On September 12, 2001, 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi’s 1988 Toyota Corolla is found at a parking lot near Washington, DC. Alhazmi and fellow hijacker Khalid Almihdhar bought the car in San Diego in March 2000 (see March 25, 2000). [Los Angeles Times, 9/27/2001] Various items are found in the car (see September 11-13, 2001), including an old telephone number of Osama Awadallah. Alhazmi knew Awadallah when he lived in San Diego in 2000. Awadallah’s San Diego house is searched soon thereafter, and photos, videos, and articles relating to Osama bin Laden are found. Investigators also discover that copies of bin Laden’s fatwas (religious edicts) and other similar materials were distributed by people living in the house. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 219-220] Awadallah worked with Alhazmi at a San Diego gas station with a number of radical Islamists (see Autumn 2000). A witness claims that one day before 9/11, he seemed to be celebrating the upcoming 9/11 attacks at the gas station, telling co-workers, “it is finally going to happen” (see Late August-September 10, 2001). Authorities will never develop enough evidence to charge Awadallah with any serious crime, and he will be deported in 2006 after a long legal battle (see May 4, 2006).
September 12, 2001-January 2002: Saeed Sheikh Lives Openly in Pakistan
After probably completing last-minute financial transactions with some 9/11 hijackers, Saeed Sheikh flies to Pakistan. [Knight Ridder, 10/7/2001] He meets with bin Laden in Afghanistan a few days later. [Washington Post, 2/18/2002; London Times, 2/25/2002; Guardian, 7/16/2002] The US government claims Saeed fights for the Taliban in Afghanistan in September and October 2001. [CNN, 3/14/2002] Some reports indicate that after the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saeed acts as a go-between with bin Laden and the ISI seeking to hide bin Laden. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/2002] He also helps produce a video of a bin Laden interview. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/2002] Sometime in October 2001 [Guardian, 7/16/2002] , Saeed moves back to his home in Lahore, Pakistan, and lives there openly. He is frequently seen at local parties hosted by government leaders. In January 2002, he hosts a party to celebrate the birth of his newborn baby. [USA Today, 2/25/2002; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/2002] He stays in his well-known Lahore house with his new wife and baby until January 19, 2002—four days before reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped. [BBC, 7/16/2002]
September 13, 2001: CIA Presents President with Plan to Confront Global Terrorism; Claims Victory Can Be Achieved in Weeks
CIA Director George Tenet and Cofer Black, the director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, meet at 9:30 a.m. in the White House Situation Room with President Bush and the National Security Council. Tenet presents a plan for tracking down Osama bin Laden, toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan, and confronting terrorism worldwide. According to journalist Bob Woodward, the plan involves “bringing together expanded intelligence-gathering resources, sophisticated technology, agency paramilitary teams and opposition forces in Afghanistan in a classic covert action. They would then be combined with US military power and Special Forces into an elaborate and lethal package designed to destroy the shadowy terrorist networks.” A key concept is to utilize the Northern Alliance, which is the main opposition force in Afghanistan. Despite being “a strained coalition of sometimes common interests,” Tenet says that along with the CIA teams “and tons of money, the Alliance could be brought together into a cohesive fighting force.” Black gives a presentation describing the effectiveness of covert action. He says they will need to go after the Taliban as well as al-Qaeda, as the two are joined at the hip. He wants the mission to begin as soon as possible, and adds, “When we’re through with them, they will have flies walking across their eyeballs.” Black claims that once they are on the ground, victory could be achieved in weeks. According to Bob Woodward, “No one else in the room, including Tenet, believed that was possible.” Black also warns the president, “Americans are going to die.… How many, I don’t know. Could be a lot.” Bush responds, “That’s war. That’s what we’re here to win.” This is the second presentation laying out an increasingly detailed set of CIA proposals for expanding its fight against terrorism. (George Tenet had given the first when he met with the president the day before (see September 12, 2001).) Tenet will give a more detailed presentation of the CIA’s covert action plan two days later, at Camp David (see September 15, 2001). [Woodward, 2002, pp. 50-53; Washington Post, 1/29/2002; Kessler, 2003, pp. 233-234]
September 13, 2001: Televangelists Blame Gays, Abortionists, Civil Liberties Groups for 9/11
During a guest appearance on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, televangelist Jerry Falwell tells listeners who he believes is responsible for the 9/11 attacks: homosexuals, abortionists, and the American Civil Liberties Union. 
