An unnamed high-ranking official at the State Department arranges the release of four foreign operatives that have been taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the 9/11 attacks, according to FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds will later leave the FBI, becoming a whistleblower, and say she knows this based on telephone conversations she translated. Edmonds will say that the target of an FBI investigation into a nuclear smuggling ring calls the official, indicates names of people who have been taken into custody since 9/11, and says, “We need to get them out of the US because we can’t afford for them to spill the beans.” The official says he will “take care of it,” and the four suspects on the list are released from interrogation and extradited. [Sunday Times (London), 1/6/2008] The names of the four suspects are not known, but one of the lead 9/11 hijackers, Marwan Alshehhi, and the sister of another, Mohamed Atta, will later be associated with the target of an FBI investigation connected to nuclear sciences, so this could possibly be a reference to this person (see July 1999). The high-ranking State Department official who is not named in the Sunday Times article is said to be Marc Grossman by both Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story and former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, writing in the American Conservative. [Raw Story, 1/20/2008; American Conservative, 1/28/2008]
September 12, 2001: British Intelligence Chiefs Fly to US; Delegation Visits CIA and Advises to Concentrate on Afghanistan, Not Iraq
Despite the restrictions on air travel following the previous day’s attacks, one private plane is allowed to fly from Britain to the United States. On it are Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British secret intelligence service (MI6), and Eliza Manningham-Buller, the deputy chief of Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5. In his 2007 book At the Center of the Storm, CIA Director George Tenet will admit, “I still don’t know how they got flight clearance into the country.” Manningham-Buller and Dearlove dine for an hour-and-a-half with a group of American intelligence officials at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 173-174; BBC, 12/4/2007] In addition to Tenet, the US officials at the dinner include James Pavitt and his deputy from the CIA’s Directorate for Operations; A. B. “Buzzy” Krongard, the CIA’s executive director; Cofer Black, the director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center; Tyler Drumheller, the chief of the CIA’s European Division; the chief of the CIA’s Near East Division; and Thomas Pickard, the acting director of the FBI. Also part of the British delegation is David Manning, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser, who was already in the US before 9/11. [Salon, 7/2/2007] The British offer condolences and their full support. The Americans say they are already certain that al-Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks, having recognized names on passenger lists of the hijacked flights. They also say they believe the attacks are not yet over. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 174; BBC, 12/4/2007] According to Drumheller, Manning says, “I hope we can all agree that we should concentrate on Afghanistan and not be tempted to launch any attacks on Iraq.” Tenet replies: “Absolutely, we all agree on that. Some might want to link the issues, but none of us wants to go that route.” [Newsweek, 10/30/2006; Salon, 7/2/2007; Guardian, 8/4/2007]
Between September 11 and October 2, 2001: FAA New York Center Controllers Prepare Written Statements about 9/11 without Reviewing Earlier Taped Accounts
Five of the six air traffic controllers at the FAA’s New York Center that provided tape-recorded statements where they described their actions during the 9/11 attacks subsequently prepare written statements about the attacks. However, they do not get to listen to their earlier taped accounts to help them do this. [US Department of Transportation, 5/4/2004 
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FAA Requires Written Statements – Six controllers at the New York Center who communicated with, or tracked, two of the hijacked aircraft on 9/11 have participated in a session where they were recorded giving their personal accounts of the attacks (see 11:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 5/6/2004] But FAA policy requires all personnel that were involved with an aircraft accident or incident to provide written statements. [US Department of Transportation, 5/4/2004 ] According to David LaCates, the deputy operations manager at the New York Center, the usual procedure is for those controllers to watch a computerized recreation of the air traffic radar picture during the event while listening to an audio tape of their air traffic controller position during that event, and then compile a written statement. [9/11 Commission, 10/2/2003 ]
Five Controllers Prepare Statements – One of the six controllers provides a written statement during the day of September 11, some time after giving his or her tape-recorded account; three of them provide written statements about two weeks later; the fifth does so three weeks after the attacks. All of the written statements are two pages long, except one that is four pages. According to Kevin Delaney, the New York Center’s quality assurance manager, the sixth controller does not provide a written statement because these statements are only required from the controllers that talked to the hijacked aircraft or had been working radar positions that the flight paths of the hijacked aircraft intersected.
Controllers Do Not Hear Tape – Before the controllers gave their tape-recorded accounts, Mike McCormick, the New York Center manager, told the local controllers’ union president that they would be able to use their taped statements to help them prepare their written ones (see (Shortly Before 11:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Yet the controllers never listen to the tape before they make their written statements, nor do they compare their completed written statements with their earlier taped ones. When one of the controllers asks to listen to the tape, she will be told that it is not meant for anyone to hear (see (November 2001)).
