The Eleventh Day - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Anthony Summers (ч. 6)

44 towers’ casualties/survivors: “Federal Investigators Classify WTC Victims’ Locations,” 7/20/04, NIST, Staff Statement 13, CO, Dwyer & Flynn, 252, 312. Estimates vary as to the number of people in the Twin Towers at the time of the attacks. We have here drawn on numbers cited in 102 Minutes, by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn—which take into account not only the 2005 Final Report of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, but also of figures supplied by the Port Authority of New York (Dwyer & Flynn, 280, “Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers,” Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Sept. 2005, 19, 34, 37–, 48).

45 Clark/Praimnath: Bernstein, 225–;

46 Rooney: Banford, Pretext, 32–58;

47 70th floor: Staff Statement 13, CO;

48 Palmer: Dwyer & Flynn, 206;

49 PEOPLE TRAPPED: NY Daily News, 9/30/01;

50 overwhelmed: Staff Statement 13, CO;

51 “Some of them”: int. Roberto Abril, TF, 1/17/02.

52 Turi wondered: int. Albert Turi, TF, 10/23/01, CR, 302, 549n134—the chief is not identified in line with the 9/11 Commission’s agreement with the city of New York, corr. Kristen Wilhelm, 2010.

53 He shared: int. Peter Hayden, TF, 10/23/01, & see Staff Statement 13, CO;

54 “The potential”/“I think”: int. Peter Hayden, TF, 10/23/01, Dennis Smith, Report from Ground Zero, NY: Viking, 2002, 33;

55 “Everything above”: New Yorker, 2/11/02;

56 “Tommy”: int. Richard Carletti, TF, 1/2/02;

57 “I believe”: Dwyer & Flynn, 149–, De Martini’s comments were made in an interview for the History Channel, NYT, 8/29/03;

58 707/“low on fuel”: Seattle Times, 2/27/93, MedServ, 9/11/01, “Painful Losses Mount in the Construction Family,” 10/1/01, www.construction.com, “WTC Building Performance Study,” FEMA, 5/02, Ch.1.17;

59 drooping/molten metal: “World Trade Center Investigation Status,” 12/03, & “Investigation of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center Disaster—FAQs,” 8/30/06, NIST, “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” Ch. 2., Pt. 2.2.3, FEMA, May 2002;

60 “large pieces”: CR, 304, 321, 549n148;

61 9:37 call: NY Daily News, 9/30/01, “Increasing FDNY Preparedness,” FDNY report, 8/19/02, 46–.

CHAPTER 7

over Ohio/Flight 93:

“Flight Path Study—United Flight 93,” 2/19/02, NTSB, ed. James Boyd,

After September 11

, Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003, 88;

managed to telephone:

MFR 04020029, 5/13/04—detailed study of phone records, used throughout chapter, Moschella to Marcus (& attachments), 4/26/04, “Flight 11 Calls—DOJ Response,” B13, T7, CF. In addition to the passengers named in the text, several others succeeded in making or attempted to make calls to the ground. Three who did get through were Linda Gronlund, Lauren Grandcolas, and Joseph DeLuca. Two others, Andrew Garcia and Waleska Martinez, got through only momentarily (several others: MFR 04020029, 5/13/04, Longman, 190).

Bingham:

This is what Bingham said to his aunt by marriage, the first family member to get to the phone. Some, who question the authenticity of the calls from the air on 9/11, have made much of the fact that—when afterward his mother came on the line—he reportedly said, “Hello, Mom, this is Mark

Bingham

[authors’ italics] …” No one, the skeptics suggest, would address his own mother with such formality. There is no tape or transcript of the call so far as the authors know—the earliest version of the quote is in an FBI report. Bingham’s mother, Alice Hoglan, however, herself remembered her son greeting her that way. To her, she said, it merely showed that he was a “little rattled” and fell back on the way that—as a young businessman—he regularly introduced himself on the phone. One cannot hang any significant doubt on the reported formality—least of all the idea, as some suggest, that the Bingham call itself is part of some complex fabrication. The call, like the other calls from Flight 93, is included in a list of air and cell phone calls compiled with the help of GTE engineers and released in 2009. For further discussion of the “fake calls” issue, see Ch. 11 (“This is Mark”/“

Bingham”:

FBI 302 of ints. Alice

Hoglan, Carol Phipps, & Kathy Hoglan, 9/11/01, “Flight 93 Calls,” B12, T7, CF, FBI 302s of [names redacted], 9/19/01 & 9/23/01, INTELWIRE; doubt: David Ray Griffin,

Debunking 9/11 Debunking

, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch, 2007, 89–, James Fetzer cited in “Osama Tape Appears Fake,” PR Web, 5/30/06; “little rattled”/repeatedly: transcript of int. Hoglan,

Newsnight

, 2001,

www.bbc.co.uk

, int.of Hoglan,

The Flight That Fought Back

, Brook Lapping Productions for Discovery Channel, 2005).

Burnett:

FBI 302 of int. Deena Burnett, 9/11/01, INTELWIRE, Longman, 107, MFR 04020024, 4/26/04.

knife point/bomb:

Burnett also told his wife that he thought one of the hijackers had a gun. His wife believed this, because her husband was familiar with guns. Fellow passenger Jeremy Glick, however, specifically told his wife that he saw no guns on the hijackers, only knives. Janet Riffe, an FAA security inspector assigned to American Airlines on 9/11, told the 9/11 Commission that she was told by an American employee that day of a flight attendant’s report that Flight 11 passenger Daniel Lewin had been shot. Riffe said she was later told she had been wrongly informed. A partly redacted FBI summary states that passenger Peter Hanson, who phoned his father from Flight 175, said he had seen a flight attendant shot. Available reports of what Hanson said include no such reference. The presence of guns aboard any of the hijacked flights would of course indicate a grave security lapse. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the reports of guns were mistaken, that the weight of the evidence indicated that knives were the only weapons the hijackers brought on board (Burnett told: MFR 04020024, 4/26/04, Longman, 108; very familiar:

The Times

[London], 8/11/02, bio at

www.tomburnettfoundation.org

; Glick:

Reader’s Digest

[U.K.], 9/06, MFR 04020025, 4/22/04, “FBI Documents—Inc. Joanne Makely Call Transcript,” B13, T7, CF; Riffe: MFR 03007067, 9/11/03, “Flight 11 Gun Story,” B16, T7, CF; Hanson: Chicago to Director, 9/12/01, FBI 265D-NY-280350-CG, INTELWIRE; Commission: CR 13, 452n25, 457n82).

Glick:

Reader’s Digest

(U.K.), 9/06, FBI 302 of Lyzbeth Glick, 9/12/01, INTELWIRE, Longman, 146;

told him/“My God”/“A group”:

FBI 302 of int. Deena Burnett, 9/11/01, INTELWIRE, Longman, 110–;

“I’m going”:

Reader’s Digest

(U.K.), 9/06;

equipped:

Longman, 19, 108–, 114, 27–,137–, 132–;

10 Beamer: ibid., 17–, 200, 202;

11 Jefferson account: Jefferson & Middlebrooks, 29–;

12 “Shit!”: “Recording of Conversation,” 9/15/01, “Flight 93 Calls,” B12, T7, CF;

13 “Oh, my God”: Jefferson & Middlebrooks, 44–;

14 Flight Data Recorder: “Study of Autopilot, Navigational Equipment, and Fuel Consumption Activity Based on UA Flight 93 and AA Flight 77 Digital Flight Recorder Data,” 2/13/02, www.ntsb.gov;

15 23rd Psalm: Longman, 200;

16 “We just lost”: Joseph Gregor, “Air Traffic Control Recording,” NTSB, 12/21/01, int. John Werth.

17 executive jet: transcript of audiotape, FAA Cleveland Air Traffic Control Center—Lorain position, 9/11/01, int. John Werth, CR, 30. There had not yet been time to comply with the nationwide grounding order. The FAA transcript indicates that the plane that sighted Flight 93 was Executive Jet 956. The authors’ reading of relevant sources, including a transcript of the Cleveland Air Traffic Control recording, suggests the Jet 956 sighting occurred soon after 9:41. The 9/11 Commission Report, meanwhile, refers to a sighting of Flight 93 by an aircraft at about 9:53. The sources cited in the Report do not make entirely clear whether this reference is to a sighting by Executive 956 or by another airplane (CR, 29–, 461n167, Full Transcription, “Air Traffic Control System Command Center, National Traffic Management Officer, East Position, 9/11/01,” B1, NY Office files, CF, int. John Werth).

18 navigational aid: CR, 457n85.

19 Britton: Interviewed by the FBI after the attacks, Britton’s friend Frank Fiumano said he “assumed she had borrowed a cell phone from another passenger” to make her call because Britton’s own cell phone was not working. Records released in 2009 make clear, however, that Britton used a seatback phone (Britton’s friend: FBI 302 of [name redacted], 9/20/01, & Pittsburgh to Pittsburgh, 9/22/01, INTELWIRE, Longman, 162; 2009 records: United Airlines Flight 93, Telephone Calls, “Flight 11 Calls—Response to DOJ Documents Requests,” B13, T7, CF);

20 plane turning: “Flight Path Study—United Flight 93,” 2/19/02, NTSB;

21 “I know”: Reader’s Digest (U.K.), 9/06;

22 “to jump”: Jefferson & Middlebrook, 52–;

23 “the impression”: MFR 04020031, 5/11/04;

24 Greene: Chicago to Counterterrorism Baltimore et al., 10/4/01, “Flights 175 and 93 Load Patterns,” B20, T7, CF, Longman, 182–. Another passenger on Flight 93, Andrew Garcia, had served in the California Air National Guard and trained as an air traffic controller. Even with his limited knowledge of aviation, he might have been of some help in the cockpit. As to the possibility that Greene could conceivably have landed the plane, the authors consulted Gerry Humphries, a working pilot with thirty-five years’ experience who regularly flies a plane similar to a King Air (Garcia: Post-Gazette [Pittsburgh], 10/28/01, Humphries: int. Gerry Humphries);

25 Boeing: “757–200 Technical Characteristics,” www.boeing.com;

26 flying erratically: “Flight Path Study—United Flight 93,” 2/19/02, NTSB;

27 “commotion”: Longman, 204;

28 “Are you guys”: MFR 04020031, 5/11/04, FBI 302 of Lisa Jefferson, 9/11/01, INTELWIRE, Longman, 202;

29 “OK”: Reader’s Digest (U.K.), 9/06;

30 Wainio: www.elizabethwainio.com, Longman, 168, 171–, FBI 302 of [name redacted], 9/12/01, INTELWIRE;

31 Bradshaw: MFR of Philip Bradshaw, 6/15/04, “Flight 93 Calls,” B12, T7, CF, FBI 302 of int. Philip Bradshaw, 9/11/01 & 9/12/01, INTELWIRE.

32 Lyles: Longman, 180. Lyles had phoned her police officer husband earlier. He had been asleep, after coming home from a night shift, and she had left a message on the answering machine (FBI 302 of int. Lorne Lyles, 9/17/01, “FBI 302s Homer,” B10, T7, CF).

33 “I think”: FBI 302 of [name redacted], 9/12/01, INTELWIRE;

34 Burnett’s wife recognized: MFR 04020024, 4/26/04;

35 rolling: “Flight Path Study—United Flight 93,” 2/19/02, NTSB;

36 “The wings started”: pilot Bill Wright cited at Longman, 192–, Flight 93’s Last Moments, WTAE TV, 9/19/01, & see CR, 30;

37 Glick’s father-in-law/“roller coaster”: Reader’s Digest (U.K.), 9/06;

38 “wind sounds”: FBI 302 of int. [name redacted], 9/12/01, INTELWIRE.

39 scrapyard: St. Petersburg Times, 9/12/01;

40 “nosediving”: WP, 9/16/01;

41 “sort of whistling”: St. Petersburg Times, 9/12/01;

42 “barely fifty”: The Mirror (U.K.), 9/12/02.

43 It was 10:03: For the time Flight 93 crashed, the authors have relied—as did the 9/11 Commission—on the impact time established by the combination of the Cockpit Voice Recorder, the Flight Data Recorder, and Air Traffic Control and radar data. In 2002, geologists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory produced a report—based on seismic data—that put the impact time of Flight 93 as some three minutes later, at 10:06. In the years since, the scientists themselves have stressed that the seismic signals cited in respect to Flight 93 were too weak and speculative to be relied upon. It should be noted, too, that the NTSB does not characteristically rely on seismic data to establish crash time. Commission staff considered the Lamont-Doherty time of 10:06 to be a significant anomaly and therefore asked for the time according to satellite infrared imaging—as a “tiebreaker.” This further established the 10:03 time for the crash of UA 93. The timing discrepancy has been seized on by those who suggest the U.S. military shot down Flight 93, an issue that will be addressed in Ch. 12 (CR, 30, 461n168, Won-Young Kim & Gerald Baum, “Seismic Observations During September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack,” Spring 2002, corr. Won-Young Kim, Ted Lopatkiewicz, 2009, & see Terry Wallace cited in “Cockpit Voice Recording Ends Before Flight 93’s Official Time of Impact,” 9/16/02, www.phillynews.com, corr. Terry Wallace, 2010, Miles Kara, 2011).

44 strip mine/“Where’s the plane”: “Flight 93 Crash Site Left Most of the Horror to the Imagination,” KDKA radio, 2006;

45 crater burning/couple of feet: Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh), 9/12/01;

46 recorder buried: WP, 9/15/01;

47 clothing: Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh), 9/12/01. All sorts of identifiable bits and pieces would eventually be collected at the crash site. Douglass personal effects administrators would circulate a list and photographs of many personal items that had belonged to those aboard Flight 93—pieces of jewelry, snapshots, clothing, and shoes. Jeremy Glick’s widow, Lyz, recognized a picture of a pair of black briefs as her husband’s. An American Express personal organizer was returned to her, with notes in Glick’s still legible handwriting (Reader’s Digest [U.K.], 9/06).

48 “shiny stuff”: WP, 9/14/01;

49 Lisa Beamer: Longman, 220–;

50 Lyz Glick/father: Moschella to Marcus (& attachments), 4/26/04, & see Reader’s Digest (U.K.), 9/06.

CHAPTER 8

Peruggia/instructions:

int. John Peruggia, TF, 10/25/01. The Office of Emergency Management was in the building known as World Trade Center 7, which would itself collapse later in the day. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani apparently never made it to the OEM that morning, because the building was being evacuated. He set up a temporary base elsewhere (CR, 283–, 293, 301–, 305, 311, Rudolph Giuliani with Ken Kurson,

Leadership

, NY: Hyperion, 2002, 5–, but see also Barrett & Collins, 5–);

engineer/Peruggia/Zarrillo:

int. Peruggia, int. Richard Zarrillo, TF, 10/25/01, Dwyer & Flynn, 203–;

command and control:

CR, 301–.

“We stared”/“You know”:

A Survivor’s Story

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/above.html

Cosgrove/911:

Newsday

, 4/10/06, Dwyer & Flynn, 207;

Rooney:

Chicago Tribune

, 10/31/01.

“Listen”:

int. Zarrillo, int. Steven Mosiello, TF, 10/23/01.

“started to lean”:

int. Richard Carletti, TF, 1/21/02;

“bulge out”/“snapping sounds”:

NY Daily News

, 9/11/01;

10 “real loud”/“groaning”: e.g., entry for 9:59 A.M., September 11, 2001, “Some Witnesses Hear Explosions,” www.cooperativeresearch.org, Jim Marrs, The Terror Conspiracy, NY: The Disinformation Co., 2006, 47. Critics of official accounts of 9/11 have used such references to “explosions” to suggest that the Twin Towers collapsed at least partially as the result of explosive devices planted in the buildings. Those claims will be covered in Chapter 11.

11 “The entire”: The Independent (U.K.), 9/12/01.

12 Jennings/Dahler: transcript & video on YouTube, “ABC News Special Report: Planes Crash into World Trade Center,” 9/11/01, 9/11, ABC News, 9/11/02;

13 9:59: CR, 305—more precisely, 9:58:59. The 9/11 Commission Report used the figure of ten seconds. For the collapse time of some twenty seconds, the authors have relied on explanations by the National Institute of Standards and by scientist Ryan Mackey, who estimated that it took fifteen to twenty seconds for the tower’s roof to hit the ground (CR, 305–,”NIST’s Investigation of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center Disaster—FAQ,” 8/30/06, http://wtc.nist.gov, Ryan Mackey, “On Debunking 9/11 Debunking,” 5/24/08, www.jod911.com);

14 “From a structure”: int. James Cannon, TF, 12/18/01.

15 garages: int. Pedro Carrasquillo, TF, 10/16/01;

16 “I took”: int. Zarrillo;

17 “I grabbed”: int. Peruggia;

18 “Everybody’s like”: int. Jody Bell, TF, 12/15/01;

19 “smoked”/“Everything started”: int. Timothy Brown, TF, 1/15/02;

20 16 firefighters: CR, 308;

21 Marriott sliced: “The 9/11 Hotel, pt. 3 of 5” documentary on www.youtube.com;

22 “stared in awe”: “A Survivor’s Story”;

23 “huge tidal”: The Independent (U.K.), 9/12/01;

24 “all the walking”: NY Daily News, 9/11/01.

25 few aware: Staff Statement 13, CO, int. Joseph Pfeifer, TF, 10/23/01;

26 “We felt it”: int. Michael Brodbeck, TF, 12/10/01;

27 “You just”: int. Derek Brogan, TF, 12/28/01;

28 “It didn’t register”: int. James Canham, TF, 12/18/01;

29 “To think that”: Staff Statement 13, CO;

30 burst of energy: Dwyer & Flynn, 242;

31 pitch black: int. Peter Hayden, TF, 10/23/01;

32 fatally for some: Smith, 30–;

33 Judge: USA Today, 2/19/03, Bernstein, 231; Pfeifer: int. Pfeifer, int. Joseph Callan, TF, 11/2/01, Smith, 42–;

34 evacuation: Staff Statement 13, CO.

35 “get the fuck”: The 9/11 Commission credited Picciotto both with the “Get the fuck out!” initiative and with the radioed instructions. He himself said words to that effect on a CBS television show days after 9/11. His autobiographical accounts of events later in the day, however, have been rebutted by colleagues (“Get!”/radioed: CR, 307, 550n165; CBS show: transcript of int., Montel Williams Show, 9/17/01; autobiography: Richard Picciotto with Daniel Paisner, Last Man Down, NY: Berkley, 2002; rebutted: NY Daily News, 11/26/02, New York, 9/11/03).

36 “knew that he had men”: int. Mosiello;

37 “We’re not fucking”: CR, 310, 552n183;

38 McGinnis: Dwyer & Flynn, 237.

39 “What we didn’t”: “Emergency Preparedness & Response,” Staff Statement 13, CO;

40 blind: int. Callan, Staff Statement 13, CO.

41 “There was gas”: int. Derek Brogan, TF, 12/28/01. The Twin Towers were sheathed in aluminium (e.g., see “Cladding Fragment,” exhibit description, Division of Work & Industry, National Museum of American History).

42 “littering”: int. Robert Byrne, TF, 12/7/01;

43 Pilots: ibid., NYPD Call Routing & Message Dispatch Report, 7/23/02, “NYPD folder,” B9, NY Office files, CF, CR, 309, 551n176.

44 10:28: CR, 311;

45 “do a little rock”: int. Carletti;

46 “explosions”/“pop”/“thunderous”: int. Craig Carlsen, TF, 1/25/02, int. Pfeifer;

47 “the entire”: int. Dean Beltrami, TF, 12/17/01;

48 “looking like”: int. Bell;

49 “I opened up”: int. James Basile, TF, 10/17/01;

50 “This beautiful”: Staff Statement 13, CO;

51 twenty seconds: see note at source entry for “9:59,” above.

