Richard Blee, chief of Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, immediately thinks Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network are to blame when he sees the coverage on television of the crash at the World Trade Center. Blee is in the Counterterrorist Center (CTC) at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, this morning. After Flight 11 crashes into the WTC (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), he goes across the hall to Alec Station’s cluster of cubicles. He points to a television, which is showing the coverage of what has happened in New York, and says, “That’s bin Laden or al-Qaeda.” One of his colleagues disagrees. “You can’t say that; it could be an accident,” they say. “Every time something happens, you can’t say that it’s al-Qaeda,” they add. Opinion is divided among the Alec Station analysts at the CTC, but most of them think the crash was an accident. Blee is resolute, though. “It’s bin Laden,” he says. Blee and his colleagues will still be arguing about the cause of the crash when, at 9:03 a.m., the second hijacked plane crashes into the WTC (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Coll, 2018, pp. 30]
9:05 a.m. September 11, 2001: Clarke, Cheney, and Rice Talk; Clarke Concludes that Al-Qaeda Is behind Attacks
Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke is driving up to a gate outside the White House when Lisa Gordon-Hagerty—a member of his staff who is already at the White House—calls and tells him, “The other tower was just hit.” He responds: “Well, now we know who we’re dealing with. I want the highest level person in Washington from each agency on-screen now, especially the FAA.” He ordered Gordon-Hagerty to set up a secure video conference about five minutes earlier. A few minutes later, according to his own recollections, Clarke finds Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in Cheney’s White House office. Clarke tells Cheney: “It’s an al-Qaeda attack and they like simultaneous attacks. This may not be over.” Rice asks Clarke for recommendations and he says, “We’re putting together a secure teleconference to manage the crisis.” He also recommends evacuating the White House. (A slow evacuation of the White House will begin around 9:20-9:25 (see (9:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001).) Rice notes the Secret Service wants them to go to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House, and as Clarke leaves the other two, he sees Cheney gathering up his papers. In Cheney’s outer office, Clarke will recall, he sees eight Secret Service agents instead of the usual two, ready to move to the PEOC. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 1-2; Australian, 3/27/2004]
9:53 a.m. September 11, 2001: NSA Intercepts Al-Qaeda Phone Call Predicting Fourth Attack
The National Security Agency (NSA) reportedly intercepts a phone call from one of bin Laden’s operatives in Afghanistan to a phone number in the Republic of Georgia. The caller says he has “heard good news” and that another target is still to come (presumably, the target Flight 93 is intended to hit). [CBS News, 9/4/2002] The caller is also supposed to say that the attackers are following through on “the doctor’s program.” This is said to be a reference to al-Qaeda’s number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has a doctorate in medicine. [New Yorker, 9/9/2002] Since the 9/11 crisis began, NSA translators have been told to focus on Middle Eastern intercepts and translate them as they are received instead of oldest first, as is the usual practice. This call is translated in the next hour or two, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld hears about it just after noon. [CBS News, 9/4/2002; Bamford, 2004, pp. 54]
9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001: Counterterrorism ‘Tsar’ Clarke Is Told Some Hijackers Have Al-Qaeda Connections
Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke is told in private by Dale Watson, the head of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division: “We got the passenger manifests from the airlines. We recognize some names, Dick. They’re al-Qaeda.” Clarke asks, “How the f_ck did they get on board then?” Watson replies: “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, friend. CIA forgot to tell us about them.” As they are talking about this, they see the first WTC tower collapse on television. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 13-14] Some hijacker names, including Mohamed Atta’s, were identified on a reservations computer over an hour earlier (see (Shortly After 8:32 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
After 10:06 a.m. September 11, 2001: Al-Qaeda Agents Heard Saying ‘We’ve Hit the Targets’
According to Newsweek, “shortly after the suicide attacks,” US intelligence picks up communications among bin Laden associates relaying the message: “we’ve hit the targets.” [Newsweek, 9/13/2001]
10:26 a.m. September 11, 2001: Former Secretary of State Haig Suggests that al-Qaeda Is behind Today’s Attacks
Alexander Haig, the former secretary of state, indicates during a television interview that al-Qaeda could be behind this morning’s terrorist attacks. During a live interview on Fox News, Haig is asked how America can respond to the attacks “with the proper amount of caution and yet with whatever force needs to be applied.” He replies that while the nation needs to stay “united and calm,” it also has to be “ready to take resolute action, which sometimes we have failed to do in the recent past.” He then states that while the identities of the perpetrators of the attacks are as yet unknown, “we have many, many indicators of precisely who they are.” He adds, “This was too broadly based a terrorist act to be just a few crazies.” He says the responsible party “is a terrorist movement and we know where they are located today, and obviously as a nation we are going to have to take action against them.” He continues, “I think we know where to send our armed [forces]” and then indicates that al-Qaeda could be involved, saying, “Look, all we have to do is look at the world today, with the Palestinian and bin Laden groups.” However, when the interviewer subsequently asks, “Who are the terrorists that you think are the most likely suspects?” he replies, “Well, I’m not going to speculate, because I don’t have inside knowledge and it would be rather foolish to do that.” [Fox News, 9/11/2001] Haig has held a number of influential positions in the US military and government. He was White House chief of staff under President Richard Nixon and secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan. He also served as vice chief of staff of the Army and as NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe. [Washington Post, 2/21/2010; Liverpool Daily Post, 2/23/2010] After leaving the government, he turned to business and has been a director of a number of major companies. [Guardian, 2/20/2010; Daily Telegraph, 2/21/2010] Shortly after 9:30 a.m., a White House official, like Haig, indicated that al-Qaeda is likely to blame for this morning’s catastrophic events, telling a reporter it was being assumed that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center (see Shortly After 9:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). [CNN, 9/11/2001; CNN, 9/11/2001]
