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August 6: A daily briefing: airplane hijacking .....
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August 6: A daily briefing of the vacationing President Bush presented the possibility of an airplane hijacking as a terrorist threat. According to National Security Adviser Rice (Newsweek, May 27, 2002), the briefing was an analystic report that talked about [bin Laden's] methods of operation, talked about what he had done historically.

Timeline of Terror, continued
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July-August 2001



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Timeline of Terror, continued

"It is quite true that nobody predicted Sept. 11--that nobody guessed in advance how and when the attacks would come. But other things are true too. By last summer, many of those in the know--the spooks, the buttoned-down bureaucrats, the law-enforcement professionals in a dozen countries--were almost frantic with worry that a major terrorist attack against American interests was imminent. It wasn't averted because 2001 saw a systematic collapse in the ability of Washington's national-security apparatus to handle the terrorist threat.

"The winter proposals became a victim of the transition process, turf wars and time spent on the pet policies of new top officials. The Bush Administration chose to institute its own "policy review process" on the terrorist threat. ... The Northern Alliance was desperate for help but got little of it. And in a bureaucratic squabble that would be farfetched on The West Wing, nobody in Washington could decide whether a Predator drone--an unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) and the best possible source of real intelligence on what was happening in the terror camps--should be sent to fly over Afghanistan. So the Predator sat idle from October 2000 until after Sept. 11. (Michael Elliott, "They Had a Plan," Time, August 12, 2002)



July: John O'Neill is barred by bureaucrats in the U.S. Justice Department from returning to Yemen to continue his investigation of the Cole disaster. According to some accounts, he complained that his investigation into Al-Qeada was shut down due to pressure from the Saudi government and oil interests. O'Neill decides to retire from the FBI. He accepts a position as chief of security at the World Trade Center in New York.

July: Convicted in the spring of 2001 for planning to bomb the Los Angeles Airport (see December 24, 1999) Ahmed Ressam gives investigators detailed information on Al Quada's plans for terrorism in the United States. (See July 18, 2001)

July: Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban Foreign Minister, learns of planned attacks on America from the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Tahir Yildash. Mr. Muttawakil, who was known to be deeply unhappy with the foreign militants in Afghanistan, decides to warn the United States. He sent an emissary to the American consul general in Peshawar, David Katz, in the third week of July 2001.

They met in a safehouse belonging to an old mujahedin leader who has confirmed to The Independent that the meeting took place.

Another US official was also present ­ possibly from the intelligence services. Mr Katz, who now works at the American embassy in Eritrea, declined to talk about the meeting. But other US sources said the warning was not passed on.

A diplomatic source said: "We were hearing a lot of that kind of stuff. When people keep saying the sky's going to fall in and it doesn't, a kind of warning fatigue sets in. I actually thought it was all an attempt to rattle us in an attempt to please their funders in the Gulf, to try to get more donations for the cause." [Kate Clark, "Revealed: The Taliban Minister, the U.S. Envoy and the Warning of September 11 That Was Ignored," The Independent, September 7, 2002]

July 1: Senator Diane Feinstein of California, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tells CNN, "Intelligence staff tell me that there is a major probability of a terrorist incident within the next three months." She says that more money is needed for intelligence and counter-terrorism measures. (Time, May 27, 2002, "What They Knew, and When They Did")

July 2: FBI warns law enforcement agencies and the White House of possible al Qaeda attacks overseas, and also says domestic strikes cannot be ruled out. (Time, May 27, 2002)

July 5: July 4 passes with no terrorist attacks, but the CIA tells President Bush that attacks are still possible (Time, May 27, 2002). According to Newsweek, Bush directs National Security Adviser Rice to find out what might be going on regarding domestic terrorism.

July 6: A National Security Council group led by Richard Clarke, national coordinator for counter-terrorism (see July 2001), meets to discuss intelligence and terrorist threats overseas. Nonessential travel by counter-terrorism staff is suspended. (Time, May 27, 2002)

July 10: Kenneth Williams, a counter terrorism agent in the FBI's Phoenix office, notices that a number of suspected terrorists were learning to fly airplanes and asking questions about airport security. Williams's superior, William Kurtz, writes a memo urging all U.S. flight schools be checked. However, the warnings from the Kurtz team are ignored in Washington.

July 18: The FBI warns law enforcement of threats made in connection to the conviction of Ahmed Ressam (see July 2001). The White House is also informed. (Time, May 27, 2002)

July 19: Vice President Cheney refuses to hand over records of the task force that laid the groundwork for President Bush's national energy policy to the General Accounting Office.

July 21: Violence marks a summit of the Group of Eight held in Genoa, Italy. CNN reports that metal detectors, sniffer dogs and agents will stand guard at the luxury cruiser housing the leaders. However, U.S. President George W. Bush will not stay with other world leaders because of fear of terrorist attack.

