On September 10, 2001, Attorney General John “Ashcroft submitted his first budget. He asked for increased funds for sixty-eight programs in his Department of Justice, not one of which directly involved counterterrorism. Even worse, he rejected a request by the FBI for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents. He also proposed a $65 […]
Category: quotes
9/10/2001
“Osama bin Laden telephoned his mother in Syria the day before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks [September 10, 2001] to tell her that he could not meet her there because ‘something big’ was imminent that would end their communications for a long time, a senior foreign official said tonight [October 2, 2001].” – Patrick E. […]
9/10/2001
From October 2000 until September 10, 2001, “a British banking compliance company had profiles on 15 of them [the 9/11 hijackers] in its files of high-risk people. Banking clients had access to the information, but the profiles evidently were never seen by U.S. agencies that might have spotted something in them to act on. …Swiss […]
9/10/2001
“…on September 10, 2001, there were fewer FBI agents assigned to counterterrorism than there had been in [August] 1998 at the time of the East Africa embassy bombings.” – Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Page 161 […]
9/10/2001
“It was not until Sept. 10 [2001] that [President] Mr. Bush’s national security aides approved a three-phase strategy to eliminate Al Qaeda. The plan, which was to unfold over three to five years, envisioned a mission to the Taliban in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda was based; increased diplomatic pressure; and covert action. Military strikes might […]
9/10/2001
Attorney General John “Ashcroft had the bad timing–on September 10 [2001]–of rejecting the FBI’s request for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 additional analysts, and 54 extra translators.” – Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Page 175 […]
9/10/2001
On September 10, 2001, the National Security Agency’s “electronic ears picked up two intercepts, both in Arabic, from the al Qaeda plotters. The intercepts disclosed that a major attack was set for the next day. …The discussions were between terrorists in the United States and al Qaeda operatives abroad. With the huge volume of intercepted […]
9/10/2001
On September 10, 2001, “when the FBI asked Attorney General [John] Ashcroft for an increase of $58 million in its counterterrorism budget, he turned them down. Acting FBI Director Tom Picard was later quoted as saying, ‘Before September 11th, I couldn’t get half an hour on terrorism with Ashcroft. He was only interested in three […]
9/10/2001
“The intercepts [of al Qaeda plotters, made by the National Security Agency (NSA) on September 10, 2001] were the main reason President Bush so readily pointed to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda as the terrorists who planned and carried out the [9/11] attacks. The intelligence community, through anonymous spokesmen, said analysts were not sure […]
9/10/2001
On September 12, 2001, Acting Director of the FBI Thomas Pickard received a letter from Attorney General John Ashcroft. “It was a denial of his request for more money for the counter terrorism division. The letter was dated September 10, 2001.” – Philip Shenon, The Commission, Page 248 […]