The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden
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29 flight attendants/Suqami/Shehris/Atta: FBI 302 of int. Kip Hamilton, 9/11/01 & re Lead Control Numbers DL267 and CE66, 9/13/01, “DOJ Documents Requests #35-13,” B13, T7, CF, New York Observer, 2/15/04, entry for 10:59 A.M., Chicago to Director, 9/12/01, INTELWIRE, entries for 10:51 A.M. & 11:26 A.M., TSA Incident Log, 9/11/01, “DOJ Documents Request,” B20, T7, CF, MFR 03007067, 9/11/03
30 Graney/“clenched”: FBI 302 of int. Diane Graney, 9/22/01, “FBI 302s—Ground Security Coordinator,” B1, T7, CF, MFR 04020036, 4/15/04, MFR 04020016, 5/27/04
31 camera recorded/calls: “Chronology of Events for Hijackers, 8/16/01,” U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibits OG00020.2, FO07011, FO07021, FO07022, FO07023, FO07024, “265D-NY-280350, TWINBOM-PENTTBOM, Biographical Report,” 11/26/01, National Drug Intelligence Center for the FBI, authors’ collection, FBI press release, 10/14/01, entries for 9/10/01 & 9/11/01, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, FBI 302 of [name redacted], 10/15/01, “FBI 302s of Interest,” B17, T7, CF, FBI Timeline of 9-11 Hijacker Activity & Movements, “Timelines 9-11, 2 of 2,” B20, T7, CF
32 Nissan: ibid., WP, 10/6/01
33 Hyundai/Banihammad/Milner/ticket: MFR 04020636, 2/2/04, “American Airlines Flight 11, PENTTBOM, 265A-NY-280350,” 4/19/02
34 Mitsubishi found: “American Airlines Flight 11, PENTTBOM, 265A-NY-280350,” 4/19/02, Staff Report, “The Four Flights & Civil Aviation Security,” CF, exhibits list, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T5, CF, MFR 04020636, 2/2/04, MFR 03007050, 8/15/03
35 Park Inn: “American Airlines Flight 11, PENTTBOM, 265A-NY-280350,” 4/19/02
36 Ghamdis/Charles Hotel/taxi: MFR 04020636, 2/2/04
37 draped towels: WP, 9/16/01
38 novels/Penthouse/condoms: Warrant Issued on Vehicle ID JT2AE92E9J3137546, 9/13/01, “FBI 302s of Interest,” B17, T7, CF, “Ziad Jarrah,” FBI summary, 4/19/02, www.scribd.com
39 prostitutes: BG, 10/10/01, MFR 04020636, 2/2/04
40 phone records: MFR 04020636, 2/2/04.
41 money trail: ibid., Evidence Inspected at FBI HQ 5/14/04, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T5, CF, Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing, CO, Newsweek, 11/11/01. The two key financial facilitators in the UAE were Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Both men, arrested in Pakistan in 2003, became part of the group known as “High-Value Detainees” held at Guantánamo Bay. As of spring 2012, they were still there (Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO, NYT, 6/30/10, “The Guantánamo Docket,” www.nyt.com)
42 “A maid”: Counterterrorism to All Field Offices, 9/22/01, FBI 265A-NY-280350, released under FOIA to Mike Williams, www.911myths.com, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/4/03, INTELWIRE.
43 ominous indications/“sleepers”: Of these three leads, the authors found no indication that the first—relating to the man who answered the door at the Park Inn—was ever resolved. The two names were found at Dulles Airport in a car registered to Nawaf al-Hazmi, one of the Flight 77 hijackers. One was that of Osama Awadallah, a Yemeni living in San Diego who turned out to have known two of the hijackers and had material about bin Laden. Though suspected of having had prior knowledge of the attacks, he was not charged in that connection. The name written in highlighter related to Mohamed Abdi, a naturalized U.S. citizen working as a Burns security guard. Like Awadallah, he was not charged with any terrorism offense (Awadallah: MFR 04017544, 11/18/03, CR, 220, 250, 532n175, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/14/02, NYT, 11/18/06; Abdi: U.S. v. Mohamed Abdi, Case No. 01–1053-M, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, www.findlaw.com, MFR 04016253, 10/16/03, WP, 9/27/01, 1/12/02, Human Events, 10/15/01).