52 alarms: Lance, 419;

53 343: CR, 311;

54 firefighters killed: Smith, 193;

55 Ganci: int. Mosiello, Bernstein, 149, 231;

56 brother Kevin: http://americanhistory.si.edu/September11, www.septembereleven.net;

57 families: Smith, 33, 53, 15, 44, 349, Damon DiMarco, Tower Stories, NY: Revolution, 2004, 189, Langewiesche, 70, 131–, 145–;

58 Port Authority/NYPD dead: CR, 311;

59 Morrone: Port Authority press release, 8/13/02, www.PANYNJ.gov;

60 5 dead PAPD: William Keegan with David Bart, Closure, NY: Touchstone, 2006, 67;

61 policewoman: Smith, 67, NY Daily News, 3/24/02, www.irishtribute.com entry for Moira Smith.

62 “The number”: transcript of press conference, CNN, 9/11/01;

63 7,000: John Ashcroft cited in MFR 04020543, 12/17/03, & see Knight Ridder report, 10/11/01.

64 2,760: The authors’ rendering of the total number of 9/11 deaths in New York City includes the ten hijackers of the two planes that hit the Trade Center. The figure used in the 9/11 Commission Report did not include the hijackers, nor did it include three victims injured that day whose deaths were registered later outside New York. The total used here does not include those deemed to have died of illnesses contracted as a result of 9/11, an issue that will be covered elsewhere (CR, 311, 552n188, “World Trade Center Operational Statistics,” Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, 1/30/09, NYT, 7/22/04, ed. Robyn Gershon, High Rise Building Evacuation, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2006, 19, CR, 552n188);

65 other countries: NYT, 4/19/02;

66 immigrants: Hoy, cited by AM New York, 9/7/06.

67 Ground Zero: The term “Ground Zero” appears to have been used for the first time on the evening of 9/11, by CBS reporter Jim Axelrod (CBS News, 9/11/01, video at www.archive.org);

68 “All that remained”/final throes: Langewiesche, 6, 4, www.national911memorial.org;

69 lesser giants: frontispiece, ibid., “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” Washington, D.C.: FEMA, May 2002, 3–.

70 WTC 7: “Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7,” Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, Washington, D.C.: NIST, 11/08, NCSTAR 1A, 4.2. There has been a long-running controversy about the collapse of WTC 7—the thrust of it being the suggestion that the building collapsed not solely because of fire and damage but, skeptics suggest, because explosives were used. The controversy will be covered in Ch. 11;

71 Verizon: MFR 04018174, 2/25/04, DiMarco, 302–, Smith, 198–;

72 NY Stock Exchange: MFR 03013078, 12/11/03, MFR 04016224, 1/21/04;

73 American Stock Exchange: MFR 04014516, 1/14/04;

74 “visiting”: MFR 04017265, 12/18/03;

75 NASDAQ: MFR 04014517, 1/14/04;

76 Federal Reserve NY: MFR 04016224, 1/21/04;

77 Greenspan: MFR 04014512, 1/9/04, MFR 04018180, 1/20/04, MFR 04016224, 1/21/04;

78 liquidity/ATMs: MFR 04014512, 1/9/04, MFR 04016224, 1/21/04, MFR 04018180, 1/20/04;

79 $83/95 billion: Real Estate Weekly, 9/11/02.

CHAPTER 9

“Ambulances going”:

int. Michael Cahill, TF, 10/17/01;

Melisi:

“America Rebuilds,” transcript of int. Melisi,

www.pbs.org

Two civilians:

They were Tom Canavan, who had worked at First Union Bank on the 47th floor of the North Tower, and a second, unknown man who escaped with him (USA

Today

, 9/5/02).

Jonas & rescued group:

“A Day in September,”

www.recordonline.com

, “World Trade Center Survivors,”

http://911research.wtc7.net

, Picciotto with Paisner, 128–,

New York

, 11/26/02;

Buzzelli:

USA Today

, 9/5/02, Langewiesche, 103–;

McLoughlin/Jimeno/Marines:

Slate

, 9/10/02,

NY Post

, 8/7/06,

Times Herald-Record

, 1/18/02. The two former Marines were David Karnes, at the time an accountant with Deloitte Touche, and Jason Thomas, who on 9/11 was attending the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

fellow overboard:

Langewiesche, 62.

“onslaught”:

MFR 04018541, 4/15/04;

personnel/surgeons:

int. Dr. Glenn Asaeda, TF, 10/11/01;

10 by midnight: “DOD Medical Support to the Federal Response Plan,” Washington, D.C.: Office of the Inspector General, Dept. of Defense, 5/10/02, 7;

11 “A person’s torso”: int. Benjamin Badillo, TF, 1/24/02;

12 “I-beams”: int. Charles Blaich, TF, 10/23/01;

13 “A woman’s”: DiMarco, 270;

14 “The body”: eds. Der Spiegel, 243;

15 “You couldn’t”: Barrett & Collins, 248;

16 21,744: New York, 1/7/10;

17 medical examiner: NYT, 7/14/02, & see “World Trade Center Operational Statistics,” Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, NYC, 9/9/03;

18 2009: update, “DNA Testing of Remains,” 2/1/09, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, www.nyc.gov;

19 Deutsche Bank: “Deutsche Bank Building—FAQ,” Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, www.renewny.com;

20 manholes/road: AP, 4/8/08.

21 Fresh Kills: NYT, 3/24/07. According to a sworn affidavit by Eric Beck, a supervisor for Taylor Recycling, the process at Fresh Kills involved creating a mixture used to pave city streets and fill potholes. Troubled by the implication that fragments of their loved ones may have become part of this mixture, relatives of the dead went to federal court in 2007 to plead that the sifted debris be removed from the site and reburied in a more appropriate setting on a site nearby. In 2009, a judge dismissed the families’ suit, citing in part the city’s intention of redeveloping the now closed Fresh Kills landfill into a park and nature reserve that would include a memorial to the 9/11 victims (NYT, 3/24/07, Staten Island Advance, 7/7/08, NY Post, 7/8/08);

22 1,229: NYT, 7/14/02;

23 401: authors’ calculation based on figures in NYT, 7/14/02, 5/12/11, and ABC News, 5/13/11.

24 “I see this”: int. Jason Charles, TF, 1/23/02;

25 “The ambulances”: int. Michael Cahill, TF, 10/17/01;

26 “People were”: int. Richard Broderick, TF, 10/25/01;

27 “Nobody could”: int. David Blacksberg, TF, 10/23/01;

28 “Everybody’s coughing”: int. Jody Bell, TF, 12/15/01;

29 “Our face-pieces”: int. Paul Bessler, TF, 1/21/02;

30 “My lungs were”: int. Paul Adams, TF, 11/1/01;

31 “The sergeant asked”: int. Jason Charles, TF, 1/23/02;

32 9:59/FC: NY Daily News, 9/30/01;

33 asbestos, etc., in dust: “EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapse,” Washington, D.C., Office of the Inspector General, Environmental Protection Agency, 8/21/03, Cate Jenkins [EPA] to Monona Rossol, 11/15/01, www.whitelung.org, NYT, 9/14/01, Newsweek, 10/5/01, Der Spiegel, 12/20/06, DiMarco, 130, Gail Sheehy, Middletown, America, NY: Random House, 2003, 41;

34 seven blocks: Village Voice, 7/31/07;

35 “We lost”/Torcivia: DiMarco, 191–, St. Petersburg Times, 2/3/02;

36 2007 study: UPI, 5/9/07;

37 2,000 firefighters: Guardian (U.K.), 1/28/08;

38 “The World Trade Center dust”: Voice of America, 4/8/10;

39 young attorney: (Felicia Dunn-Jones) “NYC Links First Death to Toxic Dust,” www.msnbc.com, 5/23/07;

40 “sick and under”: Fact Sheet, http://stws.org, Sacramento Bee, 1/6/11;

41 479 people: NY Post, 9/6/09;

42 One by one: e.g., WSJ, 12/9/10, Dallas Morning News, 11/29/10, New York Post, 1/10/11, NY Daily News, 3/30/11;

43 risen to 664: NY Post, 9/12/10;

44 James Zadroga Act/$4.2 billion/“We will never”: USA Today, 2/2/11, H.R. 847 James Zadroga 9/11 Health & Compensation Act 2010, http://thomas.loc.gov;

45 “very reassuring”: “EPA’s Response to the WTC Collapse”;

46 “safe to go”: ibid., NYT, 9/18/01.

47 “safe to breathe”: “EPA’s Response to the WTC Collapse.” John Henshaw has since explained that a decision not to enforce safety regulations was made because of the delay that would have caused: “We had to deploy a strategy that achieved compliance as soon as the hazard was recognized so corrective action was immediate.” Christine Todd Whitman, for her part, told a congressional committee that allegations that she misled New Yorkers about air quality in lower Manhattan were “outright falsehoods.” She said that reassurances that air quality was safe applied to lower Manhattan, not to Ground Zero itself (EHS Today, 6/27/07).

48 “I want”: Richard Clarke, 24. The President also discussed the closure of the markets with his assistant for economic policy, Larry Lindsey, urging a “return to normal as soon as possible.” Lindsey discussed with the EPA’s Christine Todd Whitman “the need to get the financial markets open quickly.” Whitman has denied that Lindsey pressured her. The EPA’s own inspector general, meanwhile, has said that the Agency’s press releases were “influenced” by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. According to the EPA’s Tina Kreischer, there was “extreme pressure from the White House” (Lindsey: MFR 04018180, 1/20/04; Whitman denied: CR, 555n13; “influenced”/“extreme pressure”: “EPA’s Response to the WTC Collapse,” 7, 16–, CR, 555n13).

49 9:55: CR, 325;

50 “The President”: 9/11, transcript, ABC News, 9/11/02;

51 Card: White House transcripts of ints. of Andy Card for ABC, 8/12/02, CNN, 8/12/02, NBC, 8/15/02, CBS, 8/16/02;

52 Bush said: CR, 40, 464n212;

53 “inexcusable”: 60 Minutes, transcript, CBS News, 9/11/02;

54 “could not remain”: Kean & Hamilton, 265;

55 “The military”: 60 Minutes, 9/11/02;

56 flickering TV: 9/11, ABC News;

57 “credible” threat/Armed guards: CR, 325, 554n1, 60 Minutes, Bill Sammon, Fighting Back, Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2008, 128;

58 cell phones: Salon, 9/12/01;

59 saluted: Spencer, 255–.

60 baseless scare: The Secret Service tracked down the source of the “threat” within hours, and concluded that the flap had arisen because of a watch officer’s misunderstanding. Even so, press secretary Fleischer would still be talking of the threat at a press briefing the next day—and describing it as having been “real and credible” (CR, 554n1).

61 “The American people”: 60 Minutes; “faceless coward”: CNN, 9/12/01;

62 running backward: int. Dan Alcorn, Salon, 9/12/01;

63 “We’re at war”: 60 Minutes, 9/11/02;

64 “very much in control”: World-Herald (Omaha), 2/27/02;

65 took part: Sammon, 122;

66 “I’m not going”: Telegraph (U.K.), 12/16/01;

67 “tin-horn terrorist”: 60 Minutes, 9/11/02;

68 “increasingly difficult”: Telegraph (U.K.), 12/16/01;

69 “The mightiest”: 9/11, ABC News;

70 “We will stand”: CNN, 9/12/01, Graham with Nussbaum, 100;

71 Bush address: 60 Minutes, 9/11/02, BBC News, 9/12/01;

72 key officials: CR, 330;

73 al Qaeda/Taliban: WP, 1/27/02.

74 87 “You know”: The authors have here cited Clarke’s interview with Vanity Fair in 2009, in which he stated that Rumsfeld made these remarks on the night of September 11. In his 2004 memoir, however, Clarke appeared to indicate that the remarks were made at a meeting the following day (Vanity Fair, 2/09, Richard Clarke, 31).

75 bed early: Telegraph (U.K.), 1/15/08;

76 He balked, etc.: Newsweek, 12/3/01, Sammon, 133–;

77 “Incoming plane!”: Spencer, 282, 279;

78 Ground Zero: DiMarco, 269–.

79 one more survivor: This was Genelle Guzman, who had worked for the Port Authority in the North Tower and was found in the same area as was Pasquale Buzzelli earlier. She suffered serious leg injuries, but recovered in the hospital (Time, 9/1/02, Langewiesche, 107).

80 “heaved”: Langewiesche, 72;

81 flames: Barrett & Collins, 247;

82 would burn: ABC News, 12/19/01.

Part II: DISTRUST AND DECEIT

CHAPTER 10

“not a fringe”:

Time

, 9/3/06;

“no dependable”:

Matt Taibbi,

The Great Derangement

, NY: Spiegel & Grau, 2009, 189;

“tend to be”/poll:

San Diego Union Tribune

, 12/4/06;

18 to 29:

“Questions with Kathryn Olmsted,” 4/13/09,

http://theaggie.org

;

Arab Americans/Arabs worldwide:

NY Post

, 5/23/07, “Muslim Public Opinion on US Policy, Attacks on Civilians and al Qaeda, 2007” & “No Public Consensus on Who Was Behind 9/11, 2008,”

www.worldpublicopinion.org

;

“well-educated, pious”:

Taibbi, 171;

“conspiracy theories dominate”:

Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden, and Jean Sasson,

Growing Up bin Laden

, NY: St. Martins, 2009, 290;

“unfounded”:

“The Top September 11 Conspiracy Theories,” 5/5/09,

www.america.gov

MIHOP/LIHOP:

BBC News, 7/4/08,

Vanity Fair

, 8/06;

10 As late as 2011: Conspiracy vs. Science, National Geographic Channel, & see re first aired NY Post, 9/2/09.

11 Rostcheck/“Is it just”: corr. David Rostcheck, 2010, Rostcheck message on USAttacked@topica.net, 9/11/01, 3:12 P.M., cited on www.serendipity.li, Rostcheck profile, www.linkedin.com, Rostcheck to Ira Glasser, ACLU, 7/4/01, www.keepandbeararms.com;

12 million Web pages: NY Post, 9/12/06;

13 “I don’t believe”/“conspiracy”: “Who We Are,” & “Criminal Negligence or Treason,” www.emperors-clothes.com;

14 “for thinking people”: See the “About” page on Meyer’s website, www.serendipity.li;

15 doubt expressed: “Reply to Popular Mechanics,” www.serendipity.li;

16 Valentine: Valentine articles, “Operation 911: No Suicide Pilots,” 10/6/01, www.public-action.com, “Internet Censorship and Jewish Destiny,” http://library.flawlesslogic.com, “Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum: Fire,” www.public-action.com, & “Waco Suits for Waco Suckers,” www.web-ak.com;

17 Vialls/“electronically hijacked”: “Flight 93 Saddest Flight of All,” and various Vialls articles at www.vialls.homestead.com, “Home Run, Electronically Hijacking the WTC Attack Aircraft,” 10/01, www.geocities.com;

18 “very strange”: “Reality Check,” No. 82, 10/12/01, www.ratical.org;

19 Dewdney: “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” 1/22/02, www.ilaam.net;

20 “ordered to land”: “Operation Pearl,” 8/03, www.serendipity.li;

21 Dewdney professor: Dewdney bio. on University of W. Ontario website, www.csd.uwo.ca;

22 North Ph.D: www.garynorth.com;

23 “aeronautical engineer”: www.vialls.homestead.com;

24 Valentine: “About” page on www.comeandhear.com;

25 Meyer degrees: “Interzine” int. of Meyer at www.deoxy.org;

26 Christian/“attempt to apply”: see masthead of North’s periodical Remnant Review & see Gary North & Gary DeMar, Christian Reconstructionism: What It Is, What It Isn’t, Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1984;

27 Cuba “soon”: “China Backs Iran Against the Great Satan,” 12/22/04, www.web.archive.org, “Why the March 8.7 Quake Did Not Cause a Tsunami,” www.whale.to;

28 Waco Museum/shot: “Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum: Catalogue of Evidence,” www.public-action.com, “Internet Censorship & Jewish Destiny,” 11/8/98, http://library.flawlesslogic.com;

29 Meyer indulged/“Timewave Zero”: “Interview of TWZ Programmer Peter Meyer,” Interzine, issue 2, http://deoxy.org, “DMT & Hyperspace,” & “Interpretations of the Experience” by Peter Meyer, Psychedelic Monographs & Essays, no. 6, www.lycaeum.org.

30 The Big Lie: Thierry Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, NY: Carnot, 2002, esp. 24, 28, 39, 56, 60, 139, www.effroyable-imposture.net, eds. David Dunbar & Brad Reagan, Debunking 9/11 Myths, NY: Hearst, 2006, 60. The book was first published in France as L’Effroyable Imposture, which translates as The Appalling Deception; Griffin bio/“dean” of opposition: e.g., Griffin as “high priest of the ‘truther’ movement,” The News Statesman (U.K.), 9/24/09;

31 “show that the attacks”: Griffin speech, University of Wisconsin, 4/18/05, BookTV, C-SPAN2; Loose Change: viewable on www.youtube.com in various editions—the authors have primarily viewed Loose Change—The Final Cut (Louder Than Words, 2007) and Loose Change 9/11—An American Coup (Collective Minds Media, 2009);

32 125 million: “Fact Sheet,” www.loosechange911.com;

33 “This is our”: Vanity Fair, 8/06;

34 $2,000/$1 million: “Fact Sheet”;

35 Avery: “Bios,” www.loosechange911.com;

36 “to get the”: Barrie Zwicker, Towers of Deception, Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society, 2006, 303.

37 Falk/foreword: to U.S. edition of David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor, Northampton, MA: Interlink, 2004, foreword also posted at www.transnational.org, & see Jerusalem Post, 1/27 & 1/31/11; Falk has praised the professor’s work as “objective and compelling” as recently as 2008—and his comments on 9/11 were still causing controversy in early 2011. He referred then to “the apparent cover up” (Richard Falk, “9/11: More than Meets the Eye,” 11/9/08, www.journal-online.co.uk, Sky News, 1/29/11, “Interrogating the Arizona Killings from a Safe Distance, 1/11/11,” http://richardfalk.wordpress.com).

38 Internet groups: David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch, 2010, 5;

39 skeptics: e.g., “Reply to Scientific American’s Attempted Debunking of 9/11 Skeptics,” www.serendipity.li.

40 Fetzer/Jones: Fetzer bio, www.d.umn.edu; Jones CV, www.physics.byu.edu, Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 10/22/06. Fetzer’s group retains the name Scholars for 9/11 Truth, while Jones’ group took the name Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. The appellation “Scholars” is loose—the membership ranges from people with Ph.D.’s in anything from physics to classics to French, medical doctors and dentists, attorneys, college students, and a yoga instructor. In a public statement in 2005, Jones’s department and college administrators at Brigham Young University said they were “not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses [on 9/11] have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review.” Jones took early retirement in 2007 (membership ranges: “Full Member List,” www.911scholars.org, “Members,” http://stj911.org; Jones: “BYU Discredits Prof. Jones for 9/11 WTC Paper!,” by Greg Szymanski, 11/29/05, www.rense.com, Jones CV, Deseret News [Salt Lake City], 10/22/06).