Falwell: “I fear, as Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense said yesterday, that this is only the beginning. And with biological warfare available to these monsters; the Husseins, the bin Ladens, the Arafats, what we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact, if in fact God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.” Robertson: “Jerry, that’s my feeling. I think we’ve just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven’t even begun to see what they can do to the major population.” Falwell: “The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this.” Robertson: “Well, yes.” Falwell: “And, I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’” Robertson: “Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we’re responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.” Falwell: “Amen. Pat, did you notice yesterday? The ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, the People For the American Way, NOW [the National Organization for Women], etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang ‘God Bless America’ and said ‘let the ACLU be hanged.’” [Washington Post, 9/14/2001; People for the American Way, 9/17/2001; Unger, 2007, pp. 217-218]
In a prayer during the broadcast, Robertson intones: “We have sinned against Almighty God, at the highest level of our government, we’ve stuck our finger in your eye. The Supreme Court has insulted you over and over again, Lord. They’ve taken your Bible away from the schools. They’ve forbidden little children to pray. They’ve taken the knowledge of God as best they can, and organizations have come into court to take the knowledge of God out of the public square of America.” [CNN, 9/14/2001; People for the American Way, 9/17/2001] The next day, after a firestorm of critical response (see September 13-14, 2001), Falwell will retreat somewhat from his remarks (see September 14, 2001), and again three days later (see September 17, 2001). But three years later, he will misrepresent his remarks and once again attack homosexuals (see November 28, 2004).
September 13, 2001: Taliban Says Bin Laden Denies Role in 9/11 Attacks
Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban says that Osama bin Laden has told them he played no role in the September 11 attacks on the United States. Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, tells Reuters, “We asked from him, [and] he told [us] we don’t have any hand in this action.” [Reuters, 9/13/2001] Zaeef says bin Laden has been cut off from all outside communication, including telephone and the Internet, and so it would have been impossible for him to have coordinated the attacks. [Reuters, 9/13/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/15/2001] Zaeef says the Taliban is willing to cooperate with the US in investigating the 9/11 attacks, stating, “We are ready for any help according to [Islamic] Sharia law.” But he stresses that if America has any evidence against bin Laden, it should provide it to the Taliban, which has sheltered him as a “guest.” [Reuters, 9/13/2001]
September 13, 2001: Former CIA Director Suggests Saddam Hussein May Have Been Behind the 9/11 Attacks
In an op-ed piece published in the New Republic, former CIA director James Woolsey calls on the Bush administration to re-examine evidence that could potentially tie Iraq to the 1993 bombing of the WTC. He cites a theory (see Late July or Early August 2001) that Iraqi intelligence helped bomber Ramzi Yousef steal the identity of a Kuwaiti student studying at a college in Wales. If this theory is correct, he says, “then it was Iraq that went after the World Trade Center last time. Which makes it much more plausible that Iraq has done so again.” In light of this, he argues, US authorities should consider the possibility that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. “[I]ntelligence and law enforcement officials investigating the case would do well to at least consider another possibility: that the attacks—whether perpetrated by bin Laden and his associates or by others—were sponsored, supported, and perhaps even ordered by Saddam Hussein,” he writes. “As yet, there is no evidence of explicit state sponsorship of the September 11 attacks. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” [New Republic, 9/13/2001] Woolsey went to Britain in February 2001 and failed to find evidence to support this theory (see February 2001). But a few days later, the US Defense Department will send Woolsey to Britain again (see Late September 2001) to investigate the alleged Iraq link to the 1993 bombing.
September 13, 2001: White House Announces Bin Laden-9/11 Connection
The White House announces that there is “overwhelming evidence” that Bin Laden is behind the attacks. [MSNBC, 9/13/2001]
September 13, 2001: French Intelligence Report Indicates Connections Between Osama and Bin Laden Family
A secret French intelligence report from this date is skeptical of the Saudi Binladin Group, the bin Laden family company. Called “Elements on the Financial Resources of bin Laden,” the report discusses a powerful banker apparently connected to the company who was once close to the Saudi royal family and is the chief architect of a plan “that seems to have been used for the transfer to the terrorist of funds that came from the Gulf countries.” The report also lists assets believed to be under Osama bin Laden’s direct control. In addition to businesses in Sudan, Yemen, Malaysia, and Bosnia, he apparently still owns a hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Other French reports from before 9/11 also question his ties to the Saudi royal family. One French intelligence official will later say that he and other top French officials “had a lot of difficulty believing that [bin Laden] didn’t have any relations with the Saudi monarchy just because he was banished. It was hard to accept.” [Le Monde (Paris), 4/15/2007] Ironically, the same day this French report is completed, the US allows Saudi royals and members of the bin Laden family to fly out of the US after only cursory FBI checks (see September 13, 2001 and September 14-19, 2001).
