a “very brief conversation Osama [tells] his mother that he [will] not be able to call again for a long time, a remark that seem[s] cryptic to the agents listening in at the time, especially when Osama add[s] that ‘great events are about to take place.’” The NSA had been tracking Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone number since 1996, and also tracking the number of his mother, Hamida al-Attas, living in Saudi Arabia, on the off chance he would call her and tell her something important. Bin Laden apparently had called her more than anyone else, but this is his last call to her. Around this time, President Bush is so convinced that the best way to catch bin Laden is through his mother that he is reputed to tell the Emir of Qatar, “We know that he’ll call his mother one day - and then we’ll get him.” Hamida has remained loyal to her son in the wake of 9/11, saying in 2003, “I disapprove of the ambitions the press ascribe to him, but I am satisfied with Osama, and I pray to God that He will guide him along the right path.” [CNN, 3/12/2002; DER SPIEGEL (HAMBURG), 6/6/2005] Note that this warning is similar to, but apparently different from, another warning phone call bin Laden makes in early September 2001. That call is to Al-Khalifa bin Laden, his stepmother and not his mother, who lives in Syria and not Saudi Arabia (see September 9, 2001). Entity Tags: National Security Agency, George W. Bush, Hamida al-Attas, Osama bin Laden Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Warning Signs, Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden Family, Remote Surveillance, Key Warnings

March 2001: Bin Laden Targets Passenger Planes at Chicago Airport 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey will mention in a public hearing, “In March 2001, another CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] item on the agenda mentions the possibility of alleged bin Laden interests in ‘targeting US passenger planes at the Chicago airport,’ end of quote.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004] No newspaper has ever mentioned this warning, which presumably remained classified aside from this one accidental mention by Kerrey. Entity Tags: Bob Kerrey, Osama bin Laden Category Tags: Warning Signs

March 2001: Senior Military Officials Informed of Able Danger Program During a briefing on another classified program called Dorkawk Galley, Able Danger is again brought up. This briefing, given by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, is attended by Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Richard Schiffrin, an attorney at DOD; and Stephen Cambone, Special Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. [GOVERNMENT SECURITY NEWS, 9/2005; OFFICE OF CONGRESSMAN CURT WELDON, 9/17/2005 SOURCES: CURT WELDON] In mid-September 2005, Weldon will say, “I knew that the Clinton administration clearly knew about this.” Referring to this meeting and another meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (see Early 2001), he will add, “Now I know of at least two briefings in the Bush administration.” He calls these two briefings “very troubling.” He wants to know what became of the information presented in these briefings, suggesting it shouldn’t have been destroyed as part of the other Able Danger data purges. [DELAWARE COUNTY DAILY TIMES, 9/16/2005; OFFICE OF CONGRESSMAN CURT WELDON, 9/17/2005] Entity Tags: Stephen A. Cambone, Thomas Wilson, Richard Schiefren, Clinton administration, Able Danger, Anthony Shaffer, Bush administration, Henry Hugh Shelton Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Able Danger

March 2001: Italians Advise US about Al-Qaeda Wiretaps The Italian government gives the US information about possible attacks based on apartment wiretaps in the Italian city of Milan. [FOX NEWS, 5/17/2002] Presumably, the information includes a discussion between two al-Qaeda agents talking about a “very, very secret” plan to forge documents “for the brothers who are going to the United States” (see January 24, 2001). The warning may also mention a wiretap the previous August involving one of the same people, who discussed a massive strike against the enemies of Islam involving aircraft (see August 12, 2000) and another of his monitored conversations in which he discusses travel by al-Qaeda operatives to the US (see February 2001). Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Warning Signs, Foreign Intelligence Warnings, Al-Qaeda in Italy, Remote Surveillance

March 2001: Al-Qaeda to Attack Inside the US in April An intelligence source claims that a group of al-Qaeda operatives is planning to conduct an unspecified attack inside the US in April. One of the operatives allegedly resides in the US. There are also reports of planned attacks in California and New York State for the same month, though whether this is reference to the same plot is unclear. [US CONGRESS, 7/24/2003 ] Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda Category Tags: Warning Signs

March 2001: Cheney’s Energy Task Force Eyes Iraq’s Oil Reserves Cheney’s Energy Task Force authors a variety of documents relating to the oil industries of Iraq, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. [JUDICIAL WATCH, 7/17/2003; CBS NEWS, 1/10/2004; NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004] Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts - This document, dated March 5, 2001, includes a table listing 30 countries which have interests in Iraq’s oil industry. The document also includes the names of companies that have interests, the oil fields with which those interests are associated, as well as the statuses of those interests. [VICE PRESIDENT, 2001 ; VICE PRESIDENT, 2001] Map of Iraq's oil fields - The map includes markings for “supergiant” oil fields of 5 billion barrels or more, other oilfields, fields “earmarked for production sharing,” oil pipelines, operational refineries, and tanker terminals. [VICE PRESIDENT, 2001 ] Other documents - Other documents include oil field maps and project tables for both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates [VICE PRESIDENT, 2001; VICE PRESIDENT, 2001; VICE PRESIDENT, 2001; VICE PRESIDENT, 2001] Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

