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not share the more complete report the case agent had prepared for the FAA.
The Minneapolis supervisor sent the case agent in person to the local FAA
office to fill in what he thought were gaps in the FBI headquarters teletype.
100
No FAA actions seem to have been taken in response.
There was substantial disagreement between Minneapolis agents and FBI
headquarters as to what Moussaoui was planning to do. In one conversation
between a Minneapolis supervisor and a headquarters agent, the latter com-
plained that Minneapolis's FISA request was couched in a manner intended to
get people "spun up."The supervisor replied that was precisely his intent. He
said he was "trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the
World Trade Center." The headquarters agent replied that this was not going
to happen and that they did not know if Moussaoui was a terrorist.
101
There is no evidence that either FBI Acting Director Pickard or Assistant
Director for Counterterrorism Dale Watson was briefed on the Moussaoui case
prior to 9/11. Michael Rolince, the FBI assistant director heading the Bureau's
International Terrorism Operations Section (ITOS), recalled being told about
Moussaoui in two passing hallway conversations but only in the context that
he might be receiving telephone calls from Minneapolis complaining about
how headquarters was handling the matter. He never received such a call.
Although the acting special agent in charge of Minneapolis called the ITOS
supervisors to discuss the Moussaoui case on August 27, he declined to go up
the chain of command at FBI headquarters and call Rolince.
102
On August 23, DCI Tenet was briefed about the Moussaoui case in a brief-
ing titled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly."
103
Tenet was also told that Mous-
saoui wanted to learn to fly a 747, paid for his training in cash, was interested
to learn the doors do not open in flight, and wanted to fly a simulated flight
from London to New York. He was told that the FBI had arrested Moussaoui
because of a visa overstay and that the CIA was working the case with the FBI.
Tenet told us that no connection to al Qaeda was apparent to him at the time.
Seeing it as an FBI case, he did not discuss the matter with anyone at the White
House or the FBI. No connection was made between Moussaoui's presence in
the United States and the threat reporting during the summer of 2001.
104
On September 11, after the attacks, the FBI office in London renewed their
appeal for information about Moussaoui. In response to U.S. requests, the
British government supplied some basic biographical information about
Moussaoui.The British government informed us that it also immediately tasked
intelligence collection facilities for information about Moussaoui. On Septem-
ber 13, the British government received new, sensitive intelligence that Mous-
saoui had attended an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. It passed this
intelligence to the United States on the same day. Had this information been
available in late August 2001, the Moussaoui case would almost certainly have
received intense, high-level attention.
105
The FBI also learned after 9/11 that the millennium terrorist Ressam, who
"THE SYSTEM WAS BLINKING RED"
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