After returning to the US for the fifth time, 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah flies immediately to Jacksonville, Florida, where he stays at the Ramada Inn for a week. He had previously visited Jacksonville (see January 22-26, 2001), as had Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi (see (October 2000)). While in Jacksonville, he frequents Wacko’s strip club. A worker there will later say that the FBI comes to the club after 9/11 to ask questions and show pictures “of the 9/11 terrorists,” and a dancer recognizes Jarrah from a photo line-up. The information about the hotel stay will be discovered by First Coast News in summer 2004 and they will offer to share it with the FBI. The local office will originally agree to meet the reporters, but then cancel at the last minute, saying that the cancellation had been ordered by their superiors at the Justice Department due to a possible impact on the Zacarias Moussaoui trial. First Coast News will comment, “Questions still remain as to what Jarrah was doing in Jacksonville.” [First Coast News, 8/24/2004; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 5, 22 
] Jarrah’s whereabouts after he leaves Jacksonville are unknown for a week and a half, but he shows up in Decatur, Georgia, on March 15. There he stays at a hotel previously used by Atta and Alshehhi for two weeks using the name variant Ziad Samir. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 128 ]
February 26, 2001: Osama Attends Son’s Wedding with Other Bin Laden Family Members
Bin Laden attends the wedding of his son Mohammed in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Although Osama bin Laden is supposedly long estranged from his family, bin Laden’s stepmother, two brothers, and sister are also said to attend, according to the only journalist who was invited. [Reuters, 3/1/2001; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 10/7/2001]
February 26, 2001: Paul Bremer: Bush Administration Paying No Attention to Terrorism
Paul Bremer, who will be appointed the US administrator of Iraq in 2003, says in a speech that the Bush administration is “paying no attention” to terrorism. Bremer says, “What they will do is stagger along until there’s a major incident and then suddenly say, ‘Oh my God, shouldn’t we be organized to deal with this?’” He speaks shortly after chairing the National Commission on Terrorism, a bipartisan body formed during the Clinton administration. [Associated Press, 4/29/2004; CBS News, 4/30/2004; Associated Press, 5/3/2004]
Late February 2001: Enron Influences Cheney’s Energy Task Force to Help Troubled Dabhol Plant
Vice President Cheney is holding a series of secret energy task force meetings to determine the Bush administration’s future energy policy. Starting at this time, Enron leader Ken Lay and other Enron officials take part in a least half a dozen of these secret meetings. After one such meeting, Cheney’s energy task force changes a draft energy proposal to include a provision boosting oil and natural gas production in India. The amendment is so narrow that it apparently is targeted to only help Enron’s troubled Dabhol power plant in India. [Washington Post, 1/19/2002]
Spring 2001 or After: Captured Millennium Bomber Implicates Top London Imam Abu Hamza as Major Al-Qaeda Figure
After being convicted for his part in al-Qaeda’s failed millennium attacks (see December 14, 1999), Ahmed Ressam tells US authorities that London-based radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri is an important figure in al-Qaeda. Ressam says that he heard many stories about Abu Hamza when he was in Afghanistan and that Abu Hamza has the power to refer recruits to other senior al-Qaeda figures. [O’Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 28] Abu Hamza already has a relationship with British security services (see Early 1997).
Spring 2001: CIA Official’s Suggestion to ‘Rain Hell’ on Taliban Is Not Well Received by Other US Ofificals
According to a later account by CIA Director George Tenet, Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin expresses frustration at the lack of action about Osama bin Laden during a meeting of deputy cabinet officials. McLaughlin reportedly says, “I think we should deliver an ultimatum to the Taliban. They either hand bin Laden over or we rain hell on them.” According to Tenet, “An odd silence followed. No one seemed to like the idea. Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, called John after the meeting and offered a friendly word of advice: ‘You are going to get your suspenders snapped if you keep making policy recommendations. That is not your role.’” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 145]
Spring 2001: CIA Director Tenet Warns Congress an Attempted Terrorist Attack against US Interests Is Likely within a Year
CIA Director George Tenet testifies before Congress, saying, “I consider it likely that over the next year or so there will be an attempted terrorist attack against US interests.” He also says, “We will generally not have specific time and place warning of terrorist attacks.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 145] Apparently this is in private Congressional session because a search of the Lexis Nexus article database turns up no media mentions of these quotes until they are mentioned in Tenet’s 2007 book.
Spring 2001: Attorney General Ashcroft Doesn’t Want FBI Director to Talk About Terrorism
Attorney General John Ashcroft talks with FBI Director Louis Freeh before an annual meeting of special agents. Ashcroft lays out his priorities, which according to one participant is “basically violent crime and drugs.” Freeh bluntly replies that those are not his priorities and he talks about counterterrorism. “Ashcroft does not want to hear about it,” says one witness. [Newsweek, 5/27/2002]
Spring 2001: Arab Man in Texas Offered Money to Take Flying Lessons; Later Claims to Recognize 9/11 Hijacker
According to his later testimony, Mustafa Abu Jdai, a 28-year-old Jordanian of Palestinian descent living in Tyler, Texas, answers a job offer posted in a Dallas mosque. He then meets with three Arabic-speaking men who offer to pay him to take flying lessons in Texas, Florida, or Oklahoma. He declines the offer. On September 13, 2001, two days after the 9/11 attacks, Jdai will call the FBI to relate his story. From FBI pictures, he recognizes hijacker Marwan Alshehhi. However, the FBI takes him into custody for overstaying his visa. The FBI says he invented his story and failed a polygraph. Although he is married to an American woman, he will be detained for several months and deported. [Time, 10/28/2001; Washington Post, 11/4/2001; Watch, 8/2002, pp. 16 ]
Spring 2001: US Customs Investigate Three Hijackers Before 9/11
In the wake of the foiled al-Qaeda plot to blow up hotels in Jordan during the millennium celebrations, Jordan gives tips to the US that launch a Customs investigation into one of the plotters, Raed Hijazi, and his US connections. “Customs agents for months traced money flowing from several Boston banks to banks overseas, where officials believe the funds were intended for bin Laden’s network.” In September and October 2000, Jordanian officials gave US investigators evidence of financial transactions connecting Raed Hijazi, Nabil al-Marabh, and future 9/11 hijacker Hamza Alghamdi (see September 2000; October 2000). By spring 2001, Custom agents further connect al-Marabh and Hijazi to financial deals with future 9/11 hijackers Ahmed Alghamdi and Satam Al Suqami. The Washington Post will later note, “These various connections not only suggest that investigators are probing ties between bin Laden and the hijackers, but also that federal authorities knew about some of those associations long before the bombings.” [Washington Post, 9/21/2001] It appears that the money flowed from al-Marabh to Alghamdi and Al Suqami. [Cox News Service, 10/16/2001; ABC News 7 (Chicago), 1/31/2002] While accounts of these connections to Alghamdi and Al Suqami will be widely reported in the media in the months after 9/11, a Customs Service spokesman will say he can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the inquiry. [New York Times, 9/18/2001] It appears that the two hijackers are not put on any kind of watch list and are not stopped when they arrive in the US on April 23, 2001, and May 2, 2001, respectively (see April 23-June 29, 2001). British newspapers will note that Alghamdi was one of several hijackers who should have been “instantly ‘red-flagged’ by British intelligence” but in fact is not when he passes through Britain sometime in early 2001 (see January-June 2001). The 9/11 Commission Final Report will fail to mention the Customs investigation and will give no hint that these hijackers’ names were known in the US before 9/11.
