The FBI has been slow in making use of computers and it is reported on this day that some New York FBI agents still lack e-mail accounts. The FBI’s New York office has often been the lead office in dealing with al-Qaeda. An FBI official says, “As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts.” An FBI spokesperson says the accounts will be given before the end of 2006. [CBS News, 3/21/2006]
March 21, 2006: FBI Assistant Director Admits Greater Knowledge of Moussaoui Case
Michael Rolince, who headed the FBI’s International Terrorism Operations Section when Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested, testifies at Moussaoui’s trial (see March 6-May 4, 2006). He initially states that he was only informed of the Moussaoui case before 9/11 in two brief hallway conversations (see Late August 2001) and did not read a memo sent to him by the Minneapolis field office. However, under cross-examination he admits he also discussed a plan to deport Moussaoui to France, where his belongings could be searched (see (August 30-September 10, 2001)). [Associated Press, 3/21/2006; Associated Press, 3/21/2006] According to Newsday, Rolince appears “red-faced and flustered” at the end of the cross-examination and makes the court burst out laughing when he says he did not approve a briefing to FBI field offices about bin Laden threats in the US (see Before April 13, 2001), even though the briefing states he approved it. He says one of his subordinates may have approved it. [Associated Press, 3/21/2006; Newsday, 3/22/2006] Rolince is called by the prosecution, which wants him to give a list of steps the FBI would have taken if Moussaoui had confessed. However, Judge Brinkema states that, “Juries cannot decide cases on speculation… Nobody knows what would have happened.” [Associated Press, 3/21/2006; Associated Press, 3/22/2006]
March 21, 2006-February 16, 2007: Tumultuous Trial in Turkey for Alleged CIA-Al-Qaeda Double Agent
There is a tumultuous trial of al-Qaeda operative Luai Sakra before he is finally convicted in early 2007. Sakra, considered a high-ranking leader, is on trial for co-masterminding a series of bombings in Istanbul, Turkey in 2003 (see November 15-20, 2003). There is also considerable evidence that he was an informant for the CIA, Turkey, and Syria (see 2000 and September 10, 2001). Having already confessed to assisting a number of attacks, including the 9/11 plot (see Early August 2005), Sakra makes additional claims during the trial. He says through his lawyer that shortly after being arrested in Turkey in 2005, he was visited in his Turkish prison cell by a group of English speaking foreigners. He claims that he was offered his freedom if he would falsely agree to testify that the Syrian government was involved in the assassination of Lebanese politician Rafiq Al-Hariri in 2005. He claims these people were aware that he had secretly met with the head of Syrian intelligence in the past, and that he turned down their offer. [BBC, 11/10/2005] At the start of the trial, Sakra appears quite different than he had when he was seen in public after being arrested seven months before, heavier and with a full beard. He claims to be a completely different person. The Washington Post will comment, “More than 20 journalists failed to recognize Sakra as he entered the court building,” and even his own lawyer claims to doubt Sakra’s identity. [Washington Post, 3/21/2006; BBC, 3/21/2006] Sakra’s trial leaves many questions about him unanswered. The London Times will later say that his “often outrageous behavior, conflicting statements of identity, and the suspicion that he has undergone extensive plastic surgery, have helped to build up a wall of mystery around him.” [London Times, 2/17/2007] Sakra’s lawyer will claim that if Sakra revealed all that he knew, “a few states would collapse.” [Washington Post, 3/21/2006] At the conclusion of the trial, Sakra and six others receive life in prison for their role in the 2003 Istanbul bombings. Forty-one people receive shorter sentences, and 26 people are acquitted. [BBC, 2/16/2007]
March 22, 2006: Increased Airport Security May Have Thwarted 9/11 if Moussaoui Confessed
During the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (see also March 6-May 4, 2006), the prosecution claims that if Zacarias Moussaoui had not lied when arrested and questioned (see August 16, 2001) and had provided information about the plot (see August 16, 2001), the FAA could have altered its security procedures to deal with the suicide hijacker threat. Prosecution witness Robert Cammaroto, an aviation security officer, says that security measures in effect before 9/11 were designed to cope with different types of threats, such as “the homesick Cuban,” rather than suicide hijackings. He says that if the FAA had more information about Moussaoui, its three dozen air marshals could have been moved from international to domestic flights, security checkpoints could have been tightened to detect short knives like the ones Moussaoui had, and flight crews could have been instructed to resist rather than cooperate with hijackers. Most of these steps could have been implemented within a matter of hours. However, Cammarato admits that the FAA was aware before 9/11 that terrorists considered flying a plane into the Eiffel Tower and that al-Qaeda has performed suicide operations on land and sea. [Associated Press, 3/22/2006]
