Category Archives: Wars of the Middle East

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XXIV.

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At about 9:45 the President told the Vice President that “We’re at war… somebody’s going to pay.” (p. 61.) According to Richard Clarke, on the evening of 12 September 2001 President Bush told him to “See if Saddam did this. See if he’s linked in any way.” (p. 478.)

 

In a Principals meeting on 13 September 2001 the group “concluded that if Pakistan decided not to help [deal with al Qaeda and the Taliban], it too would be at risk.” Richard Armitage then gave the ambassador from Pakistan and the head of Pakistan’s intelligence service a list of American requirements that same day. (p. 473.) Pakistan immediately (that same day) agreed with the American requests. (p. 474.)

 

On 9/11 the Chairman of the Joint-Chiefs, General Hugh Shelton, was out of the country. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld therefore worked closely with the Vice Chairman, General Richard Myers. (p. 59.) On the afternoon of 9/11, Rumsfeld told Myers that his instinct was to attack Saddam Hussein as well as Bin Laden. Rumsfeld explained to the Commission investigators that he considered it possible that either one of them was responsible for the attack. (pp. 478-479.)  In a conference of leading officials late on 11 September 2001, “Secretary Rumsfeld urged the President and the principals to think broadly about who might have harbored the attackers, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, and Iran. He wondered aloud how much evidence the United States would need in order to deal with these countries, pointing out that major strikes could take up to 60 days to assemble.” (p. 472.) NB: Decide who you are going to hit, get the preparations going, then turn to looking for evidence so that you can act as soon as you lay the evidence out in the court of international public opinion.

Between 12 and 14 September 2001 the Defense Department prepared a paper for inclusion in the briefing book for the Camp David meeting. This paper argued that al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Iraq formed the most pressing targets in the war on terrorism. Iraq was linked to support for terrorism and to the quest for WMDs. (p. 479.)

On the week-end of 15-16 September 2001 Bush brought his war council to Camp David. According to Condaleeza Rice, at the first session Rumsfeld asked what should be done about Iraq and Wolfowitz argued in favor of hitting Iraq during “this round” of the war on terrorism. (p. 478.)   According to Colin Powell, “Paul [Wolfowitz] was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with. And he saw this as one way of using this event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem.” (Quoted, p. 479.) Wolfowitz’s views did not prevail in the discussion. President Bush subsequently told Bob Woodward that the council decided against attacking Iraq in the first session on the morning of 15 September 2110. (pp. 479-480.)

Wolfowitz is not a guy to take “No” for an answer. On 17 September 2001 he sent Rusmfeld a memo in which he reviewed Saddam Hussein’s record of supporting terrorism and the theories that Ramzi Yousef had been an Iranian agent. He concluded by arguing that Saddam Hussein should be eliminated even if there was only a ten percent chance of Iraq’s involvement in the attacks. (p. 480.) On 18 September 2001 Wolfowitz sent Rumsfeld another memo or a note adding the information that Ramzi Yousef’s co-conspirator in the Manila plot had also talked about crashing a plane into CIA headquarters. (p. 480.)

On 18 September 2001 Clarke sent to Rice a memo on a “Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraqi Involvement in the September 11 Attacks.” Clarke found no compelling evidence of Iraqi involvement and several reasons why Iraq and al Qaeda would not cooperate. (p. 478.)

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XXIII.

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The first thing to say is that the suddenness of the attacks overwhelmed all concerned, both in the air and on the ground. The seizures of the planes took place between 15 and 45 minutes after take-off. The planes crashed between 20 and 45 minutes after seizure. The attackers were eager to get it done. The planes were seized over the course of about an hour and a quarter. People on the ground became aware that hijackings underway over the course of an hour and thirteen minutes. (Even before being informed of the fourth hijacking, FAA’s Command Center ordered a nationwide “ground stop.” That is, everyone was ordered to get their planes on the ground as soon as possible and no more flights were allowed to take off.) The planes crashed over the course of an hour and seventeen minutes. This prevented an effective response.

What would have constituted an “effective response”? Shooting down the first three planes before they hit their targets. Fomenting revolts by cell-phone on the first three planes on the grounds that “you’re all going to die anyway.”

The second thing to say is that there was some confusion on the ground. Thus, AA 11 hit the World Trade Center at 8:46 AM. At 9:16 was AA HQ aware that AA 11 had hit the WTC.

