The Eleventh Day

7

340

five rather than four:

Kahtani, who was captured in Afghanistan after 9/11, was one of the prisoners “tortured”—in the words of the retired judge appointed to decide on prosecutions at Guantanamo. The record indicates that he strongly resisted interrogation. He remains a Guantanamo detainee as of this writing. Commission staff identified nine other recruits who were at some point considered for assignment to the 9/11 operation (captured/“tortured”:

WP

, 1/14/09; resisted: Interrogation Log, Detainee 063,

www.ccrjustice.org

, “The Guantanamo Docket,”

NYT

website, as of 1/12/11; nine other: Staff Statement 16, CO, CR, 235).

8

Atta at airport:

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

9

Atta free/rental cars/flying/hijackers everyday activities:

“Hijackers Timeline [redacted],” 11/14/03, INTELWIRE;

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

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

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

13 Surma: ibid.;

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

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

16 Hazmi phoned: CR, 223, 249;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

24 Muslim meals: Time, 9/24/01;

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

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

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

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

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

30 State had told: WP, 1/20/02;

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

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

33 reconnaissance: CR, 214;

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

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

36 “It sounds”: New Yorker, 8/4/03;

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

38 Directive approved: CR, 213–.

39 money left over/returned: Staff Report, Monograph on Terrorist Financing,” CO, PENTTBOM, Summary of Captioned Investigation,” 11/5/01, authors’ collection, Staff Statement 16, CO, Stipulation, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, 3/1/06. The return of funds notwithstanding, it has been alleged that Atta received $100,000 as late as August 2001. A story emerged in the Indian press soon after 9/11, supposedly citing sources in the FBI and Indian intelligence, claiming that the director of the Pakistani ISI, Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmed, ordered the supposed wire transfer of the money in either the summer of 2001 or 2000. The FBI told 9/11 Commission staff that there was no evidence Atta received a payment from the Pakistani ISI. Nor, indeed, were there “any unexplained funds at all.” One would wonder—if such a payment was