41 members “believe”/“established”/“high-tech”: “Scholars for 9/11 Truth—Who Are We?” & “Scholars: On Its First Anniversary,” www.9/11scholars.org;

42 “discretion”/“Scientific”: “What Is the Goal of the 9/11 Truth Community?,” by Steven Jones, http://stj911.org;

43 “inside job”: Guardian (U.K.), 9/5/06;

44 MacDonald: cited at www.patriotsquestion911.com;

45 Reynolds: “Bush Insider Says WTC Collapse Bogus,” by Greg Szymanski, undated 2005, www.americanfreepress.net;

46 Roberts: “What We Don’t Know About 9/11,” by Paul Roberts, 8/16/06, www.informationclearinghouse.info;

47 CIA veterans: “Seven CIA Veterans Challenge 9/11 Commission Report,” 9/23/07, www.opednews.com;

48 Christison: “Stop Belittling the Theories About September 11,” 8/14/06, www.dissidentvoice.org;

49 Charlie Sheen: int. on Alex Jones Show, 3/20/06;

50 Cotillard: “Plus Fort Que Thierry Meyssan,” 2/29/08, www.marianne2.fr;

51 Lynch: int. on Wereldgasten, VPRO (Dutch TV), 12/3/06;

52 O’Donnell: The View, ABC News, 3/29/07;

53 Nelson: int. on Alex Jones Show, 2/4/08;

54 Ventura: “9/11,” Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, 12/9/09, www.trutv.com, int. on Alex Jones Show, 4/2/08; Jesse Ventura with Dick Russell, American Conspiracies, NY: Skyhorse, 2010;

55 Hirschhorn: “Painful 9/11 Truth,” by Joel Hirschhorn, www.blogcritics.org, bio on http://word.world-citizenship.org;

56 Deets: profile on www.ae911truth.org—the adjective “pyroclastic” is used to refer to material formed by volcanic or igneous action;

57 Erickson: profile on www.ae911truth.org;

58 Griscom: Griscom blog, www.impactglassman.blogspot.com;

59 Waser: profile on www.ae911truth.org;

60 thousand architects & engineers: Examples of others who have made their views known on the collapses, or joined their names to petitions, include:

In the United States:

Dr. Robert Bowman, formerly an Air Force lieutenant colonel who served as director of Advanced Space Programs Development, questioned the towers’ collapses and called for a new investigation (bio on

www.thepatriots.us

)

Major Jon Fox, former Marine Corps fighter pilot and pilot for Continental Airlines, thought research “proved” the use of explosives (statement to

http://patriotsquestion911.com

)

Former Navy commander Dennis Henry, who worked as a civil engineer for thirty-four years, doubted the simple collapse account (profile on

www.ae911truth.org

) Commander Ralph Kolstad, former fighter pilot and commercial airline captain, said the collapse story did not “make any sense” (statement to

http://patriotsquestion911.com

) Joel Skousen, a fighter and commercial airplane pilot, thought there was “significant evidence that the airplane impacts did not cause the collapse” (“Debunking the Debunkers,” by Joel Skousen, 2/14/06,

www.rense.com

)

Roy Andes, a former assistant attorney general of the state of Montana, signed a petition on the collapses (petition at

www.ae911truth.org

)

Barbara Honegger, a senior military affairs journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, suggested that “the U.S. military, not al Qaeda, had the sustained access weeks before 9/11 to also plant controlled demolition charges throughout the superstructures of WTC 1 and WTC 2, and in WTC 7, which brought down all three buildings” (“The Pentagon Attack Papers,” by Barbara Honegger,

www.physics911.net

) Karen Johnson, a member of the Arizona state legislature, expressed doubt about the collapses and joined her name to a call for a new investigation (

Arizona Republic

, 5/3/08, petition at

www.ae911truth.org

)

William Nugent, former assistant director of research for Technology Services at the Library of Congress, thought “controlled demolition the only scientifically plausible explanation” of the collapses (statement at

www.ae911truth.org

)

Lon Waters, a former staff member of a Defense Department–funded computing and research facility in Hawaii, signed the architects and engineers’ petition on the collapses (petition at

www.ae911truth.org

)

Outside the United States:

In Denmark: Commander Jens Claus Hansen, of the Danish Defense Academy, thought “bombs must have been placed inside the Trade Center towers” (

http://patriotsquestion911.com

)

In Finland: Heikki Kurtila, a veteran in the investigation of pressure-vessel explosion accidents, said the “great speed of the [Building 7] collapse and the resistance factor strongly suggest controlled demolition” (“Collapse Examination of WTC7,” by Heikki Kurtila, 11/18/05,

www.syyskuun11.ja

)

In Japan: Yukihisa Fujita, a member of the upper house of the Diet, included doubt about

the collapses in a forty-minute presentation to the Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2008 (

http://patriotsquestion911.com

)

In Malaysia: Former prime minister Tun Mahathir bin Mohammad expressed doubts about the collapses and said he “could believe” the U.S. government would organize the strikes to have an excuse for war in Iraq (“No Place for War Criminals,” 10/6/07,

www.globalresearch.ca

)

In Norway: Lieutenant Commander Rolf Hustad, a navy weapons specialist, said the statistical likelihood of the “only three steel-framed buildings ever to collapse [due to fire] … is just too remote to grasp” (profile at

www.ae911truth.org

)

In Switzerland: Lieutenant Colonel Albert Stahel, senior lecturer in strategic studies at the Federal Institute of Technology, has raised questions about the collapses, and especially about Building 7 (“Je Mehr Wir Forschen, Desto Mehr Zweifeln Wir,” 9/15/06,

www.blick.ch

)

Celebrities:

Actors Ed Asner, Juliette Binoche, Janeane Garofalo, and Woody Harrelson have expressed doubts in a more general sense (

Post Gazette

[Pittsburgh], 11/27/06, Asner letter, 4/26/04,

www.septembereleventh.org

Telegraph

[U.K.], 9/1/07,

http://patriotsquestion911.com

)

61 Nelson: “Aircraft parts and the Precautionary Principle,” www.physics911.net, bio. at www.patriotsquestion911.com.

62 Latas: bio. at www.latasgroup.com, int. of Jeff Latas for Pilots for 9/11 Truth, audio on www.youtube.com; the Flight Data Recorder from Flight 77 was recovered from the ruined section of the Pentagon, in decipherable condition. The voice recorder, though also recovered, was reportedly so badly damaged as to be of no use (corr. NTSB’s Ted Lopatkiewicz, 2010, “Specialist’s Factual Report of Investigation Digital Flight Data Recorder, NTSB no. DCA01MA064,” 1/31/02, www.ntsb.gov);

63 Davis: www.patriotsquestion911.com;

64 Kwiatkowski: eds. David Ray Griffin & Peter Dale Scott, 9/11 and American Empire, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch, 2007, 28–;

65 Citizen Investigation Team: www.citizeninvestigationteam.com.

CHAPTER 11

200, etc.:

FAQ, 8/30/06,

http://wtc.nist.gov

;

NIST/FEMA conclusions/“no corroborating”:

Executive Summary, “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” FEMA, Washington, D.C., 2002, & Executive Summary, “Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers,” NIST, Washington, D.C., 9/05;

“pancaked”/bowing:

FAQ, 8/30/06;

Mackey:

“On

Debunking 9/11 Debunking:

Examining Dr. David Ray Griffin’s Latest Criticism of the NIST World Trade Center Investigation,” 5/08, corr. Ryan Mackey, 2009, 2010;

“baloney”/“violates”:

cited in Mackey, 137–,147;

“are so numerous”:

ibid., 2;

“breaking”:

David Ray Griffin,

Debunking

, 157, Mackey, 25;

“would be very”:

Griffin,

Debunking

, 248–, 181–;

no good evidence/“particularly”/“high-temperature”:

Mackey, 82–, 86;

10 Jones’s four samples: Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, et al., “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” Open Chemical Physics Journal, Vol. 2 (April 3, 2009): 7–31, www.bentham.org;

11 fellow scientists: corr. Ryan Mackey, 2010, “Active Thermitic Material Claimed in Ground Zero Dust May Not Be Thermitic at All,” 4/13/09, http://undisettembre.blogspot.com, “Steven Jones,” article at www.ae911truth.info;

12 university website: Steven Jones, “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?,” http://web.archive.org; Journal: Steven Jones, “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?,” www.journalof911studies.com;

13 coeditor/“peer-reviewed”: “Home” page, http://www.journalof911studies.com;

14 “masquerade”: Mackey, 13, 40, Mackey corr. 2010, but see Dr. Jones’s riposte to such criticism in “An Open Letter to Dr. Steven Jones by James Bennett, with Replies by Steven Jones,” www.journalof911studies.com. When Jones’s and his colleagues’ most recent take on thermite was published in 2009, in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, the person whose name appeared on the masthead as “editor” promptly disassociated herself from the publication. The article, said Marie-Paule Pileni, a highly distinguished French scientist, had been printed without her knowledge. She characterized the periodical itself as “sheer nonsense … I do not want my name associated with this kind of stuff” (“sheer nonsense”: “Chefredaktor skrider efter kontroversiel artikel om 9/11,” videnskab.dk, 4/28/09, excerpts translated from the Danish by Marianne Gurnee, 2010, corr. Marie-Paul Pileni, 2010).

15 “heard”: WSJ, 4/8/02;

16 “individual floors”: Bussey cited in Cathy Trost & Alicia Shepard, Running Toward Danger, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 87;

17 “It just descended”: Judyth Sylvester & Suzanne Hoffman, Women Journalists at Ground Zero, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 19—in his article “Explosive Testimony,” www.911truth.org, Griffin rendered the text’s word “implosion” as “explosion.”

18 Romero: Albuquerque Journal, 9/11/01, 9/21/01. Undeterred, skeptics resorted to innuendo. One coupled Romero’s retraction to a “rumor” that he had “since found preferment from the federal government.” Griffin has written that Romero had been “a very successful lobbyist for Pentagon contracts.” “Saying that the government got to me,” Romero has said, “is the farthest thing from the truth.” In his initial comment, he would insist, he had “only said that that’s what it looked like” (“rumor”: Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11: Synthetic Terror, Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive, 2005, 225; “very successful”: Griffin, Debunking, 255; “Saying that”/“looked”: eds. Dunbar & Reagan, 49);

19 “Then we”: int. John Sudnik, TF, 11/7/01;

20 “First I”: int. Timothy Julian, TF, 12/26/01;

21 “There was”: int. Frank Cruthers, TF, 10/31/01;

22 “The lowest”: int. Brian Dixon, TF, 10/25/01.

23 Griffin seized: Griffin, “Explosive Testimony.” In his quote of Journal reporter Bussey, Griffin omitted the reporter’s description of the initial sounds he heard as having been “metallic.” He also left out a sentence in which the reporter, amending what he had at first assumed about the use of planted explosives, added, “In fact, the building was imploding down.” Griffin attributed the quote starting “individual floors …” to “another Wall Street Journal reporter”—as distinct from Bussey. In fact, the source makes clear, Bussey is the source of both quotes used (Griffin, “Explosive Testimony” & see source for “individual floors,” above).

24 formal interviews: published online by the NYT at http://graphics8.nytimes.com. Griffin cited Professor Graeme MacQueen, who did study all 503 Fire Department statements, as finding that 118 of them—some 23 percent of the group—“appear to have perceived, or thought they perceived, explosions that brought down the towers.” Our reading of the actual study suggests it is flawed. For example, MacQueen acknowledged having excluded from his analysis “a host of similes and metaphors referring to freight trains, jet planes and the like.” Significantly, he has glossed over the fact that—even under his own criteria—the majority of the 503 witnesses do not claim to have heard explosions. The authors note, too, that MacQueen’s analysis wrongly suggests—and he makes a point of this—that “fire chiefs on the scene thought the collapse of the towers was impossible.” As the authors have noted, the possibility of partial collapse was discussed by fire chiefs early on, see Ch. 6 (Griffin, Debunking, 76, Graeme MacQueen, “118 Witnesses: The Firefighters’ Testimony to Explosions in the Twin Towers,” 8/21/06, www.journalof911studies.com).

25 bangs: e.g., int. Julio Marrero, TF, 10/25/01;

26 thunder: e.g., int. Mark Stone, TF, 10/12/01, int. Eric Hansen, TF, 10/10/01, int. Jody Bell, TF, 12/15/01;

27 rumbling: e.g., int. Patricia Ondrovic, TF, 10/11/01, int. Scott Holowach, TF, 10/18/01, int. John Delendick, TF, 12/6/01, int. John Picarello, TF, 12/6/01, int. Anthony DeMaio, TF, 1/28/02;

28 trainlike: e.g., int. Louis Giaconelli, TF, 12/6/01, int. Paul Curran, TF, 12/18/01, int. Mark Ruppert, TF, 12/4/01, int. Joseph Fortis, TF, 11/9/01, int. Dominick Muschello, TF, 12/6/01;

29 “You heard”: int. Salvatore Torcivia cited in DiMarco, 188;

30 “relaying”: Mackey, 75;

31 Griffin on Kingdome: Griffin, Debunking, 188, & see U.S. News & World Report, 6/22/03, www.controlled-demolition.com/seattle-kingdome;

32 “produced no”: Mackey, 94;

33 “for alternative”: Executive Summary, NIST, xxxviii.

34 “Achilles’ Heel”/“smoking gun”: Griffin, Mysterious, xi; see pp. 97–99;

35 first known/“a mystery”: NYT, 11/29/01.

36 “fire-induced”: “Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7,” Federal Building & Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Washington, D.C., 11/08, ES-3, xxxvi. Author Griffin wrote off that finding as “scientific fraud,” claiming that the institute’s experts ignored numerous items of physical evidence, fabricated and falsified evidence, and ignored a recommendation that their documentation should be peer-reviewed. Evidence ignored, the professor asserted, included in particular the evidence in dust of thermitic material—Griffin thought the “most likely explanation” was that WTC 7, like the Twin Towers, was brought down by explosives (“scientific fraud,” etc.: Griffin, Mysterious, 245–; “most likely”: ibid., xii).

37 “When it fell”: int. Frank Fellini, TF, 12/3/01;

38 Hayden: Firehouse, 4/02, Smith, 31–, 159–, int. Ray Goldback, TF, 10/24/01, int. Richard Banaciski, TF, 12/6/01, int. Robert Sohmer, TF, 1/17/02, int. Frank Cruthers, TF, 10/31/01.

39 Nigro: int. Daniel Nigro, TF, 10/24/01, “Chief of Department FDNY (ret.) Daniel Nigro Addresses Conspiracy Theories,” http://guide.googlepages.com/danielnigro. Brent Blanchard, a senior writer on ImplosionWorld, an online magazine for the demolition industry, has written, “Any detonation of explosives within WTC 7 would likely have been detected by seismographs monitoring ground vibration.… To our knowledge, no such telltale ‘spike’ or vibratory anomaly was recorded.… Several demolition teams had reached Ground Zero by 3:00 P.M. on 9/11, and these individuals witnessed the collapse of WTC 7 from within a few hundred feet.… We have spoken with several who possess extensive experience in explosive demolition, and all reported hearing or seeing nothing to indicate an explosive detonation precipitating the collapse.” Readers who wish to delve deeper could consult Blanchard’s paper; Ryan Mackey’s paper, at p. 112–; the BBC documentary film The Conspiracy Files: 9/11—The Third Tower, July 6, 2008; and of course Dr. Griffin’s book The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7. (Brent Blanchard, “A Critical Analysis of the Collapse of WTC Towers 1, 2 and 7 from an Explosives and Conventional Demolition Industry Viewpoint,” www.implosionworld.com).

40 photos: credited to Corporal Jason Ingersoll, USMC; Goldberg et al., 159, 245n30, & see photo section, photos also at http://911research.wtc7.net;

41 18 feet/“How could”: David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Arris, 2005, 34;

42 wingspan/tail: Goldberg et al., 17fn;

43 “fits”: Griffin, Omissions, 38.

44 Eyewitnesses: e.g., see p. 44. Many more such witnesses are on record.

45 evidence/opinions: Paul Mlakar et al., “The Pentagon Building Performance Report,” Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 1/03, 1–;

46 removed/FBI warehouse: ibid., 24, Libération, 3/30/02, “Arlington County After-Action Report,” www.co.arlington.va.us/fire/edu/about/pdf/after_report.pdf, Annex C, 53–;

47 report concluded: Mlakar et al., 58;

48 “hogwash”/“To look”: corr. Mete Sozen, 2010;

49 Empire State: “B-25 Empire State Building Collision,” www.aerospaceweb.org, “Ask the Pilot,” Salon, 5/19/06;

50 photos: Goldberg et al., photo section;

51 “planted”: Griffin, Debunking,

52 “Don’t be taken in”: “New Study from Pilots for 9/11 Truth: No Boeing Hit the Pentagon, Global Research, 6/24/07. Fetzer was impressed by the suggestion from James Hanson, a retired attorney, who claimed that he had traced the debris that was found at the Pentagon to an American Airlines 757 that crashed in Colombia in 1995! (ibid. & Idaho Observer, 2/8/05);

53 aircraft remains: “Photos of Flt 77 Wreckage Inside the Pentagon,” by Sarah Roberts, www.rense.com (referred to the authors by Sarandis Papadopoulos, an editor of Pentagon 9/11, whom Roberts consulted), “Pentagon & Boeing 757 Engine Investigation,” www.aerospace.org, “Airplane Fragment in Patriotic Box,” exhibit description, http://americanhistory.si.edu, Libération, 3/30/02.

54 Carter: address at Coalition on Political Assassinations conference, 2002. The ashes given to May’s fiancé are interred in Maryland.

55 Flight 77 crew remains: Submission by Toni Knisley, American Airlines flight service administration manager, National September 11 Memorial & Museum, http://ns11makehistory.appspot.com, Burlingame bio. at www.arlingtoncemetery.net. Forensic work on the Pentagon victims was done by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Dover, Delaware. Remains of five individuals also found at the crash scene, and believed to be those of the hijackers, were eventually handed over to the FBI (Goldberg et al., 183, 178).

56 remains identified: Goldberg et al., 177–, 183, 204, “Attack on the Pentagon,” www.arlingtoncemetery.net;

57 photos: Exhibits P200042, P200045, P200047, P200048, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, www.vaed.uscourts.gov;

58 “A stillness”: Goldberg et al., 195;

59 “the bodies”/“For all we know”: Griffin, Debunking, 268–.

60 “cell phone calls”: “Operation Pearl,” 8/03, www.serendipity.li. Wireless and cell phone industry sources have said cell phone calls from planes were possible—even from high altitudes—at the time of 9/11, though connections were sporadic (e.g., NYT, 9/14/01, “Final Contact,” 11/1/01, www.connectedplanet.com, eds. Dunbar & Reagan, 83–, David Aaronovitch, Voodoo Histories, London: Jonathan Cape, 2009, 224).

61 seatback not cell phone: In May’s case, the skeptics’ claims grew out of early news reports that the attendant used her cell phone to call home—the record shows she did not. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, for his part, made it clear in a Fox News interview after 9/11 that he simply did not know what sort of phone his wife had used to call. The records now available show that only seatback phone calls, or attempted calls, were made from Flight 77.

The skeptics have claimed flatly that American Airlines 757s “were not equipped with seatback phones.” Though the airline had apparently decided to discontinue seatback phone service prior to 9/11, analysis indicates that such phones were still in use on some flights as late as March 2002. That they were still in use on 9/11 is evident from the phone records alone.