At 9:20, FAA HQ informed the Boston Air Traffic Control (ATC) Center that AA 11 was still airborne. At 9:21, Boston ATC Center informed North American Air Defense Sector (NEADS) that AA 11 was still airborne and headed for Washington. Thus, between 8:56 and 9:05, a radar glitch left Indianapolis ATC Center blind to real position of AA 77. Indianapolis ATC assumed that the plane had crashed. Meanwhile, by 9:05, AA HQ had become aware that AA 77 had been hijacked. Between 9:05 and 9:10, AA 77 reappeared on Indianapolis radar headed east. However, observers had stopped looking for it because it was believed to have crashed and they did not notice it. It flew east for another 36 minutes undetected. Thus, only at 9:34 did the FAA informally—almost accidentally–advise NEADS that AA 77 was missing. At 9:36 NEADS was informed that there is a fast-moving, unidentified aircraft in-bound toward Washington. At 9:37 AA 77 hit the Pentagon.

The American Air Traffic Control system is not a battlefield management system. It does something else.

The third thing to say is that the federal bureaucracy appears to promote people based on their ability to follow established procedures, with a bias toward not getting people riled up. In the case of AA 11, the first plane seized, between 8:25 and 8:32 the Boston ATC Center notified the chain of command above that a plane had been hijacked. At 8:32, the FAA Command Center, Herndon, VA, informed FAA HQ of the hijacking. However, FAA HQ did not inform National Military Command Center (NMCC) as protocol required. On the other hand, between 8:34 and 8:38, the Boston ATC Center by-passed the established protocol and directly contacted NEADS. By 8:38, Boston ATC notified NEADS of hijacking.

Between 8:38 and 8:46, NEADS obtained approval from the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) to scramble the fighters. At 8:46, NEADS ordered fighter jets from Otis AFB to “scramble” (get in the air ASAP). This was the same moment that AA 11 hit the WTC North Tower. By 8:53, the NEAD jets from Otis were airborne.

There is a certain resemblance between the Boston ATC people bypassing procedure to directly contact NEADS and the improvised manhunt for al Qaeda terrorists already in the United States conducted in Summer 2001 by junior officers at CIA and FBI. Never buck anything up the line because someone will say “No.”

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XXII.

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Back in the 1990s both the FBI and the Federal Aviation Authority became concerned about the possibility of terrorist attacks on US airlines. The chief concern of the security officials was that someone might buy a ticket, check luggage containing a time-bomb, and then not board the flight (allowing some anxious college student traveling stand-by to heave a sigh of relief and rush to take the seat suddenly made available). To address this problem, a Computer-Assisted-Passenger-Pre-Screening (CAPPS) system was created. The system cross-checked names of passengers against security “watch lists.” If a passenger name appeared on a “watch list,” the passenger’s checked luggage was held off the plane until the passenger had actually boarded the plane and could be screened for explosives. No supplementary examination of the passenger took place.

CAPPS formed the chief line of defense for the airlines on 11 September 2001.

Airlines and government security officials did not anticipate either suicide bombings or hijackers turning the planes themselves into cruise missiles. Was there any basis for anticipating such acts?

A dozen airliners were hijacked in the 1960s; 42 were hijacked in the 1970s; 24 were hijacked in the 1980s; 16 had been hijacked in the 1990s; and 6 were hijacked in 2000 or early 2001. It would have been easy to assume that this problem was well on its way to being controlled. Occasionally–once in 1987, once in 1988, and twice in 1994–there had been failed attempts to seize an airliner to use as a cruise missile against a building. In 1991 Shamil Besaev, a leader of the Chechen opposition to Russia, had hijacked a jet.

In 1983 Hezbollah suicide bombers had attacked the American embassy, and the U.S. Marine and French barracks in Beirut. About fifty other suicide attacks followed.

Between 1987 and 2000 the Tamil Tigers carried out many perhaps as many as 175 suicide bombings.

Between July 1989 and December 2000 Hamas and Palestinian Jihad had carried out 28 suicide attacks directed against Israel. The attacks had killed 170 people. Between January and August 2001, Hamas and Palestinian Jihad had conducted 26 suicide attacks directed against Israel. The attacks had killed 52 people. So, a sudden spike in suicide attacks.

In Summer 2000, Chechen suicide attacks on Russian troops took place in the North Caucasus region. These were ordered by Shamil Basaev.

