The FBI’s missed warnings

On 10 July 2001 Kenneth Williams, an agent in the Phoenix office, wrote that he believed there was a coordinated effort by bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation schools. He recommended a national survey of flight schools. [1]

The memo went to headquarters and two agents in New York. No managers at headquarters saw it before 11 September, and New York took no action. Williams told investigators he was not warning about suicide pilots; he was thinking of a Pan Am 103-style bombing. The Commission said that had it been acted on promptly, “we do not believe it would have uncovered the plot,” though it might have made the FBI take Moussaoui more seriously. [2]

Moussaoui, a French national, had $32,000 in the bank and no good explanation for it, and wanted to learn to “take off and land” a Boeing 747 though he had little flying knowledge. Minneapolis agents learned he held jihadist beliefs, and the INS arrested him for overstaying his visa; a deportation order followed on 17 August. [1]

The agents wanted to search his laptop. Headquarters said there was not enough for a criminal warrant or a FISA warrant, which required evidence he was an agent of a foreign power. In one call, according to his notes, a Minneapolis supervisor told a headquarters agent: “We want to make sure he doesn’t get control of an airplane and crash it into the [World Trade Center] or something like that.” The headquarters agent replied that Minneapolis did not have the evidence to support that. [2]

The Commission concluded that “publicity about Moussaoui’s arrest and a possible hijacking threat might have derailed the plot.” [1] A jury later chose life in prison over death for him at his 2006 trial. [3]