The skeptics have also claimed that the reports of passengers’ calls from Flight 93—see Ch. 7—are suspect. Griffin even suggests that Todd Beamer’s long call to operator Lisa Jefferson did not occur. Beamer’s call, however, is listed in the telephone company records now available. As in the case of Flight 77, early reports of “cell phone calls” made from Flight 93 sowed confusion. Deena Burnett, widow of Flight 93 passenger Tom Burnett, told the FBI that her husband made a series of three to five calls home on his cell phone. The records show that Burnett made three calls on a seatback phone. There is no way of knowing whether Mrs. Burnett simply misremembered the exact number of calls she got from her husband, or whether he did use his cell phone to make some of the calls. The records show that many Flight 93 calls, initially described as being by cell phone, in fact originated from seatback phones (early news:

Las Vegas Review Journal

, 9/13/01; made it clear: Olson, Fox News, 9/14/01;

only

seatback phone: DOJ “Briefing on Cell and Phone Calls from AA77,” 5/20/04, in “Flight 93 Calls” folder [inc. details on other flights], B12, T7, CF, & Moschella to Marcus [& attachments], 4/26/04, in

“Flight 11 Calls folder—Calls from AA11, AA77, UA175, & UA93, ATT Wireless & GTE Airphones,” B13, T7, CF; “were not equipped”: Griffin,

Debunking

, 266–; discontinue/analysis: “Airline Grounds In-Flight Phone Service,” 2/6/02,

www.news.cnet.com

Business Week

, 9/30/02, AA spokesman John Hotard cited at “American Airlines Flight 77 Calls,”

www.911myths.com

; suspect: e.g., Griffin,

Debunking

, 86–, 292–; Griffin re. Beamer: “The Ultimate 9/11 Truth Showdown,” 10/6/08,

www.alternet.org

; Burnett: FBI 302 of int. Deena Burnett, 9/11/01, INTELWIRE, Moschella to Marcus [& attachments], 4/26/04, records show: MFR 04020029, 5/13/04, CF, FBI 302 of int. Mark Rugg, 7/1/02, “Key 302s,” B19, T7, CF).

62 “have had a little”: “Comments on the Pentagon Strike,” www.cassiopaea.org;

63 “transformers”/“morphing”: Griffin, Debunking, 89, 86;

64 “Either Ted”/“is based on”: “The Ultimate 9/11 Truth Showdown, www.alternet.org;

65 scattered in three: Exhibit P200318, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui.

66 “It took”: transcript, Larry King Weekend, CNN, 1/6/02; Mrs. Olson is indeed interred in Door County, at Ellison Bay Cemetery. Had Dr. Griffin cared to check, he could have established this long before he made his most recent suggestion, in 2008, that she might be alive. (Ellison Bay Cemetery: int. Mayor’s Office, Liberty Grove, WI, Barbara K. Olson listing, www.findagrave.com).

67 “cannot ignore”: Griffin, Debunking, 266, & see Griffin, New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11, Moreton-in-March, U.K.: Arris, 2009, 28;

68 “overwhelming”/“an inside”: Griffin, Debunking, 1, 309, & see Griffin & Scott, Empire, 12;

69 “a prima facie”: Griffin, New Pearl Harbor, 2009, 131.

70 Project: “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” Washington, D.C.: Project for the New American Century, Sept. 2000, 10, 4, 51, “Statement of Principles,” www.newamericancentury.org.

71 “the Pearl Harbor”: WP, 1/27/02; This part of the passage echoed almost word for word testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1999. The then–executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Andrew Krepinevich, spoke of the difficulties in transforming the U.S. military, “in the absence of a strong external shock to the United States—a latter-day ‘Pearl Harbor’ of sorts” (testimony of Andrew Krepinevich, 3/5/99).

72 in public: Sammon, 205, 316;

73 “Who benefits?”: Griffin & Scott, Empire, 103;

74 precedents: e.g., Zwicker, multiple refs. to false flag ops., & Griffin in ed. Ian Woods, 9/11, Vol. 2, Ontario: Global Outlook, 2006, 15;

75 Roosevelt: Zwicker, 273, & see “FDR Knew Pearl Harbor Was Coming,” New York Press, 6/14/01.

76 false flag/pounced: “11 September 2001—Another Operation Northwoods?,” 9/17/01, www.blythe.org, & see “Operation 911: No Suicide Pilots,” 10/6/01, www.public-action.com. The reference was to Operation Northwoods, which was revealed in the book Body of Secrets by the author James Bamford (NY: Doubleday, 2001—see 82–, 300–).

77 “We must”: “11 September 2001—Another Operation Northwoods?”;

78 Corn objected: LAT, 7/3/02, “Van Jones & the 9/11 Conspiracy,” http://motherjones.com;

79 “I won’t”: “When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad,” by David Corn, 3/1/02, www.zcommunications.org;

80 howl of rage: Nation, 5/31/02.

81 thousands of pages: see refs in sourcing for Chs. 1–9; Some skeptics suggest that the absence of formal NTSB investigations on Flights 11 and 175—as well as the other two hijacked flights—is suspicious. From the outset, however, these crashes were deemed to have been “criminal acts,” which meant jurisdiction fell not to the NTSB but to the FBI. Within two days of the attacks, though, the FBI requested technical assistance from the NTSB. According to the NTSB’s chairman, some sixty NTSB experts worked “around the clock in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and at our headquarters in Washington, D.C., assisting with aircraft parts identification, searching for and analyzing flight recorders.” Some of the research done by NTSB experts has emerged in recent years, especially with the 2009 opening of 9/11 Commission files and absence of reports: e.g., notation on NTSB DCA01MA060 [Flight 11], www.ntsb.gov; (suspicious: e.g., “A Little Known Fact About the 9/11 Planes,” http://sabbah.biz, “Flight 77 Black Boxes,” http://911review.org; “criminal acts”/FBI requested: NTSB Advisory, 9/13/01, www.ntsb.gov; “around the clock”: Testimony of NTSB Chairman Marion C. Blakey, 6/25/01, Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportaion, U.S. Senate, www.ntsb.gov, corr. NTSB’s Ted Lopatkiewicz, 2009).

82 300,000: corr. NARA’s Kristen Wilhelm, 2011;

83 “distracts people”: Nation, 7/12/02.

CHAPTER 12

memo/“How,” etc.:

Philip to Tom & Lee, 9/6/04, “Farmer Memo re False Statements,” B4, Dana Hyde files, CF;

chairman/vice chairman:

Kean & Hamilton, 25;

Roemer/“false”:

int. Roemer on

American Morning

, CNN, 8/2/06;

shocked:

, 8/2/06;

“deception”:

Farmer, 4;

Farmer questioned:

Farmer, 4–, 227–;

Meyers confused/had launched:

Testimony of General Richard Myers, Hearings, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, 107th Cong., 1st Ses., 9/13/01;

“We responded awfully”:

transcript, OnLine NewsHour, 9/14/01,

www.pbs.org

;

Weaver timeline/“There was no”:

Dallas Morning News

, 9/15/01,

Seattle Times

, 9/16/01;

10 Cheney/“toughest decision”: transcript, Meet the Press, 9/16/01, www.msnbc.msn.com;

11 “Did we shoot”: cited by Bob Woodward and Dan Balz in “10 Days in September,” a series of articles based on interviews with Bush, Cheney, and other official sources, WP, 1/27/02;

12 “It’s my understanding”: CR, 43, 465n233;

13 “Oh, my God”: Testimony of Norman Mineta, 5/23/03, CO;

14 never missiles: Spencer, 277;

15 report incorrect: Cape Cod Times, 8/21/02.

16 Rumors circulating: A retired Army colonel, Donn de Grand-Pre, claimed in 2004 that Flight 93 was shot down by a pilot flying for the North Dakota National Guard. He named the pilot supposedly responsible and said he had sent a report on the matter to a named general. Flight records reportedly show that the alleged pilot was on other duties at the relevant time—and the general denied even knowing de Grand-Pre. A contributor to a 2008 blog, posted by a person identifying himself only as a former Langley Air Force Base mechanic, quotes a colleague at second hand as having said, “They shot one down … One of those 16s came back with one less missile than it left with.” The claim has no value as information—it is anonymous, and the supposed veteran did not himself speak with the original source of the quote. Conspiracy theorists, meanwhile, seized on the alleged content of a 911 call made from Flight 93 by passenger Edward Felt shortly before the airliner crashed. According to a staffer at the emergency center that took the call, Felt mentioned that there been an explosion on board, and “white smoke.” The dispatcher who actually took the call, however, denied that Felt said anything about an explosion. The call was recorded, and there is no such reference in the transcript. David Griffin refers in his books to “considerable evidence” that 93 was shot down—yet cites none of substance (De Grand-Pre: eds. Dunbar & Reagan, 77–; blog: “The US Air Force Shot Down Flight 93,” 4/11/08, http://georgewashington.blogspot.com; Felt: FBI 302 of [name redacted], 9/19/01, Pittsburgh to Counterterrorism, New York, 9/17/01, & FBI 302 of [name redacted], 9/11/01, INTELWIRE, transcript of call 9/11/01, “Flight 93 Calls,” B12, T8, CF; Griffin: e.g., Debunking, 70, & David Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2008, 127–).

17 Commission “required”: Public Law 107–306, 11/27/02, www.archives.gov;

18 delays/obstruction/tapes withheld/recalcitrant: Kean & Hamilton, 83–, 258–, Shenon, 203–;

19 “incomplete”: corr. Miles Kara, 2011;

20 Scott timeline/“9:24”/“awful decision”/In one breath, etc.: Testimonies of Larry Arnold & Alan Scott, 5/23/03, CO, Farmer, 262–;

21 leery/proof/subpoena: Shenon, 203–, Kean & Hamilton, 88, 260;

22 “Whiskey tango foxtrot”: Farmer, 265.

23 NORAD/more than 100 squadrons/14 “alert”/intercepts: CR, 16–, Spencer, 286–;

24 planes as weapons: Staff Monograph “The Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security,” 55–, CF, Farmer, 98–;

25 hijacking protocol: CR, 17–, Farmer, 117;

26 multiple Centers: e.g., Miles Kara, “Archive of the ‘Transponders and Ghosts’ Category,” www.oredigger61.org—Centers involved were Boston, New York, D.C., Indianapolis, and Cleveland;

27 “primary target”: MFR 04016798, 9/22/03, “Aeronautical Information Manual,” 2/11/10, www.faa.gov;

28 “coast mode”/coastline: Avionics, 6/1/05, Farmer, 135, 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD, NEADS Transcripts Channel 4,” B3, NYC files, CF, MFR 04016774, 10/27/03;

29 not know NORAD: MFR 04017316, 10/2/03;

30 units different training: MFR 04020720, 3/11/04;

31 unable to communicate/frequencies/none worked: MFR 040176171, 10/2/03;

32 Transcripts/In that book, etc.: Farmer, 215–;

33 “Washington [Center] has no clue”: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Transcripts Channel 7,” B3, NYC files, CF;

34 “It’s chaos”/“The challenge”/Kara: Miles Kara, “Chaos Theory and 9–11, Some Preliminary Thoughts,” 6/12/09, www.oredigger61.org, & see Archives, 911 Revisited, www.oredigger61.org, Kara Career Summary, 12/12/02, “Commission Meeting 4/10/03, Tab 7,” B1, Front Office files, CF.

35 evidence of tapes and logs: In writing this account of the FAA/military response to the attacks, the authors relied—as did the 9/11 Commission—on the tapes and transcripts of conversations between the various FAA and NORAD sites. As the Commission’s Miles Kara wrote in 2009, the “complete set of information needed to attempt any analysis of the events [of that morning] includes the radar files and the software to run them, time-stamped tapes, and any transcripts that were made” (Commission account: Miles Kara, “Archive for the NEADS files category,” www.oredigger61.org; NORAD audio files are available at the National Archives, B82 & B110, GSA Files, CF, but—for ready availability—at http://911depository.info).

36 nerve center: Vanity Fair, 9/06, Spencer, 2.

37 Marr/hijacking/Vigilant Guardian: Vanity Fair, 9/06, CR, 458n116. The military exercise scheduled for September 11, and several others that took place earlier in the year, have been the source of speculation. Some thought aspects of the exercises indicated U.S. government foreknowledge of the manner and timing of the 9/11 attacks. Others suggested that September’s Vigilant Guardian exercise had a negative effect on NORAD’s ability to react to the attacks. The 9/11 Commission found that the timing of the drill may have had a positive impact, because more personnel were on duty that day. The tapes and transcripts, though, reflect temporary confusion within NORAD as to whether the attacks were part of the war game or were real-world (Miles Kara, “9–11 Training, Exercises, and War Games, Some Collected Thoughts,” 9/11 Revisited, www.oredigger61.org, “Exclusive Report: Did Military Exercises Facilitate the 9/11 Pentagon Attack?,” by Mathew Everett, 7/06, www.911truth.org, Aviation Weeks & Space Technology, 6/3/02, “NORAD Exercises Summary,” Team 8 files, posted on www.scribd.com, CR, 458n116).

38 “on the shitter”: NEADS audiotape, DRM1, CH2, www.oredigger61.org;

39 Arnold in FL: MFR 04016749, 2/3/04;

40 Dooley et al.: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 4,” B3, NYC files, CF;

41 “Real World Unknown”: Memorandum for CC et al. from NEADS Sector/CVX, 8/23/01, “RDOD 03013146, Entire Contents, Vigilant Guardian,” B116, GSA files, CF.

42 Cooper call: MFR 04016791 & 04016790, 9/22/03, CR, 20. Disregarding the official FAA/military protocol, Boston Center had made two earlier attempts to contact the military on a “freelance” basis. The first such call, which went to the New Jersey Air National Guard’s 177th Fighter Wing at Atlantic City, got nowhere because the wing was not on alert status. Boston’s second early attempt to reach the military—through the FAA’s Cape Cod facility—did eventually lead to an alert being passed to NEADS, but only after the call made by the FAA’s Cooper. These calls were made at the initiative of Boston Center’s traffic management supervisor, Dan Bueno. Bueno—who was aware of the protocols in place—told the Commission that his actions were based on the “urgency of the situation.” Cooper’s use of “F-16” was a misspeak for “F-15” (CR, 20, Position 15, pts. 2 & 3, “ATCSCC Tape Transcription,” B1, T8, CF, Bergen Record [N.J.], 12/5/03, MFR 04016791, 9/22/03, MFR 04016790, 9/22/03, MFR 03012969, 9/30/03, CF, Spencer, 22–).

43 “Cool”/all business/Boston could say: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 4,” B3, NYC files, CF, Vanity Fair, 9/06;

44 8:41 battle stations: CR, 20, Farmer, 123;

45 conferred Arnold/ordered: “Conversation with Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold,” www.codeonemagazine.com, 1/02, CR, 20;

46 without direction/assigned: CR, 20;

47 “Oh, God”: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 4,” B3, NYC files, CF;

48 Mulligan: Full Transcript: Command Center; NOM Operational Position, Sept. 11, 2001, 10/14/03, “NOM Operation Position (5),” B1, NYC files, CF, CR 22.

49 Air Force knew nothing: Some skeptics have seized on an early NORAD chronology that appeared to suggest that the FAA notified the military of the hijacking of Flight 175 at 8:43 A.M., claiming that this was evidence that U.S. forces failed to react promptly—even “stood down”—as the attacks unfolded. The contention is spurious—the 8:43 notification time in the NORAD chronology was simply incorrect. Although 8:43 A.M. does approximate the time the plane was hijacked, that fact was not at the time known to the FAA (critics: Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, 8–; 8:43 notification: Chronology of the September 11 Attacks & Subsequent Events Through Oct. 24, 2001, “Timelines, 1 of 2,” B20, T7, CF, “FAA Believed Second 9/11 Plane Heading Towards New York for Emergency Landing,” & linked FAA document 4, 9/5/05; time incorrect: www.gwu.edu, Miles Kara, “Chaos Theory & 9/11,” 9/11 Revisited, www.oredigger61.org, corr. Miles Kara, 2010).

50 Otis pilots holding: Cape Cod News, 8/21/02, BG, 9/11/05, Vanity Fair, 9/06. The speed at which the fighters traveled and their exact route to New York has been the subject of some debate. Available tapes, and Commission interviews with the pilots and the mission commander, make clear that when they were first launched the flights headed for military-controlled airspace where they stayed in a holding pattern until after NEADS learned the second tower had been hit. The fighters then proceeded to New York, where they established a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) over the city at 9:25. The F-15 fighter, when new and stripped of its armament, is capable of doing a speed of Mach 2.5—some 1,650 miles per hour. Pilot Nash told the Commission that he and Duffy never exceeded Mach 1.1 (727 mph) as they flew toward New York. Duffy estimated that the fighters had reached between Mach 1.1 and 1.3, but said the pair “throttled back” on learning of the second strike—to conserve fuel. While it is possible that the Otis fighters went supersonic on the final leg of the journey to New York, radar data showed that the pair averaged a less-than-supersonic speed of Mach.86 (debate: see refs, “Complete 9/11 Timeline,” www.historycommons.org; record scanty: CR, 459n120; available tapes/interviews: transcripts from Voice Recorder, 11/9/01 1227Z-1417Z, Channel 24, “Trip 2 of 3, NEADS Transcript Color Coded,” B20, T8, CF, 9/11 ATCSCC Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 5,” B3, NYC files, CF, MFR 04016778, 1/22 & 1/23/04, MFR 03012972, 10/14/03, MFR 04016756, CF, CR, 21–, 23–, corr. Kris Wilhelm, Miles Kara, 2010).

51 Long Island: Full Transcript: Command Center; NOM Operational Position, Sept. 11, 2001, 10/14/03, “NOM Operation Position (5),” B1, NYC files, CF, CR 22;

52 Five minutes after: CR, 23–;

53 “I thought”: Cape Cod Times, 8/21/02;

54 “We don’t know”/“We need”/urged/Marr at first: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 2,” B3, NYC files, CF & re Boston, authors’ check of audiotape, CR, 460n137;

55 “Listen”: Position 15, Parts 2 & 3, “ATCSCC Tape Transcript, Position 15,” B1, T8, CF.

56 9:21 call/Scoggins/checked D.C./“First I heard”/Scoggins insisted: MFR 04016798, 9/22/03, 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 7,” B3, NYC files, CF. Scoggins has said he is “99% certain the person who made that call on the Telcon [about Flight 11 still being airborne] was Dave Cannoles.” The FAA’s Cannoles told 9/11 Commission staff that he did not recall doubt as to whether Flight 11 had crashed into the Trade Center. Another staff member, Doug Davis, thought the chief of staff for the director of air traffic at FAA headquarters, Mary Ellen Kraus, said Flight 11 was still airborne. Kraus denied it (“Losing Flight 77,” www.911myths.com, handwritten notes of Dave Canoles interview, 3/25/04, “Dave Canoles, FAA WOC,” B2, Dana Hyde files, CF, MFR of int. Mary Ellen Kraus, 4/27/04, “FAA HQ—Mary Ellen Kraus,” B6, T8, CF).

57 new “track”: Miles Kara, “Archive for the ‘Transponder & Ghosts’ Category,” 9/11 Revisited, www.oredigger61.org, Traffic Situation Display (TSD) Demo, 4/13/04, “FAA HQ Floor Position Maps—Herndon,” B19, T8, CF;

58 “listening on a Telcon”: int. of Colin Scoggins at www.911myths.com;

59 “Shit!”: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 2,” B3, NYC files, CF, CR, 461n149.

60 9:30 fighters into air: CR, 27. Two planes on alert duty were ready and loaded with live missiles, while the third—the “spare”—had only its 20mm gun. The pilots were Major Lou Derrig, Captain Dean Eckmann, and—piloting the spare—Captain Craig Borgstrom (Spencer, 115–, 142–).

