9/11 hijackers Majed Moqed and Ahmed Alghamdi arrive in Washington, DC, on the same flight from London. Alghamdi tells the immigration inspector that Osama bin Laden is a good Muslim and that the media distorts facts about him, but is nevertheless allowed into the country. This incident will not be mentioned in the main 9/11 Commission Report or the Commission’s Terrorist Travel Monograph, but is mentioned in an FBI timeline of hijacker movements that the 9/11 Commission will frequently use as a source. Both Alghamdi and Moqed declare over $10,000 in cash, but the customs inspector who processes Alghamdi does not fill out the documentation required when a person brings in more than $10,000. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 139 
; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 528; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 22 ] Shortly after 9/11, the New York Times, Washington Post, and other newspapers will report that by the spring of 2001, US customs was investigating Alghamdi and two other future 9/11 hijackers for their connections to known al-Qaeda operatives (see Spring 2001). One British newspaper will note that Alghamdi should have been “instantly ‘red-flagged’ by British intelligence” as he passed through London on his way to the US because of a warning about his links to al-Qaeda (see April 22-June 27, 2001). It will not be explained how Alghamdi is able to pass through Britain and US customs, even as he is openly praising bin Laden. Majed Moqed apparently is not stopped while passing through customs. However the FBI will later note that he uses the alias Mashaanmoged Mayed on the flight manifest before returning to the Moqed name when passing through customs. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 139 ]
May 2-3, 2001: President Bush Told Bin Laden’s Public Comments Suggest New Attack
A Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (SEIB) about Osama bin Laden sent to top White House officials on May 3, 2001, is entitled, “Bin Laden Public Profile May Presage Attack.” Apparently it suggests that recent public comments by bin Laden could be hinting at future attacks, but details of what exactly he said or did to cause this warning have not be made public. The New York Times will later report that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were among those who received this warning. Since SEIBs are typically based on the previous day’s President Daily Briefings (see January 20-September 10, 2001), President Bush was probably informed about this warning on May 2. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 255; US District Court of Eastern Virginia, 5/4/2006, pp. 2 ]
May 6-September 6, 2001: Some 9/11 Hijackers Work Out at Gyms, Some Merely Hang Out
Some 9/11 hijackers work out at various gyms, presumably getting in shape for the hijacking. Ziad Jarrah appears to train intensively from May to August, and Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi also take exercising very seriously. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; New York Times, 9/23/2001] However, these three are presumably pilots who would need the training the least. For instance, Jarrah’s trainer says, “If he wasn’t one of the pilots, he would have done quite well in thwarting the passengers from attacking.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001] From September 2-6, Flight 77 hijackers Hani Hanjour, Majed Moqed, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Salem Alhazmi show up several times at a Gold’s Gym in Greenbelt, Maryland, signing the register with their real names and paying in cash. According to a Gold’s regional manager, they “seemed not to really know what they were doing” when using the weight machines. [Washington Post, 9/19/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; Associated Press, 9/21/2001; Newsday, 9/23/2001] Three others—Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami—
“simply clustered around a small circuit of machines, never asking for help and, according to a trainer, never pushing any weights. ‘You know, I don’t actually remember them ever doing anything… They would just stand around and watch people.’” [New York Times, 9/23/2001] Those three also had a one month membership in Florida—whether they ever actually worked out there is unknown. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001]
May 7-July 24, 2001: Risk Management Specialist Warns Senator John Kerry of Possible ‘Coordinated Attack’
Brian Sullivan, a retired Federal Aviation Administration risk management specialist, writes a letter to Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), concerned about an alarming lack of security at Boston’s Logan Airport. Flights 11 and 175 take off from Logan on 9/11. [Associated Press, 9/14/2001; Village Voice, 9/15/2004] The previous night a local TV station aired a report of an undercover investigation, which found that, nine times out of 10, a crew was able to get knives and other weapons through Logan’s security checkpoints, including the ones later used by the 9/11 hijackers. Sullivan writes: “With the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers? Think what the result would be of a coordinated attack which took down several domestic flights on the same day. With our current screening, this is more than possible. It is almost likely.” Following his letter, Sullivan has a videotape of the TV investigation hand-delivered to Kerry’s office. [Insight on the News, 6/17/2002; 9/11 Commission, 2/11/2004, pp. 4; New York Post, 3/15/2004] After 9/11, Kerry will say that his response was to pass the letter and videotape to the General Accounting Office, and consequently it began an undercover investigation into the matter. [Associated Press, 9/14/2001; Boston Globe, 9/15/2001] Sullivan will confirm Kerry having responded to his letter, and having asked the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General to look into the matter. He comments, “I think Sen. Kerry did get it to the right people and they were about to take action.” [MSNBC, 9/16/2001] However, in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election where Kerry is the Democratic candidate, Sullivan will accuse him of having done “the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck.” An article in the right-wing New York Post will claim that Kerry’s only response to Sullivan was a brief letter towards the end of July 2001, and says Sullivan’s letter to him had made clear that the Department of Transportation was ineffective in responding to complaints about security problems. [New York Post, 3/15/2004]
