It is reported that the State Department said Mohamed Atta “wanted to learn to fly, but didn’t need to take off and land” when this information clearly refers to Zacarias Moussaoui (although that story isn’t exactly true for him either (see August 13-15, 2001)). It is also reported that the military dropped leaflets in Afghanistan which featured photos depicting bin Laden in Western clothing, with his hair cut short and beard shaved off. An expert says “Frankly, this is sloppy,” and the article calls these propaganda efforts “worthy of the tabloids.”
[Associated Press, 1/4/2002]
January 5, 2002: US Teenager Voicing Support for Bin Laden Flies Plane into Bank Tower in Tampa, Florida
Fifteen-year-old Charles J. Bishop, a high school student from Tarpon Springs, Florida, steals a small aircraft. As soon as the plane takes off, the air traffic controllers alert the United States Coast Guard and MacDill Air Force Base. Despite repeated warnings from a helicopter dispatched by the Coast Guard, the small plane continues on until it collides with an office building. The plane crashes between the 23rd and 24th floors of the 42-story Bank of America Tower in Tampa at 5:00 p.m. Before the incident, he is authorized to do a pre-flight check but not to get in an aircraft alone.
Investigation – After the crash, investigators discover that the teen had a troubled past. Officials rule out terrorism although eye witnesses say that the plane makes no apparent attempt to avoid hitting the building. Officials finally suggest that the crash is an apparent suicide. In addition, a note found in the wreckage states that he voices support for Osama bin Laden. However, there is no evidence that the teen has any connection with any terror group. Later authorities confiscate a computer from Bishop’s parents’ house to figure out what motive is involved in the incident. Moments after the incident, President George W. Bush is briefly informed about the incident and two unrelated crashes that same day. In April 2002, transcripts obtained from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reveal new details about the incident, which include how close the small plane came to a Southwest Airlines flight.
Other Consequences – Bishop’s mother files a $70 million dollar lawsuit against Roche Laboratories, who makes an acne medicine called Accutane. According to the lawsuit claim the medicine has side effects such as depression and suicidal actions, which the claim states was the cause of the incident. Also, numerous security measures are taken in response to the incident. The FAA releases a security notice on January 6, the day after the incident. The notice includes security and regulations pertaining to underaged flight students. In addition, the FAA and other similar aircraft organizations propose more security of flight schools and small aircraft. While authorities state that the crash is due to an “abuse of trust” rather than a security breach, others argue for the need of increased security due to the simplicity of such actions. [Anomalies-Unlimited, 7/28/2006]
January 5, 2002: FBI Interested in Captured Pakistani Militant Leader
The FBI has asked Pakistan for permission to question Maulana Masood Azhar, the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, according to reports. Pakistan arrested him on December 25, 2001, after US pressure to do so. One Pakistani official says, “The Americans are aware Azhar met bin Laden often, and are convinced he can give important information about bin Laden’s present whereabouts and even the September 11 attacks.” But the “primary reason” for US interest is the link between Azhar and Saeed Sheikh. They hope to learn about Saeed’s involvement in financing the 9/11 attacks. Whether Pakistan gives permission to question Azhar is unclear. Four days later, the US officially asks Pakistan for help in finding and extraditing Saeed. [Gulf News, 1/5/2002]