61 Nasypany figured: MFR 04016778, 1/22 & 23/04, MFR 04016771, 10/27/03.

62 NEADS ordered/tower sent: “Staff Statement 17,” CO, MFR 04016771, 10/27/03. The Commission Report offers three explanations for the change of course. One, that the scramble order had given no distance to the target, nor where it was. Two, that the pilots followed a “generic” flight plan designed to get them out of local airspace. Three, that the lead pilot and the local FAA controller assumed that the Langley tower’s instruction superseded the order received from NEADS. According to author Lynn Spencer, who interviewed members of the unit involved, Captain Dean Eckmann assumed the fighters were “being vectored eastward in order to fly around the traffic in their way. He doesn’t second-guess the instructions.… The jet’s targets are customarily out over the ocean.” There is, however, no mention of traffic on the Air Traffic Control tapes (CR, 27, Spencer, 143–; corr. Miles Kara, 2011).

63 NEADS finally learned: American Airlines executive vice president Gerard Arpey had been told at 9:00 A.M. that communications with American 77 had been lost. As reported in Ch. 4, the FAA controller at Indianapolis Center had his last routine contact with Flight 77 as early as 8:54 (CR, 8–);

64 “Let me tell”: 9/11 ATCSCC Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 5,” B3, NYC files, CF;

65 “Latest report”/“not sure”/“rumor”: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 7,” B3, NYC files, CF;

66 “Get your fighters”: “Transcripts from Voice Recorder, Channel 14,” B20, T8, “NEADS Transcripts color-coded,” CF;

67 asked where fighters/“I don’t care”: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 2,” B3, NYC files, CF;

68 Scoggins back/“Delta 1989”/“And is this one?”: Chronology of Events at Mission Coodinator Position, 9/24/03, “Boston Center—Colin Scoggins,” B3, T8, CF, 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 7,” B3, NYC files, CF. Based on a Commission staff timeline, the authors have taken 9:39 as the time Scoggins warned NEADS about Delta 1989—even though the Commission Report uses a time of 9:41. (“Timeline of the Events of the Day,” www.scribd.com, & see MCC log, “Miles Kara trips,” B19, T8, CF, Farmer, 193– v. CR, 28).

69 Boston speculated: Miles Kara, “Archive for the Delta 1989 category,” 9/11 Revisited, www.oredigger61.org, & see Position 15, Parts 2 & 3, “ATCSCC Tape Transcription,” B1, T8, CF. In a chronology he gave the Commission of the day’s events, Scoggins noted that an “Open Telcon reports that DAL1889 [sic] is NORDO [no radio]” and described his own subsequent action as “call NEADS to advise” suggesting that his concern about 1989 was piqued only after hearing of it from others. In an interview much later, Scoggins said he thought Delta 1989 might have become suspect because it “missed a frequency transfer” or “didn’t make a transmission back” when given a frequency change (“Open Telcon”: Chronology of Events at Mission Coordinator Position, 9/24/03, “Boston Center—Colin Scoggins,” B3, T8, CF, & see Position 15, Parts 2 & 3, “ATCSCC Tape Transcription,” B1, T8, CF; later interview: “Q & A with 9/11 Boston Air Traffic Controller,” http://sites.google.com).

70 NEADS tracked: MFR 04016777, 10/28/03, Miles Kara, “Archive to the ‘Transponders & Ghosts’ Category, 9/11 Revisited,” www.oredigger61.org, Kara to Brinkley, 1/26/04, “Misc. Loose Documents re. Delta 1989,” B5, T8, CF, UA93 & Andrews Timeline, “Andrews AFB Logs—Timelines, UA93 & Andrews,” B4, Dana Hyde files, CF.

71 only plane able to tail: NEADS had also been able briefly to pinpoint and track Flight 77, even though the FAA alerted it to the problem with the airliner only at 9:34, only some three minutes before it struck the Pentagon (Miles Kara, “Archive for the ‘Transponders & Ghosts’ Category, 9/11 Revisited, www.oredigger61.com);

72 “land immediately”/“Confirm”/“unreliable”/Cleveland panic/pilots feared/“you’re a trip”/assured/“bomb area”/“bad movie”: Dave Dunlap (copilot) memoir, “September 11, 2001,” www.3dlanguage.net, DAL 1989 Order of Events, “FAA Subpoena Compendium, Delta 1989 Timeline,” B15, T8, CF, int. John Werth, MFR 04017313, 10/2/03;

73 Scoggins, “might not be”: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 7,” B3, NYC files, CF, Summary [slugged as Timeline of Events of the Day], “Boston Center—Colin Scoggins,” B3, T8, CF, Farmer, 211.

74 trying to get fighters: MFR 04016778, 1/22 & 23/04, MFR 04016771, 10/27/03, 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 2,” & ATCSCC Tape Transcription, “Channel 5,” B3, NYC files, CF, Staff Report, “The Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security,” 8/26/04, CF, 101n391. NEADS asked two additional bases to provide fighters—Selfridge, in Michigan, and Toledo, in Ohio. Contrary to reports at the time, it appears that they were unable to help during the Delta episode. The Selfridge Air National Guard fighters were in the air, but had expended all their ammunition on a training exercise. They did not land until 10:29. Two Toledo F-16s were to take off, but—according to Colonel Marr—only after the Delta 1989 episode was over and after United 93 had been shot down (“The Unthinkable Had Happened,” 2007, www.candgnews.com, The Wolverine, Fall 2006, Spencer, 178–, Toledo Blade, 12/9/01, MFR 03012970, 10/27/03).

75 I believe: ATCSCC Tape Transcription, “Channel 5”;

76 NEADS told nothing: ibid., 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 2,” B3, NYC files, CF, MCC Log, “Miles Kara Trips,” B19, T8, CF, CR, 30;

77 controller heard/reported promptly: int. John Werth, CR, 28, FAA Memo, “Full Transcription: Air Traffic Control System Command Center, National Traffic Management Officer, East Position, 9/11/01,” B1, NYC files, CF;

78 Uh, do we want to think?/FAA staffer reported/“does not believe”: ibid., MFR 04018154, 11/24/03, CR, 461n167.

79 132 NEADS knew nothing: MCC/T Log, “Miles Kara Trips—MCC Log,” B19, T8, CF. Ironically, this was the one time during the morning that U.S. forces might have been in a position to intercept one of the hijacked flights. In the words of Commission staffer Kara, “it was only because of a proactive error by Boston air traffic controller Colin Scoggins [suggesting that Flight 11 might still be aloft] … that the nation’s air defenders had any real chance to defend against Flight 93.” The flap over the nonexistent Flight 11 got fighters from Langley in the air, where they established a Combat Air Patrol over Washington by 10:00. It was a patrol at that stage, however—an impotent patrol. It had no rules of engagement, no knowledge of the real flight that was missing, United 93 (“Archive for the Andrews Fighters Category,” www.oredigger61.org);

80 “we were always”: int. of Colin Scoggins (under his Internet name of Cheap Shot), “Q&A with Boston Center Air Traffic Controller,” http://sites.google.com.

81 “We believe”: Spencer, 286;

82 “watching United”: “Conversation with Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold,” www.codeonemagazine.com, 1/02.

83 magical feat/no one reported: The FAA’s call alerting the military to United 93’s situation was at 10:07, and the airliner had crashed at 10:03. Seven minutes later, NEADS was told that the plane was down. (9/11 ATCSCC Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Transcripts Channel 5,” B3, NYC files, CF, MCC Tech logbook, “Miles Kara FAA HQ 3 of 3,” B19, T8, CF).

84 Arnold concedes: Testimony of Larry Arnold, 6/17/04, CO, MFR 04016749, 2/3/04, Vanity Fair, 9/06 & see re officers conceding same MFR 04016769, 1/23/04.

85 conflated Delta 1989: Miles Kara, “Archive for Delta 1989 Category,” 9/11 Revisited, www.oredigger.com—with which the authors concur, int. John Werth, & see MFRs 04016769, 1/23/04, 04016749, 2/3/04. Colonel Marr, the NEADS battle commander, also offered inaccurate information about NEADS and Flight 93. The Air Force’s official 9/11 history, published as Air War over America in January 2003, quoted him as saying he and colleagues called in fighters from the airbase at Selfridge “so they could head 93 off at the pass … get in there, close on him, and convince him to turn.” The request to Selfridge was made, however, at about 9:43, before NORAD knew anything about Flight 93. The request was made, rather, in connection with Delta 1989, which—as discussed in the text—had not in fact been hijacked (“so they could”: Staff Monograph, “The Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security,” 8/26/04, CF, 100n391; Selfridge request: 1989: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Transcripts Channel 2,” B3, NYC files, CF, Staff Monograph, “The Four Flights and Civil Aviation Security,” 8/26/04, CF, 101n391).

86 Sudoku/shoddy work: Miles Kara, “NORAD’s Sudoko Puzzle, a Failure to Tell the Truth” & “Archive of the ‘May 23, 2003 Hearing’ Category,” 9/11 Revisited, www.oredigger61.org.

87 Marcus pointed: Marcus to Schmitz & Mead plus attachments, 7/29/04, “Referral of False Statements by Government Officials to FAA & DOD Inspectors General,” CF; Kara, for his part, told the authors that in his view the press release in question had been a “rush to judgment” by NORAD, that NORAD had simply wanted to “get out in front of FAA before the upcoming White House meeting to sort things out”; the tape malfuntion referred to, Kara said, did indeed occur (corr. Miles Kara, 2011);

88 “didn’t get together”: Testimony of Ralph Eberhart, 6/17/04, CO;

89 “NORAD’s public chronology”/“whoever at FAA”: “Sen. Dayton’s ‘NORAD Lied’ Transcript,” www.scoop.co.nz;

90 “At some”: Farmer, 4–.

CHAPTER 13

Wolfowitz:

Online NewsHour, 9/14/01,

www.pbs.org

;

“horrendous decision”:

Meet the Press

, NBC, 9/16/01;

“I recommended”:

Office of the Vice President Internal

Transcript, Telephone Interview of the Vice President by

Newsweek

, “Farmer—Misc.,” B9, NYC files, CF;

“You bet”:

, 1/27/02;

“emphasized”:

CR, 40, 464n214;

2010 memoir:

Bush, 129–.

“The operational chain”:

Dept. of Defense Directive 5100.1, 9/25/87. The authors have here referred to the directive effectuating the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, the relevant law on 9/11. Other Defense Department regulations in force in 2001 stated—on the matter of military cooperation with civilian authorities (like the FAA)—that the defense secretary had to approve “any request for potentially lethal support,” and that “only the President” could request the use of the military to respond to domestic terrorism. It was “understood” in 2001, the 9/11 Commission stated, that a shoot-down order would have to come from the National Command Authority—“a phrase used to describe the President and the Secretary of Defense.” Dr. David Griffin, the prominent skeptic, has suggested that the military did not in fact require authorization—that they could act at once in cases requiring “immediate responses.” The authors’ reading of the regulation Griffin cites is that in certain circumstances and “where time does not permit” prior approval, the military could indeed take “necessary action.” The sort of action it could take, however, is very specifically described and does

not

include the use of force (“understood”: CR 17, 43; Griffin:

New Pearl Harbor Revisited

, 265n12; regulation: DOD Directives, “Military Assistance to Civil Authorities,” 3025.1, 1/15/93, 3025.15, 2/18/97, Joint Chiefs of Staff Instructions, “Aircraft Piracy [Hijacking] and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects,” 3610.01, 7/31/97, 3610.01A, 6/1/01).

generals understood/exercise:

Testimony of Larry Arnold & Craig McKinley, 5/23/03, CO, CR 457n98;

“derelict balloon”/Only President:

MFR 04016749, 2/3/04, Testimony of Larry Arnold, 5/23/02, CO, CR 457n98;

10 Cheney furious: Shenon, 267, 411–, but see Kean & Hamilton, 261;

11 clear hint: CR, 40–, 464n213–216;

12 “We just didn’t”: Shenon, 265;

13 “The official version”: Farmer, 255.

14 “My recommendation”: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 2, B3, NYC files, CF;

15 Nasypany began asking: Vanity Fair, 9/06;

16 “I don’t know”: 9/11 NEADS Tape Transcription, “NEADS-CONR-NORAD Transcripts, NEADS Channel 4,” B3, NYC files, CF, FAA Memo, Full Transcript, Aircraft Accident: UAL175; New York, NY, 9/11/01, “AAL 11, UAL 175: FAA Produced documents, Transcripts used in interviews,” B2, NYC files, CF;

17 Rumsfeld movements from 9:37: see Ch. 5;

18 NMCC looked: CR, 37–;

19 “outrageous”: Cockburn, 3–;

20 “one or more calls”: Testimony of Donald Rumsfeld, 3/23/04, CO;

21 “tried without success”: Goldberg et al., 131;

22 “Are you okay?”: ibid., 131, 240n6. The assistant was Major Joseph Wassel, who set up the call. Wassel was interviewed for the Defense Department’s “Pentagon 9/11” report, but not by the staff of the 9/11 Commission. Wassel described an initial attempt to call the President through the White House Situation Room—a call he came to believe did not go through. Sometime later—Wassel could not pinpoint the time, but placed it as being when Rumsfeld was back in his Pentagon office, having returned from the crash site—the President called the defense secretary from Air Force One (Goldberg et al., 131, 240n6, AF News, 3/8/01, Fenner to Campagna & attachments, 12/21/03, “DOD Documents Produced,” B22, T2, CF, int. of Joseph Wassel by Alfred Goldberg, 4/9/03, B115, GSA files, CF).

23 “brief call”/“just gaining”/10:35/There’s been; CR, 43–, 465n234, Farmer, 230, “Dana Hyde Notes of Air Threat Conference Call,” released to authors under Mandatory Declassification Review 2011. The text of this conversation is taken from the Defense Department transcript of the “Air Threat” teleconference that began at 9:37 A.M., a key document in the context of establishing the time of the actions and knowledge of senior officials. The Defense Department and Commission staff held that the transcript had a three-minute margin of error. The authors obtained the release of Commission staffer Dana Hyde’s detailed notes on the Air Threat call, which support the timeline in the Commission’s Report. The transcript of the teleconference remains classified as of this writing (CR, 37, 462n194, Levin to Zelikow, 8/22/03, “Air Threat Call,” B1, Daniel Marcus Files, CF, “Dana Hyde Notes of ATC Call,” CF, corr. Kristen Wilhelm, 2010).

24 “had come”/“Technically”/testimony/withheld: “Interview with Donald Rumsfeld, 12/23/02,” B7, T2, CF, Goldberg et al., 131, testimony of Donald Rumsfeld, 3/23/04, CO, corr. NARA’s Kristen Wilhelm, 2010. The defense secretary’s full testimony on the point was: “In the National Military Command Center (NMCC), I joined the Air Threat Conference call in progress. One of my first conversations during the Conference Call was with the Vice President. He informed me of the President’s authorization to shoot down hostile aircraft coming toward Washington, D.C.” In the 2011 memoir, Rumsfeld said Cheney told him there had been “at least three instances” of reports of planes approaching Washington—“a couple were confirmed hijack. And, pursuant to the President’s instructions, I gave authorization for them to be taken out” (Rumsfeld, 339).

25 “Very little”/“To a person”: Hyde to Front Office, 3/2/04, “Daniel Marcus,” B8, T8, CF;

26 White House keeps track: Shenon, 265;

27 notes by individuals: CR, 464n216;

28 sought to limit/record unreliable: Hyde to Front Office, 3/2/04, “Daniel Marcus,” B8, T8, CF;

29 teleconferences/“In my mind”/cell phones: CR, 36–, 463n190, int. Anthony Barnes, int. Joseph Wassel by Alfred Goldberg, 4/9/03, B115, GSA files, CF, Sunday Times (U.K.), 9/5/10.

30 logged in 9:58: Hyde to Front Office, 3/2/04, Dan Marcus Files, CF. Much-publicized recollections, particularly those of former transportation secretary Norman Mineta, appear to suggest that Cheney was moved to the PEOC before 9:30 A.M. According to the authors’ analysis, they are in error. Mineta himself, moreover, was not logged into the PEOC until 10:07.

31 disputed call: CR, 40. Cheney had also called Bush minutes earlier, from a wall phone in a tunnel on the way to the bunker. In that call, he said, they discussed principally the matter of whether the President should return to Washington. Cheney’s aide, Scooter Libby, who arrived in the tunnel during the call, thought the gist of it was “basically conveying what was happening.” Neither he nor Mrs. Cheney, who was also there, heard any discussion of the shoot-down issue. It is evident from a Defense Department transcript that a White House official requested a Combat Air Patrol over the capital at about that time, but made no mention of a shoot-down order. Counterterrorism coordinator Clarke, moreover, was still talking of “asking the President for authority to shoot down aircraft.”

Neither Libby’s notes, however, nor Mrs. Cheney’s, reflect contact with Bush at the time mentioned by Cheney. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice did tell the Commission she heard Cheney’s end of a conversation with the President at that time. While she recalled a reference to a Combat Air Patrol, however, she did not hear Cheney recommend the shoot-down of hijacked airliners. A separate statement by Rice, moreover, mightily diminishes her credibility. She told ABC News that shoot-down authority was “requested through channels, by Secretary Rumsfeld, Vice President passed the request, the President said, ‘Yes.’ ” Far from requesting shoot-down authority, Rumsfeld—as reported in the text—learned of the shoot-down order only after the fact, from Cheney (Cheney called: CR 40, 464n211/213, Interview of Scooter Libby by

Newsweek

, 11/16/01, & Interview of Mrs. Cheney by

Newsweek

, 11/9/01, “Farmer Misc.,” B10, NYC files, CF; transcript: CR 38, 463n201; “asking”: CR 36, 463n191, MFR 04018415, 12/16/03, CF; Libby/Cheney notes/Rice: CR 40–, 43; “requested”: “9/11,” ABC News, 9/11/02, transcript at

http://s3.amazonaws.com

, Farmer, 259).

32 staff received/Kurtz: CR, 36, MFR 04018415, 12/16/03, CF.

33 suspect aircraft: The reports of inbound aircraft originated, as Mrs. Cheney’s notes suggest, as information from the Secret Service’s Joint Operations Center (JOC), which was in turn getting its information directly from the FAA. The incoming aircraft was likely United 93, which the Secret Service and its FAA contact were tracking on a screen that showed its projected path. Both were unaware that, as of 10:03, the flight that appeared on the screen to be approaching the capital had in fact already crashed. Within a minute or so of the confusing reports about Flight 93, the fighters out of Langley—just arriving over Washington—were also briefly mistaken as a threat (CR, 40–, Staff Statement 17, CO, Miles Kara, “9–11: Rules of Engagement,” www.oredigger61.org).

34 Mrs. Cheney noted: notes, “Office of the VP Notes,” B1, Dana Hyde files, CF. The content of Mrs. Cheney’s notes come from a handwritten digest done by Commission staff, which was released in 2009. Mrs. Cheney’s original notes, like those of Scooter Libby, have not been released at the time of writing, nor has the Commission staff’s record of its interview of Josh Bolten. Bolten has disputed the way he was reported in the Commission Report. According to Cheney biographer Stephen Hayes, he said “he suggested Cheney call Bush not because the Vice President had overstepped his authority, but as a reminder that they should notify the President.” In his November interview with Newsweek, Libby would say, “I wouldn’t be surprised that there were—that there had already been discussion with the President about getting CAP [Combat Air Patrol] up.… I’m almost certain that they had already had discussions … as I say, I was not on those phone calls.” (Mrs. Cheney’s notes: “OVP Notes,” B1, Dana Hyde files, CF; Cheney/Libby/Bolten notes: corr. NARA’s Kristen Wilhelm, 2010; Bolten disputed: Hayes, 546n20; “I wouldn’t”: int. Libby by Newsweek, 11/16/01).