May 7, 2001: FBI Told of Plan to Attack Boston, New York, and London
A walk-in to an FBI office claims that there is a radical fundamentalist plot to launch attacks on Boston, New York, and London. The 9/11 Commission will later claim that the walk-in’s report was discredited, but it is unknown if this happened before or after 9/11. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 255, 533] A declassified copy of the FBI warning obtained by the Intelwire website in 2008 will shed further light on the warning. Although parts of the warning are redacted, it appears the walk-in claims that three high-ranking al-Qaeda prisoners held in prison in Britain, Khalid al-Fawwaz, Adel Abdel Bary, and Ibrahim Eidarous, would launch the attack if they are extradited to the US. The warning claims that the attack has been planned for several years and operatives are already in the US to carry it out. The plan may involve a boat loaded with explosives or an attack on a large building. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 5/7/2001 ] In August 2001, a different source will also claim to have learned of an attack on New York, possibly the World Trade Center, from the same three prisoners (see August 21, 2001).
Between May 7 and June 1, 2001: 9/11 Hijacker Alhaznawi Enters Saudi Arabia, Possibly Tracked by Saudi Authorities
9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi enters Saudi Arabia. The exact date on which he does so is unknown, but it must be between May 7, when he arrives in the United Arab Emirates from Pakistan (see April 11-June 28, 2001) and June 1, when he leaves Saudi Arabia (see June 1, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 151 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 42-50 ] According to the 9/11 Commission, Alhaznawi may have had a passport with an indicator of Islamic extremism (see Before November 12, 2000). Such indicators were used by the Saudi authorities to track some of the hijackers before 9/11 (see November 2, 2007).
May 7-24, 2001: Military Exercise Predicts War on Terror
The Joint Experimentation Directorate of the US Joint Forces Command, in partnership with US Central Command and US Special Operations Command, conducts a three-week exercise called Unified Vision 2001 (UV 01). Over 40 organizations and 350 personnel from all branches of the armed services and other federal agencies participate. [US Joint Forces Command, 6/25/2001; Aerospace America, 12/2001; US Congress, 4/9/2002; Arkin, 2005, pp. 540] UV 01 tests the ability of the military’s provisional Homeland Security Joint Force to respond, following “chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high yield explosives for the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia.” It is based around the scenario of a major regional threat coming from the Middle East, requiring a “global deployment into a landlocked country with hostile terrain and a lack of basing and agreements with neighboring countries for US access.” Dave Ozolek, assistant director of the exercise, says, “The threat we portrayed was an unstable and hostile state, but the primary enemy was not the state itself but a transnational actor based out of that area, globally connected, capable and willing to conduct terrorist attacks in the US as part of that campaign.” As the American Forces Press Service will later report, “real events similar to the Unified Vision scenario unfolded in the attacks of Sept. 11. The al-Qaeda is a global terrorist network hosted by an unstable, landlocked Central Asian regime.” Many of the participants in UV 01 will, following 9/11, become war planners and utilize their experiences from the exercise in the resulting military operations. Ozolek will later remark, “Nostradamus couldn’t have nailed the first battle of the next war any closer than we did.… [T]his time we got it right.” He will say, however, that UV 01 did not foresee the severity of terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11, and involved terrorists attacking US military targets, rather than civilian ones. The Joint Forces Command will refuse to say whether the Pentagon was among these imagined targets. [American Forces Press Service, 7/30/2002; Washington Times, 9/11/2002]
May 8, 2001: Cheney to Oversee National Effort for Responding to Domestic Attacks, but No Action Is Taken before 9/11