44 Dulles/Security camera/pass: The available evidence, however, is less than consistent. An FBI document states that the video evidence “indicates that two of the hijackers … passed through the security checkpoints and baggage claim areas” on September 10. This appears to have occurred at 4:51 P.M. on the eve of the attacks. Checkpoint supervisor Eric Safraz Gill, however, spoke of having challenged an “Arab-looking” man equipped with a swipe pass, and two with apparently adequate identification at about 8:15 P.M. They had attempted to get two other men—who had no such ID—through a secure door. All the men left, following an altercation with Gill (“indicates”: Counterterrorism to Field Offices, 9/22/01, FBI 265A-NY-280350, & see entry for 9/10/01, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, MFR 04020030, 4/6/04, MFR 04016235, 2/10/04; Gill: Susan B. Trento & Joseph J. Trento, Unsafe at Any Altitude, Hanover, NH: Steerforth, 2007, 1–, 43–).
45 Corolla/personal belongings/investigative treasure/involvement in aviation: “Nawaf al-Hazmi,” FBI summary, 4/19/02, www.scribd.com, Warrant Issued on Vehicle IDJT2AE92E9J3137546, 9/13/01, “FBI 302s of Interest,” B17, T7, CF, Criminal Complaint, U.S. v. Mohamed Abdi, Case No. 01–1053-M, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 9/23/01, MFR 04016253, 10/16/03, San Diego to Ottawa et al., 4/11/02, Leads from Hijackers’ Cars, INTELWIRE, “Ali Ahmad Mesdaq,” 1/28/02, FBI Document re PENTTBOM, INTELWIRE. Also recovered, at Newark Airport, was a red Mitsubishi Galant rented by Ziad Jarrah. Jarrah, a Lebanese citizen, is believed to have led the hijack team on United Flight 93. Though the car contained far less evidence than did Hazmi’s, agents did recover a speeding ticket Jarrah had incurred in the early hours of September 10. In a trash can at Newark’s Days Inn, meanwhile, the FBI found the used Spirit Airlines ticketing that had brought Jarrah and Saudis Saeed al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Nami, and Ahmad al-Haznawi from Fort Lauderdale to Newark on September 7. Other evidence aside, the joint travel before 9/11 indicated that the four men shared a common purpose (Ziad Jarrah summary, Prepared by UA93 Investigative Team, FBI, 4/19/02, www.scribd.com, Evidence Inspected at FBI HQ 5/14/04, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T7, CF, Longman, 101).
46 duffel bags: MFR 04017509, 11/5/03, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/3/02
47 Portland car: Evidence Inspected at FBI HQ, 5/14/04, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T5, CF
48 manuals: “Ziad Jarrah,” FBI summary, www.scribd.com
49 “Everybody was gathered”: int. Mark Mikarts
50 “It was the sort”/“His bearing”: Birmingham Post (U.K.), 9/25/01, Jane Corbin, The Base, London: Pocket, 2003, 162
51 Dekkers: transcript of interview of Rudi Dekkers, ibid., News-Press (Fort Myers, FL), 9/13/01.
52 Atta luggage: Review of Investigation Conducted by the FBI of Atta’s Suitcases at Boston, 2/10/04, “Detainee Reports,” B53, T5, CF, FBI 302 of [redacted] DePasquale, 9/17/01, “Atta Luggage,” B18, T7, CF, Recovered Identification Documents, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T5, CF. Also in Atta’s bag were a folding knife and some First Defense pepper spray. Omari’s bag contained an Arabic-to-English dictionary, English grammar books, his Saudi passport, and a bank checkbook (Recovered Identification Documents, “Breeder Docs.—Entire Contents,” B8, T5, CF, MFR of Review of Investigation by the FBI of Atta’s suitcases at Boston, 2/10/04, “Detainee Reports,” B53, T5, CF).
53 document in luggage/at Dulles/at 93 site: “Synopsis of Captioned Investigation as of 11/4/01,” PENTTBOM, Major Case 182, 11/5/01, authors’ collection. The document has been variously referred to as having five, four, and three pages. The first report, by Bob Woodward in The Washington Post, had it as five. A 2006 study, by Professor Hans Kippenberg and Professor Tilman Seidensticker, suggests that a fifth page was recovered but not published. CBS News, which reported on a copy of the Dulles Airport document, said it was “similar but not identical to the document found in Atta’s luggage, and parts of a document found in the Pennsylvania wreckage” (Woodward: WP, 9/28/01; four: eds. Hans Kippenberg & Tilman Seidensticker, The 9/11 Handbook, London: Equinox, 2006, 1–, Observer [London], 9/30/01; three: “PENTTBOM, Major case 182, Summary of Captioned Investigation as of 11/4/01,” FBI document, 11/5/01; CBS News: “Translated Text: Hijackers’ How-To,” www.cbsnews.com, 10/1/01).