Most pertinently, Al Qaeda had used suicide bombers to attack the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 and the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000.

That amounts to a lot of disparate pieces of the jig-saw puzzle to put together.

Boston: American 11 and United 175. In Portland, Maine, boarding his connecting flight to Logan Airport, Mohamed Atta had been identified by CAPPS as subject to special security precautions: his checked luggage was held aside until it was confirmed that he had boarded the plane. (p. 4.) At Logan, three other members of his team were identified by CAPPS and the same restriction on loading luggage was applied. (p. 5.)

Washington Dulles: American 77. Three members of the hijacking team were selected by CAPPS; two others were picked out by a suspicious counter agent. All five had their checked luggage held off the plane until it was confirmed that they had boarded the plane. (pp. 5-6.)

Newark: United 93. One of the hijacking team members was selected by CAPPS. His checked bag was checked for explosives, then loaded on the plane when none were detected. (p. 7.)

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XXI.

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The rising concern about terrorist attacks in Spring 2001 intersected a knowledge of Midhar’s travels in southeast Asia on the part of a CIA officer, called “John” by the Commission. On 15 May 2001 and in conjunction with a CIA superior, “John” milled through a lot of cables from early 2000 to discover what had become of Midhar. He figured out that Midhar had been in touch with Khallad, that Khallad was a “major league killer,” and that Midhar had come to the US over a year before.

The CIA superior dropped the issue at this point, but “John” contacted a CIA analyst, called “Dave” by the Commission, for help in analyzing what the cables might mean. “Dave” was involved in the investigation of the bombing of the Cole; one of his associates in this project was an FBI analyst, called “Jane” by the Commission.

“Dave” seems to have shared the concerns of “John” about Khallad with “Jane.” “Jane,” in turn, knew that Khallad had been in touch with Fahd al Quso, who had been interviewed by FBI agents from New York. “Dave” set up a meeting between himself, “Jane,” an FBI analyst detailed to the CIA’s Bin Ladin unit, called “Mary” by the Commission, and the agents. “John” gave “Dave” copies of the photos identified by the joint FBI/CIA source in Yemen as Midhar and Khallad to show to the FBI agents. The meeting, on 11 June 2001, was a disaster in the sense that “Jane” believed that she was not allowed to reveal any information about the reason the photos were taken (subjects linked to Middle Eastern terrorism) and “Dave” was barred from revealing CIA information to outsiders. (pp. 384-387.)

Undeterred when he learned of these failures to communicate, “John” persuaded “Mary” to review all the material herself. However, “John” had no authority to make this a real assignment, so he cozened her into doing it in her “spare time.” “Mary” agreed, but had no “spare time” until 24 July 2001.

In little snatches of time between 24 July and 22 August 2001 “Mary” discovered that the known jihadist Midhar had obtained a visa to come to the United States in January 2000, that he had listed New York as his destination, that the CIA had reported that Hazmi, another known jihadist, was flown to Los Angeles in January 2000, and that Midhar had come to the United States in January 2000, then left in June 2000, then re-entered the country on 4 July 2001. “Mary” and “Jane” conferred. “Mary” then got the CIA’s Bin Ladin unit to request that Midhar and Hazmi be placed on the State Department’s watchlist so that they would be spotted if they passed through Customs (24 August 2001).

“Jane” talked over the issues with “John” in an effort to decide whether the search for Midhari and Hazmi should be treated as an intelligence matter or as a criminal matter. This may have delayed the message being sent until 28 August 2001.

“Jane” asked the New York field office of the FBI to try to find Midhar and Hamzi if they were still in the United States; the agent bucked the request up the line to his supervisor; the supervisor immediately kicked it to an “intelligence” FBI agent (on one side of the “wall”), to the Cole investigators (on the other side of the “wall”), and to an FBI agent who had been hunting KSM (just in case it made a useful connection). (pp. 387-388.) NB: “It appears that no one informed the higher levels of management in either the FBI or CIA about the case.” (p. 389.) See what happened with the hijackings.

The Cole agents tried to follow up with “Jane” through direct communications in order to obtain more information, but she invoked the rules barring contact between “intelligence” and “criminal” investigators. This enraged the Cole investigators, who were obviously trying to by-pass the regulations in what is probably common practice, because it shut them out of the investigation.

