From the 9/11 Commission Report’s list of Operational Opportunities: “August 2001: the CIA does not focus on information that [9/11 mastermind] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [KSM] is a key al Qaeda lieutenant or connect information identifying KSM as the ‘Mukhtar’ mentioned in other reports to the analysis that could have linked ‘Mukhtar’ with [9/11 conspirator] Ramzi […]
Category: quotes
8/15/2001
“On August 15 [2001], he [head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, Cofer Black] concluded a briefing to the Department of Defense’s Annual Convention on Counterterrorism with the comment, ‘We are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die, and it could be in the U.S.’ “ – James Bamford, The Shadow Factory, […]
8/15/2001
From the 9/11 Commission Report’s list of Operational Opportunities: “August 2001: the CIA and FBI do not connect the presence of [future 9/11 hijackers Khalid al] Mihdhar, [Nawaf al] Hamzi, and [suspected terrorist Zacarias] Moussaoui to the general threat reporting about imminent attacks.” [The 15th of the month is used for date sorting purposes only.] […]
8/15/2001
“In August 2001, either NSA [National Security Agency] or Britain’s GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters] intercepted a telephone call from one of bin Laden’s chief lieutenants, Abu Zubaida, to an al Qaeda operative believed to have been in Pakistan. The intercept centered on an operation that was to take place in September. At about the same […]
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
According to a Top Secret report from the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, on March 19, 2004: “A SEIB [Senior Executive Intelligence Brief] article on August 7, 2001, ‘Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US,’ underscored Bin Ladin’s desire to conduct terrorist attacks in the US homeland. It noted that the Millennium plot to […]