35 “I’m talking”: int. Anthony Barnes. According to Barnes, it was not he who warned Cheney of an approaching aircraft. That information reached the Vice President from someone else. The Commission Report identifies the source of the “aircraft 80 miles out” report only as a “military aide.” The aide could perhaps have been the Vice President’s military aide, Douglas Cochrane, who was also in the PEOC at some point (CR, 40–).

36 Libby/“Yes”: int. Libby by Newsweek, 11/16/01;

37 lt. col. “confirmed”: CR 42, 465n227;

38 “pin-drop”: MFR 04020719, 4/29/04;

39 Libby note: CR, 465n220;

40 “wanted to make sure”: CR, 41.

41 Fleisher kept record: Ari Fleischer, Taking Heat, NY: William Morrow, 2005, 141, transcript 60 Minutes, CBS, 9/11/02. The note Fleischer made on 9/11, which firmly timed the President’s comment as having been made at 10:20, remains classified. The press secretary’s memoir—published after the Commission’s Report came out—refers to the timing of the authorization only vaguely, as “shortly after we took off” (classified: corr. Kristen Wilhem, 2010, “shortly”: Fleischer, 141);

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 finding. “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

garbage can/“Allah will be”:

Chicago to Director, 9/12/01, FBI 265D-NY-280350-CG, INTELWIRE;

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;

Picciotto/The guy:

Picciotto, 75–.

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,

, 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

conditions included/abuse:

The abuse occurred especially at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn (“The September 11 Detainees,” 4–).

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);

Ziglar/“a moment”:

MFR 04016455, 11/14/03;

anti-Arab hostility/Sikh shot:

New Republic

, 9/24/01,

Queens Tribune

, 9/18/01;

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 released 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).

29 flight attendants/Suqami/Shehris/Atta: FBI 302 of int. Kip Hamilton, 9/11/01 & re Lead Control Numbers DL267 and CE66, 9/13/01, “DOJ Documents Requests #35-13,” B13, T7, CF, New York Observer, 2/15/04, entry for 10:59 A.M., Chicago to Director, 9/12/01, INTELWIRE, entries for 10:51 A.M. & 11:26 A.M., TSA Incident Log, 9/11/01, “DOJ Documents Request,” B20, T7, CF, MFR 03007067, 9/11/03;

30 Graney/“clenched”: FBI 302 of int. Diane Graney, 9/22/01, “FBI 302s—Ground Security Coordinator,” B1, T7, CF, MFR 04020036, 4/15/04, MFR 04020016, 5/27/04;

31 camera recorded/calls: “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;

32 Nissan: ibid., WP, 10/6/01;

33 Hyundai/Banihammad/Milner/ticket: MFR 04020636, 2/2/04, “American Airlines Flight 11, PENTTBOM, 265A-NY-280350,” 4/19/02;

34 Mitsubishi found: “American Airlines Flight 11, PENTTBOM, 265A-NY-280350,” 4/19/02, Staff Report, “The Four Flights & Civil Aviation Security,” CF, exhibits list, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T5, CF, MFR 04020636, 2/2/04, MFR 03007050, 8/15/03;

35 Park Inn: “American Airlines Flight 11, PENTTBOM, 265A-NY-280350,” 4/19/02;

36 Ghamdis/Charles Hotel/taxi: MFR 04020636, 2/2/04;

37 draped towels: WP, 9/16/01; novels/Penthouse/condoms: Warrant Issued on Vehicle ID JT2AE92E9J3137546, 9/13/01, “FBI 302s of Interest,” B17, T7, CF, “Ziad Jarrah,” FBI summary, 4/19/02, www.scribd.com;

38 prostitutes: BG, 10/10/01, MFR 04020636, 2/2/04;

39 phone records: MFR 04020636, 2/2/04.

40 money trail: ibid., Evidence Inspected at FBI HQ 5/14/04, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T5, CF, Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing, CO, Newsweek, 11/11/01. The two key financial facilitators in the UAE were Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. Both men, arrested in Pakistan in 2003, became part of the group known as “High-Value Detainees” held at Guantánamo Bay. As of spring 2011, they were still there (Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO, NYT, 6/30/10, “The Guantánamo Docket,” www.nyt.com);

41 “A maid”: Counterterrorism to All Field Offices, 9/22/01, FBI 265A-NY-280350, released under FOIA to Mike Williams, www.911myths.com, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/4/03, INTELWIRE.

42 ominous indications/“sleepers”: Of these three leads, the authors found no indication that the first—relating to the man who answered the door at the Park Inn—was ever resolved. The two names were found at Dulles Airport in a car registered to Nawaf al-Hazmi, one of the Flight 77 hijackers. One was that of Osama Awadallah, a Yemeni living in San Diego who turned out to have known two of the hijackers and had material about bin Laden. Though suspected of having had prior knowledge of the attacks, he was not charged in that connection. The name written in highlighter related to Mohamed Abdi, a naturalized U.S. citizen working as a Burns security guard. Like Awadallah, he was not charged with any terrorism offense (Awadallah: MFR 04017544, 11/18/03, CR, 220, 250, 532n175, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/14/02, NYT, 11/18/06; Abdi: U.S. v. Mohamed Abdi, Case No. 01–1053-M, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, www.findlaw.com, MFR 04016253, 10/16/03, WP, 9/27/01, 1/12/02, Human Events, 10/15/01).

43 Dulles/Security camera/pass: The available evidence, however, is less than consistent. An FBI document states that the video evidence “indicates that two of the hijackers … passed through the security checkpoints and baggage claim areas” on September 10. This appears to have occurred at 4:51 P.M. on the eve of the attacks. Checkpoint supervisor Eric Safraz Gill, however, spoke of having challenged an “Arab-looking” man equipped with a swipe pass, and two with apparently adequate identification at about 8:15 P.M. They had attempted to get two other men—who had no such ID—through a secure door. All the men left, following an altercation with Gill (“indicates”: Counterterrorism to Field Offices, 9/22/01, FBI 265A-NY-280350, & see entry for 9/10/01, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, MFR 04020030, 4/6/04, MFR 04016235, 2/10/04; Gill: Susan B. Trento & Joseph J. Trento, Unsafe at Any Altitude, Hanover, NH: Steerforth, 2007, 1–, 43–).

44 Corolla/personal belongings/investigative treasure/involvement in aviation: “Nawaf al-Hazmi,” FBI summary, 4/19/02, www.scribd.com, Warrant Issued on Vehicle IDJT2AE92E9J3137546, 9/13/01, “FBI 302s of Interest,” B17, T7, CF, Criminal Complaint, U.S. v. Mohamed Abdi, Case No. 01–1053-M, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 9/23/01, MFR 04016253, 10/16/03, San Diego to Ottawa et al., 4/11/02, Leads from Hijackers’ Cars, INTELWIRE, “Ali Ahmad Mesdaq,” 1/28/02, FBI Document re PENTTBOM, INTELWIRE. Also recovered, at Newark Airport, was a red Mitsubishi Galant rented by Ziad Jarrah. Jarrah, a Lebanese citizen, is believed to have led the hijack team on United Flight 93. Though the car contained far less evidence than did Hazmi’s, agents did recover a speeding ticket Jarrah had incurred in the early hours of September 10. In a trash can at Newark’s Days Inn, meanwhile, the FBI found the used Spirit Airlines ticketing that had brought Jarrah and Saudis Saeed al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Nami, and Ahmad al-Haznawi from Fort Lauderdale to Newark on September 7. Other evidence aside, the joint travel before 9/11 indicated that the four men shared a common purpose (Ziad Jarrah summary, Prepared by UA93 Investigative Team, FBI, 4/19/02, www.scribd.com, Evidence Inspected at FBI HQ 5/14/04, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T7, CF, Longman, 101).

45 duffel bags: MFR 04017509, 11/5/03, “Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/3/02;

46 Portland car: Evidence Inspected at FBI HQ, 5/14/04, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T5, CF;

47 manuals: “Ziad Jarrah,” FBI summary, www.scribd.com;

48 “Everybody was gathered”: int. Mark Mikarts;

49 “It was the sort”/“His bearing”: Birmingham Post (U.K.), 9/25/01, Jane Corbin, The Base, London: Pocket, 2003, 162;

50 Dekkers: transcript of interview of Rudi Dekkers, ibid., News-Press (Fort Myers, FL), 9/13/01.

51 Atta luggage: Review of Investigation Conducted by the FBI of Atta’s Suitcases at Boston, 2/10/04, “Detainee Reports,” B53, T5, CF, FBI 302 of [redacted] DePasquale, 9/17/01, “Atta Luggage,” B18, T7, CF, Recovered Identification Documents, “Breeder Documents,” B8, T5, CF. Also in Atta’s bag were a folding knife and some First Defense pepper spray. Omari’s bag contained an Arabic-to-English dictionary, English grammar books, his Saudi passport, and a bank checkbook (Recovered Identification Documents, “Breeder Docs.—Entire Contents,” B8, T5, CF, MFR of Review of Investigation by the FBI of Atta’s suitcases at Boston, 2/10/04, “Detainee Reports,” B53, T5, CF).

52 document in luggage/at Dulles/at 93 site: “Synopsis of Captioned Investigation as of 11/4/01,” PENTTBOM, Major Case 182, 11/5/01, authors’ collection. The document has been variously referred to as having five, four, and three pages. The first report, by Bob Woodward in The Washington Post, had it as five. A 2006 study, by Professor Hans Kippenberg and Professor Tilman Seidensticker, suggests that a fifth page was recovered but not published. CBS News, which reported on a copy of the Dulles Airport document, said it was “similar but not identical to the document found in Atta’s luggage, and parts of a document found in the Pennsylvania wreckage” (Woodward: WP, 9/28/01; four: eds. Hans Kippenberg & Tilman Seidensticker, The 9/11 Handbook, London: Equinox, 2006, 1–, Observer [London], 9/30/01; three: “PENTTBOM, Major case 182, Summary of Captioned Investigation as of 11/4/01,” FBI document, 11/5/01; CBS News: “Translated Text: Hijackers’ How-To,” www.cbsnews.com, 10/1/01).

53 Commission not mention: Congress’s Joint Inquiry report on the attacks did cite a statement by FBI director Mueller including the fact that a “three-page letter handwritten in Arabic” had been found, and stating that it contained “instructions on how to prepare for a mission applicable, but not specific, to the September 11 operation” (JI, Report, 142–, Statement of Robert Mueller, 9/25/02, www.fas.org).

54 “Spiritual Manual”/“Handbook”/“mutual pledge”: all from the translation in eds. Kippenberg & Seidensticker, 11–. There have been several translations and commentaries of the document the FBI released. The authors of this book have relied primarily on the 2006 book The 9/11 Handbook, by Hans Kippenberg, professor of Comparative Religious Studies at Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany, and Tilman Seidensticker, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. There have been other commentaries of note—by Professor Kanan Makiya of Brandeis University and Hassan Mneimneh, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, and David Cook, an associate professor at Rice University. In their book Masterminds of Terror, Al Jazeera’s Yosri Fouda and The Sunday Times’s Nick Fielding reported Fouda’s 2002 interview of self-confessed 9/11 conspirator Ramzi Binalshibh—which offered confirmation that the “Spiritual Manual” is authentic. All the sources mentioned treat the document as having been written for the 9/11 hijackers. The translators of the version used by CBS News in 2001, however, stated in a note that the document did “not in any way sound like instructions to a hijacker or a terrorist.” In the context of its content and circumstances of discovery, however, the document can only be pertinent to 9/11 (Kanan Makiya & Hassan Mneimneh, “Manual for a Raid,” NY Review of Books, 1/17/02, Yosri Fouda & Nick Fielding, Masterminds of Terror, Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2003, 141–, Juan Cole, “Al Qaeda’s Doomsday Document and Psychological Manipulation,” 4/9/03, www.juancole.com, David Cook, Understanding Jihad, Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 2005, 195–, “Translated Text: Hijackers How-To,” 10/1/01, www.cbsnews.com).

55 manual: FBI press release, 9/28/01, www.fbi.gov;

56 re “q”/Qiblah: Fouda & Fielding, 147;

57 “To those who”: corr. Hans Kippenberg, 2010. Some, pointing to anomalies in the document, have raised the possibility that the hijackers’ manual might be a forgery. Professor Kippenberg, however, who has conducted the most in-depth analysis, cites a skein of persuasive evidence to the contrary (anomalies: e.g., Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilization, London: Fourth Estate, 2005, 1039–;

58 evidence: Kippenberg, 4–).

59 “We believe”: Telegraph (U.K.), 9/13/01, int. of Jamal Ismael for Palladin InVision, 2006, supplied to author, WP, 12/9/01, Peter L. Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, New York: Free Press, 2006, 312;

60 “I would like”/Taliban accepted: CNN, 9/17/01;

61 “As a Muslim”: Daily Ummat (Karachi), 9/28/01, www.justresponse.net;

62 “Whenever we kill”/“As concerns”: ed. Bruce Lawrence, Messages to the World, London: Verso, 2005, 106–.

63 On the eve: The night before the attacks, according to a CBS News report citing Pakistani intelligence sources, bin Laden entered a military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, for kidney dialysis. This report appears to have been unfounded. There was an oft-repeated story that he required dialysis, but the best evidence is that he did not. Al Qaeda operatives’ accounts, moreover, place bin Laden at a camp in Afghanistan the following morning, September 11 (CBS news, 1/28/02, and see notes for Ch. 30, pp. 548–49);

64 call to mother/“In two days”/“I would never”: NYT, 10/2/01, MSNBC, 10/1/01, Mail on Sunday (U.K.), 12/23/01.

65 “I asked Osama”: Mir quoted in Georgie Anne Geyer, “Reporting on Terrorist Can Be Deadly,” http://sentinelsource.com, 6/28/09, but see Bergen, OBL I Know, 319, corr. Peter Bergen, 2010. The only other post-9/11 interview bin Laden gave was for television, with Taysir Alluni of Al Jazeera. Alluni was later arrested in his home country, Spain, on charges of supporting al Qaeda, and not released until 2005. Only in 2007, on an audiotape that a U.S. official judged authentic at the time would bin Laden clearly admit responsibility for 9/11. The voice believed to be his on the tape said, “The events of Manhattan were retaliation against the American-Israeli alliance’s aggression against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, and I am the only one responsible for it. The Afghan people and government knew nothing about it. America knows that” (Alluni: ed. Lawrence, 106–, 139–; 2007 tape: msnbc.com, 11/29/07).

CHAPTER 15

This is a transitional chapter, and the majority of episodes described in it will be more fully covered and sourced in later chapters. For that reason, there is reference in the sources below only to points that will not be covered elsewhere.

“Without conspiracy”/“Official answers”:

Nation

, 5/31/02, 7/12/02.

“No one has taken”:

Richard Falkenrath, “The 9/11 Commission Report: a Review Essay,”

International Security

, Vol. 29, No. 3, Winter 04/05, Shenon, 392, 438n, & see

CounterPunch

, 2/23/08,

, 7/13/08. The rather larger death toll figure of 2,973, used by the authors in the Prologue, was the official figure as of 2011.

“Why did”:

int. of Patrick Leahy by Amy Goodman,

www.democracynow.org

, 9/29/06;

“As each day”:

NYT

, 10/26/03;

“officials from FAA”:

Statement of Bogdan Dzakovic, 5/22/03, CO;

half summaries/“encouraged”/no drive:

Farmer, 98–, Staff Statement 3, CO;

“bad feeling”:

Chicago

, 3/11;

“I’ve been with”:

New York Observer

, 6/20/04.

9 “September the 11th”: ABC News, 12/19/02. The fellow agent was John Vincent, the assistant U.S. attorney Mark Flessner. The 9/11 Commission did not interview any of the three.

10 “more than”: Phoenix, Squad 16 to Counterterrorism, 7/10/01, www.justice.gov;

11 “well-managed”: WP, 8/21/07;

12 “no examination”: Executive Summary, “Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks,” Office of the Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency, 6/05;

13 “points”/“Both the CIA”: Graham with Nussbaum, xv;

14 irritated: Tenet, 169.

15 Mossad: The Mossad—more formally the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations—can and does operate all over the world, emboldened by the knowledge that the United States is Israel’s staunch ally and protector. Mossad’s audacity was exemplified as recently as 2010, when its operatives were caught using the forged passports of several other nations in the course of a hit on a Hamas leader in Dubai.

The full extent of Israeli and U.S. liaison on intelligence, however, is a foggy area. Days after 9/11, the

Telegraph

newspaper in the U.K., citing a “senior Israeli security official,” reported that “two senior experts” with Mossad had been sent to Washington in August to warn that a large terrorist cell was “preparing a big operation.” The

Los Angeles Times

picked up the story, only to amend it within days and publish a CIA denial that there had been such a warning.

The authors looked at specific episodes that have been taken to suggest Israeli intelligence activity within the United States at the time. One occurred on the morning of 9/11, when a woman in a New Jersey apartment across the river from Manhattan telephoned the police. She had seen below her a group of men, on the roof of a van, shooting video footage of the burning Trade Center and—she thought—celebrating. Film taken from the men’s camera, sources said later, did appear to show them “smiling and clowning around.” The onlooker who called the police reported the van’s registration number, noting that it was marked “Urban Moving Systems.”

Arrested that afternoon, the men with the van turned out to be five young Israelis. They were held for more than two months, questioned repeatedly, and eventually deported back to Israel. Their boss, Dominic Suter, also an Israeli, abruptly left the United States soon after the attacks. Two of the men, it was later reported, had been Mossad operatives and one—Paul Kurtzberg—said he had previously worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.

Former CIA counterterrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro told ABC News that—though the men “probably” did not have advance knowledge of 9/11—there was speculation in U.S. intelligence that Urban Moving was a front for spying on “radical Islamics in the area.” Available information indicates that the Israelis had been living and working in New Jersey within a few miles of locations where Hazmi, Mihdhar, and four other members of the hijacking team had spent from spring to midsummer.

A study by lawyer Gerald Shea, submitted to the 9/11 Commission and the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, drew attention to the odd activities in 2000 and 2001 of more than a hundred Israelis—working in groups of eight to ten across the United States, who had represented themselves as art students peddling artwork. Because the “students” were repeatedly noticed at Drug Enforcement Administration offices, DEA Security investigated—and came to suspect the “students” might be involved in organized crime.

Lawyer Shea, though, noted that those identified had primarily operated in Florida—close to the main southern staging area for the hijackers. He suggested in his study that the Israelis’ purpose had included “keeping Arab groups in our country under surveillance, including the future hijackers.” There is good reason to doubt Shea’s theory, however, for the Israeli students also operated in states where the hijackers had not been located.

The puzzling incident of the New Jersey Israelis, however, did deserve serious public examination. Yet the possible role of Israeli intelligence in the 9/11 case—at any level—has been investigated by no official body (Dubai:

NYT

, 2/18/10; “senior Israeli”:

Telegraph

[U.K.], 9/16/01,

LAT

, 9/20/01, 9/21/01; men on van:

20/20

, ABC News, 6/21/02—transcript

available at

www.911myths.com

Forward

, 2/3/03,

CounterPunch

, 3/07/07; “art students”: Gerald Shea, “Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the Sept. 11 Attacks,” Memorandum to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States et al., 9/15/04. Also, see Justin Raimondo,

The Terror Enigma

, NY: iUniverse, 2003).

16 “hostile service”: James Risen, State of War, NY: Free Press, 2006, 181.