The hunt for Midhar then fell to a single, greenhorn counter-intelligence agent in the New York field office. Unsurprisingly, he failed to catch up with them before 11 September 2001. (pp. 390-31.)

 

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XX.

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The FBI had treated the USS Cole bombing in August 2000 as a criminal case and had sent agents to Yemen to conduct the investigation. Here they had the assistance of the CIA. A joint FBI/CIA source described someone named “Khallad,” who had directed the bombing. Four months later (December 2000), another conspirator being interrogated mentioned knowing a man named Khallad, who was a senior agent of OBL. The same FBI agent seems to have been informed of both conversations and made the connection. He got a photo of the man believed to have directed the Cole attack and had the person identified by the captured conspirator as Khallad. This established a connection between the Cole attack and OBL.

Kicking the issue around in December 2000, the CIA’s Bin Ladin unit wondered if “Khallad” was Khalid al Midhar. In January 2001 a surveillance photo of Midhar taken in Kuala Lumpur in January 2000 was shown to the source who had identified “Khallad” as the leader of the Cole attack. The source denied that Midhar was “Khallad”; instead, “Khallad” was the other man in the photo. This meant that Midhar was in touch with an important subordinate of OBL and that Midhar had been in the United States for a year.

However, the FBI agent present for this interview spoke no foreign languages and had to depend on the accompanying CIA agent to conduct the interview.   The FBI agent merely received a report from which the identification of Khallad with Midhar had been omitted. Thus, in January 2000 the CIA had failed to inform the FBI that Midhar, a suspected terrorist, had departed from Bangkok for Los Angeles; in January 2001 the CIA failed to inform the FBI that Midhar had links to Islamic terrorists implicated in major terrorist attacks against the United States. (pp. 382- 384.)

The heir of Nasser.

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Abdel-Fattah al Sisi (1954- )[1] grew up in Cairo; his father sold knick-knacks to tourists and wanted something better for his children. He stressed self-discipline and study. His children absorbed the lesson. About the time of the Yom Kippur/Ramadan War (1973), Abdel al Sisi chose to become a soldier. He graduated from the Egyptian Military Academy in 1977. He rose in rank, alternating between staff and command assignments.[2] He did military courses in American (1981), Britain (1992) and America again (2002), and served as the Egyptian military attaché in Saudi Arabia. In 2008 al Sisi took command of the Northern Military District, headquartered in Alexandria. After this command, he jumped to become chief of military intelligence. These promotions brought him membership in the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, a group of twenty-odd senior military officers who intermittently exert great influence.

In 2011, the “Arab Spring” reached Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand the ouster of the long-serving dictator, Hosni Mubarak. A panicky Obama administration added its voice to the chorus. Eventually, the Egyptian military bent to avoid breaking. Mubarak went to a hospital-prison, and—eventually–elections put the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammad Morsi at the head of a civilian government. In 2012, Morsi wanted to get rid of the Minister of Defense, General Mohammad Tantawi, who had commanded the early crack-down on dissent. Al Sisi was reputed to be a conservative Muslim.[3] What’s the worst that could happen?

Morsi soon wore out his welcome with the military and its allies in Egyptian society.[4] In June 2013 the military evicted Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power. American policy pin-balled in response: President Obama delayed delivery of some military equipment to express concern, while Secretary of State John Kerry hailed the restoration of “democracy” by the military overthrow of an elected government.[5] Al Sisi got busy expanding democracy by driving a new round of protestors off the streets of Cairo. (About a thousand of them were killed.)

Lots of Egyptians—and ones who mattered a lot more than either Muslim Brotherhood beardies or tech-savvy young people—welcomed the coup-that-dared-not-speak-its-name. In June 2014 al Sisi won election as President of Egypt. Since then, al Sisi has cracked down on Islamists, talked about economic innovations like cutting the subsidies that fuel inflation and expanding the capacity of the Suez Canal. He has sought closer relations with Russia and with Saudi Arabia—both of which are fed up with American uncertainty.

Curiously, for a kid often described as quiet and bookish, al Sisi became a “charistmatic” and a “passionate” speaker. So, “Bad Moon Rising”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-DkyMXTo5Q

The World is what it is.

“Egypt’s New Strong Man,” The Week, 6 September 2013, p. 11.

[1] So, he’s my age and has accomplished a lot more.

