Footnote Fahrenheit : Before 9/11 : Plans and leads (Phoenix memo, Mihdhar, Moussaoui)

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Plans and Leads (last updated October 1, 2004)

The 9/11 hijackers' plans
Leads and opportunities: Phoenix memo, Mihdhar, Moussaoui

The plan for the Sept. 11 attacks unfolded over at least three years before they were carried out. By the time the Bush administration took office in January 2001, three of the four pilots had already completed their training in Florida and received their licenses, the fourth was taking lessons in Arizona, and many of the "muscle" hijackers had already received U.S. visas in Saudi Arabia.

The plans continued to unfold over the next eight months. During this time, some opportunities did arise which arguably could have derailed the plans. Such opportunities include the failure to link the so-called "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui to al-Qaeda and the hijackers, the failure to locate one of the plan's initial organizers once identified as being in the United States, and the failures to deny some hijackers entry into the United States or to catch some hijackers on immigration violations.

Plans
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Plans for the Sept. 11 attacks began to come together in the 1990s. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, reportedly told interrogators that he had begun thinking about using planes as weapons in the mid-1990s and that Osama Bin Laden agreed to such a plan in early 1999.

Implementation of the plans unfolded along roughly three tracks: (1) the two initial organizers who entered the United States in January 2000 and unsuccessfully tried to become pilots, (2) the four pilots who entered the United States in 2000 and received flight training in Florida and Arizona, and (3) the 13 muscle hijackers who arrived in early 2001.

The two initial organizers were Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, both of whom were from Saudi Arabia. According to the 9/11 Commission's report, Mihdhar and Hazmi participated in a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in January 2000 and then entered the United States. They tried taking flight lessons in California but eventually gave up due to language problems. Mihdhar abandoned the mission in June 2000 and returned to Yemen, leaving Hazmi behind in California, where he worked at a gas station and waited. Mihdhar returned to the mission in July 2001 and both he and Hazmi participated in the hijacking.

The pilots entered the United States in two waves. Mohamed Atta, Ziad Samir Jarrah, and Marwan al Shehhi had been friends in Hamburg, Germany and had gone to Afghanistan in 1999 to join with al-Qaeda. They were recruited for the Sept. 11 attacks and entered the United States in May and June 2000. They took flight lessons in Florida and received their pilot licenses by December 2000. After receiving their licenses, the three took brief trips outside the United States and then waited in Virginia for additional hijackers to arrive. A Czech intelligence report made after the Sept. 11 attacks indicated that Atta may have met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001, but the 9/11 Commission concluded that evidence did not support this report.

The fourth pilot, Hani Hanjour of Saudi Arabia, arrived in the United States in December 2000. He took flight classes in Arizona, where he had taken classes a few years earlier. He completed training in March 2001 and met up with the three other pilots and with Hazmi in Virginia.

The 13 "muscle" hijackers who helped the pilots take control of the planes were selected in 1999 and received training in Afghanistan. Most had originally been from Saudi Arabia, and they returned to Saudi Arabia to obtain U.S. visas in late 2000. According to the 9/11 Commission, many of these hijackers then traveled to Iran in late 2000 and early 2001, and the 9/11 Commission called for further investigation as to whether Iran had helped the hijackers move in and out of Afghanistan. The "muscle" hijackers then arrived in the United States between April and June 2001.

Now altogether in the United States and concentrated in Florida, the hijackers prepared to execute their plan. The pilots spent the summer taking surveillance flights across the country and taking practice flights. Mohamed Atta left the United States to have a progress meeting with al-Qaeda member Ramzi Binalshibh in July 2001. Ziad Jarrah also left the United States and apparently considered abandoning the mission, apparently because of disagreements with Atta, but then returned. The "muscle" hijackers worked out and made purchases in preparation for the flights.

Finally, in September, the hijackers completed their preparations and assembled in their departure cities to carry out their plans.

Leads and Opportunities
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As these plans unfolded, there were leads and opportunities that, had they been realized, might have resulted in greater awareness of the looming Sept. 11 attacks or helped prevent them.

One possible lead was an FBI agent's suspicions about an "inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest" attending civil aviation schools in Arizona, which was where Hani Hanjour had completed his training in March 2001. This agent in the Phoenix field memo sent a memo to FBI headquarters and to agents on two counterterrorism squads in July 2001 about the "possibility of a coordinated effort" by Osama Bin Laden to send students to US civil aviation schools. He provided a list of 10 potential subjects; this list did not include Hanjour. This memo reportedly did not reach high-level management until after September 11.

A more direct lead was the realization by some working-level CIA and FBI officials in August 2001 that Mihdhar had entered the United States after the Kuala Lumpur meeting and had re-entered the United States in July 2001. An FBI analyst prepared a memo in late August 2001 proposing an investigation into Mihdhar's whereabouts and his reasons for being in the United States. After some confusion about whether the lead would be handled as a criminal or intelligence matter, a single FBI agent began looking for Mihdhar in late August or early September without success.

One apparently missed opportunity was the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, who Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has reportedly told interrogators was originally intended for a second wave of attacks that did not come together. Moussaoui entered the United States in February 2001, attended a flight school in Oklahoma from February to May 2001, and was arrested on an immigration violation on August 16, 2001 in Minnesota. FBI agents suspected that Moussaoui might want to hijack a plane, but did not get information linking Moussaoui to al-Qaeda until after the Sept. 11 attacks. Information was transmitted between federal agencies about Moussaoui and CIA Director George Tenet was briefed about the Moussaoui case on August 23, but the case did not receive intense attention until afterwards.

These leads, altogether, could have led to a different outcome. The 9/11 Commission noted in its report that it did not believe that action on the Phoenix memo would have uncovered the plot, but that it could have gotten the FBI to take Moussaoui more seriously. "Publicity about Moussaoui's arrest and a possible hijacking threat might have derailed the plot," it noted. Furthermore, the 9/11 Commission believed that Mihdhar and Hazmi could have been found if investigators had applied more resources, taken a different approach, and had some luck.

Another missed opportunity was the failure to prevent the hijackers from entering or reentering the United States. According to a 9/11 Commission staff statement, the 19 hijackers entered the United States 33 times and some could have been detained upon attempting to entry. According to the staff statement, three hijackers submitted applications that contained false statements that could have been proven false at the time. Also, some of the hijackers could have been detained while in the United States on immigration violations.

Sources: The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (July 2004). The Report of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001," Government Printing Office, S-Rept. No. 107-351, H. Rept. No. 107-792 (December 2002) (on-line here).

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Before 9/11

*	Voting problems in the 2000 election
*	Calling the election
*	Congressional Black Caucus's objections
*	Bush’s first months in office
*	Terrorism policies pre-9/11
*	Plans and leads

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