55 “Spiritual Manual”/“Handbook”/“mutual pledge”: all from the translation in eds. Kippenberg & Seidensticker, 11–. There have been several translations and commentaries of the document the FBI released. The authors of this book have relied primarily on the 2006 book The 9/11 Handbook, by Hans Kippenberg, professor of Comparative Religious Studies at Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany, and Tilman Seidensticker, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. There have been other commentaries of note—by Professor Kanan Makiya of Brandeis University and Hassan Mneimneh, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, and David Cook, an associate professor at Rice University. In their book Masterminds of Terror, Al Jazeera’s Yosri Fouda and The Sunday Times‘s Nick Fielding reported Fouda’s 2002 interview of self-confessed 9/11 conspirator Ramzi Binalshibh—which offered confirmation that the “Spiritual Manual” is authentic. All the sources mentioned treat the document as having been written for the 9/11 hijackers. The translators of the version used by CBS News in 2001, however, stated in a note that the document did “not in any way sound like instructions to a hijacker or a terrorist.” In the context of its content and circumstances of discovery, however, the document can only be pertinent to 9/11 (Kanan Makiya & Hassan Mneimneh, “Manual for a Raid,” NY Review of Books, 1/17/02, Yosri Fouda & Nick Fielding, Masterminds of Terror, Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2003, 141–, Juan Cole, “Al Qaeda’s Doomsday Document and Psychological Manipulation,” 4/9/03, www.juancole.com, David Cook, Understanding Jihad, Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 2005, 195–, “Translated Text: Hijackers How-To,” 10/1/01, www.cbsnews.com).
56 manual: FBI press release, 9/28/01, www.fbi.gov
57 re “q”/Qiblah: Fouda & Fielding, 147
58 “To those who”: corr. Hans Kippenberg, 2010. Some, pointing to anomalies in the document, have raised the possibility that the hijackers’ manual might be a forgery. Professor Kippenberg, however, who has conducted the most in-depth analysis, cites a skein of persuasive evidence to the contrary (anomalies: e.g., Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilization, London: Fourth Estate, 2005, 1039–
59 evidence: Kippenberg, 4–).
60 “We believe”: Telegraph (U.K.), 9/13/01, int. of Jamal Ismael for Palladin InVision, 2006, supplied to author, WP, 12/9/01, Peter L. Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, New York: Free Press, 2006, 312
61 “I would like”/Taliban accepted: CNN, 9/17/01
62 “As a Muslim”: Daily Ummat (Karachi), 9/28/01, www.justresponse.net
63 “Whenever we kill”/“As concerns”: ed. Bruce Lawrence, Messages to the World, London: Verso, 2005, 106–.
64 On the eve: The night before the attacks, according to a CBS News report citing Pakistani intelligence sources, bin Laden entered a military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, for kidney dialysis. This report appears to have been unfounded. There was an oft-repeated story that he required dialysis, but the best evidence is that he did not. Al Qaeda operatives’ accounts, moreover, place bin Laden at a camp in Afghanistan the following morning, September 11 (CBS news, 1/28/02, and see notes for Ch. 30, p. 555)
65 call to mother/“In two days”/“I would never”: NYT, 10/2/01, MSNBC, 10/1/01, Mail on Sunday (U.K.), 12/23/01.
66 “I asked Osama”: Mir quoted in Georgie Anne Geyer, “Reporting on Terrorist Can Be Deadly,” http://sentinelsource.com, 6/28/09, but see Bergen, OBL I Know, 319, corr. Peter Bergen, 2010. The only other post-9/11 interview bin Laden gave was for television, with Taysir Alluni of Al Jazeera. Alluni was later arrested in his home country, Spain, on charges of supporting al Qaeda, and not released until 2005.
Only in 2007, on an audiotape that a U.S. official judged authentic at the time would bin Laden clearly admit responsibility for 9/11. The voice believed to be his on the tape said, “The events of Manhattan were retaliation against the American-Israeli alliance’s aggression against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, and I am the only one responsible for it. The Afghan people and government knew nothing about it. America knows that” (Alluni: ed. Lawrence, 106–, 139–; 2007 tape: msnbc.com, 11/29/07).