January 6, 2002: Shoe Bomber Is Believed to Be Involved with Pakistani Jihadists
The Boston Globe reports that shoe bomber Richard Reid may have had ties with an obscure Pakistani group called Al-Fuqra. Reid apparently visited the Lahore, Pakistan, home of Ali Gilani, the leader of Al-Fuqra. [Boston Globe, 1/6/2002] Reporter Daniel Pearl reads the article and decides to investigate. [Vanity Fair, 8/2002] Pearl believes he is on his way to interview Gilani when he is kidnapped. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/2002] A 1995 State Department report said Al-Fuqra’s main goal is “purifying Islam through violence.” [Vanity Fair, 8/2002] Intelligence experts now say Al-Fuqra is a splinter group of Jaish-e-Mohammed, with ties to al-Qaeda. [United Press International, 1/29/2002] Al-Fuqra claims close ties with the Muslims of the Americas, a US tax-exempt group claiming about 3,000 members living in rural compounds in 19 states, the Caribbean, and Europe. Members of Al-Fuqra are suspected of at least 13 fire bombings and 17 murders, as well as theft and credit-card fraud. Gilani, who had links to people involved in the 1993 WTC bombing, fled the US after the bombing. He admitted he works with the ISI, and now lives freely in Pakistan. [Boston Globe, 1/6/2002; News (Islamabad), 2/15/2002; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/2002; Vanity Fair, 8/2002] Saeed Sheikh “has long had close contacts” with the group, and praises Gilani for his “unexplained services to Pakistan and Islam.” [News (Islamabad), 2/18/2002; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/2002]
January 6, 2002: Mullah Omar Escapes Capture by US Military
The US allegedly locates former Taliban leader Mullah Omar and 1,500 of his soldiers in the remote village of Baghran, Afghanistan. After a six-day siege, and surrounded by US helicopters and troops, Omar and four bodyguards supposedly escape the dragnet in a daring chase on motorcycles over dirt roads. His soldiers are set free in return for giving up their weapons, in a deal brokered by local leaders. Yet it remains unclear if Omar was ever in the village in the first place. [Observer, 1/6/2002]
January 8, 2002: Intensive Search for Bin Laden and Mullah Omar in Afghanistan Comes to a Halt
Military spokesperson Navy Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem says, “We’re going to stop chasing… the shadows of where we thought [bin Laden and Mullah Omar were] and focus more on the entire picture of the country, where these pockets of resistance are, what do the anti-Taliban forces need, so that we can develop a better intelligence picture. The job is not complete and those leaders whom we wish to have from the al-Qaeda and Taliban chain of command, we are casting a wide net—a worldwide net, as well as regional, for where they are.” This announcement comes just two days after reports that Mullah Omar escaped an encirclement near Kandahar and fled into the nearby hills (see January 6, 2002). [Reuters, 1/8/2002]
January 9, 2002: Yoo Memo Says US Not Bound by International Laws in War on Terror
John Yoo, a neoconservative lawyer in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel serving as deputy assistant attorney general, writes a classified memo to senior Pentagon counsel William J. Haynes, titled “Application of Treaties and Law to al-Qaeda and Taliban Detainees.” [New York Times, 5/21/2004]
Yoo: Geneva Conventions Do Not Apply in War on Terror – Yoo’s memo, written in conjunction with fellow Justice Department lawyer Robert Delahunty, echoes arguments by another Justice Department lawyer, Patrick Philbin, two months earlier (see November 6, 2001). Yoo states that, in his view, the laws of war, including the Geneva Conventions, do not apply to captured Taliban or al-Qaeda prisoners, nor do they apply to the military commissions set up to try such prisoners.