March 2001: Regional Expert Sees Continuing Close Ties Between the CIA and ISI

Selig Harrison. [Source: Publicity photo] Selig Harrison, a long-time regional expert working at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, says, “the CIA still has close links with the ISI.” Harrison is said to have “extensive contact with the CIA and political leaders in South Asia.” He also claims that the US worked with Pakistan to create the Taliban. [TIMES OF INDIA, 3/7/2001] Similarly, in 2000, Ahmed Rashid, longtime regional correspondent for the Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph, called the US “Pakistan’s closest ally, with deep links to [Pakistan’s] military and the ISI.” Rashid agrees with Harrison that the US had a role in the creation of the Taliban. [CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY, 9/13/2001] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Taliban, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Selig Harrison Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI

March 2001: Some 9/11 Hijackers Record Videos in Afghanistan Pledging Martyrdom

Stills from martyr videos recorded in March 2001. From top to bottom: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Abdulaziz Alomari, Saeed Alghamdi, Wail Alshehri, and Hamza Alghamdi. The backgrounds were digitally inserted later. [Source: Al-Jazeera] Supposedly, all 13 of the “muscle” hijackers record a farewell video before leaving training in Kandahar, Afghanistan, around this time. [CBS NEWS, 10/9/2002] Several will be released after 9/11. A video of Ahmed Alhaznawi will be shown by the Al Jazeera television network in April 2002. In it, he pledges to give his life to “martyrdom” and swears to send a “bloodied message” to Americans by attacking them in their “heartland.” [GUARDIAN, 4/16/2002] In September 2002, Al Jazeera will show a similar farewell video of Abdulaziz Alomari made around the same time. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/9/2002] Alomari states, “I am writing this with my full conscience and I am writing this in expectation of the end, which is near… God praise everybody who trained and helped me, namely the leader Sheik Osama bin Laden.” [WASHINGTON POST, 9/11/2002] Saeed Alghamdi’s video will be released in September 2003, and Wail Alshehri and Hamza Alghamdi’s videos will be released in September 2006 (see September 7, 2006). [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/7/2006] Entity Tags: Satam Al Suqami, Osama bin Laden, Salem Alhazmi, Waleed M. Alshehri, Mohand Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Majed Moqed, Saeed Alghamdi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Ahmed Alghamdi, Abdulaziz Alomari, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Hamza Alghamdi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements

Between March 2001 and May 2001: Richard Clarke: Bush Officials Discuss Creating Casus Belli for War with Iraq Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke later says that sometime between March and May, Bush administration officials discussed creating a casus belli for war with Iraq. In a 2007 interview with radio show host Jon Elliot, Clarke says: “Prior to 9/11 a number of people in the White House were saying to me you know this—this administration, particularly Cheney, but also Bush [and] people like Wolfowitz in the Pentagon, are really intent on going to war with Iraq. And this was the whispered conversations in the National Security Council staff.… Early, early on in the administration people I knew and trusted in the administration were saying to me, ‘You know. They’re really going to do it. They are going to go to war with Iraq.’ And I was flabbergasted. Why would you want to do that of all the things in the world that one could choose to do?… And how are we going to do it? How are we going to cause that provocation? And there was some discussion of ‘Well maybe [we’ll] keep flying aircraft over Iraq and maybe one day one of them will be shot down.’… And some of the talk I was hearing—in the March, April, May timeframe—‘Maybe we’ll do something that is so provocative and do it in such a way that our aircraft will be shot down.’ And then we’ll have an excuse to go to war with Iraq.” [JON ELLIOT SHOW, 1/11/2007 SOURCES: RICHARD A. CLARKE] Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush, Richard A. Clarke Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Category Tags: Alleged Iraq-Al-Qaeda Links

March 2001: Justice Department Investigation Finds FISA Applications Are Misleading

Royce Lamberth’s letter to John Ashcroft, obtained by the 9/11 Timeline by Freedom of Information Act request. [Source: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] The Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) discovers that an application for a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is misleading. The application is for surveillance of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and the supporting affidavit was signed by FBI agent Michael Resnick. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is already investigating dozens of similar errors in FISA warrants for surveillance of al-Qaeda targets in the US (see Summer 2000-September 11, 2001). The application is misleading because its does not accurately describe the “wall” procedures being followed by several FBI field offices. Wall procedures regulate the passage of information from FBI intelligence agents to FBI criminal agents and local US attorneys’ offices. The misleading description is also found in another 14 warrant applications for surveillance of Hamas. The impact of the misleading statements in the Hamas investigations has not been disclosed, but in the al-Qaeda cases the wall was breached because criminal agents had unrestricted access to intelligence information (see Summer-October 2000). Royce Lamberth, Presiding Judge on the FISA Court, writes to Attorney General John Ashcroft saying it will no longer accept any applications where the supporting affidavit is signed by Resnick and asking for an immediate inquiry. [FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT, 3/9/2001 ; NEW YORK TIMES, 9/19/2001; NEW YORK TIMES, 5/27/2002; WASHINGTON POST, 8/23/2002; ARAB NEWS, 3/3/2004; US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 39 ] The Justice Department’s investigation into the misleading applications finds that “none of [them]… were the result of professional misconduct or poor judgement,” but that “a majority of the errors were the result of systemic flaws.” [US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 11/2004, PP. 40 ] Following the discovery of the errors in the FISA applications, surveillance of al-Qaeda and Hamas targets in the US is curtailed (see April 2001). Resnick remains with the bureau and will become head of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in North Carolina and then chief of the Terrorist Identities Group at the FBI’s National Counter Terrorism Center. [US CONGRESS, 3/30/2006; WCNC, 6/20/2006] Entity Tags: John Ashcroft, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Michael Resnick, Catcher’s Mitt, Royce Lamberth, Federal Bureau of Investigation Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Remote Surveillance

