New Yorker magazine will later report that bin Laden, al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, and some of their followers evacuated their residences in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and fled into the nearby mountains. By the time the attacks start, they are listening to an Arabic radio station reporting about the 9/11 attacks as they happen. [New Yorker, 9/9/2002]
Shortly After 8:48 a.m. September 11, 2001: Head of CIA’s Bin Laden Unit Blames Al-Qaeda for the Crash at the WTC
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]
8:50 a.m. September 11, 2001: CIA Director Tenet Told of Attack, Immediately Suspects Bin Laden
CIA Director George Tenet is told of the first WTC crash while he is eating breakfast with his mentor, former Senator David Boren (D-OK), at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC. They are interrupted when CIA bodyguards converge on the table to hand Tenet a cell phone. Tenet is told that the WTC has been attacked by an airplane. Boren later says, “I was struck by the fact that [the messenger] used the word ‘attacked.’” Tenet then hands the cell phone back to an aide and says to Boren, “You know, this has bin Laden’s fingerprints all over it.” “‘He was very collected,’ Boren recalls. ‘He said he would be at the CIA in 15 minutes, what people he needed in the room and what he needed to talk about.’” [USA Today, 9/24/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002] According to other accounts, Tenet responds to the caller, “They steered the plane directly into the building?” Tenet then says to Boren, “That looks like bin Laden.” Tenet muses aloud, “I wonder if this has something to do with the guy [Zacarias Moussaoui] who trained for a pilot’s license.” (Moussaoui had been arrested several weeks earlier.) [St. Paul Pioneer Press, 5/29/2002; Stern, 8/13/2003] According to another account, Tenet pauses while on the phone to tell Boren, “The World Trade Center has been hit. We’re pretty sure it wasn’t an accident. It looks like a terrorist act,” then returns to the phone to identify who should be summoned to the CIA situation room. [Time, 9/14/2001] Tenet later tells author Ronald Kessler, “There was no doubt that al-Qaeda was going to come here eventually, and that something spectacular was planned. I knew immediately who it was [behind the attack].” [Kessler, 2003, pp. 196] In his own 2007 book, Tenet will largely confirm the above accounts. He will add, “Most people, I understand, assumed that the first crash was a tragic accident. It took the second plane hitting the second tower to show them that something far worse was going on. That wasn’t the case for me. We had been living too intimately with the possibility of a terrorist attack on the United States. I instantly thought that this had to be al-Qaeda.” He also mentions thinking aloud about Moussaoui. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 161] Tenet will subsequently hurry back to CIA headquarters in his car (see (8:55 a.m.-9:15 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: CIA’s Deputy Director and New York Station Chief Conclude Bin Laden Behind Attack
At the CIA’s Langley headquarters, Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt has arrived back at his office after attending an 8:30 a.m. meeting in the agency’s conference room (see Shortly After 8:48 a.m. September 11, 2001). The second WTC tower has already been hit by this time. Pavitt sends a message to all CIA stations, saying, “I expect each station and each officer to redouble efforts of collecting intelligence on this tragedy.” Mary, the CIA’s New York station chief, calls him. In this call, Pavitt and Mary agree that Osama bin Laden is behind the attack. According to journalist and author Ronald Kessler, they believe that “Its scope, temerity, degree of planning, and viciousness fit his way of operating.” [Kessler, 2003, pp. 202-204]
Shortly After 9:30 a.m. September 11, 2001: White House Official Indicates that Bin Laden Is Likely to Blame for the Attacks
An unnamed White House official tells a reporter that it is being assumed that Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks on the World Trade Center. At 9:55 a.m., CNN’s White House correspondent John King will report that he “spoke to an administration official” about what happened at the WTC “shortly after the president delivered his statement” from the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida (see 9:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). The official, King will say, told him that “obviously the operating assumption here is terrorism.” Furthermore, the “initial assumption,” according to the official, is that “this had something to do, or at least they were looking into any possible connections, with Osama bin Laden.” King will add that the official told him that the administration “recently released a warning that they thought Osama bin Laden might strike out against US targets.” [CNN, 9/11/2001; CNN, 9/11/2001]
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]
12:00 Noon September 11, 2001: Senator Hatch Repeats Intelligence Community’s Conclusion that Osama Bin Laden Is Responsible
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a member of both the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, says he has just been “briefed by the highest levels of the FBI and of the intelligence community.” He says, “They’ve come to the conclusion that this looks like the signature of Osama bin Laden, and that he may be the one behind this.” [Salon, 9/12/2001]
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]
1:00 p.m. September 11, 2001: Taliban Claim They and Bin Laden Were Not Involved in 9/11 Attacks
At around 9:30 p.m., Afghanistan time (1:00 p.m., New York time), Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil holds a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, and claims that the 9/11 attacks did not originate from Afghanistan. He reads a statement by Taliban leader Mullah Omar, which claims that Osama bin Laden also was not involved: “This type of terrorism is too great for one man,” the statement says. [New Yorker, 6/10/2002]
2:40 p.m. September 11, 2001: Rumsfeld Is Told Al-Qaeda Was Behind 9/11 Attacks But Wants to Blame Iraq
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld aide Stephen Cambone is taking notes on behalf of Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center. These notes will be leaked to the media nearly a year later. According to the notes, although Rumsfeld has already been given information indicating the 9/11 attacks were done by al-Qaeda (see 12:05 p.m. September 11, 2001) and he has been given no evidence so far indicating any Iraqi involvement, he is more interested in blaming the attacks on Iraq. According to his aide’s notes, Rumsfeld wants the “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden].… Need to move swiftly.… Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” [CBS News, 9/4/2002; Bamford, 2004, pp. 285] In a 2004 book, author James Moore will write, “Unless Rumsfeld had an inspired moment while the rest of the nation was in shock, the notes are irrefutable proof that the Bush administration had designs on Iraq and Hussein well before the president raised his hand to take the oath of office.” [Moore, 3/15/2004, pp. 18]