CHAPTER 15
This is a transitional chapter, and the majority of episodes described in it will be more fully covered and sourced in later chapters. For that reason, there is reference in the sources below only to points that will not be covered elsewhere.
1 “Without conspiracy”/“Official answers”: Nation, 5/31/02, 7/12/02.
2 “No one has taken”: Richard Falkenrath, “The 9/11 Commission Report: a Review Essay,” International Security, Vol. 29, No. 3, Winter 04/05, Shenon, 392, 438n, & see CounterPunch, 2/23/08, WP, 7/13/08. The rather larger death toll figure of 2,973, used by the authors in the Prologue, was the official figure as of 2012.
3 “Why did”: int. of Patrick Leahy by Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org, 9/29/06
4 “As each day”: NYT, 10/26/03
5 “officials from FAA”: Statement of Bogdan Dzakovic, 5/22/03, CO
6 half summaries/“encouraged”/no drive: Farmer, 98–, Staff Statement 3, CO
7 “bad feeling”: Chicago, 3/11
8 “I’ve been with”: New York Observer, 6/20/04.
9 “September the 11th”: ABC News, 12/19/02. The fellow agent was John Vincent, the assistant U.S. attorney Mark Flessner. The 9/11 Commission did not interview any of the three.
10 “more than”: Phoenix, Squad 16 to Counterterrorism, 7/10/01, www.justice.gov
11 “well-managed”: WP, 8/21/07
12 “no examination”: Executive Summary, “Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks,” Office of the Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency, 6/05
13 “points”/“Both the CIA”: Graham with Nussbaum, xv
14 irritated: Tenet, 169.
15 Mossad: The Mossad—more formally the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations—can and does operate all over the world, emboldened by the knowledge that the United States is Israel’s staunch ally and protector. Mossad’s audacity was exemplified as recently as 2010, when its operatives were caught using the forged passports of several other nations in the course of a hit on a Hamas leader in Dubai.
The full extent of Israeli and U.S. liaison on intelligence, however, is a foggy area. Days after 9/11, the Telegraph newspaper in the U.K., citing a “senior Israeli security official,” reported that “two senior experts” with Mossad had been sent to Washington in August to warn that a large terrorist cell was “preparing a big operation.” The Los Angeles Times picked up the story, only to amend it within days and publish a CIA denial that there had been such a warning.
The authors looked at specific episodes that have been taken to suggest Israeli intelligence activity within the United States at the time. One occurred on the morning of 9/11, when a woman in a New Jersey apartment across the river from Manhattan telephoned the police. She had seen below her a group of men, on the roof of a van, shooting video footage of the burning Trade Center and—she thought—celebrating. Film taken from the men’s camera, sources said later, did appear to show them “smiling and clowning around.” The onlooker who called the police reported the van’s registration number, noting that it was marked “Urban Moving Systems.”
Arrested that afternoon, the men with the van turned out to be five young Israelis. They were held for more than two months, questioned repeatedly, and eventually deported back to Israel. Their boss, Dominic Suter, also an Israeli, abruptly left the United States soon after the attacks. Two of the men, it was lat
er reported, had been Mossad operatives and one—Paul Kurtzberg—said he had previously worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.
Former CIA counterterrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro told ABC News that—though the men “probably” did not have advance knowledge of 9/11—there was speculation in U.S. intelligence that Urban Moving was a front for spying on “radical Islamics in the area.” Available information indicates that the Israelis had been living and working in New Jersey within a few miles of locations where Hazmi, Mihdhar, and four other members of the hijacking team had spent from spring to midsummer.
Some four hundred pages of investigative materials on the van episode, recently released by the FBI, deserve further in-depth study.
A study by lawyer Gerald Shea, submitted to the 9/11 Commission and the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, drew attention to the odd activities in 2000 and 2001 of more than a hundred Israelis—working in groups of eight to ten across the United States, who had represented themselves as art students peddling artwork. Because the “students” were repeatedly noticed at Drug Enforcement Administration offices, DEA Security investigated—and came to suspect the “students” might be involved in organized crime.
Lawyer Shea, though, noted that those identified had primarily operated in Florida—close to the main southern staging area for the hijackers. He suggested in his study that the Israelis’ purpose had included “keeping Arab groups in our country under surveillance, including the future hijackers.” There is good reason to doubt Shea’s theory, however, for the Israeli students also operated in states where the hijackers had not been located.