Anthony Summers - The Eleventh Day

Mohamed Atta, the hijackers’ leader, and Flight 93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah in Afghanistan preparing to videotape martyrdom statements. The beards came off on their return to Europe.

AP Images

The men believed to have been at the controls of three of the hijacked airliners: Marwan al-Shehhi (top left), Hani Hanjour (right), and Ziad Jarrah, with his lover, Aysel Sengün (bottom), and in the cockpit of a light aircraft—he had recently completed pilot training.

Khalid al-Mihdhar

(above left)

and Nawaf al-Hazmi

(above right)

were the first future hijackers to arrive in the United States. Omar al-Bayoumi

(below left)

, a Saudi living in California who assisted them, said he met them by chance. Did Mohdar Abdullah

(below right)

, who also befriended them, get advance information that an attack was coming?

Anwar Aulaqi, an American-born imam, at a mosque after 9/11. He is characterized as having been a “spiritual adviser” to two future hijackers. Now in Yemen, he is considered a possible successor to bin Laden. The Washington Post/

Getty Images

Saleh al-Hussayen, a Saudi religious official. On the eve of 9/11, he stayed at the same hotel as two lead hijackers.

Saudi Arabian government

Saudi Prince Bandar

(rear left)

meeting at the White House with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and National Security Adviser Rice, two nights after the attacks.

The White House

The joint chairmen of Congress’s probe, Senators Bob Graham

(center)

and Richard Shelby

(right)

, present their Report in 2003. They pointed out that many pages had been suppressed, on President Bush’s orders. The pages are still suppressed today. The Washington Post/

Getty Images

9/11 Commission members and staff watching video of the Twin Towers burning, at a hearing in 2004.

AP Images

Some of the bereaved who pressed for the creation of the Commission, and closely followed its progress, rejected its findings.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Osama bin Laden, apparently pictured here in hiding in Pakistan, was shot dead by U.S. commandos in May 2011.

AP Images

Americans celebrated the feared terrorist’s death, yet faced an uncertain future.

AP Images

NOTES AND SOURCES

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES AND SOURCES

AP

Associated Press

BG

Boston Globe

CF

Files of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, held at the National Archives, Record Group 148. Cited documents are listed here, as they are at the Archives, by folder name, box [B] and team [T] numbers. Many documents were supplied to the authors by an independent researcher, and others obtained on line via

www.scribd.com

or directly from the Archives.

CO

Website of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, archived at

http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/about.html

conv.

conversation

corr.

Authors’ correspondence

CR

Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, NY: W. W. Norton, 2004

FBI IG

Review of the FBI’s Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, November 2004

FEMA

Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

int.

interview (by authors unless otherwise noted)

INTELWIRE

FBI documents sourced in the notes of the 9/11 Commission Report, obtained by Intelwire under FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and available on its website,

www.intelwire.com

JI

Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 107th Congress, 2nd Session

KSM SUBST

Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Defense Exhibit 941,

U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui

, Cr. No. 01-455-1, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia

LAT

Los Angeles Times

MFR

Memorandum for the Record of 9/11 Commission staff interviews, available on National Archives website,

http://www.archives.gov/​legislative/​research/9-11/​commission-memoranda.html

NARA

National Archives and Records Administration

NIST

National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce

NTSB

National Transportation Safety Board

NYT

New York Times

OBL

Osama bin Laden

TF

Oral histories of 503 first responders conducted by the Fire Department, City of New York, archived by

The New York Times

at

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/​packages/​html/​nyregion/​20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/​met_WTC_histories_full_01.html

WP

Washington Post

WSJ

Wall Street Journal

PREFACE

1

memorial:

NY Daily News

, 8/20/01,

NYT

, 6/10/09,

www.wtcsitememorial.org

,

www.national911memorial.org/site

, int. Michael Frazier for National September 11 Memorial and Museum;

2

disease:

AP, 6/24/09.

3

tens of thousands:

Documenting the number of dead in any conflict is difficult, fraught as such figures are with political ramifications. Americans in particular, given the lingering specter of the Vietnam War, are sensitive to rising casualty counts among servicemen and women. Nor does any military readily accept responsibility for civilian casualties. The issue is further complicated by determining which deaths qualify as having been the result of war—does one, for example, include deaths due to disease or starvation—conditions brought about by conflict? In citing the figure of many tens of thousands of dead, the authors have relied on casualty counts from the U.N. Assistance Missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the websites