analysis from the enemy's perspective ("red team" analysis), even
though suicide terrorism had become a principal tactic of Middle
Eastern terrorists. If it had done so, we believe such an analysis would
soon have spotlighted a critical constraint for the terrorists--finding
a suicide operative able to fly large jet aircraft.They had never done
so before 9/11.
possible terrorists pursuing flight training to fly large jet aircraft, or
seeking to buy advanced flight simulators.
telltale indicators.Therefore the warning system was not looking for
information such as the July 2001 FBI report of potential terrorist
interest in various kinds of aircraft training in Arizona, or the August
2001 arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui because of his suspicious behavior
in a Minnesota flight school. In late August, the Moussaoui arrest was
briefed to the DCI and other top CIA officials under the heading
"Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly."
had no effect on warning.
controlled aircraft, suicidal or otherwise. The many threat reports
mentioning aircraft were passed to the FAA.While that agency con-
tinued to react to specific, credible threats, it did not try to perform
the broader warning functions we describe here. No one in the gov-
ernment was taking on that role for domestic vulnerabilities.
1996, the White House complex, and the 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa.
But he attributed his awareness more to Tom Clancy novels than to
warnings from the intelligence community. He did not, or could not,
press the government to work on the systemic issues of how to
strengthen the layered security defenses to protect aircraft against
hijackings or put the adequacy of air defenses against suicide hijack-
ers on the national policy agenda.