The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden

by Anthony Summers

  4 inspector doubts/Kahtani/“He started”: MFR 04016447, 11/12/03, CF, CR, 12, 248, 564n33

  5 “round out”: KSM SUBST

  6 “like a soldier”: MFR 04016447, 11/12/02, CF.

  7 five rather than four: Kahtani, who was captured in Afghanistan after 9/11, was one of the prisoners “tortured”—in the words of the retired judge appointed to decide on prosecutions at Guantánamo. The record indicates that he strongly resisted interrogation. He remains a Guantánamo detainee as of this writing. Commission staff identified nine other recruits who were at some point considered for assignment to the 9/11 operation (captured/“tortured”: WP, 1/14/09; resisted: Interrogation Log, Detainee 063, www.​ccrjustice.​org, “The Guantánamo Docket,” NYT website, as of 1/12/11; nine other: Staff Statement 16, CO, CR, 235).

  8 Atta at airport: Staff Statement 16, CO, Mohammed al-Kahtani, “RFBI 03013592, Documents Relating to PENTTBOM Briefing of Dec. 10, 2003, Packet 2, CF

  9 Atta free/rental cars/​flying/​hijackers everyday activities: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE

  10 moved out Paterson/flight manuals: MFR 04016237, 11/6/03, CF, NYT, 10/28/01

  11 Valencia/“thought they were gay”: Die Zeit (Germany), 10/2/02

  12 men tugging/retrieve towel: St. Petersburg Times, 9/1/02. Simpson believed the men who tried her door were Ahmad al-Haznawi and Ahmed al-Nami

  13 Surma: ibid.

  14 Warrick: ibid., Observer [U.K.], 9/16/01, int. Brad Warrick.

  15 Longshore/Dragomir: WP, 10/5/01, Chicago Tribune, 9/18/01. Though this incident was reported in major newspapers, it is not certain that the men Dragomir remembered were Jarrah and a companion—or indeed that the companion was Atta, as the manager thought he might have been. The date of the incident is also not entirely clear—it was reported both as having occurred on August 30 and in “late August.” That said, Jarrah was in the area on August 30, having just returned from Baltimore. He moved out of the accommodations he had been renting for some time on August 31, took another condominium close by—and was apparently using the Internet at a Kinko’s in Hollywood—where the reported Longshore Motel incident occurred—on September 3, at a time Atta was also there (“Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, Profile, Ziad Samir Jarrah, ACS Download Documents, Pkt. 6, 03009470, CF).

  16 Hazmi phoned: CR, 223, 249

  17 Abdullah had known/helped: CR, 216, 220, 516n20, Los Angeles to Counterterrorism, 1/8/02, FBI 302 re canvas of hotels, 1/15/02, & FBI 302 re int. instructors Sorbi Flight School, 4/11/02 INTELWIRE, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5/26/04, LAT, 7/24/04, MSNBC, 9/8/06

  18 activist/another man/“planes falling”: San Diego to Ottawa, 4/11/02, San Diego, Squad 15, to San Diego, 2/4/03, INTELWIRE, CR, 218–.

  19 “acting”/“nervous”: MFR 04017535, 11/18/03, MFR 04017543, 11/18/03, CF. In detention after 9/11, first as a material witness and then on immigration charges, Abdullah would refuse a 9/11 Commission request to interview him. While in prison, it was alleged, he told other inmates that he had known that Hazmi and Mihdhar were involved in plans for a terrorist attack. According to one inmate, he said he had known the plan was for a 9/11-style attack and that he “found out” three weeks before the attacks occurred. Abdullah, who had arrived in the United States via Canada using a Yemeni passport identifying him as “al Mihdhar Zaid” but then changed his name, was charged with an immigration offense and deported in 2003. 9/11 Commission executive director Philip Zelikow has described the report’s findings on Abdullah as “ominous.” In a 2004 interview with The Washington Post, however, Abdullah denied having had any foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Reports suggest the possibility that the hijacking references in the notebook found among his possessions may have been written by someone else (refuse: CR, 517n31; involved: ibid., 218–; “Zaid”: “Inside I.C.E. [Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” Dept. of Homeland Security, Vol. 4, 5/25–6/7/04, www.​ice.​gov; “ominous”: Zelikow to Shenon, 2/12/07, www.​philipshenon.​com; denied: WP, 8/10/04; notebook: ibid., 516n21, 218).