Written Statements Generally Consistent with Recorded Ones – Three of the five controllers that provide written statements will later tell Department of Transportation investigators that they believe their written statements are mostly consistent with their earlier recorded statements. The other two controllers will say they believe their written statements are more accurate or more detailed, because they were able to review radar data and transcripts of radio communications before preparing them. However, they will say they cannot be certain of this, since they never listened to the tape. In a 2004 report, the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General will state that its “review of the controllers’ written witness statements, in comparison with two sets of sparse and sketchy notes taken during the taping, suggests some measure of consistency.” [US Department of Transportation, 5/4/2004 ; Air Safety Week, 5/17/2004 ] The tape of the controllers’ statements will be destroyed some time between December 2001 and February 2002 (see Between December 2001 and February 2002), without any of the controllers having listened to it. [New York Times, 5/6/2004; Washington Post, 5/6/2004]
Shortly After September 11, 2001: Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz More Interested in Going after Iraq than Bin Laden
According to counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz asks during a meeting, “Why we are [sic] beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden?” Clarke responds with an explanation that only al-Qaeda “poses an immediate and serious threat to the United States.” Wolfowitz then claims that Iraq poses “at least as much” a danger. According to Clarke, FBI and CIA representatives who are present at the meeting agree that there is no evidence to support Wolfowitz’s assertion. [Washington Post, 3/22/2004 Sources: Richard A. Clarke]
After September 11, 2001: White Supremacist Says 9/11 Attacks May Destabilize US Government
In the days after the 9/11 attacks, white supremacist William Pierce, the leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974 and 1978), tells a radio audience that the attacks could help fundamentally destabilize the US government: “Things are a bit brittle now. A few dozen more anthrax cases (see September 17-18, 2001 and October 5-November 21, 2001), another truck bomb in a well chosen location (see 8:35 a.m. – 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and substantial changes could take place in a hurry: a stock market panic, martial law measures by the Bush government, and a sharpening of the debate as to how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place.” On his Web site, Pierce says that “terrorism is not the problem,” and explains that the current terror threat is “the price for letting ourselves, our nation, be used by an alien minority to advance their own interests at the expense of ours.” Pierce, an outspoken anti-Semite, is referring to Jews as an “alien minority.” Many white supremacists have expressed their support for Islamist terrorists, including al-Qaeda, because of their common antipathy towards Jews. [David Neiwert, 6/17/2003]
September 12, 2001: Rescuers Pull Woman out of WTC Wreckage; Last Survivor to Be Rescued
Twenty-six hours after the collapse of the World Trade Center’s North Tower, rescue workers pull Genelle Guzman out from the rubble. Guzman was traveling down the stairs in the North Tower when the building collapsed. She was unaware of what exactly had happened and went in and out of consciousness during her entrapment. She is rescued around noon by a man named Paul, whose exact identity is unknown. Guzman is the last survivor to be rescued from the WTC wreckage throughout the entire cleanup, and search and recovery operations. [Anderson, 9/1/2004, pp. 7-14]
Between September 12, 2001 and October 17, 2002: CIA Officer Gives Conflicting Accounts of His Conduct at Crucial Meeting with FBI
CIA officer Clark Shannon gives conflicting accounts of his conduct in the failed search for Khalid Almihdhar to the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry’s staff and CIA director George Tenet. Shannon attended a meeting at which the CIA and FBI discussed the investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole and failed to disclose information about hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi to the Cole investigators (see June 11, 2001). Shannon tells the Congressional Inquiry’s staff that he was aware that Almihdhar had a US visa and Alhazmi had traveled to the US, but did not disclose this to the FBI, as he would not share such information outside the CIA unless authorized to do so. However, CIA director George Tenet tells the Congressional Inquiry that Shannon told him something different and that Almihdhar is not who they were talking about at the meeting. [New York Times, 10/17/2002; US Department of Justice, 11/2004 ]
September 12, 2001: Planned Terrorism Exercise May Have Sped up Response to 9/11 Attack
Before 9/11, New York City was scheduled to have a major terrorism training exercise on this day, in a large commercial warehouse on the Hudson River. Called Tripod, it was intended to test how well the city’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) could administer treatment in the event of a biological-terrorism attack. More than 1,000 Police Academy cadets and Fire Department trainees were recruited to act the parts of terrified civilians afflicted with a range of medical conditions. Various individuals were invited to watch, including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the police and fire commissioners, and representatives of the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Presumably many have already arrived for the exercise when the 9/11 attacks occur (see 7:00 a.m. -9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). Because Pier 92, where Tripod was due to take place, has been set up ready for the exercise, OEM staff are able to move there and quickly convert it into a large emergency operations center when their original command center (in WTC Building 7) is evacuated and later destroyed during 9/11. Thus, within 31 hours of the attacks, OEM has a functional facility able to manage the search and rescue effort, just four miles north-northwest of the WTC site. [New York Magazine, 10/15/2001; Jenkins and Edwards-Winslow, 9/2003, pp. 20 ; 9/11 Commission, 5/19/2004] Tripod is the follow-up to a previous training exercise in New York, called RED Ex (see May 11, 2001). [New York Sun, 12/20/2003] Due to the 9/11 attacks, Tripod is called off, but will eventually take place on May 22, 2002. [City of New York, 5/22/2002]
September 12, 2001: Virginia Chief Medical Examiner in ‘Tug of War’ Over Who Should do Autopsies of Pentagon Victims
Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Marcella Fierro, believing that state forensic pathologists have jurisdiction over the Pentagon’s land, reassigns staff from three other regional offices to the Northern Virginia office in order to conduct postmortem examinations on victims of the Pentagon attack. However, following what the Washington Post calls a “behind-the-scenes tug of war,” after FBI and Defense Department officials meet with her they instead opt to conduct forensic and mortuary activities at Defense Department facilities. Fierro requests and later receives a letter from Attorney General John Ashcroft relieving her department of its responsibilities. [Washington Post, 9/13/2001; US Department of Health and Human Services, 7/2002, pp. A-47 ]
September 12, 2001: Bush Calls 9/11 Attacks ‘Acts of War’
President Bush publicly comments, “The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror, they were acts of war.” Bush’s speech writer at the time, David Frum, will later refer to this comment and Bush’s “we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them” comment from the night before (see 8:30 p.m. September 11, 2001), and say, “Within 48 hours, [Bush] had made the two key decisions that have defined the war on terror. First, this is a war, not a crime. And second, this war is not going to be limited to just the authors of the 9/11 attack but to anyone who assisted them and helped them and made their work possible, including states. And that is a dramatic, dramatic event. And that defines everything.” [PBS Frontline, 2/20/2003]
