“…for seven months George Tenet’s CIA had been hand-delivering warnings to the president [Bush] about al-Qaeda at a rate of nearly two a week. Tenet might have volunteered one or two additional pieces of information–for example, the report he received on August 23 [2001] that FBI field agents in Minneapolis wanted to investigate an ‘Islamic […]
8/23/2001
Former CIA Director George Tenet wrote: “CIA did not watchlist [future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf] al-Hazmi and [Khalid] al-Mihdhar until August 23, 2001. FBI did not get into [suspected terrorist Zacarias] Moussaoui’s luggage. The famous Phoenix memo, outlining concerns about terrorists being trained at flight schools, was not shared. The FBI’s effort to find al-Hazmi and […]
8/23/2001
“In late August [23, 2001], the [potential terrorist Zacarias] Moussaoui arrest was briefed to the DCI [Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet] and other top CIA officials under the heading ‘Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly.’ Because the [Counterterrorist Center] system was not tuned to comprehend the potential significance of this information, the news had no […]
8/23/2001
Former CIA Director George Tenet wrote: “This [information that future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar might be in the U.S.] alarmed us sufficiently that on August 23 [2001] an immediate message went out alerting the State Department, FBI, INS [Immigration and Naturalization Services], Customs and others about the pair. …Even though they were […]
8/23/2001
“On August 23 [2001], DCI [Director of Central Intelligence George] Tenet was briefed about the [potential terrorist Zacarias] Moussaoui case in a briefing titled ‘Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly.’ ” The FBI had arrested Moussaoui for overstaying his visa, but Tenet, seeing this as an FBI case, “did not discuss the matter with anyone at […]
8/23/2001
“In the middle of August [2001], prompted by repeated warnings that al Qaeda was about to strike, CIA director George Tenet ordered investigators to scour their files for any clues to possible upcoming attacks. At that point, the CIA apparently remembered [future 9/11 hijackers Khalid] al-Midhar and [Nawaf] al-Hazmi, and after checking with INS [Immigration […]
8/23/2001
“By August 23 [2001]…the FBI was told by French intelligence that [potential terrorist Zacarias] Moussaoui was linked to Islamic rebels in Chechnya. And these rebels were linked to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan. But the connection was not enough for the FBI to pursue the investigation of Moussaoui as a foreign […]
8/21/2001
A declassified CIA email, sent from ‘Mary to John’ on August 21, 2001, focused on future 9/11 hijacker Khalid Al-Mihdhar and his presence in the U.S. It read: “[Redacted] as I was reviewing all the cables on Khalid Al-Mihdhar, I noticed he had a U.S. Visa in his passport. I asked INS [Immigration and Naturalization […]
8/21/2001
“On Aug. 21 [2001], the C.I.A. went to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and asked officials to put [future 9/11 hijacker Khalid] Almihdhar on their watch list of suspected terrorists. The State Department immediately revoked his visa. Two days later, realizing their suspect had arrived in New York on July 4, the C.I.A. alerted the […]
8/21/2001
Terrorist Khalid “Almihdhar first emerged as an important figure when it was disclosed that he was one of two hijackers put on a United States government watch list of suspected terrorists on Aug. 21 [2001]. The other, Nawaf Alhamzi, was added simply because he flew from Bangkok to Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2000, along […]