42 “he had authorized”: CR, 41, 465n221
43 not “alert”: Cherie Gott, “Brief Look at the Effect of Considering Prior Years’ More Robust Alert Facility Architecture on Events of 11 Sep 2001,” www.scribd.com
44 “Capital Guardians”: “Andrews AFB Guide,” www.dcmilitary.com.
45 SS/FAA contact early on: CR, 464n208. Secret Service agent Nelson Garabito had first discussed how to react with his usual FAA liaison, Terry Van Steenbergen, who said what was needed was “fighters airborne.” Van Steenbergen initiated contacts with the National Guard at Andrews. Told by a colleague at the base of the approach, Major Daniel Caine in turn called another Secret Service agent, Ken Beauchamp, asking whether he could be of assistance. Though Beauchamp initially made no request, he phoned back later—after the Pentagon was hit at 9:37. (Garabito/Van Steenbergen: MFR of int. Terry Van Steenbergen, 3/30/04, “FAA HQ,” B6, T8, CF, MFR 04017326, 7/28/03, CR, 464n208, USSS Statements & Interview Reports, 7/28/03, “Secret Service Requests,” B5, Dana Hyde files, CF; Caine/Beauchamp: MFR 04020717, 3/8/04, Spencer, 124).
46 Pentagon/Wherely at run: MFR 03005418, 8/28/03, WP, 4/8/02.
47 “Get anything”: Wherley Interview, “Andrews AFB Logs-Timelines,” B4, Dana Hyde files, CF. This wording fits closely with a “Memo for Record” written on September 16 by Andrews’s Aircraft Generation Squadron Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Denman. “At 10:10,” he noted, “we received word to ‘Get something up.’ ” “10:10” may or may not be a correct timing—a time Denham gave for a later event in the Andrews sequence seems inconsistent with other information (Memo for Record, 9/16/01, “Andrews AFB Timelines,” B4, Dana Hyde files, CF).
48 “someone a little higher”/“It’s coming”/Ediger: “Andrews AFB Timelines,” BH, Dana Hyde files, CF, MFR 03005418, 8/28/03
49 asked to speak/“wasn’t going”/made do/“unidentified male”: MFR of int. David Wherley, 2/27/04, “General Wherley,” B1, Dana Hyde, CF
50 “put aircraft”/“any force”/“understandable”: MFR 03005418, 8/28/03
51 After the crash: Prewitt (USSS) to Monaghan re FOIA 20080330 & 20080331 & attachments, 4/23/10, “USSS Memos & Timelines,” www.scrib.doc re [Barnes] USSS Interview notes, 7/28/03, “USSS Requests & Notes,” B5, Dana Hyde files, CF, int. Anthony Barnes, MFR 03005418, 8/28/03, National Society of Black Engineers press release, “Igniting the Torch,” 2008.
52 Barnes cannot pin down: A further document, a Commission memo on the Secret Service records, suggests the contacts with Barnes took place at about the time Cheney was arriving at the PEOC—linking it to efforts to protect the White House. “All air traffic,” the document indicates, “would be halted and forced to land” (memo, 7/28/03, “USSS Requests & Notes,” B5, T8, CF)
53 10:04: Relevant Andrews Transmissions, 2/17–18/04, “Andrews AFB Logs,” B4, Dana Hyde files, CF, corr. Miles Kara, 2011.
54 Cheney would deny/“aware that”: CR, 44
55 “acted on its own”/“the agents’ ”: WSJ, 3/22/04.
56 On own initative?: While there is no documentary evidence of a call between Bush and Cheney in which Bush authorized a shoot-down, Commission notes released to the authors in 2011 do indicate that the Vice President felt the need to get Bush’s authorization at a later point. At 10:44, while speaking with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld about raising the military’s alert status to Defcon 3, Cheney told Rumsfeld, “I’ll have to run that by him [Bush] and let him make the call.” It is arguable that Cheney would have felt the same need for authority to engage hijacked airliners (“Dana Hyde Notes of Air Threat Conference Call,” CF, corr. Miles Kara).