In a brief statement, President Bush announces that Vice President Dick Cheney will oversee a “coordinated national effort” aimed at integrating the government’s plans for responding to the use of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon within the United States. Bush declares, “Should our efforts to reduce the threat to our country from weapons of mass destruction be less than fully successful, prudence dictates that the United States be fully prepared to deal effectively with the consequences of such a weapon being used here on our soil.” Bush says a new agency within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), known as the Office of National Preparedness, will be “responsible for implementing the results of those parts of the national effort overseen by Vice President Cheney that deal with consequence management.” The Office of National Preparedness appears to be a reincarnation of FEMA’s old National Preparedness Directorate (NPD), which was disbanded by the Clinton administration in 1993 (see January 1993-October 1994). During the 1980s and early 1990s, the NPD secretly spent billions of dollars preparing for nuclear war and other national emergencies as part of the highly classified Continuity of Government (COG) program (see February 1993, 1982-1991, and April 1, 1979-Present). [Cox News Service, 2/22/1993] Under the Bush administration, the Office of National Preparedness (ONP) will apparently take over where the National Preparedness Directorate left off. According to Bush, the ONP “will coordinate all Federal programs dealing with weapons of mass destruction consequence management within the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies.” Cheney, who played a central role in the COG program during the Reagan administration (see 1981-1992 and 1980s), informs CNN, “[O]ne of our biggest threats as a nation” could be “domestic terrorism, but it may also be a terrorist organization overseas or even another state using weapons of mass destruction against the US.… [W]e need to look at this whole area, oftentimes referred to as homeland defense.” According to FEMA, the ONP will be up and running as early as the summer of 2001. President Bush says he “will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.” [CNN, 5/8/2001; White House, 5/8/2001; New York Times, 7/8/2002] Cheney is meant to head a group that will draft a national terrorism response plan by October 1. [Chicago Sun-Times, 5/5/2001; Insight on the News, 6/18/2001] But, according to Barton Gellman of the Washington Post, “Neither Cheney’s review nor Bush’s took place.” [Washington Post, 1/20/2002] Former Senator Gary Hart (D-CO) later implies that Bush assigned this specific role to Cheney in order to prevent Congress from enacting counterterrorism legislation proposed by a bipartisan commission he had co-chaired in January (see January 31, 2001). [Salon, 4/2/2004; Salon, 4/6/2004] In July, two senators will send draft counterterrorism legislation to Cheney’s office, but a day before 9/11, they are told it might be another six months before he gets to it (see September 10, 2001). [Newsweek, 5/27/2002] Cheney’s “National Preparedness Review” is just beginning to hire staff a few days before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001). [Congressional Quarterly, 4/15/2004]
May 8-10, 2001: Senate Hearings Discuss Possibility of Terrorist Attack in the US
Based on concerns that the US is unprepared for a terrorist attack on its soil, the Republican chairmen of three Senate committees—appropriations, armed services and intelligence—arrange three days of hearings to explore how to better coordinate efforts at preventing and responding to terrorist attacks within the United States. Eighteen government officials testify, including CIA Director George Tenet, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Before the hearings commence, Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan) tells reporters, “The United States is very likely to suffer, on our soil, an attack by a weapon of mass destruction, by a terrorist group or cell. It should come as no surprise this nation is not prepared for such an attack.” [Washington Post, 5/9/2001; Red Cross, 5/10/2001] In his testimony at the hearings, John Ashcroft warns, “It is clear that American citizens are the target of choice of international terrorists. Americans comprise only about 5 percent of the world’s population. However, according to State Department statistics, during the decade of the 1990s, 36 percent of all worldwide terrorist acts were directed against US interests. Although most of these attacks occurred overseas, international terrorists have shown themselves willing to reach within our borders to carry out their cowardly acts.” [US Congress. Senate. Appropriations Committee, 5/9/2001] Yet in a letter describing the agenda of the new administration that he sends to department heads the day after giving this testimony, Ashcroft does not mention terrorism (see May 10, 2001). [New York Times, 2/28/2002] Also testifying at the hearings, FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh announces he will soon be establishing an Office of National Preparedness to coordinate efforts at responding to terrorist attacks. [Washington Post, 5/9/2001] On the day the hearings start, President Bush announces that he is putting Vice President Dick Cheney in charge of overseeing a coordinated effort to address the threat posed to the United States by chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons (see May 8, 2001). [White House, 5/8/2001]
Mid-May 2001: CIA Officer Obtains More Information about USSColeBombing
CIA officer Tom Wilshire, currently assigned to the FBI, discusses al-Qaeda’s Malaysia summit with another CIA officer called Clark Shannon, who is assigned to the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and wrote a report on the USS Cole bombing (see January 2001). Shannon gives Wilshire a timeline of events related to the Cole attack and they discuss Fahad al-Quso, a member of the bombing team in custody at this point (see Early December 2000), and Khallad bin Attash. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 282 ] Around this time, Wilshire also accesses a March 2000 cable about travel to the US by 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi and a companion following the summit (see May 15, 2001). According to Margaret Gillespie, an FBI agent on loan to the CIA, Wilshire “had always been interested in the Malaysia summit and he was especially concerned about any potential ties between the USS Cole investigation and the Malaysia summit.” [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ]
