So concerned had Feinstein been in July that she contacted Vice President Cheney’s office to urge action on restructuring the counterterrorism effort. On September 10, she tried again. “Despite repeated efforts by myself and staff,” she recalled, “the White House did not address my request. I followed this up … and was told by Scooter Libby [then Cheney’s chief of staff] that it might be another six months before he would be able to review the material. I did not believe we had six months to wait.”
Just overnight, savage news had come out of Afghanistan. The most formidable Afghan military foe of the Taliban—and of Osama bin Laden—Ahmed Shah Massoud, had been assassinated. The killers had posed as Arab television journalists, then detonated a bomb in the camera as the interview began. The “journalists’ ” request to see Massoud, it would later be established, had been written on a computer bin Laden’s people used.
No one doubts that bin Laden ordered the Massoud hit—the widow of one of the assassins was later told as much. Doing away with Massoud, bin Laden well knew, was more than a favor to the Taliban. Were the imminent attack in the United States to succeed, the murder of Massoud would deprive America of its most effective military ally in any attempt to retaliate.
Massoud dead. Massoud, who just months ago had warned CIA agents in private that something was afoot, who had publicly declared, “If President Bush doesn’t help us, then these terrorists will damage the United States and Europe very soon, and it will be too late.”
People with specialist knowledge in America saw the turn things were taking. The legendary counterterrorism chief at the FBI’s New York office, John O’Neill, had warned publicly long ago that religious extremists’ capacity and will to strike on American soil was growing. In mid-August, frustrated and exhausted after heading the probe into the bombing of the USS Cole, he had resigned from the Bureau after thirty years’ service—to become head of security at the World Trade Center.
On the night of September 10, having just moved into his new office in the North Tower, O’Neill told a colleague, “We’re due for something big. I don’t like the way things are lining up in Afghanistan.” He was to die the following morning, assisting in the evacuation of the South Tower.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin was jolted by the news of Massoud’s murder. “I am very worried,” he told President Bush in a personal phone call on the 10th. “It makes me think something big is going to happen. They’re getting ready to act.”
The chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit had learned of the assassination within hours in a call from one of Massoud’s aides. CIA officials discussed the development with Bush on the morning of the 10th during his daily briefing, and analyzed the implications. In his 2010 memoir, however, the former President refers neither to the Putin call, nor to the Agency briefing, nor to how he himself reacted to Massoud’s murder at the time.
That day at the White House, at long last, the Deputies Committee tinkered with the Presidential Directive one last time and finalized the plan to eliminate bin Laden and his terrorists over the next three years. The directive, White House chief of staff Andy Card was to say, was “literally headed for the President’s desk. I think, on the 10th or 11th of September.” Condoleezza Rice was to tell Bob Woodward she thought the timing “a little eerie.”
For Bush, September 10 was a day filled largely by meetings with the prime minister of Australia. Then, in early afternoon, he boarded a helicopter at the Pentagon to head for Air Force One and the journey to Florida to publicize his campaign for child literacy. By early evening he was settling in at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, near Sarasota—the ocean to one side, a perfectly groomed golf course to the other. Bush enjoyed a relaxed evening, dined Tex-Mex, on chili con queso, with his brother Jeb and other Republican officials, and went to bed at 10:00.
The President’s public appearance the next morning—reading with second graders at Emma E. Booker Elementary—was, in White House schedulers’ parlance, to be a “soft event.”
At the National Security Agency outside Washington that evening—as yet untranslated—were the texts of two messages intercepted in recent hours between pay phones in Afghanistan and individuals in Saudi Arabia.
The intercepts would not be translated until the following day. Analysts would realize then that a part of the first of the intercepts translated as: “Tomorrow is zero hour.”
The second contained the statement: “The match begins tomorrow.”