57 sec. def. out of touch/intermittent contact: As reported earlier, the President recalled that it repeatedly proved difficult to get through to Cheney on 9/11. Richard Clarke described Cheney, in the PEOC, complaining, “The comms [communications] in this place are terrible.” Presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer recalled the President saying, “The communications equipment was good, not great, as he often had to wait to get people on the phone. After September 11, Air Force’s One’s communications equipment received a major modernization.” (Bush recalled: see Ch. 9; “The comms”: Richard Clarke, 19; “The communications”: Fleischer, 141).
58 Wherley no immediate way: Miles Kara, “The Andrews Fighters”: An Expeditionary Force, Not an Air Defense,” 9/11 Revisited, www.oredigger61.org, CR, 44, Charles J. Gross, Memo for the Record, 9/19/01, “Andrews AFB Logs-Timelines,” B4, Dana Hyde files, CF.
59 less than certain/“check out”: MFR 03005418, 8/28/03, MFR of int. David Wherley, 2/27/04, “General Wherley,” B1, Dana Hyde files, CF. This first fighter to go up from Andrews carried no missiles, and its gun was loaded only with training rounds. Its pilot, Major Billy Hutchison, would later claim that the general told him to “intercept [an] aircraft coming toward D.C. and prevent it from reaching D.C.” Another officer at the base, however, Major David McNulty, said Hutchison was tasked to do nothing more than identify an aircraft approaching along the Potomac. (That plane, it later turned out, had been just a helicopter.) Senior Commission counsel John Farmer in 2009 roundly rejected an account that suggested Hutchison located United 93 on his radar and considered ramming it—Hutchison did not even take off until 10:38, more than half an hour after Flight 93 had crashed (“intercept”: Hutchison [typed notes of int.] & MFR of Hutchinson, “Billy Hutchinson Andrews AFB,” B3, Dana Hyde files, CF; McNulty: MFR 04020718, 3/11/04; Farmer rejected: Farmer, 375, & see Miles Kara, “The Scott Trilogy: Cutting to the Chase,” 9/11 Revisited, www.oredigger61.org; considered ramming: Spencer, 219–; 10:38: Relevant Andrews Timelines, “Miles Kara Docs 3,” B8, T8, CF).
60 Four more fighters: ibid., MFR 04020720, 3/11/04, Charles Gross, Memo for the Record, UA 93 and Andrews Timeline, & transcript ints. Igor Rasmussen & Leslie Filson, 9/18/03, “Andrews AFB Logs-Timelines,” B4, Dana Hyde files, CF.
61 “weapons free”/“uncomfortable”: MFR of int. David Wherley, 2/27/04, “General Wherley,” B1, Dana Hyde files, CF, Staff Statement 17, CO, transcript ints. McNutz/Thompson/Sasseville, & ints. Thompson & Penney, undated, “Andrews AFB Logs-Timelines,” B4, Dana Hyde files, CF, & see Kara to Hyde & Azzarello, 5/25/04. The general may have had reason to feel uncomfortable. According to NORAD commanding general Eberhart, Wherley “did not have the authority to give a ‘weapons-free’ order.” Wherley said later that he “didn’t feel comfortable until he heard Vice President Cheney’s interview with Tim Russert [on September 16, on Meet the Press]” (Eberhart: MFR 04018141, 3/1/04; “didn’t feel”: MFR of int. David Wherley, 2/27/04, “General Wherley, Zelikow Notes & MFRs,” B1, Dana Hyde files, CF; “had not been aware”: CR, 44).
62 formal rules: MFR of int. David Wherley, 2/27/04, “General Wherley,” B1, Dana Hyde files, CF, CR, 465n234
63 made its way/10:31/You need to read: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 2,” B3, NYC files, CF, & Channel 2 audio at B82 & B110, GSA files, CF, Spencer, 240–, Shoot-down references, “Miles Kara and Dana Hyde Work Papers,” B8, T8, CF, CR, 4
64 Marr/Nasypany unsure: CR, 43
65 “hostile act”: MFR 0401841, 3/1/04.