[2] If he had a specialty it was anti-tank weapons. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) has a great many tanks.

[3] Rumor has it that his wife wears the “niqab.” No Westerner has ever seen her, so who can say?

[4] Since 1953 Egypt has been run by an alliance between the military and the economic elites—rural landowners and urban industrialists. The ignorance of the American press about the nature of Egyptian society and politics is surprising. Or perhaps not: they don’t know much about American society or politics either.

[5] See: Rene Magritte.

 

Holy Land.

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First the people of the Middle East “Medized” (adapted to Persian rule); then they “Hellenized” (adapted to Greek rule); then they “Romanized” (adapted to Roman rule); then they “Christianized” (accepted Christianity as the sole true faith); and then they “Islamized” (accepted Islam as the sole true faith). Not a great example of sticking to your guns, but pretty normal human behavior.[1] Of course, there were always people who didn’t want to go along. As one leading expert has said, “the Jews are a stiff-necked people.” In similar fashion, some Christians clung to their faith under Islam. As late as 1900, fully a quarter of the population of the Ottoman Empire was Christian.

Then came the tumultuous 20th Century. First, nationalism spread among the Christian peoples of the lower Balkans. In 1908 Austria-Hungary seized Bosnia to keep Serb nationalists from getting their hands on it. In 1912, the Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians conquered most of what remained of Turkey-in-Europe. In the early 1920s, the Greeks tried to conquer a big chunk of Turkey that contained many Greek and Armenian Christians. They over-reached and many Christians died or were expelled in the blood-bath that followed. Second, the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire broke up into nation-states that included adherence to Islam in their national identity. Arab birth rates rose (a sign of optimism), while Christians either had small families or emigrated (either one a sign of pessimism). By 2000 Christians made up only five percent of the population of the Middle East.

Since then, things have gotten dramatically worse. The secular dictatorships that ruled Iraq, Syria, and Egypt after they gained independence from the imperial powers had long repressed sectarian conflicts as well as human rights and liberty.[2] The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 toppled one of these regimes. The Syrian civil war weakened another one. The “Arab Spring” let loose sectarian hostilities long held in check by the Mubarak regime in Egypt. Fearful Christians often sided with the secular regimes, so they came to be seen as counter-revolutionary and anti-democratic by those who already had a grievance against them. Faith-based initiatives followed. Both sides in the Sunni-Shi’ite civil war in Iraq targeted Christians.   The bulk of the opponents of the Assad regime have always been conservative Sunni Muslims who leaned toward Islamism. Muhammad Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood dominated the writing of an Egyptian constitution that assigned a central place in society to Islam. The Morsi government did little to rein-in a wave of popular violence directed against Egyptian Christians.

As a result of this anti-Christian violence, 600,000 Iraqi Christians and 300,000 Syrian Christians had fled abroad by May 2013. Iraqi and Syrian Christians could flee to Turkey, still a peaceful and more-or-less secular state. Egyptian Christians didn’t have that option.[3]

Then there’s Pakistan, where a Christian couple were murdered by a mob on a false charge of blasphemy in Fall 2014. Not the first case of this. Can you say “Leo Frank”?

 

[1] Still, one can’t help but wonder if the Arabs aren’t the spineless descendants of spineless ancestors.

[2] I suppose one might think of lynching Christians as a “civil right” in a certain kind of society. Kind of like standing Tsarist Russia on its head.

[3] Maybe we could create Xr15t0 visas?

 

“The Battle of Algiers” (1966).

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Saadi Yacef was born in Algiers, the capital city of Algeria, in 1928. He learned the trade of baker, but didn’t learn to read or write. Yacef became involved in nationalist politics from 1945 on. From 1947 to 1949 he was a member of a secret nationalist para-military organization. The French stomped on this organization. Escaping the round-up, Yacef went to France for three years. While working as a baker, he thought a lot about what he had learned about conspiracy. He returned to Algiers in 1952. When the Algerian war for independence broke out in 1954, Yacef joined up. From May 1956 to September 1957 he commanded the Algerian nationalist forces inside the city of Algiers. The French captured him in September 1957, then kept him in prison until the end of the war in 1962. In prison he purportedly wrote a memoir of the Battle of Algiers. That memoir became the basis for the screen-play of the movie “The Battle of Algiers.”