TO SOME INTIMATES of the terrorists, the event that was coming was no secret. On the morning of the 10th in California—around noon East Coast time—a group of Arabs gathered at the San Diego gas station where Nawaf al-Hazmi had worked for a while the previous year. It was rare for them to get together in the morning, but six did that day. One, according to a witness interviewed by the FBI, was Mohdar Abdullah, the friend who had helped Hazmi settle in the previous year. The mood was “somewhat celebratory,” and the men gave each other high fives. “It is,” the witness remembered Abdullah saying, “finally going to happen.”
Just outside Washington that afternoon, Hazmi and Mihdhar and the other members of their unit checked into a hotel near Dulles Airport. In and around Boston and Newark, most of their accomplices were in position at their various hotels. In the afternoon, however, the remaining two terrorists—Atta and Abdul Aziz al-Omari—took a car journey north.
They drove from Boston to Portland, Maine, a distance of more than a hundred miles, then checked into a Comfort Inn near the airport. Security camera tapes retrieved later would show that they withdrew a little money from ATMs, and stopped at a gas station and a Walmart—a witness recalled having seen Atta looking at shirts in the men’s department. They had bought a takeout dinner at a Pizza Hut—the pizza boxes, removed from their room the next morning by a maid, would be found in the Dumpster behind the hotel.
Phone records established that Atta made and received a number of telephone calls while in Portland. He called Shehhi’s mobile phone from a pay phone at the Pizza Hut, and ten minutes later called Jarrah at his hotel. The terrorists’ emir was apparently busy organizing to the last, checking that everyone was in place.
Why, though, did Atta go to Portland at all? Neither the 9/11 Commission nor anyone else has ever located evidence that would explain that last-minute journey. Of various hypotheses, two in particular got the authors’ attention. Former Commission staff member Miles Kara, who has continued over the years to study the hijackers’ plan of attack, suggests Atta may have seen the diversion to Portland as his Plan B. Were other hijackers due to leave from Boston stopped for some reason, he and Omari—arriving seemingly independently from Portland—might still succeed alone.
An alternative speculation—made by Mike Rolince, a former FBI assistant director who specialized in counterterrorism—is that Atta went to Portland to meet with someone. But with whom? What could possibly have made the time-consuming diversion necessary on the very eve of the 9/11 operation?
Whatever the reason for the Portland trip, it was a risky expedition. The flight Atta and Omari were to take in the morning, to get back to Boston’s Logan Airport in time for the American Airlines flight they were to hijack, involved a tight connection. Had their plane been just a little late, the leader of the 9/11 gang—the man from whom the others all took their lead—would have blown the plan at the last moment. Portland must have been important.
In Boston, meanwhile, solemn ritual had been under way behind the door of Room 241 of the Days Inn on Soldiers Field Road. It was the ritual called for in the hijackers’ “spiritual manual,” copies of which were to be recovered in Atta’s baggage, Hamzi’s car, and—a partial copy—in the wreckage in Pennsylvania.
A maid admitted to clean the room “noticed large amounts of water and body hair on the floor … all body lotion provided for the room had been used.… Room occupants [had] slept on top of the bed sheets and placed light silk cloth over the pillows.” In the final hours, there was also
a great deal of praying to be done.
Pray, remain awake, renew “the mutual pledge to die,” think about God’s blessing—“especially for the martyrs.” Spit on the suitcase, the clothing—the knife. Then, moving through the phases as instructed, prayers on the way to the airport, avoiding any sign of confusion at the airport. Prayers and more prayers.
“Smile in the face of death, young man, for you will soon enter the eternal abode.” Ramzi Binalshibh was to say that, shortly before the end, Atta told him with assurance that their next meeting would be, “God willing, in Paradise.” Binalshibh responded with a request to Atta. “I asked him [that] if he was to see the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon Him, and reach the highest place in Heaven, he should convey our salaam to Him.”
Atta promised he would do so, then shared something his comrade Marwan al-Shehhi had told him:
“Marwan had a beautiful dream, that he was flying high in the sky surrounded by green birds not from our world, that he was crashing into things, and that he felt so happy.”