March 2001: Former Air Traffic Controler Offered Position of National Operations Manager; Only Begins Job on September 11 Ben Sliney, a former air traffic controller and FAA manager who has been working as a lawyer in the private sector for many years, is offered the position of national operations manager at the FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia. The offer is made by Jack Kies, the FAA’s manager of tactical operations. Sliney agrees to return to the FAA but asks to work first as a traffic management specialist at the Command Center, to learn the learn the operational details of the center from the ground up. After six months, Kies will again approach Sliney and offer him the job of national operations manager, and Sliney will accept it. His first day in the post will in fact be September 11. [SPENCER, 2008, PP. 1-2] Entity Tags: Ben Sliney, Jack Kies, Federal Aviation Administration Category Tags: Other Pre-9/11 Events

(March 2001): US Holds Intelligence Summit on Terrorist Threat Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke organizes an intelligence summit on the terrorist threat to the US. The summit takes place at the National Reconnaissance Office in Virginia, and three dozen analysts are in attendance. One important topic of discussion is whether al-Qaeda could obtain a nuclear weapon. [LEVY AND SCOTT-CLARK, 2007, PP. 305] Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

March-August 2001: Hijacker Atta Familiarizes Himself with Flying Crop-Duster Planes

A crop duster at South Florida Crop Care. [Source: Colin Braley / Reuters] In March and August, Mohamed Atta visits a small airport in South Florida and asks detailed questions about how to start and fly a crop-duster plane. People there easily recall him because he was so persistent. After explaining his abilities, Atta is told he is not skilled enough to fly a crop-duster. [MIAMI HERALD, 9/24/2001] Employees at South Florida Crop Care in Belle Glade, Florida, later tell the FBI that Atta was among the men who in groups of two or three visited the crop dusting firm nearly every weekend for six or eight weeks before the attacks. Employee James Lester says, “I recognized him because he stayed on my feet all the time. I just about had to push him away from me.” [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/15/2001] Yet, according to US investigators, Atta and the other hijackers gave up on the crop-duster idea back around May 2000. Entity Tags: James Lester, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mohamed Atta, South Florida Crop Care Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

March-May 2001: FAA Briefs Airports on Security; They Cite, Then Dismiss Possibility of Planes as Weapons A series of top-secret security briefings are given to airport officials at the top 19 airports in the US. The airports warned include those at Boston, Washington, and Newark, which are eventually used by the hijackers. A 9/11 Commission Report on this later notes, “The briefings highlight the threat posed by terrorists in general and bin Laden in particular, including his threats against aviation. The renewed interest in hijacking by terrorist groups [is] also covered.” The briefings note that if “the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable.” But they also note that such a hijacking would be harder to carry out. Around the same time, the FAA distributes an unclassified CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports. “The presentation cite[s] the possibility that terrorists might conduct suicide hijackings but state[s]: ‘Fortunately, we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction.’” This briefing and presentation doesn’t lead to any upgrade in security or improved passenger screening at the airports. Apparently, the information isn’t widely shared with pilots, flight attendants, passenger screeners, and the like, and it doesn’t lead to any specific FAA advisories or actions. [NEW YORK TIMES, 2/10/2005; NEWSDAY, 2/11/2005; NEW JERSEY STAR-LEDGER, 2/11/2005] For instance, Dave Machett, a pilot who is president of the grassroots organization Airline Pilots Security Alliance, says that “Not one word” reached the pilots. “The flight crews were kept completely in the dark about this growing threat.” [NEWSDAY, 2/11/2005] 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer comments, “The FAA deserves to be raked over the coals for ignoring the warnings and being more concerned about reducing air traffic congestion than dealing with possible terrorist attacks.” [NEW JERSEY STAR-LEDGER, 2/11/2005] Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Federal Aviation Administration, Tim Roemer, Dave Machett Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, US Air Security

March-April 2001: Taliban Envoy Comes to US and Meets with High-Ranking Officials about Handing over Bin Laden

Rahmatullah Hashimi. [Source: PBS] Taliban envoy Rahmatullah Hashimi meets with reporters, middle-ranking State Department bureaucrats, and private Afghanistan experts in Washington. He carries a gift carpet and a letter from Afghan leader Mullah Omar for President Bush. He discusses turning bin Laden over, but the US wants to be handed bin Laden and the Taliban want to turn him over to some third country. A CIA official later says, “We never heard what they were trying to say. We had no common language. Ours was, ‘Give up bin Laden.’ They were saying, ‘Do something to help us give him up.’… I have no doubts they wanted to get rid of him. He was a pain in the neck.” Others claim the Taliban were never sincere. About 20 more meetings on giving up bin Laden take place up until 9/11, all fruitless. [WASHINGTON POST, 10/29/2001] Allegedly, Hashimi also proposes that the Taliban would hold bin Laden in one location long enough for the US to locate and kill him. However, this offer is refused. This report, however, comes from Laila Helms, daughter of former CIA director Richard Helms. While it’s interesting that this information came out before 9/11, one must be skeptical, since Helms’ job was public relations for the Taliban. [VILLAGE VOICE, 6/6/2001] Hashimi will mention to a reporter in June 2001 that he was in the US for a total of six weeks. [UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 6/14/2001] According to one article at the time, Hashimi meets with “several senior officials from the State Department, CIA and National Security Council but also from the non-governmental organization Council on Foreign Relations.” Secretary of State Colin Powell is reportedly irate at the meetings because he had not been informed that high level officials would be meeting with Hashimi in the US. He blames CIA Director George Tenet “having laid on a red carpet for [Mullah] Omar’s adviser.” [INTELLIGENCE NEWSLETTER, 4/19/2001] Hashimi reportedly directly meets with Tenet. [IRISH TIMES, 11/19/2001] Entity Tags: Taliban, US Department of State, Osama bin Laden, National Security Council, Rahmatullah Hashimi, Laila Helms, Colin Powell, Central Intelligence Agency, Council on Foreign Relations, Mullah Omar, George W. Bush, George J. Tenet Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden

March-April 2001: Al-Qaeda Defector Describes Plot to Hijack US Airplane

Chris Isham. [Source: Viewimages.com] In March 2001, the ISI learns that one of bin Laden’s operatives, who is working on a sensitive al-Qaeda job in Afghanistan, has been providing information to the CIA at the US consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan. The operative, whose CIA codename is “Max,” becomes worried that the ISI will disclose to al-Qaeda his dealings with the CIA. The next month, ABC News reporters Chris Isham and John Miller meet with Max and help him defect to the US and talk to the FBI. Max tells the reporters that in 1999 and 2000 he was trained as part of a small group by Saif al-Adel, one of al-Qaeda’s top leaders. Asked by Isham and Miller whether al-Qaeda is planning any operations targeting the US, he describes a plan to hijack an airplane carrying a US senator or ambassador and then use the dignitary to bargain for the release of the “Blind Sheikh,” Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman. US intelligence learned of the same basic plot idea in 1998 (see 1998). Max does defect and will be extensively debriefed by the FBI. [MILLER, STONE, AND MITCHELL, 2002, PP. 282] In May 2001, a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (SEIB) will be sent to top White House officials warning that “terrorist groups [are] cooperating on [a] US hostage plot”(see May 23, 2001). It is not known for how long Max was talking to the CIA or what he told them before he was exposed, but his account contradicts assertions that US intelligence did not have any well placed informants in al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. An Afghan named “Ahmed” defects around the same time and there are similarities between his case and that of Max, but it is unknown if they are in fact the same person or not (see April 2001). Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Max, Omar Abdul-Rahman, Chris Isham, Al-Qaeda, Saif al-Adel, John Miller Category Tags: Warning Signs, Other Possible Moles or Informants

March-April 2001: Mohamed Atta Visits Tennessee Airport; Asks About Nearby Chemical Plant and About Buying Plane Two Middle Eastern men believed to be Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi land a small plane at Martin Campbell Air Field, near the small town of Copperhill, Tennessee. Danny Whitener, a salvage-car dealer, is tending his plane at the time. The pilot, who calls himself “Mo,” speaks to Whitener for about 15 minutes, aggressively questioning him about a nearby chemical plant and what chemicals are kept there, about a nearby dam, and about two nearby nuclear power plants. According to Whitener, the pilot, who after 9/11 he is convinced was Mohamed Atta, tells him their plane is rented, and that they have flown from Lawrenceville, Georgia, which is about 60 miles south of Copperhill. This would concur with reports of Atta and Alshehhi twice renting a Piper Warrior plane from a Lawrenceville flight school around this time (see (January 25-Early March, 2001)). However, Whitener says their plane on this occasion is a Cessna, which has a very different design to a Warrior. About a month later, according to the airport’s manager John Rutkosky, a man resembling Atta again arrives, this time in an expensive-looking sports car, and inquires about buying a plane. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/19/2001; WBIR (KNOXVILLE), 10/19/2001; DAWN (KARACHI), 11/25/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 12/16/2001] Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Danny Whitener, Mohamed Atta Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

March 2001 and After: Hijackers Continue to Associate with Al-Qaeda-Linked Imam

Dar al Hijrah mosque. [Source: Public domain] After living together in Phoenix since December 2000, hijackers Hani Hanjour and Nawaf Alhazmi move to Falls Church, Virginia. [WASHINGTON POST, 9/10/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 1/26/2004] They live only a few blocks from where two nephews of bin Laden with ties to terrorism go to work (see February-September 11, 1996 and June 1, 2004). They continue to live there off and on until around August. They begin attending the Dar al Hijrah mosque. [WASHINGTON POST, 9/10/2002] When they and Khalid Almihdhar lived in San Diego in early 2000, they attended a mosque there led by the imam Anwar Al Aulaqi. This imam moved to Falls Church in January 2001, and now the hijackers attend his sermons at the Dar al Hijrah mosque. Some later suspect that Aulaqi is part of the 9/11 plot because of their similar moves, and other reasons: The FBI says Al Aulaqi had closed door meetings with hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar in 2000 while all three of them were living in San Diego. [US CONGRESS, 7/24/2003 ] Police later find the phone number of Al Aulaqi’s mosque when they search “would-be twentieth hijacker” Ramzi bin al-Shibh’s apartment in Germany. [US CONGRESS, 7/24/2003 ] The FBI was investigating Al Aulaqi for ties to Islamic militant groups in early 2000 (see June 1999-March 2000). A neighbor of Al Aulaqi later claims that, in the first week of August 2001, Al Aulaqi knocked on his door and told him he is leaving for Kuwait: “He came over before he left and told me that something very big was going to happen, and that he had to be out of the country when it happened.” [NEWSWEEK, 7/28/2003] US officials will allow Al Aulaqi to leave the US twice in 2002, but by 2008 they will conclude that he is linked to al-Qaeda attacks (see Early September 2006-December 2007 and February 27, 2008). Entity Tags: Hani Hanjour, Khalid Almihdhar, Germany, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Anwar Al Aulaqi, Nawaf Alhazmi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, 9/11 Commission, 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, Central Intelligence Agency, Osama bin Laden Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Key Hijacker Events, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Hani Hanjour