  20 obtained IDs: Staff Report, “9/11 & Terrorist Travel,” 39, FBI 302 of int. Victor Lopez-Flores, 9/23/01, 9/25/01, 10/06/01, 11/8/01, 11/13/01, “Lopez-Flores,” B11, T5, CF, Graham, with Nussbaum, 76

  21 airline reservations/tickets: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE

  22 frequent flier: ibid., Staff Report, “Monograph on the Four Flights & Civil Aviation Security,” CF, MH, 9/18/01

  23 changed assignments: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE

  24 Muslim meals: Time, 9/24/01

  25 beyond destinations: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE

  26 transcontinental/​fuel/​explosive: ibid., eds. Der Spiegel, 32.

  27 Atta thought: CR, 531n171. As things were to turn out, and as noted in Ch. 2 on p. 20, many Trade Center workers did not reach their place of work before the attacks began. They were delayed by voting in local elections and traffic jams.

  28 shopped knives/Stanley two-piece/​Leatherman/​Dollar House/folding knife: Staff Report, “Monograph on the Four Flights & Civil Aviation Security,” CF, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, witness list, “Hijacker Knife Purchases,” B18, T7, CF. The folding knife would be found later in Atta’s shipped baggage, which failed to make the transfer to American 11, the plane he hijacked on 9/11 (witness list, “Hijacker Knife Purchases,” B18, T7, CF).

  29 Principals convened/draft NSPD: CR, 213–, Farmer, 65–, Richard Clarke, 26

  30 State had told: WP, 1/20/02

  31 debate re Predator/dueled: ibid., Benjamin & Simon, 345–, CR, 214, Tenet, 160, corr. Miles Kara

  32 “I just couldn’t”: Vanity Fair, 2/09

  33 reconnaissance: CR, 214

  34 “I didn’t really”: Testimony of Richard Clarke, 3/24/04, CO

  35 “grasp the enormity”: MFR 04018415, 12/16/03, CF

  36 “It sounds”: New Yorker, 8/4/03

  37 strongly worded note: Staff Statement 8, CO, CR 212–, 343–, 513n247–

  38 Directive approved: CR, 213–.

  39 money left over/returned: Staff Report, Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO, PENTTBOM, Summary of Captioned Investigation,” 11/5/01, authors’ collection, Staff Statement 16, CO, Stipulation, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, 3/1/06. The return of funds notwithstanding, it has been alleged that Atta received $100,000 as late as August 2001. A story emerged in the Indian press soon after 9/11, supposedly citing sources in the FBI and Indian intelligence, claiming that the director of the Pakistani ISI, Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmed, ordered the supposed wire transfer of the money in either the summer of 2001 or 2000. The FBI told 9/11 Commission staff that there was no evidence Atta received a payment from the Pakistani ISI. Nor, indeed, were there “any unexplained funds at all.” One would wonder—if such a payment was made in August 2001—why it was required so late in the operation. Given the long-running enmity between Pakistan and India, the allegation may merely have been Indian propaganda. That said, Pakistani intelligence has had a long involvement with the Taliban, and allegedly with bin Laden. The U.S. government, meanwhile, has never determined the original source of any of the money used in the attack, though the mechanics of how it reached the hijackers is known ($100,000: e.g., Times of India, 10/9/01, Press Trust of India, 10/8/01, 10/15/01, WSJ, 10/10/01; ISI/al Qaeda: e.g., AP, 2/21/02, Fox News, 10/8/01, Asia Times, 1/5/02; no evidence: MFR 04019767, CF, Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO).