Green birds. In a passage in the Qur’an, it is said that in Paradise people “will wear green garments of fine silk.” Green is said to have been the Prophet Mohammed’s favorite color. During the Crusades, to distinguish themselves from the Christians, Arab soldiers wore green into battle.
SEPTEMBER 11,
the way Ramzi Binalshibh would remember that morning:
When the news started and we heard the news of the collision of the first aircraft, as it was wrecking the World Trade Center, guided by our brother Mohamed Atta—may Allah have mercy on his soul—the brothers shouted “Takbir!”—“Allah is Greatest!” … And they prostrated themselves to Allah in gratitude and they wept.
The brothers thought that this was the one and only part of the operation, so we said to them, “Patience, patience!” And suddenly our brother Marwan was wrecking the southern tower of the World Trade Center in a very fierce manner. I mean, in an unimaginable way we were witnessing live on air. We were saying, “Oh, Allah, show us the right way, show the right way” … So the brothers prostrated themselves in thanks to Allah … and they sometimes wept for joy and at other times from sadness for their brothers.…
They thought it was over. We said to them, “Follow the news. The matter is not over yet. Make prayers for your brothers. Pray for them …” Imagine! Within forty-five minutes, in the space of this record time, the [third] aircraft was wrecking the Pentagon building, the building of the American Defense Ministry. The aircraft was guided by our brother Hani Hanjour.… The joy was tremendous.…
Then came the news of the aircraft which was flown by our brother Ziad Jarrah, which was downed in the suburbs of the capital, Washington. At this the brothers shouted “Allah is Greatest!” and they prostrated themselves and embraced.…
It was a sign from Allah for the whole world to see.… Allah the Almighty says: “Did they not travel through the earth and see the end of those before them who did evil. Allah brought utter destruction on them, and similar fates await those who reject Allah.” [Qur’an, Surah 47, Verse 10]. The divine intervention was without a doubt very clear and palpable.… Praise and gratitude be to Allah!
The blessed day of Tuesday, 11 September in Washington and New York was one of the glorious days of the Muslims … it represents a calamitous defeat for the greatest power on earth, America … a fatal blow in her heart, which is filled with animosity and hatred for Islam.… Allah the Almighty has decided to inflict upon her a punishment—to be executed by the hands of this group of believing mujahideen, whom Allah has chosen and ordained for this mighty task. Praise and glory be to Him!
THIRTY
THE STORY OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001—THAT OF THE VICTIMS AND OF the terrorists—is told. The identity of the perpetrators is not in doubt. As told in these pages, the essential elements are as described in the conclusions of the two official inquiries.
There are two areas, though, on which the 9/11 Commission fudged or dodged the issue: the full truth about U.S. and Western intelligence before the attacks; and whether the terrorist operation ten years ago had the support of other nation-states or of powerful individuals within those nation-states. There remain multiple and serious questions and yawning gaps in our knowledge of which the public knows little or nothing.
A case in point, one that we include because it is not covered at all in the Commission Report—and because our interviews indicate that there may possibly be some substance to it—is a report that surfaced seven weeks after the attacks in the leading French newspaper Le Figaro. It was carried by major news agencies and newspapers, denied by the CIA, then forgotten. If the Le Figaro story was correct, U.S. intelligence officials had had a face-to-face meeting with Osama bin Laden in early July 2001, sitting down with a deadly foe, a man wanted for the mass murder of Americans.
According to the report, bin Laden that month traveled secretly from Pakistan to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, a destination that until 9/11 remained relatively friendly territory for him. He spent several days there reportedly, in private accommodations at the prestigious American Hospital. The ostensible reason for the visit was to undergo medical tests related to his kidney function, long said to have caused him problems. Such tests may have been conducted, but the claim is that he also agreed to meet with a locally based CIA agent and—reportedly—a second official sent in from Washington.
