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"FBI Director Robert Mueller referred to another internal document that
may prove more explosive: notes by a Minneapolis agent worrying that French
Moroccan flight student Zacarias Moussaoui might be planning to �fly
something into the World Trade Center.�... -- By Michael Isikoff, no less
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http://www.msnbc.com/news/751100.asp
�
There are doubts concerning the FBI's insistence that it had no advance
warning about the deadly 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center
Unheeded Warnings
FBI agent�s notes pointed to possible World Trade Center attack
NEWSWEEK �
� � May 20 issue � �The FBI has insisted it had no advance warning
about the 9-11 attacks. But internal documents suggest there were more
concerns inside the bureau�s field offices than Washington has acknowledged.
�
� ONE FBI MEMO, written by a Phoenix agent in July 2001, warned
about suspicious activities by Middle Eastern men at an Arizona flight
school. Last week, in little-noticed testimony before a Senate panel, FBI
Director Robert Mueller referred to another internal document that may prove
more explosive: notes by a Minneapolis agent worrying that French Moroccan
flight student Zacarias Moussaoui might be planning to �fly something into
the World Trade Center.�
� � � �The notes are especially eerie because Moussaoui faces charges that
he was part of the 9-11 plot. Sources say the notes Mueller referred to were
written in early September 2001�days before the attack. The author was part
of a counterterrorism team desperately trying to figure out what Moussaoui
was up to. He had been arrested in August on immigration charges after a
Minnesota flight instructor reported that he showed a suspicious interest in
learning how to steer large airliners. When agents learned, from French
intelligence, that he had radical Islamic ties, they sought a
national-security warrant to search his computer�and got turned down. From
his e-mail traffic they found he wanted to learn to fly a 747 from London�s
Heathrow to New York�s JFK. The agents held �brainstorming� sessions to try
to figure out what targets might be en route. The agents were �in a frenzy,�
�absolutely convinced he was planning to do something with a plane,� said a
senior official. One agent wrote that �one possibility� was that Moussaoui
might be planning to crash into the Twin Towers. But the official said the
agents were only �speculating� about possible scenarios.
� � � � Congressional investigators believe there are more embarrassing
documents to come. Another sensitive issue: the CIA�s failure to
aggressively follow up on information provided by Malaysian authorities in
January 2000 about a meeting in Kuala Lumpur of Al Qaeda
operatives�including two men who turned out to be among the 9-11 hijackers.
Malaysian officials passed along photos to the United States, but they never
heard back and stopped monitoring the suspects, one Malaysian official told
NEWSWEEK. CIA officials said the significance of the meeting didn�t become
clear until much later. But by the time the CIA alerted the FBI, it was too
late.
� � � �
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Michael Isikoff
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