66 Any track: Kara to Hyde et al., 5/24/04. It is not clear whether the voice on the tape is that of Nasypany or that of his weapons officer, Major James Fox (CF, DH, B5, “Langley Pilots Interviews Fdr.—email thread re Flight 93—NEADS Tapes,” B5, Dana Hyde files, CF).
67 Wolfowitz/FAA & military versions: see earlier refs in Chapters 12 & 13; Farmer, 245, 251, 255, CR, 31–.
68 referred to inspectors general: The inspectors general of both the Defense Department and the Department of Transportation delivered their reports in 2006. Neither conceded that there was evidence that either department’s officials connived to reconstruct the story on events on 9/11. The Commission’s John Farmer—as a former attorney general of New Jersey a man well used to weighing evidence—challenged that f
inding. “There is no question,” he has written, “that the official version … served the interest of every institution involved.… It is impossible to conclude honestly, from the two Inspector General reports, that the official version of the events of 9/11 was the result of mere administrative incompetence; too many questions remained unanswered.” The full body of evidence is extremely complex, too complex to be dealt with in this book. The authors suggest that interested readers consult Commission general counsel Marcus’s referral letter to the inspectors general, the resulting IG reports, and Farmer’s 2009 book, Ground Truth (referral: Marcus to Schmitz and Mead & attachments, 7/29/04; IG reports: “Memorandum for Under Secretary of Defense of Intelligence,” 9/12/06, “Results of OIG Investigation of 9/11 Commission Staff Referral,” Todd Zinser to Acting Secretary, FAA, 8/31/06; “There is no question”: Farmer, 287–).
69 “in my opinion”: Testimony of Monte Belger, 6/17/04, CO
70 “In my opinion”: Testimony of Richard Myers, 6/17/04, CO
71 “were talking mainly”/“leadership was irrelevant”/was not simply wrong: Farmer, 186–, 290, 277, 288–.
Part III: AMERICA RESPONDS
CHAPTER 14
1 garbage can/“Allah will be”: Chicago to Director, 9/12/01, FBI 265D-NY-280350-CG, INTELWIRE
2 kept an eye/“Mission failed”: FBI 302 of int. Grant Besley, 9/16/01, B11, T7, CF, Chronology ADA-30, Operations Center, Terrorist Attacks NYC-DC 9/11/01, “FAA 3 of 3 Chronology ADA Ops Center,” B19, T8, CF
3 Picciotto/The guy: Picciotto, 75–.
4 5,000/“remained in custody”: “The September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks,” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 6/03. The figure of 5,000 is taken from the study by Professors David Cole and Jules Lobel, which is in turn derived from official U.S. government reports. The Washington Post reported that 1,182 “potential terror suspects” had been detained by November 2001. In addition, some 4,000 were detained under two post-9/11 INS initiatives, the Special Registration and Alien Absconder programs. “The vast majority” of the 5,000, Professor Cole told the authors, were detained “on immigration charges, ranging from overstaying a visa to working without a permit or even to failing to file a notice of change of address” (corr. David Cole, 2010, LAT, 11/18/07, WP, 11/6/01, 6/16/04, Anjana Malhotra, “Overlooking Innocence,” www.aclu.org, & see “The September 11 Detainees,” Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, 4/03, 2–, CR, 327–, 556n17, Philip Heymann, “Muslims in America after 9/11: The Legal Situation,” conference paper, 12/15/06, www.ces.fas.harvard.edu).
5 conditions included/abuse: The abuse occurred especially at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn (“The September 11 Detainees,” 4–).
