REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11

REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

Page 131. …..Al-Hazmi first traveled to Afghanistan in 1993 as a teenager and came into contact with a key al-Qa’ida facilitator in Saudi Arabia in 1994. In 1995, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar traveled to Bosnia to fight with other Muslims against the Serbs. Al-Hazmi probably came into contact with al-Qa’ida leader Abu Zubaydah when Zubaydah visited Saudi Arabia in 1996 to convince young Saudis to attend al-Qa’ida camps in Afghanistan. Sometime before 1998, al-Hazmi returned to Afghanistan and swore loyalty to Bin Ladin. He fought against the Northern Alliance, possibly with his brother Salem, another of the hijackers, and returned to Saudi Arabia in early 1999, [page 138] where, [ ], he disclosed information about the East Africa embassy bombings. Al-Mihdhar’s first trip to the Afghanistan training camps was in early 1996. (131) …………….. Page 134. Mohamed Atta lived at Marienstrasse 54 in Hamburg with Bin al-Shibh, Essabar, and Bahaji. Director Tenet testified that, after Bin al-Shibh failed to obtain a U.S. visa, “another cell member,” Essabar, “tried [on two occasions in December 2000] and failed to obtain a visa in January 2001” to travel to Florida while Atta and al-Shehhi were there. Uncorroborated sources report that Essabar was in Afghanistan in late September 2001. Bahaji left Germany on September 3, 2001 for Pakistan. Uncorroborated sources also placed him in Afghanistan in late September 2001.

DCI Tenet testified that Muhammad Heydar Zammar was an acquaintance of members of Atta’s circle in Hamburg, where Zammar lived. Zammar, a German citizen born in Syria in 1961, was described by DCI Tenet as “a known al-Qa’ida associate,” active in Islamic extremist circles since the 1980s, who trained and fought in Afghanistan in 1991 and in Bosnia in 1995 and returned to Afghanistan a number of times between 1995 and 2000.

It has been reported that U.S. and German officials believe that Zammar is a pivotal figure in understanding the genesis of the September 11 attacks. DCI Tenet told the Joint [page 141] Inquiry that Zammar “was taken into custody by the Moroccans [ ]” when he traveled to Morocco to divorce his wife and that he was “moved from Morocco into Syrian custody, where he has remained.” It has also been reported that Zammar has provided details about the September 11 attacks to U.S. investigators. According to the DCI, Zammar has said that he met Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah in the late 1990s in Hamburg’s al-Qods mosque and he “persuaded them to travel to Afghanistan to join the jihad.”

The NSA Director also cautioned in his testimony, “If these hearings were about the war that had broken out in Korea or the crisis in the Taiwan Straits that had taken us by surprise or if we had been surprised by a conflict in South Asia or if we had lost an aircraft over Iraq or if American forces had suffered casualties in Bosnia or Kosovo, in any of these cases I would be here telling you that I had not put enough analysts or linguists against the problem. We needed more analysts and linguists across the agency, period.” 383 TOP SECRET

We FReepers do not understand how this is a devastating charge because we do not approach the problem from the Liberal perspective. If one axiomatically assumes that the government is able to solve all problems, then the President should have acted immediately on 9/11 to make the attacks stop.

Of course, that is not reality. In reality, there is not a single thing the President could have done on 9/11 that would have made the slightest difference to the outcome. This is obvious to us because we know that government is not all-powerful. But if you think that the government is able to and properly should solve all problems, then if something bad happens, it means the government made it happen by letting it happen.

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