On September 24, 2001, the US freezes the bank accounts of a number of people and businesses allegedly linked to al-Qaeda (see September 24, 2001). However, no accounts at the Al-Shamal Islamic Bank in Sudan are frozen, despite a 1996 State Department report that bin Laden co-founded the bank and capitalized it with $50 million (see August 14, 1996). As the Chicago Tribune will later note, bin Laden has been more closely linked to this bank than to any other bank in the world. [Chicago Tribune, 11/3/2001] On September 26, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) publicly notes that Al-Shamal was able to obtain correspondent accounts with three US banks, as well as many European and Middle East banks, giving Al-Shamal direct or indirect access to US banking. [Senator Carl Levin, 9/26/2001] Al-Shamal claims that it cut ties with bin Laden long ago. However, tipped off by Levin’s comments, one day later a group of computer hackers claim to have hacked into Al-Shamal’s computers, found evidence of existing al-Qaeda-linked bank accounts, and then turned the information over to the FBI. The FBI neither confirms nor denies getting such information. [Washington Post, 10/12/2001] Several days later, it is reported that European banks are quietly cutting off all dealings with Al-Shamal despite the lack of any formal blacklisting of it. [Associated Press, 10/1/2001] The Los Angeles Times will later report that after 9/11, the Sudanese government greatly increased their cooperation with US intelligence in hopes of improving relations with the US. In November 2001, some FBI agents including Jack Cloonan go to Sudan and are allowed to interview the manager at Al-Shamal. Bank records are made available to US investigators as well. Cloonan will later say, “Until then, the Sudanese had a credibility problem with the US, but they gave us everything we asked for.” [Los Angeles Times, 4/29/2005] But multiple sources will later report that, as of late 2002 at least, Saudi multimillionaire Adel Batterjee heads Al-Shamal and is one of its largest shareholders. [National Review, 10/28/2002; Gunaratna, 2003, pp. 112; Chicago Tribune, 2/22/2004] Batterjee had long been suspected of al-Qaeda ties and was even detained by the Saudi government over his al-Qaeda links in 1993 (see 1993). The US will officially designate him a terrorist financier in 2004 (see December 21, 2004). The Chicago Tribune notes that an official US blacklisting of the bank “could well have diplomatic repercussions that the White House… would rather avoid.” A Saudi financial services conglomerate, Dar Al-Maal Al-Islami Trust (DMI), has a major stake in Al-Shamal, and DMI is headed by Prince Mohammed al-Faisal al-Saud, a cousin of the Saudi King Fahd. (His accountant will later be arrested in Spain and accused of being an important al-Qaeda financier (see April 23, 2002).) Other Saudi royals and prominent businesspeople are also invested in DMI. [Chicago Tribune, 11/3/2001] Furthermore, one of the bank’s three founding members and major shareholders is Saleh Abdullah Kamel, a Saudi billionaire and chairman of the Dallah al-Baraka Group. [In These Times, 12/20/2002] Al-Shamal apparently continues to operate and the US apparently has not taken any action against it. It is unclear if Batterjee continues to run it.
September 25, 2001: Mayor Giuliani Bans Photographs at WTC Ground Zero
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani bans any photography or video recording at the Ground Zero wreckage zone of the WTC collapses unless authorized by the police commissioner, claiming this is because it is a crime scene. Signs warn the public of a class-B misdemeanor and police keep the press away from the site. [Associated Press, 9/26/2001] It is unclear how long the ban lasts, but it seems to continue into 2002 (see From September 25, 2001 to Summer 2002).
Before September 26, 2001: FBI Says It Will Be Some Time Before Those Responsible for 9/11 Will be Charged
FBI spokesman Rex Tomb says that it will take time for criminal proceedings to commence against the people thought to be responsible for 9/11: “There’s going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged.” He continues, “To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court.” In mid-August 2007 Zacarias Moussaoui will be the only person charged in connection with 9/11 in the US, being sentenced to life in prison in spring 2006 (see May 3, 2006), but it is unclear if he was involved in the 9/11 plot or a planned follow up plot (see January 30, 2003). Osama bin Laden will not be charged in connection with his alleged participation (see June 6, 2006 and August 28, 2006). [Wired News, 9/27/2001]
September 25, 2001: FAA Head Says No One Imagined Airplanes Used As Lethal Weapons
FAA Administrator Jane Garvey claims that before 9/11, “No one could imagine someone being willing to commit suicide, being willing to use an airplane as a lethal weapon.”