  40 “brothers”: Fouda & Fielding, 141

  41 Binalshibh flew/marathon/“The message”: ibid., MFR 04019351, 12/10–11/03, CF, Der Spiegel, 10/27/03, McDermott, 230.

  42 “referred”: Sunday Times (London), 10/7/01

  43 “information about”: NYT, 6/4/02

  44 Gary Hart/“preparedness”/Rice “said”: Salon, 9/12/01, Columbia Journalism Review, Nov./Dec. 2001, Statement by the President, 5/8/01, http://�
�usgovinfo.​about.​com, WP, 1/20/02, CR, 204

  45 Bush met Tenet: Salt Lake Tribune, 4/15/04.

  46 agent getting started/“security”/tentative feelers/ChoicePoint: CR, 270–, FBI IG, Kevin Fenton, Disconnecting the Dots, Walterville, OR: TrineDay, 2011, 345–. Another New York FBI agent, who ran an Internet search on September 11 after the attacks, found Mihdhar’s San Diego address “within hours.” (JI, 43)

  47 traffic policeman/Hazmi featured, etc.: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE. The previous occasions Hamzi had come to the notice of the police are reported on p. 324.

  48 Shuckums: Time, 9/24/01, Hopsicker, 81–, Newsweek, 9/24/01, St. Petersburg Times, 9/1/02. FBI agents who looked into the Shuckums story evidently thought it occurred on September 6. Atta could not have been there on the 7th, as some press reports had it, as he flew from Fort Lauderdale to Baltimore that day (“Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE).

  49 Atta/Jarrah sold cars/headed north: ibid., Stipulation, 3/1/06 & Exhibit OG0020.2, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Chronology of Events for Hijackers, Ziad Jarrah chronology, 3/20/02, “03009470 ACS Download Documents, Packet 6,” CF, Staff Statement 16, CO. A story would emerge that Atta and Shehhi were at the Holiday Inn at Longboat Key that day, in west Florida and not far from where President Bush would arrive on the eve of 9/11. The authors interviewed Darlene Sievers and Mark Bean, hotel workers who thought they saw them there, but the record indicates that they were mistaken (Longboat Observer, 11/21/01, ints. Darlene Sievers, Mark Bean).

  50 Sweet Temptations: MFR 04020636, 2/2/04, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE

  51 “the most”/twice: Boston Herald, 10/10/01, 10/11/01

  52 $100 apiece: BG, 10/10/01, The Independent (U.K.), 10/11/01

  53 porn video: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, WSJ, 10/16/01

  54 paid dancer: NYT, 9/27/01, 10/28/01

  55 Panther Motel/found: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, St. Petersburg Times, 9/1/02

  56 Jarrah ticket: NY Daily News, 1/9/02, Ziad Jarrah chronology, 3/20/02, “03009470 ACS Download Documents, Packet 6,” CF

  57 Jarrah called: Ziad Jarrah chronology, 3/20/02

  58 $2,000: Fisk, The Great War, 1051

  59 sister’s wedding/suit: LAT, 10/23/01.

  60 Jarrah package: Stipulation, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, letter reproduced at http://​en.​wikepedia.​org—Arabic & Turkish translated for the authors by Hans Kippenberg & Tilman Seidensticker, “The Fifth Estate: The Story of Ziad Jarrah,” 10/10/01, www.​cbc.​ca. Jarrah’s mind was evidently on his girlfriend, Aysel, a great deal during his last days alive. He called more than usual, she would remember, four times between the Thursday of the week before 9/11 and the morning of the strikes. He appears to have made the final call when he was already at Newark Airport preparing to board United Flight 93. As fate would have it, according to Sengün, she had to cut the call short because it was a busy moment in the hospital where she was working. There had been nothing out of the ordinary about the call, she would remember—Jarrah had said he loved her. Sengün has not given interviews and it is thought German authorities placed her under some form of witness protection (Sengün sworn statement to police in Germany, 9/15/01, in authors’ collection).