September 14, 2001: Deutsche Bank Exec Resigns, Prompting Speculations of 9/11 Connection
Mayo Shattuck III resigns, effective immediately, as head of the Alex Brown unit of Deutsche Bank. No reason is given. Some speculate later that this could have to do with the role of Deutsche Bank in the pre-9/11 purchases of put options on the stock of companies most affected by 9/11. Deutsche Bank is also one of the four banks most used by the bin Laden family. [New York Times, 9/15/2001; Wall Street Journal, 9/27/2001]
September 14-26, 2001: Former Head of Pakistani Intelligence Says Bin Laden Not Responsible for 9/11, Blames Israel and US
General Hamid Gul, the former head of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), gives several interviews in which he says Osama bin Laden is not responsible for 9/11, and that he believes the attacks were perpetrated by the Israeli overseas intelligence service, Mossad, and renegade elements within the US Air Force. [Newsweek, 9/14/2001; Tehelka (.com), 9/14/2001; United Press International, 9/26/2001]
Failure of US Air Defenses – Gul points to the failure of the US Air Force to halt the 9/11 attacks. He tells Newsweek: “F-16s don’t scramble in time, though they had 18 minutes after the first plane hit the World Trade Center.… A flight to Los Angeles turns to Washington and is in the air for 45 minutes, and the world’s most sophisticated air defense doesn’t go into action.” [Newsweek, 9/14/2001] In an interview with United Press International editor at large Arnaud de Borchgrave, he says: “The attacks against the Twin Towers started at 8:45 a.m. and four flights are diverted from their assigned air space and no air traffic controller sounds the alarm. And no Air Force jets scramble until 10 a.m. That also smacks of a small scale Air Force rebellion, a coup against the Pentagon perhaps? Radars are jammed, transponders fail. No IFF—friend or foe identification—challenge.” He adds: “In Pakistan, if there is no response to IFF, jets are instantly scrambled and the aircraft is shot down with no further questions asked. This was clearly an inside job.”
Bin Laden Innocent – Gul says he believes Osama bin Laden would have been incapable of perpetrating such a sophisticated attack. When de Borchgrave asks, “What makes you think Osama wasn’t behind September 11?” Gul responds: “From a cave inside a mountain or a peasant’s hovel? Let’s be serious.… He doesn’t have the means for such a sophisticated operation.” He comments: “Within ten minutes of the second Twin Tower being hit… CNN said Osama bin Laden had done it. That was a planned piece of disinformation by the real perpetrators. It created an instant mindset and put public opinion into a trance, which prevented even intelligent people from thinking for themselves.” [United Press International, 9/26/2001] He tells the Indian news website Tehelka.com that blaming bin Laden and Afghanistan “is a convenient bogey to divert attention.” [Tehelka (.com), 9/14/2001]
Blames Israel – Israelis are Gul’s prime suspects for 9/11. He says: “Mossad and its American associates are the obvious culprits. Who benefits from the crime?” [United Press International, 9/26/2001] He tells Newsweek: “I can’t say for sure who was behind [9/11], but it’s the Israelis who are creating so much misery in the world. The Israelis don’t want to see any power in Washington unless it’s subservient to their interests, and President Bush has not been subservient.” [Newsweek, 9/14/2001] In his interview with Tehelka.com, he adds: “One knows that after the Florida fiasco of the presidential election, there is a big rift between the Jewish lobbies and George Bush and his administration. He has not taken a single Jew in his Cabinet. So [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon and company are very upset with George Bush. They [the Jewish lobbies] have been told to indulge in acts of terrorism in the past. Why can’t they do it now?” [Tehelka (.com), 9/14/2001]
Supports Taliban and Opposes US Action against Afghanistan – General Gul was the head of the ISI between 1987 and 1989 (see April 1987). [Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001] As Newsweek describes, he is “widely considered the architect of the Afghan jihad: the man who, with financial and logistical support from the CIA, engineered the fight of the mujaheddin against the Soviet Union and its proxy government in Kabul in the 1980s. Now, he’s a big fan of the country’s ruling Taliban.” [Newsweek, 9/14/2001] He currently serves as an adviser to Pakistan’s extremist religious political parties, which oppose their government’s decision to support the US in any action against the Taliban. [United Press International, 9/26/2001] Newsweek comments: “If General Gul were anyone else, it would be easy to dismiss him as a crackpot. But here in military-ruled Pakistan, he remains an influential figure, even in semiretirement.” [Newsweek, 9/14/2001]