March 23-April 20, 2006 and July 31, 2006: Evidence from Moussaoui Trial Published on Internet
During the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui (see March 6-May 4, 2006), the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press publishes a significant portion of the exhibits used during the trial. [Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 12/4/2006] Previously, only a few items of the evidence linking the attacks to al-Qaeda were made public. For example, the 9/11 Commission’s Terrorist Travel Monograph contained 18 documents of the alleged hijackers and their associates. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 171-195 
] The published exhibits include: 
Items belonging to the alleged hijackers that were recovered from the crash sites and Logan airport; Some details of the hijackers’ movements in the US; Graphic photos of dead victims and body parts in the Pentagon and WTC ruins; Substitutions for testimony from some of the main plotters such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed; The missing chapter from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General’s review of the FBI’s performance before 9/11 (see June 9, 2005); and FBI and CIA documents. [Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 12/4/2006]
At the end of July, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, publishes more of the exhibits used in the trial. The additionally published exhibits include, for example: Documents of the hijackers found at the crash sites and Logan airport, such as Satam Al Suqami’s passport (see After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), Ahmed Alnami’s youth hosteling card, and old correspondence between Mohamed Atta and the German authorities; Recordings of calls made by the passengers from the flights and recordings of the hijacker pilots talking to the passengers; Documents about the alleged hijackers prepared by the FBI such as a True Name Usage Chart for 2001 and chronologies for eleven of the hijackers from August 16-September 11, 2001; Documents from the hijackers’ flight schools; A small sample of the hijackers’ banking and phone records.
However, some of the exhibits are not disclosed. For example, the cockpit voice recording from United 93 is sealed and only a transcript is made available. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/31/2006]
March 27, 2006: Moussaoui Testifies Against Self, Claims He Was to Fly Fifth Plane on 9/11
Against the will of his defense attorneys, Zacarias Moussaoui takes the stand at his trial (see March 6-May 4, 2006) and claims that he was supposed to fly a fifth plane on 9/11. He says the plane would have targeted the White House and one of the muscle hijackers would have been shoe-bomber Richard Reid (see December 22, 2001). However, he claims not to have known the details of the other hijackings, only that the WTC would be hit. He does not mention any other collaborators aside from Reid, who has already been sentenced to a long prison term. When the prosecution asks him whether he lied to FBI investigators so the plan could go forward he replies, “That’s correct.” An Associated Press expert calls this, “a stunning revelation that would help prosecutors rather than him.” [Associated Press, 3/27/2006] In what the New York Times calls a “bizarre moment,” the defense team, aware of the damage this admission could do, subject Moussaoui to tough questioning and the chief prosecutor objects that one of the defense attorneys is badgering his own client. [New York Times, 4/17/2006]
Uncertainty over Fifth Jet – There is some dispute over whether Moussaoui was indeed to have flown a fifth plane (see January 30, 2003 and Before 2008). Following the testimony, the defense reads statements made by al-Qaeda leaders who are in custody, but are not permitted to testify at the trial (see May 14, 2003 and March 22, 2005). The statements say that Moussaoui was not part of 9/11, but a follow-up operation. [Associated Press, 3/28/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/31/2006 ] However, these statements were obtained using torture (see June 16, 2004). The government later concedes that there is no evidence linking Richard Reid to 9/11. [Associated Press, 4/20/2006]