Early March 2001: Bush Administration Not Ready to Give CIA Expanded Authority to Assassinate Bin Laden

Mary McCarthy. [Source: Associated Press] CIA Director George Tenet will claim in his 2007 book that he attempts to get new covert action authorities to fight bin Laden at this time. He says he wants to move from a defensive to offensive posture, but needs policy backing at a higher level to do it. He meets with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and gives him a list of expanded authorities the CIA is seeking to go after bin Laden. The authorities would permit the CIA or its partners to kill bin Laden without trying to capture him first. Tenet claims that he tells Hadley, “I’m giving you this draft now, but first, you guys need to figure out what your policy is.” The next day, Mary McCarthy, a CIA officer serving as National Security Council (NSC) senior director, calls Tenet’s chief of staff and asks the CIA to take the draft back. She says something to the effect, “If you formally transmit these to the NSC, the clock will be ticking (to take action), and we don’t want the clock to tick just now.” Tenet withdraws the draft. [TENET, 2007, PP. 143-144] A deputy cabinet level meeting in July 2001 discusses the idea, but no action results (see July 13, 2001). The authorities will be granted a few days after 9/11. [TENET, 2007, PP. 154] Entity Tags: Mary McCarthy, Central Intelligence Agency, George J. Tenet, Stephen J. Hadley, Osama bin Laden Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden

Spring and Summer 2001: Self-Proclaimed Intelligence Agent Warns of Terrorist Attacks in New York

Susan P. Lindauer. [Source: Justin Lane / European Press Photo Agency] Susan Lindauer, an American woman with possible, if mysterious, ties to US intelligence, warns her brother John and a friend of hers named Parke Godfrey to stay away from New York because terrorist attacks are likely to take place soon. John Lindauer, a music producer in Los Angeles, and Godfrey, a professor of computer science at a Canadian university, will later confirm having received the warnings. The source of Susan Lindauer’s fear is unclear. [NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, 8/29/2004] Lindauer is a journalist and press aide with a somewhat erratic career, according to later press accounts. After brief stints at various newspapers and magazines, she has been working on and off in Washington as a public relations aide for members of Congress. In the early 1990s, she joined an informal discussion group of Congressional aides and intelligence professionals who liked to discuss international politics at a Chinese restaurant on Capitol Hill. A member of the group named Paul A. Hoven, a retired military man who served as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, soon introduced her to Dr. Richard C. Fuisz. Fuisz, an unusual, globe-trotting physician-businessman, recruited her, according to Lindauer, to serve as an unofficial back-channel go-between with Libya and Iraq. Dr. Fuize, a psychiatrist by training, was identified by a British newspaper as a top CIA officer in Syria during the 1980s. Fuize, Lindauer will claim, was her CIA handler. Lindauer, who proclaims herself a peace activist, will later say that her only interest in her intelligence work was to facilitate peaceful diplomacy between the United States and Iraq and Libya. After the 9/11 attacks, she will maintain her Iraqi contacts and even travel to Baghdad. In 2003, shortly before the the US invasion of Iraq, Lindauer will write to Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, who happens to be a distant relative of hers, to inform him of diplomatic overtures that Iraqi diplomats in New York have asked her to convey. Card will turn over the letter to the FBI, which will lead to Lindauer’s arrest in March, 2004, for being an unregistered agent for Iraq. [NEW YORK TIMES, 3/12/2004; NEW YORK TIMES, 3/12/2004; WASHINGTON POST, 3/12/2004; NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, 8/29/2004] But after several years of a convoluted legal process, prosecutors will withdraw all charges against her in January 2009, after court-appointed experts repeatedly find her to be suffering from paranoia and delusions of grandeur, and therefore unfit for trial. [NEW YORK TIMES, 6/18/2008; NEW YORK TIMES, 9/16/2008; KTUU-2 (ANCHORAGE), 1/17/2009] Entity Tags: Susan Lindauer Category Tags: Insider Trading/ Foreknowledge

March 1, 2001: Taliban Disregard International Opinion and Destroy Giant Buddha Statues

Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. [Source: CNN] The Taliban begins blowing up two giant stone Buddhas of Bamiyan—ancient statues carved into an Afghan mountainside, which are considered priceless treasures. They face great international condemnation in response, but no longer seem to be courting international recognition. Apparently, even ISI efforts to dissuade them fail. [TIME, 8/4/2002; TIME, 8/4/2002] Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf wrote Taliban head Mullah Omar a four-page letter urging him not to blow up the statues, and the letter was secretly hand-delivered to Omar by IS Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, but the letter had no effect. [RASHID, 2008, PP. 409] Omar had previously announced the statues would not be harmed and even opened a National Museum in 2000. The change in policy appears to be due to bin Laden’s growing influence. Journalist Kathy Gannon will later write, “bin Laden’s hardliner rhetoric set the policy, and he campaigned vigorously for the destruction of the statues.” The destruction of the statues further isolates the Taliban internationally, leaving them more dependent on bin Laden’s generosity. [GANNON, 2005, PP. 79-81] Entity Tags: Pervez Musharraf, Mahmood Ahmed, Taliban, Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden, Pipeline Politics, Pakistan and the ISI, Mahmood Ahmed

March 1, 2001: Britain Finally Bans Al-Qaeda Britain officially bans al-Qaeda and 20 other alleged terrorist groups, including the Pakistani militant groups Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, and Jaish-e-Mohammed. [RASHID, 2008, PP. 414] Britain is behind the US on al-Qaeda, as the US officially declared al-Qaeda a foreign terrorist organization in 1999 (see October 8, 1999). However, the US will not declare Harkat ul-Mujahedeen a terrorist organization until September 25, 2001, Lashkar-e-Toiba until December 20, 2001, and Jaish-e-Mohammed until December 26, 2001 (see December 20, 2001). Entity Tags: Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Al-Qaeda Category Tags: Londonistan - UK Counterterrorism

March 2001-September 1, 2001: Hani Hanjour and Other Hijackers Live in Paterson, New Jersey

The apartment building in Paterson, New Jersey, where some of the hijackers lived. [Source: Associated Press] Hani Hanjour and Salem Alhazmi rent a one-room apartment in Paterson, New Jersey. Hanjour signs the lease. Nawaf Alhazmi, Saeed Alghamdi, and Mohamed Atta are also seen coming and going by neighbors. One unnamed hijacker has to be told by a neighbor how to screw in a light bulb. [NEW YORK TIMES, 9/27/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 9/30/2001; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/7/2001] The 9/11 Commission’s account of this differs from previous press accounts, and has Hanjour and Nawaf Alhazmi (instead of his brother Salem) first moving to Paterson in mid-May. Salem Alhazmi, Majed Moqed, Abdulaziz Alomari, Khalid Almihdhar, and probably Ahmed Alghamdi are all seen living there as well during the summer. [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 230] Other reports have Hani Hanjour and Nawaf Alhazmi living periodically in Falls Church, Virginia, over nearly the exact same time period, from March through August 2001 (see March 2001 and After). During this time, Mohamed Atta and other hijackers live in Wayne, New Jersey, a town only one mile from Paterson (see (Before September 2000-12 Months Later)), and Atta purchases a plane ticket to Spain from Apollo Travel in Paterson in early July (see July 8-19, 2001).” [BERGEN RECORD, 9/27/2001; BERGEN RECORD, 9/27/2001; CNN, 10/29/2001; NEWSDAY, 9/19/2002] Entity Tags: Khalid Almihdhar, Majed Moqed, Saeed Alghamdi, Hani Hanjour, Salem Alhazmi, Mohamed Atta, Nawaf Alhazmi, Apollo Travel, Abdulaziz Alomari, Ahmed Alghamdi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Able Danger, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Other 9/11 Hijackers

(March 2001): Assessment for President Bush Identifies Pakistan as ‘Highest Risk’ in Nuclear Proliferation Following a conference on the terrorist threat to the US arranged by counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke (see (March 2001)), President Bush receives a classified assessment concerning the threat. It states that Pakistan is one of the countries that represents the “highest risk” of enabling black-market sales of nuclear weapons. However, no significant action is taken based on the analysis. According to authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Clarke apparently feels “isolated,” as if only he really understands what Pakistan is doing in terms of nuclear proliferation and where it might lead. [LEVY AND SCOTT-CLARK, 2007, PP. 305] Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: US International Relations Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics

March 4, 2001: Television Show Eerily Envisions 9/11 Attacks

An advertisement for the Lone Gunmen show. [Source: Fox] Contradicting later claims that no one could have envisioned what happened on 9/11, the pilot episode of a short-lived Fox television program involves a scenario chillingly similar to the attacks that occur six months later. In the episode of The Lone Gunmen, which is a spin-off of the popular show The X-Files, a small, radical faction within the US government takes over a large passenger jet plane from the ground, using remote control, and then tries to crash it into the World Trade Center. Their intention is to blame the attack on foreign terrorists and therefore revive the arms race. Their plot is thwarted at the last moment, with the pilots regaining control of the plane and steering it upwards over the Twin Towers. [KNIGHT RIDDER, 9/14/2001; JACK MYERS REPORT, 6/20/2002 ] In the program, the plane is destined for Boston, where two of the hijacked aircraft will in fact take off from on 9/11. [FOX TELEVISION, 3/4/2001; BOSTON GLOBE, 9/12/2001] One of its stars, Bruce Harwood, later calls the storyline a “strange awful coincidence,” adding, “[W]ho knows if it was the source of inspiration for September 11.” [MIRROR, 11/26/2002] Ratings are good for the show, with 13 million people watching it. [TV GUIDE, 3/9/2001] Yet despite the similarity to the actual attacks on the WTC, there will be very little commentary about this after 9/11. Media commentator Jack Myers later observes, “This seems to be collective amnesia of the highest order.” [JACK MYERS REPORT, 6/20/2002 ] A best selling 1994 novel by Tom Clancy had similarly included a large passenger jet used as a weapon, being deliberately crashed into the US Capitol building (see August 17, 1994). [NEWSDAY, 5/20/2002] Entity Tags: World Trade Center, Jack Myers, Bruce Harwood Category Tags: Warning Signs

