“…Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, obtained documents from the Department of Homeland Security. They showed that an additional 160 Saudis were allowed to leave on some fifty-five commercial flights [following the 9/11 attacks], and that some had taken off as early as September 11 [2001], bringing the total number of Saudis in the airlift […]
Category: quotes
9/11/2001
Then-President George W. Bush recalled, on September 11, 2001: “I told [Secretary of Defense] Don [Rumsfeld] that I considered the attacks an act of war and approved his decision to raise the military readiness level to DefCon Three for the first time since the Arab-Israeli War of 1973. American military installations around the world heightened […]
9/11/2001
“…on September 11, 2001, President Bush signed a secret Presidential Finding authorizing the CIA to create paramilitary teams to ‘hunt, capture, detain, or kill designated terrorists almost anywhere in the world.’ Only by keeping that Executive Order secret could President Bush be shielded from responsibility.” – M. Cherif Bassiouni, The Institutionalization of Torture by the […]
9/11/2001
On September 11, 2001, “Ben Sliney arrived for his first day at work as national operations manager for the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. …Finally at 9:25, with Flight 77 growing more worrisome, Sliney made a bold decision. He ordered a full groundstop–all commercial and private flight activity across the country was grounded; no flights were […]
9/11/2001
According to The Los Angeles Times on January 28, 2003, “the FBI’s [computer database] system was so antiquated that, immediately after 9/11 [2001], frustrated agents in Tampa [Florida] were unable even to e-mail photos of the nineteen hijackers to the Bureau’s regional offices. They had to resort to overnight mail. The 1980s-era technology at the […]
9/11/2001
Chris Yates, the aviation security editor and analyst for Jane’s Defence Weekly, explained why there were no aircraft on alert at Andrews Air Force Base (the closest base to Washington, D.C.) when the hijackings took place on September 11, 2001. “There was no reason to [be on constant alert]…The U.S. homeland had never been attacked […]
9/11/2001
“Al Qaeda was the only terrorist organization capable of such spectacular, well-coordinated attacks, [CIA Director George] Tenet said [to the National Security Council on the afternoon of September 11, 2001]. Intelligence monitoring had overheard a number of known bin Laden operatives congratulating each other after the attacks.” – Bob Woodward, Bush at War, Page 27 […]
9/11/2001
On September 11, 2001, “At 9:29, President Bush addressed the nation from the Booker Elementary School in Sarasota [Florida]. He said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for America. …Today we’ve had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. I […]
9/11/2001
At 6:30 a.m. on September 11, 2001, “At Boston’s Logan Airport, an argument breaks out over a parking space involving five Middle Easterners and an unidentified man. When he reports the incident later, police discover a car rented by lead hijacker Mohammed Atta. It contains a pass allowing access to a restricted area of the […]
9/11/2001
Then-President George W. Bush recalled: “By the afternoon of 9/11 [2001], the intelligence community had discovered known al Qaeda operatives on the passenger manifests of the hijacked planes.” – George W. Bush, Decision Points, Page 134 […]