6 only one convicted: As of 2009 the only post-9/11 detainee convicted was Ali al-Marri, who had been arrested in December 2001. Marri was sentenced to eight years for plotting with and materially supporting al Qaeda. Zacarias Moussaoui, who is serving life without the possibility of parole for conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism and air piracy, had been arrested before 9/11 (Marri: corr. David Cole, 2010, AP, 10/30/09, LAT, 5/1/09; Moussaoui: AP, 9/25/09, BBC News, 5/4/06, AFP, 1/4/10, CR, 247)
7 Ziglar/“a moment”: MFR 04016455, 11/14/03
8 anti-Arab hostility/Sikh shot: New Republic, 9/24/01, Queens Tribune, 9/18/01
9 Egyptian pilot: DiMarco, 314–.
10 Flight 23/“four young Arab”: Spencer, 102–, MFR 04020009, 4/14/04, CBS News, 9/14/01. The account of the Flight 23 incident is drawn principally from notes of a Commission interview with Ed Ballinger, the United dispatcher in charge of the airline’s transcontinental flights that day, and from Lynn Spencer’s book Touching History. Ballinger cited what he had been told by United’s chief pilot, and Spencer apparently interviewed Flight 23 crew members. There were other, less well documented reports of possible threats to planes on 9/11. Flight attendants told the Commission of Arab passengers having behaved in a way they thought suspicious aboard United Flight 962 from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. A passenger who flew aboard yet another United plane, Flight 915 from Paris to Washington, D.C., told the Commission there had been a major security alert at Charles de Gaulle Airport before takeoff—and before the attacks began in the United States—and that guards removed a suspect from the terminal. In the States, the FBI reportedly searched for passengers who had been aboard another grounded airliner, American Flight 43. In Canada, authorities detained a Yemeni arrested aboard a U.S.-bound plane that had been diverted to Toronto. He was reportedly carrying several different passports, had papers with Arabic writing sewn into his clothing, and his baggage contained Lufthansa crew uniforms. A U.S. Justice Department spokesman said box cutters, similar to those used as weapons on the hijacked planes, were later found on other aircraft. Though the authors surmise that few if any of these accounts relate to real threats, the incident involving United 23 may indeed have been serious (Ballinger/Spencer: MFR 04020009, 4/14/04, Spencer, 102–; UA962: FBI 302, ints. Elizabeth Anderson & Elizabeth Henley, 9/20/01, “FBI 302s—ACARS,” B11, T7, CF, MFR 03007051, undated, 8/03; AA43: BBC News, 9/18/01; Yemeni: CBS News, 9/14/01, Hamilton Spectator [Canada], 9/26/01; box cutters: CNN, 9/24/01, & see MFR 04017172, 9/29/03, MFR 04019897, 7/29/03, FBI 302, 9/15/01, Chicago Tribune, 9/23/01, Guardian [U.K.], 10/13/01).
11 Mihdhar: Bamford, Shadow Factory, 64
12 “We think we had”: Globe and Mail (Toronto), 6/13/02.
13 “Who do you think”: Ronald Kessler, The Terrorist Watch, NY: Crown, 2007, 8–
14 some Arabs celebrate: Fox News, 9/12/01, “Bulls-Eye Say Egyptians as They Celebrate Anti-US Attacks,” AFP, 9/11/01, NYT, 9/13/01, 9/26/01, 10/27/01
15 “should feel”: CNN, 9/18/01
16 Palestinians/rifles/candy: Fox News, 9/12/01, New Yorker, 9/24/01, BBC News, 9/14/01, The Times (London), 9/11/01, Reuters, 9/12/01
17 caller/DFLP: BBC News, 9/12/01, “Sept. 11 One Year On,” www.rte.ie, 9/11/02, CNN, 9/11/01
18 Osama poster: AP, 9/14/01
19 “Congratulations”: The dissident was Saad al-Fagih, of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, transcript, Frontline: “Saudi Time Bomb,” 9/15/01, www.pbs.org, & see Corbin, 250
20 “This action”: New Yorker, 6/2/08
21 CRS report: Kenneth Katzman, “Terrorism: Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors, 2001,” Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 9/10/01
22 17th: an approximation. Osama’s father reportedly had some twenty-two wives over the years, and at least four other sons were born during the year of Osama’s birth. It is safe to say, though, that he fell between sons number seventeen and twenty-one (Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens, London: Allen Lane, 2008, 72–)
23 $300 million: For a more detailed analysis of bin Laden’s fortune, see Chapter 22
24 “for some time”: CBS News, 9:12–9:54 A.M., 9/11/01, www.archive.org
25 “We’ve hit”: Newsweek, 9/13/01, Bamford, Pretext, 54, notes of Stephen Cambone, 9/11/01, released under FOIA to Thad Anderson, www.outragedmoderates.com
26 “Although in our”: Tenet, 167
27 “beyond a doubt”: Tenet, xix.