March 7, 2001: Plan to Fight Al-Qaeda Considered, but with Little Urgency Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley chairs an informal meeting of some counterparts from other agencies to discuss al-Qaeda. They begin a broad review of the government’s approach to al-Qaeda and Afghanistan. According to the New York Times, the approach is “two-pronged and included a crisis warning effort to deal with immediate threats and longer-range planning by senior officials to put into place a comprehensive strategy to eradicate al-Qaeda.” Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke again pushes for immediate decisions on assisting Ahmed Shah Massoud and his Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Hadley suggests dealing with this as part of the broad review. Clarke supports a larger program, but he warns that delay risks the Alliance’s defeat. Clarke also advocates using the armed Predator drone. However, despite an increasing number of alarming warnings following this meeting, there is little follow-up. “By June, a draft of a presidential directive authorizing an ambitious covert action plan is circulating through the upper echelons of the administration, but there seem[s] little urgency about putting the plan into effect.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 3/24/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004; NEW YORK TIMES, 4/4/2004] Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, Stephen J. Hadley, Northern Alliance, Al-Qaeda, Ahmed Shah Massoud Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden

March 7, 2001: Russia Submits Report on Bin Laden to UN Security Council, US Fails to Act on It The Russian Permanent Mission at the United Nations secretly submits “an unprecedentedly detailed report” to the UN Security Council about bin Laden, his whereabouts, details of his al-Qaeda network, Afghan drug running, and Taliban connections to Pakistan and the ISI. The report provides “a listing of all bin Laden’s bases, his government contacts and foreign advisers,” and enough information to potentially locate and kill him. It is said to contain an “astonishing degree of information.” The US fails to use the information in any noticable manner. Alex Standish, the editor of the highly respected Jane’s Intelligence Review, concludes that the attacks of 9/11 were less of an American intelligence failure than the result of “a political decision not to act against bin Laden.” [JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW, 10/5/2001; TIMES OF INDIA, 10/8/2001] In May 2002, Jane’s will further comment,“it is becoming clear that this was only the most high profile of a number of attempts by the Russians to alert the US and other members of the Security Council to the extent of the inter-dependence between the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and the ISI. According to [our] Russian sources, there was a regular flow of information from Moscow to the US dating back to the last years of the Clinton presidency. It seems apparent, however, that although this intelligence was being received by the CIA and other US agencies, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm within political - as opposed to military - circles for the launch of pre-emptive strikes against either the Taliban or al-Qaeda. However, given the detailed intelligence being provided by the Russians - and the fact that bin Laden was making very clear threats to launch further strikes against US targets - it seems bizarre, to say the least, that no high-level political decision was taken to focus US intelligence efforts on al-Qaeda and its international network…” [JANE'S INTELLIGENCE DIGEST, 5/28/2002] Entity Tags: Russia, Al-Qaeda, United Nations, Osama bin Laden Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden, Pakistan and the ISI

March 8, 2001: US Declines to Freeze Al-Qaeda’s Assets Despite Call from UN and European Union In December 2000, the US and Russia cosponsored a United Nations Security Council resolution requiring member states to “freeze without delay” the funds of those on a list of designated terrorists. The resolution passed, and the UN and European Union (EU) release the list on this day. It contains the names of five alleged al-Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden’s security coordinator, brother-in-law, and financial handler. Yet strangely, the US itself does not freeze the assets of these five leaders, and will only so one month after 9/11 (see October 12, 2001). [UNITED NATIONS, 3/8/2001; LOS ANGELES TIMES, 10/15/2001] The Guardian will report after 9/11, “Members of Congress want to know why treasury officials charged with disrupting the finances of terrorists did not follow” the UN and EU. [GUARDIAN, 10/13/2001] Entity Tags: European Union, United States, United Nations, Russia, US Department of the Treasury, Al-Qaeda Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden, Terrorism Financing

Mid-March 2001: Hijackers Meet with ID Forger

Majed Moqed. [Source: FBI] Hijackers Ahmed Alghamdi, Majed Moqed, Hani Hanjour, and Nawaf Alhazmi stay for four days in the Fairfield Motor Inn, Fairfield, Connecticut. They meet with Eyad M. Alrababah, a Jordanian living in Bridgeport, who has been charged with providing false identification to at least 50 illegal aliens. This meeting takes place about six weeks before the FBI says Moqed and Alghamdi enter the US. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 3/6/2002; US CONGRESS, 9/26/2002] Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hani Hanjour, Eyad M. Alrababah, Majed Moqed Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers, Hani Hanjour, Alhazmi and Almihdhar

March 15, 2001: India, Iran, Russia, and US Work in Concert to Remove Taliban Jane’s Intelligence Review reports that the US is working with India, Iran, and Russia “in a concerted front against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime.” India is supplying the Northern Alliance with military equipment, advisers, and helicopter technicians and both India and Russia are using bases in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for their operation. [JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW, 3/15/2001] Entity Tags: Tajikistan, Taliban, Russia, Northern Alliance, Iran, Uzbekistan, India Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden

March 23, 2001: Rice Warned about Al-Qaeda Cells in US The US government is considering reopening Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, which had been closed because of security concerns. But counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke warns National Security Adviser Rice that terrorists could easily drive a truck bomb, which he calls their “weapon of choice,” right into the White House. While discussing this, Clarke tells Rice that he thinks there are terrorist cells within the US, including al-Qaeda cells. [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 255] Entity Tags: Condoleezza Rice, Richard A. Clarke Category Tags: Warning Signs

March 23, 2001: Alhazmi Buys Aeronautical Chart Nawaf Alhazmi purchases a World aeronautical chart covering the northeastern United States from a store in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition, he purchases a National Geographic road atlas, a Unique Media map of the United States, and a Unique Media map of New York City. He also purchases flight deck videos around this time (see November 5, 2000-June 20, 2001). [US DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006, PP. 31 ] Alhazmi is living with Hani Hanjour, who is in pilot training (see January-February 2001 and February 8-March 12, 2001). Alhazmi also says he is learning to be a pilot at this time (see (December 2000-January 2001)). Entity Tags: Nawaf Alhazmi Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Alleged Hijackers' Flight Training

March 23, 2001: DEA Issues Alert to Look Out for Israeli Spies

The cover of the DEA report, as depicted on television. [Source: Fox News] The Office of National Drug Control Policy issues a National Security Alert describing “apparent attempts by Israeli nationals to learn about government personnel and office layouts.” This later becomes known through a leaked DEA document called “Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students at DEA Facilities.” A crackdown ensues and by June, around 120 Israelis are apprehended. More are apprehended later. [DRUG ENFORCEMENT AGENCY, 6/2001] Entity Tags: “Israeli art students”, Office of National Drug Control Policy Category Tags: Israel

March 26, 2001: CIA Benefits from Major Software Improvements The Washington Post reports on major improvements of the CIA’s intelligence gathering capability “in recent years.” A new program called Oasis uses “automated speech recognition” technology to turn audio feeds into formatted, searchable text. It can distinguish one voice from another and differentiates “speaker 1” from “speaker 2” in transcripts. Software called Fluent performs “cross lingual” searches, translates difficult languages like Chinese and Japanese (apparently such software is much better than similar publicly available software), and even automatically assesses the contextual importance. Other new software can turn a suspect’s “life story into a three-dimensional diagram of linked phone calls, bank deposits and plane trips,” while still other software can efficiently and quickly process vast amounts of video, audio, and written data. [WASHINGTON POST, 3/26/2001] However, the government will later report that a number of messages about the 9/11 attacks, such as one stating “tomorrow is the zero hour,” are not translated until after 9/11 because analysts were “too swamped.” [ABC NEWS, 6/7/2002] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Oasis, Fluent Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Remote Surveillance

March 28, 2001: Florida INS Official Alleges Middle Eastern Immigrants with Possible Terrorist Ties Are Bribing Their Way into US Mary Schneider, a veteran Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) employee in Orlando, Florida, writes to Attorney General John Ashcroft to warn that a ring of corrupt INS officers is taking bribes from illegal Moroccan and Egyptian immigrants. She is concerned some of these illegal aliens let into the country could have ties to terrorist organizations, and calls for an investigation. Schneider started complaining to her supervisors in 1998 and claims she was retaliated against by management. In May 1999, she wrote to the FBI’s anti-terrorism joint task force in New York to warn of the possible terrorist ties of some of the illegal immigrants allowed into the country by her office. She says some of them could be linked to Ihab Ali Nawawi, an Orlando taxi driver arrested in 1999 for his ties to Osama bin Laden (see May 18, 1999). It is not known what actions, if any, were taken as a result of her warnings. [NEW TIMES BROWARD-PALM BEACH, 11/8/2001] Entity Tags: Immigration and Naturalization Service, Ihab Ali Nawawi, John Ashcroft, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mary Schneider Category Tags: Counterterrorism Action Before 9/11

March 30-April 13, 2001: Jarrah Visits Family, Tells Girlfriend He Wants Children Soon

Ziad Jarrah amd Aisel Senguen holidaying in Paris in the fall of 2000. [Source: McDermott] Ziad Jarrah flies from Atlanta to Dusseldorf via Amsterdam. He then returns to Lebanon to see his father, who is ill. On his way back to the US, he stops in Bochum, Germany, to see his girlfriend and tells her he wants to have children soon. He is re-admitted to the US as a business visitor for three and a half months. [9/11 COMMISSION, 8/21/2004, PP. 21 ; MCDERMOTT, 2005, PP. 213] Entity Tags: Aysel Senguen, Ziad Jarrah Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline Category Tags: Ziad Jarrah

Late March-Early April 2001: CIA Warns Al-Qaeda Leader Zubaida Planning an Attack The CIA issues repeated warnings that al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida may be planning an attack for the near future. One report cites a source indicating an attack on Israel, Saudi Arabia, or India. At this time, the CIA believes Zubaida was a major figure in the Millennium plots (see May 30, 2001). Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke relays these reports to National Security Adviser Rice. She is also briefed on Zubaida’s activities and the CIA’s efforts to locate him. [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 255; US DISTRICT COURT OF EASTERN VIRGINIA, 5/4/2006, PP. 1 ] Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, Central Intelligence Agency, Condoleezza Rice, Abu Zubaida Category Tags: Warning Signs, Abu Zubaida