July 26: CBS News reports that Attorney General Ashcroft is traveling by private jet because of a threat assessment.

August: Mossad officials travel to Washington to warn the CIA and the FBI that a cell of up to 200 terrorists is planning a major operation. The Israelis specifically warn their counterparts in Washington that "large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent."

August 5: President Bush begins a one-month vacation on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. The BBC reports that "By the end of this holiday, Mr Bush will have spent nearly two months of his presidency at his ranch, and an additional 14 weekends at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. This holiday, therefore, has been described by his advisers, who are sensitive to the possibility that the president might be perceived as lazy, as a working vacation -- a Home to the Heartland Tour. The President says that he intends to spend part of this time considering policy for stem cell research."

August 6: A daily briefing of the vacationing President Bush presented the possibility of an airplane hijacking as a terrorist threat. According to National Security Adviser Rice (Newsweek, May 27, 2002), the briefing was an analystic report that talked about [bin Laden's] methods of operation, talked about what he had done historically.

August 15: A flight school in Minneapolis reports Zacarias Moussaoui to the FBI. (Time, May 27, 2002)

August 15: Enron employee Sherron Watkins warns Kenneth Lay that accounting irregularities pose a threat to the company.

August 15: Enron lobbyist Pat Shortridge meets with White House economic advisor Robert McNally to alert the White House that Enron is facing a financial meltdown that could possibly cripple the country's energy markets.

August 16: Moussaoui is arrested on immigration charges. FBI agents apply for a warrant to search his computer, but permission is denied. (Time, May 27, 2002)

August 20: Enron CEO Kenneth Lay exercises Enron share options worth $519,000.

August 23: The CIA informs other government agencies that Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi (see August 1998; January 2000; September 11, 2001) should be put on a terrorist watch list (Newsweek, June 10, 2002, page 22).

August 23: President Bush appoints Harvey Pitt to be chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. (See 2000)

August 27: French authorities notify the FBI that Zacarias Moussaoui is a suspected Islamic extremist. (Time, May 27, 2002, What They Knew, and When They Did)

The Hunting of the President: The...

The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme...


"[W]hile there's always been constraints on investigating Saudis, under George Bush it's gotten much worse. After the elections, the agencies were told to 'back off' investigating the Bin Ladens and Saudi royals, and that angered agents." -- Greg Palast, BBC Newsnight, November 7, 2001

Meanwhile, intelligence had been streaming in concerning a likely Al Qaeda attack. "It all came together in the third week in June," [Richard] Clarke* said. "The C.I.A.'s view was that a major terrorist attack was coming in the next several weeks." On July 5th, Clarke summoned all the domestic security agencies--the Federal Aviation Administration, the Coast Guard, Customs, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the F.B.I.--and told them to increase their security in light of an impending attack. [Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, January 14, 2002] (*Richard Clarke was national coordinator for counter-terrorism in the White House from the first Bush Administration until 2001.)

He [Ahmed Ressam] left no doubt that U.S. airports were a prime target because an airport is sensitive politically and economically, as Ressam said in court on July 3. At least two of the FAA's summer warnings came from Ressam's information, which should have given pause to Bush administration officials who remained convinced that the threat was abroad. [Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff, "What Went Wrong," Newsweek, May 27, 2002]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. and Italian officials were warned in July that Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders by crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations, officials said Wednesday.

Italian officials took the reports seriously enough to prompt extraordinary precautions during the July summit of the Group of 8 nations, including closing the airspace over Genoa and stationing antiaircraft guns at the city's airport. [Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2001]

Washington is turning out the lights for August and Mr Bush is leading the way. For the next month the world's superpower will be run from a farm seven miles down Prairie Chapel Road in Texas.

Rest assured, the president will be receiving his daily intelligence briefings from the CIA but not much else.

"I am sure he will have friends and family over to the ranch," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

"He is also enjoying a little downtime, a little running and a little cedar clearing.

"He'll do a little policy, he'll keep up with events, but it is going to be a working vacation -- it's going to include part work and part vacation." (Tom Carver, "Bush's Holiday Mission," BBC News, August 6, 2001)

Here's what happened: Last year, then-SEC chairman Arthur Levitt proposed a long-overdue ban on accounting firms performing additional services for companies they are auditing. But Levitt's efforts were beaten back, largely by über-lobbyist Harvey Pitt. So who was the Bush administration's pick to head the agency? That's right, Harvey Pitt. (Arianna Huffington, New York Daily News)

Continue the Timeline of Terror
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• WTC Demo'd — Anonymous, Fri Apr 9 16:27
• Presidential Briefing Contained No Warnings, Rice Insists — Phil Brennan, Thu Apr 8 00:39