Geneva Superseded by Presidential Authority – Yoo’s memo goes even farther, arguing that no international laws apply to the US whatsoever, because they do not have any status under US federal law. “As a result,” Yoo and Delahunty write, “any customary international law of armed conflict in no way binds, as a legal matter, the president or the US armed forces concerning the detention or trial of members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.” In essence, Yoo and Delahunty argue that President Bush and the US military have carte blanche to conduct the global war on terrorism in any manner they see fit, without the restrictions of law or treaty. However, the memo says that while the US need not follow the rules of war, it can and should prosecute al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees for violating those same laws—a legal double standard that provokes sharp criticism when the memo comes to light in May 2004 (see May 21, 2004). Yoo and Delahunty write that while this double standard may seem “at first glance, counter-intuitive,” such expansive legal powers are a product of the president’s constitutional authority “to prosecute the war effectively.” The memo continues, “Restricting the president’s plenary power over military operations (including the treatment of prisoners)” would be “constitutionally dubious.” [Mother Jones, 1/9/2002; US Department of Justice, 6/9/2002 
; Newsweek, 5/21/2004; New York Times, 5/21/2004]
Overriding International Legal Concerns – Yoo warns in the memo that international law experts may not accept his reasoning, as there is no legal precedent giving any country the right to unilaterally ignore its commitment to Geneva or any other such treaty, but Yoo writes that Bush, by invoking “the president’s commander in chief and chief executive powers to prosecute the war effectively,” can simply override any objections. “Importing customary international law notions concerning armed conflict would represent a direct infringement on the president’s discretion as commander in chief and chief executive to determine how best to conduct the nation’s military affairs.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 146] The essence of Yoo’s argument, a Bush official later says, is that the law “applies to them, but it doesn’t apply to us.” [Newsweek, 5/21/2004] Navy general counsel Alberto Mora later says of the memo that it “espoused an extreme and virtually unlimited theory of the extent of the president’s commander-in-chief authority.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 181]
White House Approval – White House counsel and future Attorney General Alberto Gonzales agrees (see January 25, 2002), saying, “In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.” [Mother Jones, 1/9/2002]
Spark for Prisoner Abuses – Many observers believe that Yoo’s memo is the spark for the torture and prisoner abuses later reported from Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison (see Evening November 7, 2003), Guantanamo Bay (see December 28, 2001), and other clandestine prisoner detention centers (see March 2, 2007). The rationale is that since Afghanistan is what Yoo considers a “failed state,” with no recognizable sovereignity, its militias do not have any status under any international treaties. [Newsweek, 5/21/2004; Newsweek, 5/24/2004]
Resistance from Inside, Outside Government – Within days, the State Department will vehemently protest the memo, but to no practical effect (see January 25, 2002).
January 11, 2002: First Prisoners Transferred to Guantanamo Bay
The US prison camp at Guantanamo receives its first 20 prisoners from the Afghan battlefield. [Reuters, 1/11/2002] The prisoners are flown on a C-141 Starlifter cargo plane, escorted during the final leg of the journey by a Navy assault helicopter and a naval patrol boat. The prisoners, hooded, shackled, wearing blackout goggles and orange jumpsuits, and possibly drugged, are escorted one by one off the plane by scores of Marines in full battle gear. They are interred in what reporter Charlie Savage will later call “kennel-like outdoor cages” in the makeshift containment facility dubbed Camp X-Ray. [Guardian, 1/11/2002; Savage, 2007, pp. 142-143]
Leaked Photos of Transfer Cause International Outcry – Pictures of prisoners being transferred in conditions clearly in violation of international law are later leaked, prompting an outcry. But rather than investigating the inhumane transfer, the Pentagon will begin investigating how the pictures were leaked. [Associated Press, 11/9/2002]
Guantanamo Chosen to Keep Prisoners out of US Jurisdiction – The prisoners are sent to this base—leased by Cuba to the US—because it is on foreign territory and therefore beyond the jurisdiction of US law (see December 28, 2001). [Globe and Mail, 9/5/2002] It was once a coaling station used by the US Navy, and in recent years had been used by Coast Guard helicopters searching for drug runners and refugees trying to make it across the Florida Straits to US soil. In 1998, the Clinton administration had briefly considered and then rejected a plan to bring some prisoners from Kosovo to Guantanamo. Guantanamo was chosen as an interim prison for Afghanis who survived the uprising at Mazar-e Sharif prison (see 11:25 a.m. November 25, 2001) by an interagency working group (see Shortly Before September 23, 2001), who considered and rejected facilities in Germany and other European countries. Group leader Pierre-Richard Prosper will later recall: “We looked at our military bases in Europe and ruled that out because (a), we’d have to get approval from a European government, and (b), we’d have to deal with the European Court of Human Rights and we didn’t know how they’d react. We didn’t want to lose control over it and have it become a European process because it was on European soil. And so we kept looking around and around, and basically someone said, ‘What about Guantanamo?’” The base may well have not been the final choice of Prosper’s group; it was still researching a Clinton-era attempt to house Haitian and Cuban refugees there that had been challenged in court when Rumsfeld unilaterally made the decision to begin transferring prisoners to the naval base. [Savage, 2007, pp. 143-144]