11:30 a.m. September 11, 2001: Top US General Already Speculates on Television Al-Qaeda Is Responsible for Attacks
General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO, says on television, “This is clearly a coordinated effort. It hasn’t been announced that it’s over.… Only one group has this kind of ability and that is Osama bin Laden’s.” [Ottawa Citizen, 9/11/2001]
September 11, 2001: Germans Learn of 30 People Traveling for 9/11 Plot
A few hours after the attacks, German intelligence intercepts a phone conversation between followers of bin Laden that leads the FBI to search frantically for two more teams of suicide hijackers, according to US and German officials. The Germans overhear the operatives refer to “the 30 people traveling for the operation.” The FBI scours flight manifests and any other clues for more conspirators still at large. [New York Times, 9/29/2001] Two days later, authorities claim to have identified teams of as many as 50 infiltrators who supported or carried out the strikes. About 40 are accounted for as dead or in custody; ten are missing. They also believe a total of 27 suspected operatives received some form of pilot training. This corresponds with many analyses that the attacks required a large support network. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/2001] Yet there is no evidence that any accomplices in the US shortly before 9/11 have since been arrested or charged.
12:00 p.m. September 11, 2001: Defense Intelligence Agency Director Says Al-Qaeda Responsible for Attacks
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency informs military leaders in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon that al-Qaeda is responsible for the morning’s attacks. General Richard Myers, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will later describe: “At noon, Vice Admiral Tom Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, confirmed what everybody at the conference table had already surmised: The attacks had undoubtedly come from al-Qaeda.” [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 156] Later in the day, Wilson will inform General Henry Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of a single piece of intelligence that had suggested a terrorist attack may have been imminent (see 5:40 p.m. September 11, 2001). [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 159]
After 12:00 p.m. September 11, 2001: Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Myers Wants CENTCOM Commander Franks to Start Planning a Response to the Attacks
General Richard Myers, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, instructs Colonel Matthew Klimow, his executive assistant, to call General Tommy Franks, commander in chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), and tell him to promptly return to his headquarters and start considering how to respond to today’s terrorist attacks. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 
; Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 156] Myers and Klimow have been in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon since around 9:58 a.m. (see (9:58 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [US Department of Defense, 9/11/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 2/17/2004 ; George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, 8/3/2012]
Myers Wants a ‘Fairly Big Response’ to the Attacks – Around midday, Vice Admiral Tom Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, confirmed to them and others in the NMCC that today’s attacks were undoubtedly committed by al-Qaeda (see 12:00 p.m. September 11, 2001). [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 156] This prompts Myers and his colleagues to immediately start considering “some sort of response.” The one thing they “knew for certain,” Myers will later recall, considering that al-Qaeda had “attacked us on our soil” and thousands of Americans had been killed, was that “this response had to be proportionate, meaning a fairly big response.” [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] Myers notes that Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership are in Afghanistan. However, he will comment, “If the president and the secretary [of defense] ordered us to go to war in Afghanistan, we were going to have to do it before winter and that didn’t leave us a lot of time in the foothills of the Hindu Kush.”
CENTCOM Commander Is Away in Europe – Afghanistan is in the area of responsibility of CENTCOM, the military command that controls US operations in the Middle East. However, Franks, the commander of CENTCOM, is currently overseas, on the Greek island of Crete. Myers therefore instructs Klimow to contact him and ask him to return to CENTCOM headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, as soon as possible. Additionally, Myers says, “I want General Franks to start looking at options for al-Qaeda.” [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 156]
CENTCOM Commander Immediately Starts Preparing a Military Response – Throughout the evening, Franks starts preparing the US military’s response to today’s attacks from his hotel in Crete. CENTCOM has already tried to identify al-Qaeda training camps, barracks, command and control facilities, communications centers, and support complexes in Afghanistan. It has also built target sets for key Taliban installations, air defense sites, and early warning radars in the country. “The time had come when that effort would pay off,” Franks will comment in his 2004 memoir. He talks to Major General Victor Renuart, CENTCOM director of operations, who is at CENTCOM headquarters, and tells him to begin strike targeting for Afghanistan. He also directs his staff to coordinate with Vice Admiral Charles Moore, CENTCOM’s naval component commander, to ensure that American ships in the Afghanistan area cancel all port calls and immediately set out to sea. [Franks and McConnell, 2004, pp. 243] On the morning of September 12, Franks’s flight crew will receive permission from Greek air traffic control to take off from Crete and Franks will then head back to the United States. His plane will land at MacDill Air Force Base at 3:00 p.m. that afternoon. [Franks and McConnell, 2004, pp. 247-248]
