Phoenix, Part 8

An article that appeared late in 2001, reproduced here in its entirety:

FBI ignored attack warning
Flight instructor told agency of terror suspect's plan
Philip Shenon, New York Times

Saturday, December 22, 2001

(12-22) 04:00 PST Washington -- An instructor at a Minnesota flight school warned the FBI in August of his suspicion that a student who was later identified as a part of Osama bin Laden's terror network might be planning to use a commercial plane loaded with fuel as a weapon, a member of Congress and other officials said yesterday.

The officials, who were briefed by the school, said the instructor warned the FBI in urgent tones about the terrorist threat posed by the student, Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui, a French citizen of Morrocan descent, was indicted last week on charges of conspiring in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Rep. James L. Oberstar of Minnesota, who received the briefing and is the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, said the instructor called the bureau several times to find someone in authority who seemed willing to act on the information.

Oberstar said the instructor's warnings could not have been more blunt. The representative said, "He told them, 'Do you realize that a 747 loaded with fuel can be used as a bomb?"'

Oberstar described the instructor as "an American hero" whose actions resulted in Moussaoui's arrest and might have prevented another suicide hijacking.

Congressional officials said the account by the school, the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, outside Minneapolis, raised new questions about why the FBI and other agencies did not prevent the hijackings.

Officials said the Arizona branch of the school alerted the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this year after finding that a student spoke little English. The Saudi student, Hani Hanjour, has been described as being at the controls of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

The instructor in Minnesota has not been identified. But congressional officials said he was a former military pilot who grew suspicious after encounters in which Moussaoui was belligerent and evasive about his background and because he was so adamant about learning to fly a 747 jumbo jet despite his clear incompetence as a pilot.

Moussaoui, 33, was arrested in August on immigration charges. But despite the urging of the school and federal agents in Minnesota and despite a warning from the French that Moussaoui was linked to Muslim extremists, FBI headquarters resisted opening a broader investigation until after Sept. 11. Last week, he became the first person indicted for involvement in the events of Sept. 11, charged with conspiring with bin Laden and al Qaeda. Moussaoui faces the death penalty.

Some federal law enforcement agents said they believed that Moussaoui was intended to be the 20th hijacker.

This article appeared on page A - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Rep. James L. Oberstar of Minnesota ... said the instructor called the bureau several times to find someone in authority who seemed willing to act on the information.

President George W. Bush in NSPD-1, quoted in Phoenix, Part 7:

The NSC shall meet at my direction. When I am absent from a meeting of the NSC, at my direction the Vice President may preside. The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs shall be responsible, at my direction and in consultation with the other regular attendees of the NSC, for determining the agenda, ensuring that necessary papers are prepared, and recording NSC actions and Presidential decisions.

Oberstar said the instructor's warnings could not have been more blunt. The representative said, "He told them, 'Do you realize that a 747 loaded with fuel can be used as a bomb?"'

Then-Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Condoleeza Rice to the Press in May, 2002, as quoted in Phoenix, Part 2 and Phoenix, Part 7:

I don't think anybody could have predicted that these same people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, taken another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.