  61 told later/she would hope: LAT, 1/27/03.

  62 Mihdhar packet: Stipulation, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, 3/1/06, Bamford, Shadow Factory, 81. One FBI document suggests Mihdhar’s letter to his wife was in fact sent not by Mihdhar but by Hazmi. This is clearly in error, not least because—unlike Mihdhar—Hazmi had no wife. As reported earlier, he had been attempting and failing to find himself a wife

  63 Atta had told/called father: CR, 249

  64 KSM to Pakistan: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Charge Sheet,” 4/15/08, www.​findlaw.​com

  65 told disperse/alert: Bergen, OBL I Know, 307–, Fouda & Fielding, 141

  66 “big plan”/“far”/“My mother”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 279–

  67 Najwa asked/​condition/​ring: ibid., 281–, 312. The children allowed to leave were two-year-old Nour, a boy, four-year-old Rukhaiya, a girl, and Abdul Rahman, a son born in 1978. In the spring of 2002, the Saudi-owned journal was to publish an interview supposedly given by one of bin Laden’s wives, identified only as “A.S.” Before 9/11, according to her purported interview, bin Laden “came to the house, gave me a telephone, and told me to call my family and tell them we were going somewhere else and that there would be no news of me for a long time.” There is much accompanying detail, including a reference to the interviewee’s “sons.” The authenticity of the interview is dubious. Though the initials match those of Amal al-Sadah, a seventeen-year-old Yemeni bin Laden married in late 2000 or early 2001, she has reportedly borne him only a daughter. She could hardly have given birth to sons by early 2002 (Nour et al.: bin Ladens & Sasson, 282; “A.S.”: BBC, AP, 3/13/02)

  68 “soft-spoken”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 8

  69 Najwa prayed: ibid., 282.

  Part VI: TWENTY-FOUR HOURS

  CHAPTER 29

  1 Fuller search/“Sheraton”: FBI IG, CR, 271–, 539n84–85, Fenton, 312

  2 tracks all over: Newsweek, 6/10/06, Lance, Triple Cross, 349–, CR, 539n85

  3 Moussaoui detention/agents begged/​blocked/​Samit shared/​Harry/​Permission: FBI IG, Kiser to Samit, 9/10/01, Exhibit 334, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, ABC News, 3/20/06

  4 Ashcroft turned down/not increased: Staff Statement 9, CO, Newsweek, 5/27/02, Benjamin & Simon, 348

  5 “very docile”: NYT, 6/2/02.

  6 “The Big Wedding”/“aircraft”: John Cooley, a renowned Middle East specialist, reported in 2002 that the “Big Wedding” warning came in “late summer,” and referred to an attack within the United States involving airplanes. CNN, reporting earlier, referred to a Jordanian warning “a few days” before 9/11—but suggested that it related to a coming attack not in the United States but on resort hotels in Jordan. According to CIA director Tenet, “a source we were jointly running with a Middle Eastern country” went to his foreign handler on September 10 to say “something big” was about to happen. He was ignored (“Wedding”: Cooley, 229, International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, CNN, 11/19/01; “something big”: Tenet, 160).

  7 France passed: Le Figaro, 11/1/01

  8 Feinstein/“One of”/“Despite”: Late Edition, CNN, 7/1/01, Statement of Dianne Feinstein, 5/17/01, http://​feinstein.​senate.​gov, Newsweek, 5/27/02, MSNBC, 9/28/06.

  9 Massoud assassinated/“journalists’ ”: CR, 214, Time, 8/12/02, Burke, Al-Qaeda, 197. After 9/11, when U.S. strikes on Afghanistan had routed Taliban and al Qaeda forces, Wall Street Journal reporter Alan Cullison made remarkable discoveries on a computer that had belonged to the terrorists. The hard drive contained a letter, apparently crafted by Ayman al-Zawahiri, purporting to be the “journalists’ ” request for the Massoud interview (WSJ, 12/31/01)

  10 widow: Bergen, OBL I Know, 297–

  11 O’Neill had warned/​frustrated/​resigned/“We’re due”: Murray Weiss, The Man Who Warned America, NY: Regan, 2003, 180–, 320–, 362, 370–, Frontline: “The Man Who Knew,” PBS, 10/3/02.

