4 Dots American Intelligence Failed To Connect

By Mitch Frank

Could 9/11 have been prevented? In four crucial cases, mishandled intelligence, bureaucratic tangles and legal hurdles blinded the CIA and the FBI to clues right in front of them. Individually, none of these was a smoking gun. But combined they were a four-alarm fire. --By Mitch Frank

1 JAN. 7, 1995 -- OPERATION BOJINKA

THE CLUE

In Manila, Philippine police bust a cadre of al-Qaeda members plotting to blow up 12 airplanes, a scheme they called Operation Bojinka (Serbo-Croatian for explosion). On a test run, the co-conspirators had planted a small bomb on a Philippine Airlines flight that killed one passenger. Officials finger Ramzi Yousef--the wanted leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing--and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the plot's masterminds. An accomplice of Yousef's, Abdul Hakim Murad, who learned to fly at a U.S. flight school, tells interrogators he and Yousef discussed a plan to fly a small plane packed with explosives or a hijacked jumbo jet into the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters or into other American targets.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Bojinka was only one of several hints of potential attacks involving aircraft, yet U.S. intelligence did not give the idea serious consideration. Others included an attempt by Algerian terrorists to crash a hijacked plane into the Eiffel Tower in 1994. A foreign intelligence service told U.S. agents in 1998 of al-Qaeda plans to hijack a plane and bargain for the release of blind cleric Omar Abdel Rahman, who was in a U.S. prison for his role in the first World Trade Center attack.

WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED?

The intelligence community could have analyzed attacks al-Qaeda might attempt with planes and determined that recruiting qualified pilots was a major obstacle. FBI agents could have monitored aviation schools for possible Islamic extremists. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) could have hardened cockpits and banned all blades from airplanes, as it did after 9/11.

2 JAN. 5, 2000 -- THE MALAYSIA MEETING

THE CLUE

9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi arrive in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with Khallad bin Attash; they stay with Yazid Sufaat. Suspecting that al-Midhar and al-Hazmi are al-Qaeda members, the CIA monitors them there. From a third country, the CIA learns that al-Midhar's passport contains a U.S. visa. After a few days, the three men leave for Bangkok, where Thai intelligence agents lose them.

WHAT HAPPENED?

--Thai authorities tell the CIA in March that al-Hazmi flew to Los Angeles on Jan. 15. The CIA takes no action. Al-Hazmi and al-Midhar move to San Diego. Al-Midhar leaves in June for Yemen.

--In January 2001 the CIA realizes that bin Attash, by this time identified as a key figure in the October 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole, was at the Kuala Lumpur meetings. But no effort is made to pick up the trail of al-Midhar and al-Hazmi.

--Two FBI analysts detailed to the CIA ask the INS for information on al-Midhar and al-Hazmi. On Aug. 22, the INS tells them al-Midhar returned to the U.S. in July. The CIA puts al-Midhar and al-Hazmi on the TIPOFF watch list and asks the FBI to look for them. The FBI assigns one agent, with no counterterrorism experience, to track down al-Midhar. Only on 9/11, in the hours before the attacks, does he ask the Los Angeles field office for help. Earlier, a New York FBI agent involved in the Cole criminal investigation asks colleagues for more information about al-Midhar but is told "the wall" separating the agency's functions prevents him from working on an intelligence case.

WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED?

At several points the CIA could have asked the FBI to trace the two hijackers' activities in the U.S., which would have led to 9/11 pilot Hani Hanjour, who was training with al-Hazmi. The State Department could have put them on the TIPOFF list much earlier. The FAA could have put them on its no-fly list, keeping them off domestic flights.

3 JULY 10, 2001 -- THE PHOENIX MEMO

THE CLUE

Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams sends a memo to two units at FBI headquarters in Washington and to the New York field office describing 10 foreign students at aviation schools who are under investigation for ties to Sunni extremists. Williams theorizes that bin Laden could be systematically sending students to study aviation in the U.S. and recommends that agents compile a list of such schools, establish contacts with them, discuss his theory with the rest of the intelligence community and obtain background information on foreign students applying to flight schools.

WHAT HAPPENED?

--Two FBI specialists in Washington--one in the radical fundamentalists unit, one in a unit dedicated to bin Laden--analyze the memo and consult two other specialists about the legal implications. On Aug. 7 they decide to close the case and come back to it when they have time.

--Three agents in the New York office read the memo but are not asked to take follow-up action. The terrorism unit in New York knows that bin Laden sent employees to U.S. flight schools in the past but believes he just wanted them to fly his private planes.

WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED?

--Two of the suspects Williams mentioned did have al-Qaeda links; one trained with Hanjour at an Arizona flight school. A thorough investigation of flight schools might have led to one in Florida where an instructor recalled the odd behavior of 9/11 pilots Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi or to a California outfit that expelled al-Hazmi and al-Midhar for lack of flight skills and poor English. Had Williams' memo been sent to all FBI field offices, it could have set off alarms at the Minneapolis field office when would-be pilot Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in August.

4 AUG. 13, 2001 -- THE 747 TRAINEE

THE CLUE

Frenchman Zacarias Moussaoui begins training at a Minneapolis flight school after writing instructors that he wants to learn how to fly jumbo jets. His teachers discover he has almost no flight knowledge but wants to train on the 747 simulator. The manager reports Moussaoui's suspicious behavior to the local FBI office. Agents question Moussaoui and then have the INS arrest him for staying too long without a visa.

WHAT HAPPENED?

--Convinced Moussaoui is plotting to seize control of an airplane, Minnesota FBI agents seek a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to search his belongings. French sources tell agents Moussaoui has ties to Islamist militants, but FBI headquarters does not believe that justifies a FISA warrant.

--After the FBI contacts the CIA about the case, CIA chief George Tenet gets a briefing titled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly."

--An agent at FBI headquarters complains to a Minnesota agent on Aug. 27 that he is getting people "spun up" about Moussaoui. The agent replies that he is worried Moussaoui will "take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center."

WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED?

--Had the FISA warrant been approved, as it would be today under a proposed change in rules, agents would have found in Moussaoui's belongings a letter signed by Sufaat, who the CIA knew was the host of the 2000 Kuala Lumpur meetings that al-Midhar and al-Hazmi attended. They would have also discovered a notebook containing the name Ahad Sabet, the alias of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who wired money to Moussaoui and was a roommate of 9/11 pilots Atta, al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. That might have enabled agents to speculate about a plot involving aircraft and to bar the three pilots from all flights.