The reporter who originated the story, Alexandra Richard, told the authors that she happened on the story during a visit to the Gulf weeks before 9/11. Checks she made in Dubai, with a senior administrator at the American Hospital, with an airport operative at the point of origin of bin Laden’s alleged journey—Quetta in Pakistan—and with a diplomatic contact she consulted, convinced her that the episode did occur.
The then–head of urology at the hospital, Dr. Terry Callaway, declined to respond to reporter Richard’s questions. Hospital director Bernard Koval was reported as having flatly denied the story.
The authors, however, spoke with Richard’s original source, who said he spoke from firsthand knowledge. The source said he had been present when the local CIA officer involved in the meeting—who, the witnesses interviewed have said, went by the name Larry Mitchell—spoke of the bin Laden visit while out for a social evening with friends. That a professional could have been so loose-lipped seems extraordinary, if not entirely unlikely. It remains conceivable, though, that the bin Laden visit to Dubai did occur. A second kidney specialist, an official source told the authors, described the visit independently, in detail, and at the time. The specialist was able to do so because he, too, was flown to Dubai to contribute to bin Laden’s treatment.
Seeming corroboration of the CIA–bin Laden meeting, meanwhile, came to the authors in a 2009 interview with the official who headed the Security Intelligence department of France’s DGSE, Alain Chouet, who is cited elsewhere in this book.
Did Chouet credit the account of the contact in Dubai? He replied, “Yes.”
Did the DGSE have knowledge at the time that CIA officers met with bin Laden? “Yes,” Chouet said. “Before 9/11,” Chouet observed. “It was not a scoop for us—we weren’t surprised [to learn of it]. We did not consider it something abnormal or outrageous. When someone is threatening you, you try to negotiate. Our own service does it all the time. It is the sort of thing we are paid to do.”
The Dubai episode, Chouet noted, would have occurred “at the time of the Berlin negotiations—through interested parties—between the U.S. and the Taliban. The U.S. was trying to send messages to the Taliban. We didn’t know whether [the meeting with bin Laden] was to threaten or to make a deal.”
There were contacts with the Taliban through intermediaries that July, the latest stage in a long series of approaches. At initial meetings in Europe organized by the United Nations, American emissaries—not speaking officially for the U.S. government—had suggested the possibility of improved relations, cooperation on a strategically important oil pipeline project, a
nd long-term assistance. They had also urged the Taliban to hand over bin Laden.
According to the Le Figaro report, the Dubai contact between bin Laden and U.S. intelligence occurred between July 4 and 14. The final contact, DGSE’s Chouet believes, was on the 13th. According to Chouet, the United States had a twofold approach. At the discussions in Germany, negotiators would both attempt to cool down relations between Washington and the Taliban and ask for the handover of bin Laden. The contact in Dubai, Chouet surmises, was arranged through Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief, Prince Turki—whose agency had handled bin Laden during the anti-Soviet war in the 1980s.
The hope, Chouet said, was to persuade bin Laden “not to oppose the negotiations in Berlin, and above all to leave Afghanistan and return to Saudi Arabia with a royal pardon—under Turki’s guarantee and control. In exchange, the U.S. would drop efforts to bring him to justice for the attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and elsewhere in Arabia.”
Chouet believes the overtures to bin Laden were bluntly rebuffed. At the forthcoming U.N.-sponsored meetings in Berlin, between July 17 and 21, former U.S. diplomat Tom Simons pressed even harder for the handover of bin Laden. Should he not be handed over, and should solid evidence establish that the terrorist leader had indeed been behind the attack on the USS Cole, he indicated, the United States could be expected to take military action.
If that was the threat, nothing came of it. After the 9/11 attacks in early fall, of course, there would be no more serious discussion. The Taliban did not give up bin Laden, and were rapidly ousted.
There is nothing in the 9/11 Commission Report about a July meeting with bin Laden in Dubai, but there is what may conceivably be a small clue. At a May 29 meeting with CIA officials, the report notes, National Security Adviser Rice had asked “whether any approach could be made to influence bin Laden.”
The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden Page 39