28 “We could then”: 60 Minutes, CBS News, 9/11/02. The flight manifests were not released by any government source at the time. The airlines involved, however, quickly released lists of those they described as “victims” or passengers whose next of kin had been identified—but did not include the names of those believed to have been hijackers. That omission, especially, led to speculation that there had not really been any Arabs on the flights, that some hijackers might have used stolen identities, or that some of those being named in the press as hijackers might still be alive. The authors have analyzed the available material—including passenger lists for the four flights as relea
sed by the FBI to author Terry McDermott, lists submitted as exhibits during the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, and lists for Flights 175 and 93 that appear in released 9/11 Commission files. The names on the above match the list of those believed to have been hijackers released by the FBI on September 14, 2001. The names, moreover, occur consistently in the documented evidence of the hijackers’ activity in the months and weeks before 9/11. Finally, photographs—apparently mostly from visa forms—were “verified by family members of thirteen of the hijackers—including presumed hijacking pilots Marwan al-Shehhi (175) and Hani Hanjour (77). That Ziad Jarrah had been aboard United 93 was established by comparison of DNA material from the home of his girlfriend Aysel Sengün in Germany and from one of four sets of unidentified human remains recovered at the crash site of Flight 93 (“victims”/next of kin: United Airlines press release, 9/12/01, American Airlines press release, 9/12/01; questions: e.g., see “Hijack ‘Suspects’ Alive and Well,” www.bbc.co.uk, 9/23/01, Telegraph [U.K.], 9/23/01, Newsday, 10/22/01, “Passenger Lists,” www.911research.wtc7.net, Gerard Holmgren, “Media Published Fake Passenger Lists for AA Flight 11,” 5/14/04, www.archive.indymedia.be; manifests: McDermott, manifests reproduced in photo section, “Flight 93 Manifest,” & “Flight 175 Misc. Manifest,” B17, T7, CF, corr. Kristen Wilhelm, 2010, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibits P200018; FBI list: “FBI Announces List of 19 Hijackers,” 9/14/01, www.fbi.gov—Flight 175 hijacker Fayez Ahmed Banihammad is identified on the FBI list only as Fayez Ahmed—the portion of his name that appears on the manifest, and misspells Flight 93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah’s last name—correctly rendered on the available manifest—as “Jarrahi”; documented evidence: e.g., “Hijacker’s True Name Usage,” U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit OG00013, Dulles Airport Command Post, Intelligence Log, FBI 265D-NY-280350, “Aliases & Id,” B62, T5, CF, & see Jeremy Hammond, “9/11 Hijackers Not on Manifests,” www.foreignpolicyjournal.com, 4/5/10, “No Hijacker Names on Passenger Manifests,” www.911myths.com, “Panoply of the Absurd,” www.spiegel.de, 9/8/03; photographs: Legat Riyadh to Counterterrorism, 11/20/01, “Aliases & Ids,” B62, T5, CF; Jarrah DNA: PENTTBOM, Misc. Req. 42, “Aliases & Ids,” B62, T5, CF).
The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden Page 58