CHAPTER 16

“BUSH CALLS”/memorial service, etc./“After all”:

int. Ari Fleischer by Scott Pelley, 8/6/02, & by Terry Moran, 8/9/02, “EOP Press Interviews,” B1, T3, CF,

NYT

, 9/15/01, “With the President: A Reporter’s Story of 9/11,”

www.rochester.edu

;

“hunt down”:

CNN, 9/12/01;

“We’re gonna”:

Sammon, 113;

McWilliams/flag:

“Raising the Flag at the WTC,”

www.famouspictures.org

, “About the Photo,”

www.groundzerospirit.org

, DiMarco, 181fn;

memorial service/“Battle Hymn”:

ABC News video at

www.youtube.com

, int. Condoleezza Rice by Bob Woodward, 10/24/01, “Farmer Misc.,” B9, NYC files, CF;

“monumental”:

“Remarks by the President,” 9/12/01,

www.avalon.law.yale.edu

. See Note re death toll in sourcing for Preface. Accounts differ on the authorship of the President’s speech and the way it developed. Gerson aside, aides involved Bush’s counselor Karen Hughes, and speechwriters Matthew Scully and David Frum (WP, 1/27/02, “Present at the Creation,”

Atlantic

, 9/07, “The President’s Story,” 9/11/02,

www.cbsnews.com

Nation

, 2/13/03, David Frum,

The Right Man

, NY: Random House, 2003, 142, Michael Gerson,

Heroic Conservatism

, NY: HarperOne, 2007, 69);

war council:

CR, 330;

Muttawakil:

“Defending Bin Laden,”

www.newsweek.com

, 9/11/01;

Taliban propose:

Foreign Policy Journal

, 8/12/09;

10 “We’re not only”: int. Ari Fleischer by Scott Pelley;

11 never considered: int. Condoleezza Rice by Bob Woodward;

12 ultimatum: “Bush Delivers Ultimatum,” www.unwire.org, 9/21/01;

13 rejected: LAT, 9/22/01.

14 Musharraf: Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire, NY: Free Press, 2006, 201–. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, and the 2006 biography of Colin Powell, Musharraf complied with all the U.S. demands. In a memoir the same year, Musharraf said he balked at permitting the U.S. military “blanket overflight and landing rights” and “use of Pakistan’s naval ports, air bases and strategic locations on borders.” Instead, he wrote, he offered “only a narrow flight corridor” and “only two bases … for logistics and aircraft recovery.” Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who delivered the American demands, for his part denied that he had threatened to bomb Pakistan. There was clearly massive pressure, however. In the words of CIA director Tenet, Armitage “dropped the hammer on them” (CR, 331–, Karen DeYoung, Soldier, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, 349, Tenet, 179).

15 “Need to move”: Notes of Stephen Cambone, 9/11/01, released under FOIA to Thad Anderson, www.outragedmoderates.com;

16 “I know”: DOD press conference, 9/18/01, www.defenselink.mil;

17 “urged the President”: CR, 330, 558n34;

18 OBL/hijackers Saudis: Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Travel,” CO.

19 “do Iraq”: CR, 335, Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2004, 26. The need to “do Iraq” is referred to in Ch. 9, p. 87. As noted there, it is not clear whether Rumsfeld spoke of “doing” Iraq on the night of 9/11 or at a meeting the following day. “Look”: Richard Clarke, 32–, CR, 334 & see Ben-Veniste, 302;

20 Pressure to act: CR, 334–, MFR of int. Colin Powell, 1/21/04, CF;

21 formal order: Woodward, Plan of Attack, 26;

22 contingency plan: CR, 335, Testimony of Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04, CO, & see MFR 04021460, 4/9/04. The most vocal proponent of hitting Iraq was Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz. To Secretary of State Powell, it seemed that “some of his colleagues were trying to use the events of 9/11 to promote their own policy obsessions and settle old scores” (MFR of Colin Powell, 1/21/04, CF, DeYoung, 348–, CR, 335–).

23 176–77 Camp David/prayer: DeYoung, 350–;

24 “patience”: DOD press conference, 1/9/02, www.defenselink.mil;

25 Black briefed: Tenet, 177;

26 Shelton: DeYoung, 351–;

27 “When we’re through”: Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2004, 185;

28 “comfort food”/“Amazing Grace”/O’Neill: ibid., 189–;

29 CIA proposing/Memorandum: New Yorker, 8/17/07, 8/4/03, NYT, 9/10/06, 12/15/02, Joseph Margulies, Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006, 189, CR, 333, “Who Authorized the Torture of Abu Zubaydah,” www.huffingtonpost.com, 4/28/09;

30 “war on terrorism”: NY Daily News, 9/17/01, BBC News, 9/16/01;

31 “war on terror”: Bush address, CNN, 9/20/01.

32 joint session: The joint session was on September 30. On the 14th, the Congress had passed a resolution authorizing the use of “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 9/11 attacks “or harbored such organizations or persons.” The resolution passed in the Senate by 98 votes to 0, in the House by 420 votes to 1 (Richard Grimmett, “Authorization for Use of Military Force in Response to the 9/11 Attacks,” Congressional Research Service);

33 “I want”: CNN, 9/17/01, int. Dan Bartlett by Scott Pelley, 8/12/02, “Press Interviews of Staff,” B1, T3, CF;

34 “platter”: Meet the Press, www.cbsnews.com, 9/16/01;

35 “Gentlemen”: Gary C. Schroen, First In, NY: Ballantine, 2005, 40;

36 “The mission”: Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006, 21.

37 British commandos: The British contingent was from the Special Boat Service, or SBS, similar to the better known SAS—Special Air Service—but drawn largely from the ranks of the Royal Marines. Though specializing in amphibious operations, the unit also operates overland. British and American special units have long collaborated. As for the overall number of operatives initially sent into Afghanistan, the authors have used the figure given by the commander of the Delta Force unit on the ground. Perhaps referring to a total at a somewhat later stage of the operation, Bob Woodward referred in his book Bush at War to a larger figure: “about 110 CIA officers and 316 Special Forces personnel” (SBS: “The Special Boat Service,” www.hmforces.co.uk, “British Special Forces Member Killed in Afghanistan,” Guardian [U.K.], 7/2/10, Alastair Finlan, “The [Arrested] Development of UK Special Forces and the Global War on Terror,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 35, 2009; overall number: Dalton Fury, Kill bin Laden, NY: St. Martin’s, 2008, xix, Woodward, Bush at War, 314).

38 “This is why”: Schroen, 33;

39 “Tell them”: Gary Berntsen & Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker, NY: Three Rivers, 2005, 289.

40 Dalton Fury: “Dalton Fury” is the pen name the major used as author of a 2008 book on the operation against bin Laden. While protecting his identity, the media have accepted his authenticity (Fury, 200; major media: e.g., 60 Minutes, CBS, 10/5/08);

41 “A cloudy”: Fury, xx;

42 $100 bills/“Money”: Schroen, 29,38, 88, 93–;

43 duffel bags: Fury, 105;

44 defeat: Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier, NY: Regan, 2004, 322;

45 “God has”: ed. Lawrence, 104;

46 “great, long-term”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 316;

47 “safe and sound”: ibid., 322;

48 poor intelligence: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 156, 108;

49 Atef: Hamid Mir, “How Osama Has Survived,” www.rediff.com, 9/11/07, bin Ladens & Sasson, 271;

50 OBL Jalalabad: Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/02, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 239, Sunday Times (London), 1/15/09, John Miller & Michael Stone with Chris Mitchell, The Cell, NY: Hyperion, 2002, 319, Corbin, 262–;

51 “Black Widow”: Newsweek, 12/10/01, BBC News, 9/27/08;

52 Towr Ghar: Fury, 107, “The Caves & Graves of Tora Bora,” www.legionmagazine.com, 9/1/03;

53 “purpose-built”: The Independent (U.K.), 11/27/01 & see “The Lair of Bin Laden,” www.edwardjepstein.com;

54 no electricity/water: bin Ladens & Sasson, 185–;

55 schoolhouse: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 253, Fury, 108;

56 Afghan generals: e.g., Berntsen & Pezzullo, 272, 275, 280–, Fury, 114–, 124, 129–, 257;

57 negotiating: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 289–, NYT, 9/11/05, Fury, 216–, 234, 244;

58 OBL largesse/sons: Fury, 209, 108;

59 “flawed”: Fury, 99, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 213–;

60 reluctance: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 277–, 290, 295, 305–, 309, 314, “In the Footsteps of Bin Laden,” CNN, 8/23/06;

61 airpower: e.g., Berntsen & Pezzullo, 270, 274–, Fury, 170–, 192;

62 Marine: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 34–, 283–;

63 “tall”: ibid., 291;

64 6′4″: “Most Wanted Terrorists,” www.fbi.gov;

65 BLU-82: description at www.globalsecurity.org, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 291, Fury, 127;

66 Used on plains: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 137–;

67 delivered: ibid., 295–, Fury, 149–;

68 BLU-82: described at www.fas.org, Michael O’Hanlon, “A Flawed Masterpiece,” Foreign Affairs, 3/02;

69 “too hot”/“hideous”: “Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today,” Report, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009, 7;

70 movement orders: Fury, 230.

71 “victory or death”/“Father”: According to Delta Force leader Fury, bin Laden was overheard saying in desperation, “arm your women and children against the infidel!” His lead bodyguard Abu Jandal has recalled that “all bin Laden’s wives knew how to handle weapons. They had taken a military course while al Qaeda was in the Sudan.” It seems unlikely, though, that the terrorist leader would have expected young children to take part in the battle (Fury, 233, Nasser al-Bahri [Abu Jandal] with Georges Malbrunot, Dans l’Ombre de Ben Laden, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France: Michel Lafon, 2010, 199).

72 Dec. 13/listened to a voice: The CIA’s Gary Berntsen dated this last intercept as having occurred not on December 13 but the 15th. Fury suggested that bin Laden was overheard once more, a day or so later. What he said, Fury wrote, came over as “more of a sermon than issuing orders” (Fury, 233–, 236–, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 307).

73 devastation: Fury, 270, 272, Berntsen & Pezzullo, 296;

74 not a trace/“punched”/rubble/Exhumations: Fury, 286, 282, Newsweek, 10/31/08;

75 “real war”: Fury, 293;

76 “We need”: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 290;

77 Dailey: Berntsen & Pezzullo, e.g., 307, 276;

78 “We have not said”: DOD press conference, 11/8/01, www.defense.gov, & see Franks with McConnell, 388;

79 skirted discussion: ibid.

80 As recently as 2009: In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and on the PBS program Frontline, Franks suggested that the drive to “get into Tora Bora” came from the Afghan commanders. A decision was made, he said, to support the Afghan operation and to “work with the Pakistanis along the Pakistani border.” He declared himself “satisfied with the decision process.” CIA’s Gary Berntsen has responded by writing that Franks was “either badly misinformed or blinded by the fog of war.” Berntsen had made it clear in his reports, he said, that the Afghans were less than keen to attack Tora Bora. General Franks, meanwhile, has also said he had concerns as to the amount of time it would have taken to get U.S. troops into the mountains. He has pointed out, too, most recently in 2009, that relying principally on Afghan ground forces in the field had worked in overthrowing the Taliban (“get into”/“work with”: int. Tommy Franks for Frontline, www.pbs.org; “satisfied”: Testimony of Tommy Franks, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, 7/31/02, www.access.gpo.gov; Berntsen: Berntsen & Pezzullo, 290–; concerns: New Republic, 12/22/09).

81 “conflicting”: New Republic, 12/22/09 & see NYT, 10/19/04, MFR 04021460, 4/9/04. General Michael DeLong, who had been Franks’s deputy at CentCom, wrote in his September 2004 memoir that bin Laden “was definitely there when we hit the caves.” Then, after Franks had expressed doubt in an October 19 article, he abruptly reversed himself. “Most people fail to realize,” DeLong wrote in a November 1 article in The Wall Street Journal, “that it is quite possible that bin Laden was never in Tora Bora to begin with.” There was a report the same month—citing what Taliban sources had purportedly said at the time—that bin Laden had been “nowhere near Tora Bora” but had sent a decoy there to deceive U.S. intelligence. If the Taliban did make such a claim, there is no good reason to credit it. If bin Laden was indeed at Tora Bora, the claim was as likely disinformation designed to take pressure off. (For what it is worth, bin Laden himself in a 2003 audiotape spoke of the Tora Bora battle as though he was present.) The intelligence cited by Berntsen and Fury as to bin Laden having been at Tora Bora, on the other hand—information from human sources coupled with voice recognition of intercepted radio conversations—remains persuasive (“was definitely”: U.S. Senate, Tora Bora Revisited, 8; “Most people”: WSJ, 11/1/04 & see MFR 04021460 4/9/04, CF; “nowhere near”: CounterPunch, 11/1/04—citing Kabir Mohabbat; bin Laden: ed. Lawrence, 18–).

82 “The generals”: Fury, xxiii–.

83 “never took”: NYT, 10/19/04. During his 2004 campaign against Bush for the presidency, Senator John Kerry claimed the President “took his eye off the ball, off of Osama bin Laden” (second Bush-Kerry debate, 4/10/08, cbsnews.com);

84 “get” bin Laden: Woodward, Bush at War, 254, 224, 311, The Times (London), 10/14/01;

85 “going to lose”: Suskind, One Percent, 58–;

86 “asking”: Fury, 148;

87 “obsessed”: Suskind, One Percent, 96, Woodward, Bush at War, 338;

88 “Terror’s bigger”: Bush press conference, http://archives.cnn.com, 3/13/02.

89 taken Rumsfeld: Woodward, Plan of Attack, 1–;

90 “Goddamn!”: ibid., 8 & see Franks, 315;

91 general pestered: Woodward, Plan of Attack, 31, 36–, 42– & see Michael Gordon & Bernard Trainor, Cobra II, NY: Pantheon, 2006, 25–.

92 “a natural”: al-Wafd (Egypt), 12/26/01, citing Pakistan Observer, www.opednews.com, Fox News, 12/26/01;

93 escape/wound: Newsweek, 10/31/08, Fury, 286, New Republic, 10/22/07, NYT, 9/23/02, Bergen, OBL I Know, 334–, U.S. Senate, Tora Bora Revisited, 2;

94 2011 reports/tribes: Guardian (U.K.), 4/26/11, Michael Scheuer, Osama bin Laden, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011, 131.

95 Good evidence/02/03/04: Not included here as an indication of bin Laden’s survival is a videotaped statement shown by Al Jazeera on December 26, 2001. Though that transmission postdated the Tora Bora battle, all one knows for sure—because of a reference in the statement to the bombing “some days ago” of a mosque at Khost—is that it was recorded shortly after November 16. Thus not necessarily after the Tora Bora conflict ended—on December 17 (ed. Lawrence, 151–, U.S. Senate, Tora Bora Revisited, 14).

96 “We agreed”: Though not all the hijacked flights took off on time on 9/11, they had been scheduled to take off within the same twenty-five-minute period. The authors have in these paragraphs cited letters and tapes attributed to bin Laden, edited by Professor Bruce Lawrence, humanities professor of religion at Duke University, translated by James Howarth, and published in book form.

“Although the question of authenticity inevitably arises whenever a message is released in bin Laden’s name,” Howarth wrote, the statements in the book had all “been accepted as genuine by a majority of the experts and officials who have examined them.” Lawrence and others have cast doubt on the authenticity of other taped statements attributed to bin Laden, allowing for the possibility of forgery for propaganda purposes.

It is not a ridiculous notion, for the CIA is on record as having fabricated film footage. In the late 1950s it arranged for the making of a film purportedly showing President Sukarno of Indonesia in bed with a woman in the Soviet Union. As late as 2003, before the invasion of Iraq, there was discussion about making a video showing Saddam Hussein having sex with a teenage boy. According to a

Washington Post

report, the CIA actually did make a video “purporting to show Osama bin Laden and his cronies sitting around a campfire swigging bottles of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys.”

Doubts have been expressed about a videotape released in December 2001, supposedly following its seizure by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It purports to show bin Laden in conversation the previous month with a visiting sheikh, openly acknowledging his foreknowledge of the 9/11 attack. While there may be other good reasons to doubt the

tape’s authenticity, the authors suggest that a couple of points made in support of the forgery theory have no validity.

Skeptics noted that the bin Laden figure wears a ring in the video—supposedly out of character for him, perhaps even contrary to religious law. As noted in another chapter, his wife Najwa had given him a ring as a token of her affection just before leaving Afghanistan on the eve of 9/11. He is, moreover, shown wearing a ring in another video accepted as authentic. Bin Laden’s son Omar, meanwhile, has scotched the argument that a shot of his father writing with his right hand is a giveaway—as the real Osama was supposedly left-handed. “My father,” Omar wrote in 2009, “is right-handed.”

That is not to say that the “confession” videotape is necessarily authentic. Professor Lawrence did not use the transcript of it in his published collection on bin Laden, and has reportedly expressed the view that the tape is indeed a fake. No quotations from it have been used in this book (scheduled: CR, 10; ed. Lawrence, 158–244 & see BBC News, 4/15/04, “The Osama bin Laden Tapes,” Special Report, undated,

www.guardian.co.uk

; Sukarno: Interim Report, “Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,” U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Govt. Ops with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 11/20/55, 74n4, Anthony Summers,

Goddess

, NY: Macmillan, 1985, 182; Hussein sex/“purporting”:

, 5/25/10; video 12/01: transcript by Defense Dept. cited

www.defenselink.mil

NYT

, 12/14/01; not ring: e.g., Griffin,

The New Pearl Harbor Revisited

, 209, “Farce: Control of the Village Through Terror,” 2/6/07,

www.opednews.com

; had ring: bin Ladens & Sasson, 282 & see “Confession Video,”

www.911myths.com

; left-handed: David Ray Griffin,

Osama bin Laden

, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Arris, 2009, 30, Bergen,

OBL I Know

, 335; “right-handed”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 159–; reportedly expressed: Griffin,

OBL

, 36).

97 “I knew”: Fury, 286;

98 “This was where”: National Geographic, 12/04.

Part IV: PLOTTERS

CHAPTER 17

phenomenon:

Staff Statement 13, CO, Lawrence Wright,

The Looming Tower

, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, 176–, CR, 278;

target:

James F. Pastor,

Security Law & Methods

, NY: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006, 522, 539, Barrett & Collins, 107.