  12 Putin: int. of Putin for Iran & the West: Nuclear Confrontation, BBC, 2/7/09. While-Putin was to say clearly that he spoke with Bush the day before the attack, the former President referred in his 2010 memoir only to a conversation afterward (Bush, 369–)

  13 Massoud assassination/analyzed implications: Coll, Holy War Inc., 582–, Tenet, 174

  14 memoir not refer: e.g. see Bush, 187, 196

  15 Deputies tinkered/eliminate OBL: CR, 206, Farmer, 68

  16 “literally headed”: CBS News, 9/11/02

  17 “eerie”: int. Rice by Bob Woodward, “Farmer Misc.,” B9, NYC files, CF

  18 PM of Australia: Sept. 10 entries, Public Papers of the Presidents, 2001, www.​gpoaccess.​gov

  19 helicopter: Goldberg et al., Ch. 4


  20 Bush at Colony: int. Katie Moulton, Sarasota Magazine, 11/01, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02

  21 “soft event”: WP, 1/27/02

  22 “Tomorrow”/“The match”: Report, JI, 32, 205, 375, Graham with Nussbaum, 138–, CBS News, 6/20/02, Bamford, Shadow Factory, 92.

  23 Arabs gathered/“finally”: MFR 04017535, 11/18/03, MFR 04017537, 11/18/03, CR 249–

  24 Dulles/​Boston/​Newark hotels: “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, Stipulation, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, 3/1/06.

  25 drove Portland/Comfort Inn/​ATM/​Walmart/​Pizza Hut/phone calls: What Atta bought at the Walmart, though, according to an FBI document, was a “6-volt battery converter”—a puzzling purchase for a would-be hijacker expecting to go to his death in the morning. “Chronology of Events for Hijackers, 8/16/01,” U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibits OG00020.2, FO07011, FO07021, FO07022, FO07023, FO07024, “265D-NY-280350, TWINBOM-PENTTBOM, Biographical Report,” 11/26/01, National Drug Intelligence Center for the FBI, authors’ collection, FBI press release, 10/14/01, entries for 9/10/01 & 9/11/01, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, FBI 302 of [name redacted], 10/15/01, “FBI 302s of Interest,” B17, T7, CF, FBI Timeline of 9–11 Hijacker Activity & Movements, “Timelines 9–11, 2 of 2,” B20, T7, CF.

  26 Kara: “Chaos and Ghosts,” www.​oredigger61.​org, corr. Miles Kara, 2010.

  27 Rolince: “Staff Notes of Int. Michael Rolince, 6/9/04,” B70, T5, CF. The authors note that by an FBI account Caysan bin Don, the American Muslim who featured in an episode in January 2000—he was Bayoumi’s companion the day he and Bayoumi had their supposedly chance meeting with newly arrived Mihdhar and Hazmi—was in Portland on September 11. It is hard to imagine, though, why Atta could conceivably have needed to meet with bin Don just before 9/11. Other hypotheses to try to explain the Portland expedition include the suggestion (not dissimilar to Miles Kara’s) that Atta was worried lest the sight of as many as ten Arabs checking in at Boston for the two targeted flights to Los Angeles attract undue attention. The bottom line is that the trip remains unexplained. As the 9/11 Commission Report noted, “no physical, documentary, or analytical evidence” explains the Portland trip (location of bin Don: MFR 04018561, 11/20/03, MFR 04019254, 4/20/04, & see National Enquirer, 11/6/01; met bin Don: “Staff Notes of Int. Michael Rolince, 6/9/04,” B70, T5, CF; other hypotheses: AP, 10/4/01, NYT, 9/11/02; Commission: CR, 451n1).