Enter Gillo Pontecorvo, who was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1919. Well-off, Jewish, and trained in science, Pontecorvo fled Mussolini’s Italy for France in 1938. While scratching out a living as a journalist, he met a lot of interesting people in Paris and got started in the movie business. After the Second World War broke out, Pontecorvo returned to Italy to join the Communist Party and the Resistance movement. He led the Communist Party’s resistance organization in Milan from 1943 to 1945, so he knew a good deal about living on the run and blowing up things. After the war, Pontecorvo taught himself to make movies. He remained a Communist until 1956, and never stopped being a “man on the Left.” His movies had a strong anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist strain in them. So he was a natural for the Algerians who were seeking a director to tell the story of their war against the French.

Pontecorvo had his own style. He shot the movie in black-and-white. He shot it on location, with the eager assistance of the post-colonial Algerian government. The combined effect is to make it look like a documentary. He liked using amateurs, whose faces looked right for the scene, rather than professional actors. (His one exception in this movie was Jean Martin, a former member of the French Resistance and a paratrooper in the Indo-China War, who plays the commander of the French paratroopers.) You can see he had watched a lot of Eisenstein.

Colonel Mathieu, the para commander is a composite of several real French officers (Jacques Massu, Marcel Bigeard, Yves Godard). Many of the other leading characters are based on real people: Andre Achiary (the mustached police officer), Ali “la Pointe” Ammar, “le petit Omar,” Hassiba Ben Bouali, Djamila Bouhired (who later married Klaus Barbie’s defense attorney), and Zohra Drif (actually Yacef’s girlfriend at the time). Some of them are still living.

The movie came out in 1966. The French government banned it for five years; Fidel Castro’s Cuba awarded it a big prize. So that’s a wash. The movie deserves to be evaluated in its own right as a work of art. More to our purposes is the reception it has received from professionals in the insurgency line of work. Andreas Baader, one leader of a 1970s German terrorist group, claimed it was his favorite movie. Israeli audiences flocked to see the movie in 1988 when it was shown at the same time as the Palestinian “First Intifada” broke out. In Summer 2003, shortly after completion of the major military operations phase of the Iraq War, the US DoD’s Directorate for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict sponsored several showings of the movie in the Pentagon. So, a lot of people at the sharp end of the business thought that it had some lessons to teach. What are they?

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XIX.

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The “planes operation” called for a large group of “muscle hijackers” to seize the cockpits of airliners in flight, then bar to door to any rebellious passengers while the smaller number of pilots flew the planes into buildings.

The “muscle hijackers” all obtained new passports in their home countries, then during September, October, and November 2000, obtained visas to enter the United States. (p. 340.) The muscle hijackers were back in Afghanistan from late 2000/early 2001 until Spring 2001. In Afghanistan they were given advanced training on terrorism, much—but not all–of which dealt with seizing control of an airplane in flight. (pp. 341-342.)

In April, May, and June 2001 the muscle hijackers began being moved toward the United States. (pp. 341-342.) In early July 2001 Midhar, the original hijacker who had bailed out for a time, returned to the United States. (p. 344.) Upon arrival in the United States, most of the muscle hijackers were brought to Florida. They seem to have spent their time going to gyms to work out. Thus, the muscle hijackers were in the United States from April through August 2001 at the longest. Three to five months for something to go wrong for al Qaeda; three to five months for the US government to notice something odd about twenty foreigners.

During Spring and Summer 2001 the pilots made several reconnaissance flights. Some of these were across the United States in the same type of planes they would command during the final attack; others were in small aircraft along the “Hudson Corridor” air route that passes Manhattan. (pp. 352-353.) They also did a lot of practice flying in small planes.

In June 2001 UBL pressed KSM to attack in June or July 2001, possibly to coincide with a visit to Washington by Ariel Sharon, but KSM resisted this pressure. (p. 360.) Instead, in July 2001 the “planes operation” had to be postponed until September 2001 because of another glitch (probably the uncertainty over one of the pilits, Zaid Jarrah). (p. 360.) Jarrah differed from the other hijackers in a number of ways and he also resented the domineering Atta; by July 2001 the conflict between the two men aroused concern that Jarrah might back out of the operation. (pp. 352-353.) In late July 2001 Jarrah returned to Germany with a one-way ticket purchased by his girl-friend in Germany.

