In mid-August, 2001, CIA director George Tenet received reports from the FBI mentioning the arrest of potential terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. “Tenet figured that since it was an FBI domestic case, surely the FBI had it under control.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Philip Shenon, The Commission, Page 361 […]
Category: quotes
8/15/2001
“FBI and CIA officials were advised in August [2001] that as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into this country and planning ‘a major assault on the United States,’ a high-ranking law enforcement official said Wednesday [September 19, 2001]. The advisory was passed on by the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. It cautioned that it had […]
8/15/2001
On August 15, 2001, “a flight school in Minnesota contacted the local FBI field office to express concern about a student, Zacarias Moussaoui. He had asked suspicious questions about the flight patterns around New York City and whether the doors of a cockpit could be opened during flight. The local bureau quickly determined that Moussaoui […]
8/15/2001
“According to other German investigators, another intercepted phone call also offered vital information of a link… between Zacarias Moussaoui, a French-Moroccan arrested in August in Minnesota after strange behavior at a flight school, and a [sic] operative in Hamburg who shared an apartment with [lead 9/11 hijacker] Mohamed Atta. …That call, dated to Mr. Zacarias Moussaoui’s […]
8/14/2001
Potential hijacker Zacarias “Moussaoui’s classroom instructor knew that affluent hobbyists sometimes signed up for simulator training even if they didn’t have a [pilot’s] license, but Moussaoui’s decision to rush the training, and to ask so many questions about things like protocol for communicating with air traffic controllers, created worry. At a routine staff meeting on […]
8/13/2001
“On August 13 [2001], [potential hijacker] Zacarias Moussaoui started his new [flight] training [near Minneapolis, Minnesota]. …Two days later, the school called the local FBI office, telling agents they had what they thought was a potential hijacker on their hands. …By the next afternoon, the FBI was at the school. By nightfall, Moussaoui was in […]
8/11/2001
“The Washington Post story the next day [August 11, 2001] on page A18 characterized the attack [on air defense sites in Iraq] as one of ‘relatively limited scope’ and business-as-usual. ‘Yesterday’s strikes appeared to continue the Clinton-era pattern of hitting Iraqi air defenses every six months or so.’ “ – Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, […]
8/10/2001
“On August 10 [2001], US and British jets bombed three air defense sites in Iraq, the largest strikes since February.” – Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, Page 23 […]
8/8/2001
President George W. Bush’s comments on decisions being made with the help of the Secretary of Defense: “I’ve got a lot of national security concerns that we’re working on — Iraq; Macedonia, very worrisome right now. Kind of a blowup last night and yesterday it looked like we had a peaceful resolution; it’s now in doubt. […]
8/7/2001
“Although the [August 7, 2001] SEIB [Senior Executive Intelligence Brief] repeated the title of [the August 6] PDB [Presidential Daily Brief, titled ‘Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.‘], it did not contain the reference to the hijackings, the alert in New York, the alleged casing of buildings in New York, the threat phoned in […]