- The document discusses intelligence warnings prior to the September 11th attacks, including warnings from foreign governments about an imminent al Qaeda attack on the United States using aircraft as weapons. It also discusses the 1995 Bojinka Plot, where terrorists planned to hijack commercial airliners and fly them into buildings.

1. Adam Jurski<br />Professor Quinn<br />English 2960<br />April 4, 2011<br />Was September 11 an Avoidable Event?<br />Nearly three thousand people died in the September 11, 2001 attacks. A total of 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked four planes, three of them reaching their intended destination with the fourth one crashing into an empty field in Pennsylvania. These attacks were the deadliest attacks on US soil since the Pearl Harbor attacks during World War II. An attack this size would seem that much planning would need to take place for everything to go as planned and as smoothly as they did. Could there have been clues that may have led officials to believe that an attack was imminent? May the three thousand people that died that day still be around if certain warning signs had been acted upon? <br />The History of Hijackings<br />Before September 11, aircrews were trained in the common strategy tactic, which was to cooperate and give into hijacker’s demands. This strategy has since changed after September 11 of course, with hijackers now most likely facing stronger resistance from crews and passengers.<br />Aircraft hijackings are nothing new to the world. The first recorded hijacking occurred in 1931 in Peru that resulted in a ten day standoff when the pilot refused to fly rebels anywhere. There is also the famous video footage of the Ethiopian Airlines flight of the pilot ditching the airplane into the Indian Ocean after the hijackers wouldn’t let the pilot refuel. Most of these attacks were carried out by hijackers that had specific demands that they wanted met or used the passengers as hostages. It wasn’t until recently that using planes as weapons was ever considered. President at the time George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney never believed that a plane could ever be used as a weapon, as stated in an interview in the days following the September 11 attacks, but a look at a foiled terrorist plot that occurred in 1995 would prove judgment otherwise. <br />The Bojinka Plot<br />In 1994, Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed started planning a terrorist attack that would be called the Bojinka Plot or what the FBI dubbed, “48 hours of terror.” The main plan was to blow up 12 airliners as they crossed the Pacific Ocean from Asia to America and the approximately 4000 people on board. They also had a plan that would take place in January of 1995 that had an assassination plot on Pope John Paul II. <br />The most interesting part of the entire plot is that Yousef had a plan to fly a plane into the CIA headquarters in Fairfax County, Virginia. The original plan was to rent a Cessna sized airplane and fly it into the CIA headquarters, but he later confessed to investigators that he was planning on hijacking another plane instead. Another part that was in the early stages of planning was to hijack more plans and fly those into buildings. The Sears Tower in Chicago, The Pentagon in Virginia, The United States Capital, The White House, the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, and the World Trade Center in New York City were all potential targets. This plan, though, was still on the drawing board because they were having a hard time recruiting people to fly the planes. <br />In the end, the plot was foiled by the Philippines National Police when a fire went off in an apartment that they were using for the planning. Mohammed was able to set off a couple of small bombs at a mall and on an airplane, killing the person that was sitting in the seat that bomb was planted under. That plane landed safely despite a hole being blown in the plane and the explosion breaking key landing gear parts. Mohammed was able to escape being caught at the time, but was later captured in 2003. Before he was caught, he used many of the parts from the Bojinka Plot to help set up the September 11 attacks. The 9/11 Commission Report states that he was “the principal architect behind the September 11 attacks.”<br />In 1994, terrorists were plotting attacks not just with bombs, but also with airplanes as weapons. Reports that Bush had no idea that airplanes could be hijacked are hard to believe. The United States has all sorts of sources to get their information and to let something as big as the Bojinka Plot slip through history is hard to believe. People learn from history and having a mastermind like Mohammed get away at the time of the Bojinka Plot, it seems almost logical that he would come up with something new to strike. <br /> Intelligence Warnings<br />The September 11 Commission Report stated that 9/11 attacks should not come as a surprise, that Islamic extremists gave plenty of warnings that they meant to kill Americans. The months leading up to September 11, the US received many warnings from foreign governments like France, Jordan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco, and Russia. They all stated that they believed that an attack on the United States starting in the United States was imminent. <br />In March 2001, Italian intelligence warned of an al Qaeda plot forming in the United States involving aircraft, based on wiretapping of an al Qaeda cell in Milan. July 2001 has Jordan reporting that al Qaeda was planning an attack on American soil. Egyptian intelligence warned the CIA that 20 al Qaeda Jihadists were in the United States, and that four of them were receiving flight training. In August 2001, Israeli intelligence gave the CIA a list of 19 terrorists living in the United States and that they looked like there were going to carry out an attack in the near future. Also in August, the United Kingdom is warned three times of an attack on the United States with the third report stating that there would be multiple airplane hijackings. This report has been confirmed to have reached George Bush a short time after the report was published. The final report received was from Egypt in September, just days before the attacks took place, saying that al Qaeda was in advanced stages of executing a significant attack on the United States. <br />In 2002, CNN reported that US intelligence had received warnings of an attack that could happen on US soil. There was even intelligence that terrorists could use airplanes as weapons. The intelligence said that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive filled airplane into the World Trade Center. The Federal Aviation Administration dismissed the claim as “highly unlikely given the state of that foreign country’s aviation program,” and that a plan would be detected before they were able to carry out an attack.<br />A report from the Washington Post in 2004, said that the US government missed opportunities to keep these terrorists out of the country. Their visas should have raised numerous red flags for officials to identify, but none were acted upon. Eight of the 19 terrorists showed “evidence of fraudulent manipulation,” and five of the passports had suspicious indicators. At least six of the hijackers violated US immigration laws. All of the terrorists did not fill out their visa application correctly. All of these signs should have been taken a look at. Even one of the terrorists being caught may have disrupted the whole entire plot.<br />Those are all reports that other countries have submitted to the United States in regards to terrorist activity. One has been for sure confirmed to have reached President Bush. Not only have these reports confirmed the knowledge that aircraft could be used as weapons, but it also shows that there was reports from countries in the area of where al Qaeda is located saying that an attack was imminent. This shows a clear lack of judgment by the Bush administration to look into these reports and not consider these threats real enough to look into. It is easy to look in hindsight at situations like these and say they should have looked at all the warning signs, but when this many reports are flying in in such a short amount of time, it seems that it would require a little more attention than what was given. <br />What it all means<br />There were clearly warning signs that the US intelligence committee ignored. Whether it was American arrogance thinking that an attack could not happen on US soil or the US didn’t react fast enough to the signs that they had to set up check systems, the US missed signs that accounted for many innocent deaths.<br />So who is to blame? There is not one person who is to blame or one presidency that is more at fault than the other, but all had serious flaws in their foreign policy that led to these attacks. These attacks were nothing that popped up the day before. These attacks were planned for a while and were leaked for action to possibly be taken on it, but nothing was done. The Clinton administration should have recognized the Bojinka Plot as a true threat that could happen to America and that was close to happening, but they dismissed the case. The Bush Administration should have seen the Bojinka Plot as also a threat, but should have acted upon the numerous reports that they received from other countries. His administration taking no action on the reports shows clear arrogance on America’s part. <br />