In early July 2001 Mohammad Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh met in Spain to confer on last details. Atta was trying to co-ordinate four transcontinental air flights that would be departing almost simultaneously from East Coast cities. Moreover, Atta was aware that national leaders were usually on vacation in August and therefore out of Washington, DC. He wanted to delay the attack until early September. (p. 356.) NB: Atta wanted to kill a lot of members of Congress.

On 10 July 2001 Zacarias Moussaoui arranged to take renewed flight training in Egan, Minnesota, with the course scheduled to run from 13 to 20 August 2001. In late July 2001 Binalshibh wire transferred $15,000 to Moussaoui. (p. 354.) On 10 August 2001 Moussaoui left Oklahoma for Minnesota; on 13 August 2001 he began his simulator training, but aroused the suspicion of his instructors; several days later he was arrested by the INS. (pp. 354-355.)

Then things began to move forward for the operation. In the first half of August 2001 Jarrah returned to the United States to assume his place as one of the pilots. Moussaoui was now irrelevant. Between 29 June and 17 September 2000 Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, another nephew of KSM wire-transferred $114,500 in five tranches. (p. 324.) Between 25 August and 5 September 2001 all the plane tickets were purchased. (p. 357.) The attack would come on 11 September 2001.

 

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XVIII.

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The 9/11 Commission believes that UBL had arranged for someone in the United States to receive Hazmi and Midhar, the first two al Qaeda agents to arrive in the United States. Who were the contacts?

One likely candidate was Fahad al Thumairy, a Saudi consul in Los Angeles and an imam at the King Fahd mosque there who is believed to have been an extremist. However, there is no concrete proof. (pp. 313-314.)

The most likely candidate was Mohdar Abdullah, a Yemeni whom jailhouse snitches subsequently claimed had boasted about having foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. (p. 316.) Abdullah drove the two men from Los Angeles to San Diego, served as a translator, helped them get California driver’s licenses, helped them sign up for languages classes and flying lessons, and introduced them to his circle of friends. (pp. 318-319.) Abdullah seems to have helped Hazmi get a job at a gas station where Abdullah worked. (p. 322.)

A third possibility is Yazeed al Salmi, who only came to the United States in July or August 2000. On 5 September 2000 Hazmi deposited $1,900 of al Salmi’s travelers cheques in his own bank account and withdrew the same amount of cash; al Salmi then lived in the same apartment with Hazmi until about October, when he moved in with Abdullah. (p. 322.)

Hazmi and Midhar arrived in Los Angeles on 15 January 2000; by the end of May 2000 they had abandoned the effort to learn to fly. They could not learn English, so they could not take flying lessons. Indeed, Midhar had become homesick and flew back to Yemen to visit his family in early June 2000. Hamzi hung around the mosque, then got a part-time job in a gas station.

The plot did not seem to be going forward. Nevertheless, KSM and OBL were not easily deterred.

A group of Muslim students living in Hamburg, Germany, had become radicalized by some means that still is not clear. In late 1999, fired by a desire to join in “jihad,” four of the group had left Germany for Afghanistan. Here they were recruited by al Qaeda. The intent was to use them for the “planes operation,” but they were not told exactly what their mission would be at this time. By late January 2000 they were back in Hamburg trying to get visas for the United States; in March 2000 Mohammed Atta, the alpha dog in the group, began contacting US flight schools. (pp. 231-245.) The first three of these pilot-candidates arrived in Newark between 29 May and 27 June 2000. They soon settled in Florida, where they signed up for flying lessons. By December 2000 all three had obtained pilot’s licenses and had begun simulator training for flying very large jets. (p. 328.)

Ramzi Binalshibh, the fourth pilot, could not obtain a visa for the US in May and June 2000, so al Qaeda hunted around for a replacement.

One obvious candidate turned out to be Hani Hanjour, a Saudi with an FAA pilot’s license who was discovered to be training in one of the al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in Spring 2000. Between June and 8 December 2000 Hanjour was prepped for his mission, then sent to the United States by way of San Diego. (pp. 326-327.)

For a time, they thought that Zacarias Moussaoui also might serve. He was sent to the United States by KSM in October 2000. (pp. 325-326.) From February to late May 2001 Moussaoui took flying lessons in Norman, Oklahoma, then stopped. (p. 355.)

Between January and October 2000, al Qaeda sent seven candidate-pilots for the “planes operation” to the United States. All entered the country without hindrance.