[CNN, 9/25/2001]
Late September 2001: Neoconservatives Look to Tie Iraq to 1993 WTC Bombing, but Evidence Contradicts Their Theory
At the behest of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, former CIA Director James Woolsey and a team of Justice and Defense Department officials fly to London on a US government plane to look for evidence tying Saddam Hussein to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Woolsey’s trip is in part the idea of neoconservative author Laurie Mylroie (see Late July or Early August 2001). It is the second such mission undertaken by Woolsey this year, as he made a similar trip in February (see February 2001). Woolsey is looking for evidence to support the theory (see Late July or Early August 2001 and Mid-September-October 2001) that Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 WTC bombing, was actually an Iraqi agent who had assumed the identity of a Pakistani student named Abdul Basit. Woolsey visits the Swansea Institute, where Basit studied, to see if Basit’s fingerprints match those of Yousef, who is now serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison. Matching fingerprints would discredit the theory. [Knight Ridder, 10/11/2001; Observer, 10/14/2001; Daily Telegraph, 10/26/2001; Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004] While in Europe, Woolsey also attempts to link the Iraqi government to 9/11 and the October 2001 anthrax attacks (see Mid-September-October 2001). But according to Knight Ridder, “Several of those with knowledge of the trips said they failed to produce any new evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks.” [Knight Ridder, 10/11/2001] Newsweek will similarly report in 2004 that “the results of the Woolsey mission were exactly what the FBI had predicted: that the fingerprints were in fact identical.” [Newsweek, 4/21/2004] The local police in Swansea are curious about Woolsey’s visit and they call the US embassy in London to clarify if Woolsey is visiting in an official capacity. This alerts the State Department and CIA of Woolsey’s trip for the first time, and apparently both agencies are upset. One intelligence consultant familiar with the trip will say, “It was a stupid, stupid, and just plain wrong thing to do.” [Knight Ridder, 10/11/2001; Village Voice, 11/21/2001] It is through this contact that Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tenet learn of Woolsey’s mission (see September 19-20, 2001). [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
September 25, 2001: Justice Department Lawyer Asserts There Is No Limit to President’s Authority to Wage War
In a secret 15-page memo to Deputy White House Counsel Timothy Flanigan, Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, a deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel, reasons that it is “beyond question that the president has the plenary constitutional power to take such military actions as he deems necessary and appropriate to respond to the terrorist attacks” of 9/11. Those actions can be extensive. “The president may deploy military force preemptively against terrorist organizations or the states that harbor or support them,” Yoo writes, “whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of Sept. 11.… Force can be used both to retaliate for those attacks, and to prevent and deter future assaults on the nation. Military actions need not be limited to those individuals, groups, or states that participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.” The memo is solicited and overseen by White House lawyers.
Power Derives from Constitution, Congressional Authorization for War – This power of the president, Yoo states, rests both on the US Congress’ Joint Resolution of September 14 (see September 14-18, 2001) and on the War Powers Resolution of 1973. “Neither statute, however, can place any limits on the president’s determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the president alone to make.” (Most experts believe that the Constitution strictly limits the president’s power to declare and conduct war—see 1787).
Power More Extensive than Congress Authorized – Yoo argues further that the September 14 resolution does not represent the limits to the president’s authority. “We think it beyond question” that Congress cannot “place any limits on the president’s determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the president alone to make.” Congress’s “Joint Resolution is somewhat narrower than the president’s constitutional authority,” Yoo writes, as it “does not reach other terrorist individuals, groups, or states which cannot be determined to have links to the September 11 attacks.” The president’s broad power can be used against selected individuals suspected of posing a danger to the US, even though it may be “difficult to establish, by the standards of criminal law or even lower legal standards, that particular individuals or groups have been or may be implicated in attacks on the United States.” Yoo concludes: “[W]e do not think that the difficulty or impossibility of establishing proof to a criminal law standard (or of making evidence public) bars the president from taking such military measures as, in his best judgment, he thinks necessary or appropriate to defend the United States from terrorist attacks. In the exercise of his plenary power to use military force, the president’s decisions are for him alone and are unreviewable.”
‘Unenumerated’ Presidential Powers – Yoo even asserts that the president has more power than his memo claims: “[T]he president’s powers include inherent executive powers that are unenumerated in the Constitution,” including but not limited to the power to take the country to war without Congressional input. [US Department of Justice, 9/25/2001; Savage, 2007, pp. 121-122]
Memo Remains Secret for Three Years – The contents of this memo are not disclosed until mid-December 2004. [Newsweek, 12/18/2004; Newsweek, 12/27/2004]
September 25, 2001: Congressman Gives Able Danger Chart to White House, Mention of Atta Is Uncertain
Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA) later claims that about two weeks after 9/11, he is given a chart by friends of his from the Army’s Information Dominance Center, in cooperation with special ops. The chart indicates various al-Qaeda cells that were identified by a military intelligence unit called Able Danger. Early in 2000, this unit identified, amongst others, an al-Qaeda cell based in Brooklyn, New York, which included Mohamed Atta and three other future 9/11 hijackers (see January-February 2000). Atta’s name is said to be on the chart given to Weldon. Shortly after being given the chart, Weldon meets with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, and shows the chart to him. Weldon claims, “Hadley looked at the chart and said, Congressman, where did you get that chart from? I said, I got it from the military.… Steve Hadley said, Congressman, I am going to take this chart, and I am going to show it to the man. The man that he meant… was the President of the United States. I said, Mr. Hadley, you mean you have not seen something like this before from the CIA, this chart of al-Qaeda worldwide and in the US? And he said, No, Congressman. So I gave him the chart.” [US Congress. House, 6/27/2005; Delaware County Daily Times, 8/12/2005; Fox News, 8/22/2005] However, a spokesman for Hadley later disputes this account, and says, “Mr. Hadley does not recall any chart bearing the name or photo of Mohamed Atta. [National Security Council] staff reviewed the files of Mr. Hadley as well as of all [National Security Council] personnel… That search has turned up no chart.” [Washington Post, 9/24/2005] Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) later recalls attending the meeting and remembers the chart, but can’t recall if Atta was on it or not. [New York Times, 10/1/2005] Curt Weldon also later claims that the copy of the chart he gives to Hadley is his only one. [Time, 8/29/2005] However, apparently contradicting this, Weldon will give a speech in 2002 showing the chart (see May 23, 2002).