“Complete Fabrication” – Moussaoui had denied being part of 9/11 before the trial (see April 22, 2005). By the end of the trial he will do so again, calling the confession he makes on this day “a complete fabrication.” [Associated Press, 5/8/2006]
March 28, 2006: Portions of CIA Inspector General’s Report Released for Moussaoui Trial
Four statements based on the CIA inspector general’s report on some aspects of the agency’s performance before 9/11 are introduced as evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui by the defense. The report was completed in 2004 (see June-November 2004), but rewritten and is still secret (see January 7, 2005). The four passages say: “Numerous” CIA officers accessed cables reporting that Khalid Almihdhar’s passport contained a US visa and Nawaf Alhazmi had flown from Thailand to Los Angeles (see Mid-January-March 2000); [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria District, 3/28/2006 ] FBI Director Louis Freeh was briefed about Almihdhar in January 2000, but not told that Almihdhar had a US visa (see January 6-9, 2000); [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2006 ] Nobody at Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, notified CIA personnel authorized to collect foreign intelligence in the US together with the FBI about Almihdhar’s US visa (see 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000); [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2006 ] The CIA was unaware of the Phoenix memo until after 9/11 (note: this may not actually be true—see (July 27, 2001)). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2005 ]
Two sections of the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry report are also introduced as evidence as substitutes for the CIA inspector general’s report. They cover the use of aircraft as weapons and US knowledge of bin Laden’s intentions to strike inside the US in the summer of 2001. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/28/2006 ]
March 29, 2006: Cheney Finally Concedes that Alleged Atta-Iraqi Agent Meeting ‘Has Been Pretty Well Knocked Down Now’
In an interview, Vice President Cheney says, “We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we’ve never made the case, or argued the case that somehow [Saddam Hussein] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there—that’s a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al-Qaeda organization.” [White House, 3/29/2006] This is a reversal for Cheney, who strongly argued that the meeting took place, even after most experts concluded that it did not (see June 17, 2004).
March 30, 2006: Britain Passes Tough Anti-Terrorism Laws, but Does Not Implement Them
Following the London bombings (see July 7, 2005), Britain passes a new Terrorism Act containing tougher laws, but they have little practical effect and many Islamic radicals carry on as before. The act introduces new offenses such as criminalizing the encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications, but the most controversial measure is an extension of the period for which suspects could be detained without trial. The government pushes for an extension from 14 days to 90 days, but parliament only allows 28 days. [Guardian, 11/9/2005; London Times, 11/9/2005; BBC, 11/9/2005; UK Parliament. House of Commons., 3/30/2006] In August 2006, Conservative Party leader David Cameron will criticize the government for failing to “follow-though when the headlines have moved on.” He asks, “Why have so few, if any, preachers of hate been prosecuted or expelled?” and “why has so little been done to use the existing law to deal with the radicalization that is rife within our shores?” He also criticizes the government for funding conferences addressed by radical imam Yousuf Abdullah Al-Qaradawi. [Conservative Party, 8/15/2006]
April 2006: US Intelligence Community Concludes the Number of Islamist Militants Is Increasing Worldwide
The US intelligence community completes a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States.” It concludes, “Although we cannot measure the extent of the spread with precision, a large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although still a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic distribution. If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide.” It lists four factors “fueling the jihadist movement”: “Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness.” The Iraq war. “The Iraq conflict has become the cause célèbre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating support for the global jihadist movement.” “The slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations.” The “pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims.” [Salon, 3/27/2008] It also concludes that al-Qaeda’s operations have been disrupted and its leadership is “seriously damaged.” This assessment will be reversed in the next NIE on terrorism, completed one year later (see July 18, 2007). [Washington Post, 7/18/2007]