No Geneva Convention Strictures Apply to ‘Unlawful Combatants’ – Rumsfeld, acting on the advice of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, publicly declares the detainees “unlawful combatants” and thereby not entitled to the rights of the Geneva Conventions. “Unlawful combatants do not have any rights under the Geneva Convention,” Rumsfeld says. Though, according to Rumsfeld, the government will “for the most part treat them in a manner that is reasonably consistent with the Geneva Conventions, to the extent they are appropriate.” [Reuters, 1/11/2002] There is no reason to feel sorry for these detainees, says Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He states, “These are people who would gnaw through hydraulic lines at the back of a C-17 to bring it down.” [New York Times, 6/21/2004]
British Officials: ‘Scandalous’ – Senior British officials privately call the treatment of prisoners “scandalous,” and one calls the refusal to follow the Geneva Convention “not benchmarks of a civilized society.” [Guardian, 6/13/2002]
January 11-16, 2002: 9/11 Suspect Freed after Proof Emerges of His Innocence
Egyptian national Abdallah Higazy (see December 17, 2001), who has falsely confessed to owning a transceiver that may connect him to the 9/11 plot in order to save his family from being tortured (see December 27, 2001), is charged with making false statements connected to the 9/11 attacks. Higazy has given three different versions of how he obtained the radio; the FBI is sure he is lying about not being complicit in the plot. Three days after Higazy is charged, an airline pilot from Ohio claims the suspect transceiver as his own, and unknowingly vindicates Higazy. Higazy is released two days later, and a hotel security guard is eventually charged with lying to the FBI about the location of the radio. Higazy’s lawyer, Jonathan Abady, later says: “What if that pilot had not walked into the Millennium Hotel? We know that Mr. Higazy could have spent the rest of his life in prison.” In 2007, Higazy will say that he chose to confess to the ownership of the suspect transceiver because he knew the FBI could have his family turned over to Egyptian intelligence agents for torture. “I knew I couldn’t prove my innocence, and I knew my family was in danger,” he will recall. “If I say this device is mine, I’m screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger. And [FBI] Agent [Michael] Templeton made it quite clear that ‘cooperate’ had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine.” Higazy’s subsequent lawsuit against the hotel (prompted by a hotel employee lying to the FBI about him) will eventually be settled out of court; his suit against the FBI will still be pending in October 2007 (see October 18, 2007). [Washington Post, 10/25/2007]
January 12, 2002: Pakistani President Musharraf Denounces Terrorism, but Quickly Returns to Supporting Violent Militants
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf makes “a forceful speech… condemning Islamic extremism.” [Washington Post, 3/28/2002] He is essentially forced to make the speech in response to intense international pressure, as incursions by Islamist militants backed by Pakistan into the disputed region of Kashmir have brought Pakistan and India to the brink of nuclear war. For instance, on January 6, President Bush says publicly, “I think it’s very important for President Musharraf to make a clear statement to the world that he intends to crack down on terror. And I believe if he does that… it’ll provide relief… on a situation that’s still serious.” The US even gives Musharraf a list of points to cover in the speech, and he says everything the US wants him to say. In the speech, Musharraf says: “Pakistan has been made a soft state where the supremacy of law is questioned. This situation cannot be tolerated any longer.… Pakistan rejects and condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used for any terrorist activity anywhere in the world.… No organization will be allowed to indulge in terrorism in the name of Kashmir.” He specifically denounces violent jihad for the first time. However, he does not renounce Pakistan’s claims to Kashmir, saying, “Kashmir runs in our blood.” He announces a ban on five militant groups, and more than a thousand militants are arrested after the speech. The speech does cool tensions with India temporarily. But within several months it is clear that the attacks in Kashmir are continuing and most of the arrested militants have been released (see Shortly After January 12-March 2002). Pakistan and India come close to nuclear war again by May 2002. [Rashid, 2008, pp. 116-118, 146]