September 25, 2001: Several 9/11 Passengers Have Possible Connections to Pilotless Aircraft Program
As details of the passengers on the four hijacked flights emerge, some are shown to have curious connections to the defense company Raytheon, and possibly its Global Hawk pilotless aircraft program. Stanley Hall (Flight 77) was director of program management for Raytheon Electronics Warfare. One Raytheon colleague calls him “our dean of electronic warfare.”
[Associated Press, 9/25/2001] Peter Gay (Flight 11) was Raytheon’s vice president of operations for Electronic Systems and had been on special assignment to a company office in El Segundo, California. [Associated Press, 9/25/2001] Raytheon’s El Segundo’s Electronic Systems division is one of two divisions making the Global Hawk. [Intelligence Surveillance Reconaissance Journal, 3/2002] Kenneth Waldie (Flight 11) was a senior quality control engineer for Raytheon’s electronic systems. David Kovalcin (Flight 11) was a senior mechanical engineer for Raytheon’s electronic systems. [CNN, 9/2001] Herbert Homer (Flight 175) was a corporate executive working with the Department of Defense. [CNN, 9/2001; Northeastern University Voice, 12/11/2001] A surprising number of passengers, especially on Flight 77, have military connections. For instance, William E. Caswell was a Navy scientist whose work was so classified that his family knew very little about what he did each day. Says his mother, “You just learn not to ask questions.”
[Chicago Tribune, 9/16/2001]
September 25, 2001 and after: Ground Zero Workers Find Compressed Floors and Shattered Core Columns of WTC
Two weeks after 9/11, engineers Pablo Lopez and Andrew Pontecorvo are walking in the B2 basement level at the ruins of the World Trade Center, towards where the North Tower stood. They discover a “solid, rocklike mass where the basement levels of the tower had been,” and see “the recognizable traces of twenty floors, very much like geologic strata revealed by a road cut, compressed into a ten-foot vertical span. In one place, the steel decks of half a dozen floors protruded like tattered wallpaper, so close together that they were almost touching where they were bent downward at the edge. Nothing between the decks was recognizable except as a rocky, rusty mishmash. In a few places what might have been carbonized, compressed stacks of paper stuck out edgewise like graphite deposits.” As New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton describe, Lopez and Pontecorvo have found “where the vanished floors [of the tower] had gone. They had not just fallen straight down. The forces had been so great and the floors so light that they had simply folded up like deflated balloons.” Furthermore, they see the massive core columns of the tower, which are over two feet wide and made of four-inch thick steel plate, appearing to have suffered “a compound fracture: the upper sections looked as if they had been kicked, with incalculable fury, about a foot south of the sections they were resting on.” Lopez remarks, “Can you imagine the force?” [Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 292-293] At some later time, ironworker Danny Doyle, who is also working at Ground Zero, finds that floors of the South Tower have been compressed into a formation like what happened with the North Tower’s. He discovers “a distinct mound of debris set into the pile, about six feet high, with strands of wire and pieces of rebar sticking out. It looked like layers of sediment that had turned into rock and been lifted up on some mountainside.… Here were ten stories of the South Tower, compacted into an area of about six feet.” [Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 310]
From September 25, 2001 to Summer 2002: Few Photographers Gain Access to Ground Zero
After unauthorized photography at Ground Zero is banned by New York City authorities on September 25, 2001 (see September 25, 2001), independent or press-affiliated photographers find it difficult to enter the secured perimeter. Only one professional photographer, Gary M. Suson, obtains official permission to work at the site. He will publish his work in the book Requiem: Images of Ground Zero. [Suson, 2002; New York Times, 5/28/2002] Photographs taken by New York Police officers will be gathered in the book Above Hallowed Ground: A Photographic Record of September 11, 2001. [Department, 2002] Joel Meyerowitz, a renowned independent photographer, is unable to obtain permission but manages to insert himself into “the forbidden city”. Wily and persistent, Meyerowitz makes friends among some police officers, acquires a hard hat and some gloves to look inconspicuous, and even forges a work permit on his home computer, and succeeds in photographing Ground Zero over a period of nine months. He will later publish this invaluable record in the 2006 book Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive. [Meyerowitz, 2006; Observer, 8/27/2006; New York Times, 9/3/2006]