OBL visit to U.S.:

bin Ladens & Sasson, 25–, 302, & see (1981 visit)

New Yorker

, 12/14/08. Though the best, firsthand source, Najwa is not the first to refer to an early bin Laden visit to America. Kahled Batarfi, a boyhood friend, has spoken of the episode, offering details that to some extent conform with Najwa’s account. Bin Laden’s sometime supervisor at the family construction firm, Walid al-Khatib, said bin Laden made “trips” to America. Allowing for confusion over the date, Khatib’s and Najwa’s recollections may be corroborated by the account of wealthy Saudi businessman Yassin Kadi. Kadi said he met bin Laden in Chicago in 1981, when the future terrorist leader was recruiting engineers for the family business. Khaled Bahaziq, a boyhood friend of bin Laden who knew Azzam, has recalled that Azzam was “lecturing in America in the 1970s.” He certainly visited repeatedly in the 1980s (Batarfi: Bergen,

OBL I Know

, 22, Coll,

Bin Ladens

209–; Khatib: Coll,

Bin Ladens

, 209–, but see

New Yorker

, 6/30/09, citing Khatib as referring to visiting “once”; Kadi:

NYT

, 12/13/08, Bahaziq: Robert Lacey,

Inside the Kingdom

, London: Hutchinson, 2009, 114–).

lectured/led prayers:

Andrew McGregor, “Jihad and the Rifle Alone,”

Journal of Conflict Studies

(Univ. of New Brunswick), Fall 2003, Gilles Kepel,

Jihad

, Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2002, 314, Abdel Bari Atwan,

The Secret History of Al Qaeda

, Berkeley:

Univ. of Calif. Press, 2006, 42, Wright, 95;

third-year:

bin Ladens & Sasson, 25;

“cleric”:

Gerald Posner,

Secrets of the Kingdom

, NY: Random House, 2005, 36, Bergen,

OBL I Know

, 92;

“scholar”:

e.g., Bergen,

OBL I Know

, int. Jamal Ismael, courtesy Paladin InVision, 2006, “Jihad and the Rifle”;

village overrun:

bin Ladens & Sasson, 29, Bamford,

Pretext

, 98;

“Emir”:

e.g., Anouar Boukhars, “At the Crossroads, Saudi Arabia’s Dilemma,”

Journal of Conflict Studies

(Univ. of New Brunswick), Summer 2006;

10 jihad: John Esposito, Islam, NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998, 20–;

11 liberate: Atwan, 73–;

12 imposing/speaker: Wright, 95;

13 Sadat: Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, NY: Ballantine, 2003, 30;

14 Mohammed/Sayid Qutb: “Jihad & the Rifle”; Jason Burke, Al Qaeda, London: Penguin, 2004, 47, Kepel, 314, ed. Lawrence, xii, Ian Hamel, L’Énigme Oussama Ben Laden, Paris: Payot, 2009, 64;

15 Qutb re Jews: Sayyid Qutb, In the Shade of the Qu’ran, Falls Church, VA: WAMY International, 1995, WP, 8/10/10;

16 read Qutb: Bergen, OBL I Know, 19;

17 OBL at lectures: Hamel, 64, Wright, 79–;

18 Azzam travel: Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 115, Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, NY: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002, 101, Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, NY: HarperCollins, 2005, 96–;

19 Azzam useful: corr. Barnett Rubin, 2010, 9/10. New Yorker, 3/27/95; McDermott, 96–, eds. Der Spiegel, 169, Samuel Katz, Relentless Pursuit, NY: Forge, 2002, 38–. Pulitzer Prize–winning author Steve Coll wrote in 2004 that Prince Turki al-Faisal and the GID “became important supporters” of Azzam. In a letter to Coll the following year, however, Turki would claim that “Azzam was never supported by me or the GID.” Support for the mujahideen, Turki wrote, was “measured by the ISI [Pakistani intelligence] and then evaluated by both the CIA and G.I.D.” (“became”: Coll, Ghost Wars, 156; “Azzam was”: Coll, Bin Ladens, 295, 612n21).

20 GID/CIA liaison: int. Prince Turki al-Faisal in Arab News, 9/18/02, Anthony Cordesman, “Saudi Security & the War on Terror,” paper for Center for Strategic & International Studies, 4/22/02, Posner, Secrets, 80–, int. Joseph Trento, Joseph Trento, Prelude to Terror, NY: Carroll & Graf, 2005, xiii, 100–, Coll, Ghost Wars, 79–, press briefing, U.S. Dept. of State, 11/2/07;

21 Azzam & OBL: Arab News, 11/7/01; Encyclopedia: Time, 10/21/01, Burke, 3;

22 “To our much”: Burke, 294n5.

23 “a man worth”: The authors have here used the translation provided by the Arab satellite TV channel Al Jazeera, but “worthy of a nation” might be more apt. The Arabic word bin Laden used was “umma“—which Professor Bruce Lawrence interprets as meaning “the global Islamic community, or Islamic supernation” (Transcript, “Usamah Bin-Ladin, the Destruction of the Base,” Al Jazeera, 6/10/99 & see ed. Lawrence, 4fn4, 77).

24 found al Qaeda: Wright, 129–;

25 economics: bin Ladens & Sasson, 29.

26 “God Almighty”: transcript, “Usamah bin-Ladin, The Destruction of the Base,” Al Jazeera, 6/10/99.

27 1377 hegira: Year 1 hegira relates to the year the Prophet Mohammed moved from Mecca to the city of Medina in—Western style—A.D. 622. The February 15 birth date is taken from the 2009 book by bin Laden’s first wife, Najwa, and her son Omar. Bin Laden himself said he thought he was born in the Islamic month that corresponds to January 1958. Other birth dates offered have included March 10, June 30, and July 30, 1957. The author who studied the family in greatest depth, Steve Coll, notes that most Saudis did not note birth dates. The Saudi government was not keeping records at the time bin Laden was born (hegira: ed. Lawrence, x; Feb. 15: bin Ladens & Sasson, 301; himself: Coll, Bin Ladens, 74; other birth dates: AP, 3/11/07, Jean-Charles Brisard & Guillaume Dasquié, Forbidden Truth, NY: Thunder’s Mouth, 2002, 226, German Nachrichtendienst note seen by authors).

28 full name/al-Qatani: bin Ladens & Sasson, 301;

29 “Lion”: e.g. entry, Muslim Internet Dictionary.

30 “I was named”: transcript, int. of OBL, ABC News, 1/2/99, & see “Usama’s Expedition,” www.al-islam.org. According to Bin Laden’s son Omar, “Ossama Binladen” is the more correct rendering. U.S. officialese, meanwhile, frequently renders the first name as “Usama.” The authors use “Osama bin Laden” because that is the version most commonly used in Western publications. Variations arise as a result of transliteration from the Arabic (bin Ladens & Sasson, 291 & re “Usama” e.g., “Most Wanted List,” www.fbi.gov).

31 “My father”: transcript, “Usmah bin-Laden, Destruction of the Base.” The exact year of Mohamed bin Laden’s birth remains unknown, but he was apparently born in the first decade of the twentieth century. Family biographer Steve Coll writes that he was fourteen or fifteen when he arrived in Saudi Arabia, while author Lawrence Wright reckoned he was twenty-three (Coll, Bin Ladens, 26, 583n11, Wright, 62, & see bin Ladens & Sasson, 292).

32 Mohamed legend/rise, etc.: For the historical background of the bin Ladens’ early lives, the authors have, except where indicated, drawn on Steve Coll’s definitive study, The Bin Ladens, and on Lawrence Wright’s authoritative The Looming Tower.

33 memory: Wright, 65;

34 Mohamed/Saudi royals/loan: Wright, Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, London: André Deutsch, 1999, 158–, Atwan, 40–;

35 “Religion”: Coll, Bin Ladens, 201;

36 Religion/royalty/banning/Wahhabism: Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam, NY: Doubleday, 2002, 69–, 261, Posner, Secrets, 18–, Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 10–, Yaroslav Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca, NY: Doubleday, 2007, 13–, 16, Wright, 63;

37 “fascism”: Schwartz, 105;

38 beheading/crucifixion: Amnesty International, “Reported Death Sentences and Executions 2009,” 3/10, John R. Bradley, Saudi Arabia Exposed, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 144, Reuters, 2/22/09, Mark Hollingsworth with Sandy Mitchell, Saudi Babylon, Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2006, 62, 228, UPI, 11/4/09, Amnesty International, “Man Beheaded & Crucified,” 6/1/09, AP, 8/19/10;

39 Human rights: Economist, 7/25/09, AFP, 7/23/09;

40 Women: Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 277, Qanta A. Ahmed, In the Land of Invisible Women, Naperville, IL: Source Books, 2008, refs.;

41 Mohamed devout/“Your highness”: transcript, int. OBL by Hamid Mir, 3/19/97, translated by FBIS, bin Ladens & Sasson, 17, Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, London: Gibson Square, 2007, 91.

42 Osama product: Osama told an interviewer he was one of twenty-five sons fathered by Mohamed bin Laden. Author Coll refers to twenty-five sons and twenty-nine daughters. Osama’s son Omar believes Osama was the eighteenth of twenty-two sons. The total number of Mohamed’s offspring must remain approximate (int. of OBL by Hamid Mir, 3/18/97, translation by FBIS, Coll, Bin Ladens, 126–, bin Ladens & Sasson, 292).

43 short marriage/Allia: bin Ladens & Sasson, 291–, Atwan, 41–, Wright, 72;

44 “a shocking”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 169;

45 remarried/loved “more”: Wright, 73, Atwan, 41, bin Ladens & Sasson, 166;

46 “In my whole”/“when he met”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 190, 168–, 40, Bergen, OBL I Know, 17;

47 “Most of us”: Evening Standard (U.K.), 5/26/06;

48 “very anti-Israel”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 7–, Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, 91, Der Spiegel, 6/6/05;

49 bellicose noises/tanks: John Ciorciari, “Saudi-US Alignment After the Six-Day War,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 2, 6/05, David Holden & Richard Johns, The House of Saud, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981, 251–. This according to the Pakistani editor Hamid Mir, citing one of his interviews with Osama bin Laden (Bergen, OBL I Know, 7–);

50 father/10,000: Coll, Bin Ladens, 128, Gunaratna, 17;

51 “right arm”: transcript, int. OBL by Hamid Mir, 3/19/97;

52 $1 billion: as calculated at www.measuringworth.com;

53 present/cars: bin Ladens & Sasson, 20, 169–;

54 “shy … aloof,” etc.: Atwan, 41, Coll, Bin Ladens, 138–, Bergen, OBL I Know, 8, In the Footsteps of Bin Laden, CNN, 8/23/06;

55 Quaker school Beirut/Saudi school: Coll, Bin Ladens, 140–, Wright, 75. Published reports have suggested that later, as a teenager, bin Laden indulged in Beirut’s fabled nightlife. That seems out of character, and family biographer Coll concludes that such stories are mere rumor. They may reflect confusion with one of Osama’s siblings (reports: e.g., see Rex Hudson, The Sociology & Psychology of Terrorism, Washington: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1999, 117, Reeve, 159–, rumor: Coll, Bin Ladens, 141);

56 “extraordinarily”/“not very”/mediocre: Bergen, OBL I Know, 8–;

57 “normal”: Wright, 75;

58 “No calculator”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 42;

59 “top fifty”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 8;

60 taller: Bergen, OBL I Know, 8, 214, Wright, 83;

61 soccer/movies/bully: In the Footsteps of Bin Laden, CNN, 8/23/06. Coll, Bin Ladens, 141, Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 57, Bergen, OBL I Know, 13–.

62 Syria/camping/“soft-spoken”/“unanticipated”/wedding/“so conservative”/married life/11 children: bin Ladens & Sasson, 8–, 12–, 17, 19–, 22, 25, 270, Bergen, OBL I Know, 17;

63 arduous work: Scheuer, Osama bin Laden, 35;

64 shaking hands, etc./rules: Bergen, OBL I Know, 20–, 14–, bin Ladens & Sasson, 19–, 41, Carmen bin Ladin, The Veiled Kingdom, London: Virago, 2004, 76, 91, Le Monde, 10/13/02, Wright, 75–;

65 “Around 18 or 19”: “Dateline,” NBC, 7/10/04;

66 “His family”: Carmen bin Ladin, 77;

67 “following the example”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 22;

68 economics: transcript, int. OBL by Hamid Mir, 3/18/97, Bergen, OBL I Know, 16, bin Ladens & Sasson, 29;

69 “I was almost”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 16;

70 Osama no longer: ibid., 16, 21, Wright, 77, bin Ladens & Sasson, 187;

71 “impassioned”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 22;

72 Syrian teacher/Muslim Brotherhood/Qur’an: Coll, Bin Ladens, 144–, Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 59–, Wright, 78;

73 wept re Palestine: Wright, 75–;

74 “religious chants”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 15;

75 ’73 war/embargo: Hollingsworth with Mitchell, 93–, 98, Dore Gold, Hatred’s Kingdom, Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2003, 84–;

76 new century: Peter L. Bergen, Holy War Inc., NY: Free Press, 2001, 48.

77 toppling monarchy Iran: Iran, of course, ascribes overwhelmingly not to the Sunni but the Shia branch of Islam. The former predominates in Saudi Arabia;

78 “For forty years”: int. OBL by Hamid Mir, 3/18/97.

79 Mahdi/Grand Mosque seizure: Trofimov, refs. & see esp. 46–, 66–, 69–, 160–. During the siege, according to Jamal Khashoggi, Osama and his half-brother Mahrouz were arrested on suspicion of involvement, but released. Osama’s friend Batarfi said Osama had thought it crazy to “seize the holiest place in Islam, then bring in weapons and kill people.” An Afghan journalist, on the other hand, has quoted him as saying that the men who seized the mosque were “innocent of any crime … true Muslims” (arrested: Trofimov, 247, Wright, 94; Batarfi: Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 59; Afghan journalist: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 57, 41).

80 40,000/100,000: “The 1978 Revolution & the Soviet Invasion,” www.globalsecurity.org;

81 terrible conflict: Coll, Ghost Wars, 49–.

82 “My father”: Bergen, Holy War Inc., 52;

83 “I was put”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 176;

84 “the nightmare”: Mail on Sunday (U.K.), 12/23/01.

CHAPTER 18

Badeeb:

Coll,

Bin Ladens

, 248–;

“decent”:

ibid., 249, citing Badeeb int. Orbit TV, 2001;

Turki:

profile at

www.saudiembassy.net

;

GID/CIA liaise:

Coll,

Ghost Wars

, 79–, Wright, 99;

shuttling/ISI/worked together:

ibid., 82–.

“When the invasion”:

The Independent

(U.K.), 12/6/03, Scheuer,

Osama Bin Laden

, 49. Some historians doubt that bin Laden involved himself in the Afghan episode as promptly as he claimed, but there is no special reason to question his account. One can speculate that his early visit or visits, to Pakistan rather than Afghanistan itself, were made at bin Laden’s initiative—and triggered GID’s decision to use him.

“To confront”:

France-Soir

, 8/27/98, citing int. of 1995;

Turki admitted:

Arab News

, 11/7/01, & see int. Turki al-Faisal, “Inside the Kingdom,”

www.pbs.org

;

“had a strong”:

Coll,

Bin Ladens

, 295–, citing Badeeb int. Orbit, TV, 2001;

10 “He was our”: Coll, Ghost Wars, 87;

11 “to provide”: Ahmed Rashid, Taliban, New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2000, 131, int. of Robert Fisk, 3/5/07, www.democracynow.org;

12 spread/cultivate: Coll, Bin Ladens, 250–;

13 “will not end”: Bergen, Holy War, 53;

14 Saudi support/Azzam’s request: Coll, Bin Ladens, 254, 282, bin Ladens & Sasson, 51.

15 Beit al-Ansar: Rashid, Taliban, 13, Bergen, OBL I Know, 29, Wright, 103–, Coll, Bin Ladens, 256. While the building in Pakistan was “Beit” [Place of] al-Ansar, the apartment used in Germany by Mohamed Atta and his comrades was known by them as “Dar” [House of] al-Ansar. Translations vary—e.g. House of the Supporters v. House of the Followers (CR, 164, 495n82, Fouda & Fielding, 108).

16 Azzam toured: Bergen, OBL I Know, 33, John Cooley, Unholy Wars, London: Pluto, 2002, 69–;

17 Azzam “enlisted”: corr. Barnett Rubin, 2010, New York, 3/27/95.

18 CIA ratcheted/deniability/Pakistan control/ISI: Cooley, xvii, 41–, 64–, 69, 87–, Bergen, Holy War, 63–, 54, Rashid, Taliban, 129–, 184, 248. Veteran intelligence officer Vincent Cannistraro, who was involved in Afghan policy at the time, has said that only half a dozen CIA officers—“administrators”—served in Pakistan at any one time. Milton Bearden, who was station chief in the Pakistani capital, said the agency “did not recruit Arabs.” More obliquely, Bearden has said he “stayed pretty much away from the crowd of Gulf Arabs who were doing the fund-raising.… They were not a major part of the war.” He also said, “We knew who bin Laden was back then.” (Cannistraro: Bergen, Holy War Inc., 65; Bearden: Coll, Ghost Wars, 155, BG, 9/23/01).

19 officers trained/Special Forces: Cooley, 13, 21, 64, 67–, 70, 75–. Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that Pakistani ISI operatives received instruction from “Green Beret commandos and Navy Seals in various U.S. training establishments.” (Jane’s Defence Weekly, 9/14/01;

20 cash went/collaborate OBL: Bergen, Holy War Inc., 68–, Cooley, 47, Rashid, Taliban, 132–;

21 Springmann: transcript of int. Michael Springmann, 7/3/02, www.btinternet.com, “Newsnight,” 11/6/01, http://news.bbc.co.uk, Michael Springmann, “The Hand that Rules the Visa Machine Rocks the World,” Covert Action Quarterly, Winter 01.

22 “former CIA”/“U.S. emissaries”: Reeve, 167, 176n33. Another allegation linking bin Laden to the CIA, however, is certainly unreliable. The author Jim Marrs reported a claim that bin Laden, under the name “Tim Osman,” was brought to America in 1986 to meet government agents. According to Marrs, the meeting was “confirmed” by one of those present, a former FBI agent named Ted Gunderson. Gunderson, however, has made other entirely bizarre assertions (Marrs, 103,415n103, www.tedgunderson.net);

23 OBL “was a product”: Guardian (U.K.), 7/8/05;

24 “I created”: France-Soir, 8/27/98, citing int. of 1995;

25 “Personally”: The Independent (U.K.), 12/6/96.

26 “The Saudi government”: transcript of int. OBL of 10/21/01, CNN, 2/5/02;

27 Najwa overheard/helicopter/“stop thinking”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 32–;

28 Jaji/running: Bergen, OBL I Know, 55, In the Footsteps of Bin Laden, CNN, 8/23/06;

29 Lion’s Den: Scheuer, Osama bin Laden, 61;

30 bravery: int. Huthaifa Azzam, 2006, courtesy Paladin InVision;

31 crying: Bergen, Holy War Inc., 12;

32 “thirst”: Wright, 106;

33 “martyrdom”: ibid., The Independent (U.K.), 12/6/93;

34 “requires”: Coll, Bin Ladens, 255–;

35 “As Muslims”: The Independent (U.K.), 12/6/93;

36 Russian pullout/new phase: Wright, 137, Coll, Bin Ladens, 334, Coll, Ghost Wars, 184–;

37 Jalalabad/“took charge”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 87–, Coll, Bin Ladens, 340;

38 disagreements: Bergen, OBL I Know, 62–, 68, Coll, Bin Ladens, 304, Wright, 112;

39 Azzam death: bin Ladens & Sasson, 78, Bergen, OBL I Know, 92–;

40 hero/Abdullah/feted/talks: Posner, Why America Slept, 44, Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 123, Posner, Why America Slept, 45, bin Ladens & Sasson, 73;

41 back to work: “The Sociology & Psychology of Terrorism,” Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 9/99, 117–, Rashid, Taliban, 133;

42 wives/“his aim”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 49–;

43 jokes: Bergen, OBL I Know, 47, Telegraph (U.K.), 7/23/07;

44 “I have”: ibid.;

45 children/divorce/annulment, etc.: bin Ladens & Sasson, 301–;

46 “I never”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 26;

47 “a good”/“corrupted”/forbade/milk/“We were”/“live just”/asthma/“From the time”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 42–, 54, 60–;

48 “how to be”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 26;

49 Abdullah war zone: bin Ladens & Sasson, 77, 305;

50 “like a”: Coll, Ghost Wars, 153 & see Miller & Stone, 185, int. of Fouad Ajami, 2006, courtesy of Paladin InVision;

51 “still, silent”: Canada Free Press, 9/14/06, www.mail-archive.com.

52 CIA thought: Coll, Ghost Wars, 182–.

53 “tactical alliance”/“In our struggle”: France-Soir, 8/27/98, citing int. of 1995. During the anti-Soviet conflict, bin Laden appeared grateful for the American contribution—in private. “In the mid-eighties,” Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar, who was his country’s ambassador to the United States, told CNN’s Larry King, “he came to thank me for my efforts to bring the Americans, our friends, to help us against the atheists” (Larry King Live, CNN, 10/1/01).