Then-CIA Director George Tenet wrote: “Although in our collective gut we [CIA] knew al-Qa’ida was behind the [September 11, 2001] attacks, we needed proof, so CTC [Counterterrorist Center] requested passenger lists from the planes that had been turned into weapons that morning…’Some of these guys on one of the planes are the ones we’ve been looking for in the last few weeks.’ He pointed specifically to two names: Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. That was the first time we had absolute proof of what I had been virtually certain of from the moment I heard about the attacks: we were in the middle of an al-Qa’ida plot.”
– George Tenet with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm, Page 167