500 Days (5 page)

An official at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan had called the FBI to report suspicious behavior by Moussaoui. He had never made a solo flight but wanted to be trained to fly 747s. He paid wads of cash just to use a flight simulator. And he was Muslim.

When they arrested Moussaoui, the agents questioned his roommate, Hussein al-Attas, who told a frightening story: Their suspect had talked about killing civilians for jihad and proclaimed his willingness to become a martyr for Islam. Then, when the agents first questioned Moussaoui, he had played the fool, claiming not to know where he worked, what he did for a living, or how much he was paid. He was carrying thousands of dollars in cash that he said had been given to him by associates whose names he didn’t know. And even as he was being questioned, he begged the agents to let him finish his flight lessons.

This time, the pleading had resumed as soon as Samit and Weess walked into the interrogation room. Moussaoui promised to answer all of their questions, but only if they allowed him to continue his training. Once he finished, he would gladly come back for deportation.

“Not now,” Samit replied. “Too many questions still need to be resolved.”

Let’s discuss the money again, he said. How was it that Moussaoui couldn’t identify the people who sent him so much cash?

“I’ve told you about that!” Moussaoui shouted.

He spluttered angrily that he was being treated unfairly. Then he tossed out the name of the men who had financed him—Ahmed Atif and someone named Habib from Germany. Weeks would pass before the agents proved Moussaoui was lying about his supposed benefactors.

There was something else, Samit said. During his initial interview, Moussaoui had mentioned conducting Internet searches for flight schools. A laptop computer had been recovered among Moussaoui’s things. “Would you allow us to search that computer?” Samit asked.

“No. I won’t permit that.”

That was his right, Samit responded. But now, he said, he wanted to tell Moussaoui a few things.

“Your story doesn’t add up,” Samit said. “You haven’t given us a satisfactory explanation for why you’re in the United States, or why you came here for flight training. The reasons you give don’t make any sense.”

He leaned in. “We know you’re an Islamic extremist, Mr. Moussaoui. We know you talked about violence before. We know you’re planning something. I want you to tell us what your plot is and who you’re working with.”

Moussaoui stiffened. “My training is just for fun. I am not a terrorist. I’m not part of a terrorist group. I don’t have any contact with terrorists.”

Samit’s gaze bored in. “Mr. Moussaoui, we know you’re involved in a plot, a plot involving airlines,” he said.

“I want to remind you, you are in custody. And if anything happens, you will be held accountable by the United States, by the American people.”

Moussaoui stared at Samit in silence.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Fifteen days

FBI supervisors in Washington wouldn’t authorize an investigation of Moussaoui. There wasn’t enough information to justify a search warrant, they said, or to push through an application under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—FISA. Finally, Samit’s boss, Greg Jones, called Michael Maltbie, the supervisory special agent in Washington who was blocking the case. Tempers flared.

The FISA application—in fact, the whole case—was built on air, Maltbie argued. “What you have done is couched it in such a way that people get spun up.”

“Good!” Jones replied. “We want to make sure he doesn’t get control of an airplane and crash it into the World Trade Center or something like that.”

Ridiculous, Maltbie scoffed. “That’s not going to happen.”

Takhar Province, Afghanistan

Two Days

As the first cool nights of fall approached, the American-backed Northern Alliance was struggling in its fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The change of weather punctuated the end of a failed summer offensive by the force led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, the alliance’s most important commander and Afghanistan’s only credible threat to bin Laden. An attempt to capture the city of Taloqan, lost to the Taliban in 2000, had flopped. American support was inadequate, but Massoud still made a show of bravado, promising his fighters that they would soon take Kabul.

Amid the strategic planning, a phone call came in that puzzled Massoud. The Taliban and al-Qaeda were building up forces on the front line, he was told,
but were not pushing forward to the north. Then Massoud learned that Taliban communications had been intercepted, instructing the units not to attack yet. It was as if the Taliban and al-Qaeda knew that something big was about to happen.

As this turn of events was unfolding, two journalists—Karim Touzani and Kacem Bakkali, who both carried Belgian passports—were pestering Massoud’s top officers to arrange for an interview with the military leader. They said that they had traveled from London to document Islam in Afghanistan. After three weeks of waiting, on the night of September 8, the men begged for the meeting to take place within the next twenty-four hours. After that, they would have to leave for Kabul.

Just before lunch the next day, Massoud agreed to get together with the men for their interview. He motioned to his friend Masood Khalili.

“I want you to sit with me, and translate,” he said.

The visitors, who had turned unusually quiet, set up their camera on a table in front of Massoud. “I want to know your questions before you start recording,” he said.

The men agreed, but their words had to be translated from French. Touzani brought out a blue pen and started scribbling:
Why are you against Osama bin Laden? Why do you call him a killer? If you take Kabul what will you do with him?

After writing down fifteen questions, Touzani handed the notes to Khalili, who translated; eight of the queries were about bin Laden. That struck Khalili as odd, and he glanced over at Massoud. There were five worry lines on his forehead, instead of the usual one.

“Okay,” Massoud said. “Let’s film.”

One of the men asked something—no one would remember what—and Khalili started interpreting.

Then, an explosion. A bomb hidden inside the video camera detonated; Touzani set off explosives that were strapped around his waist, blowing him to bits. Amid the chaos, Massoud’s guards started shooting, killing the other man.

Massoud, critically injured by the attack, was rushed to a helicopter, which flew to a hospital in Tajikistan. But it was too late. When the chopper landed, he was dead.

The most important challenger to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the man most likely to help the Americans hunt down bin Laden, had been taken out of the equation.

Boston, Massachusetts

September 11, 2001

By 7:00
A.M.
, only a smattering of passengers had arrived for United Airlines flight 175 at Boston Logan International Airport. Gail Jawahir, a United customer service representative for thirteen years, had been at work for two hours and was surprised that the flow of passengers was so sluggish.

Two well-dressed Arabic men approached the ticket counter, and Jawahir greeted them. They were Hamza and Ahmed al-Ghamdi, men assigned by al-Qaeda to join in a murderous hijacking plot. They had just checked out of the Days Hotel after performing their ritual cleansing, including dousing themselves with cologne, in anticipation of their own deaths. The fragrance was still heavy, almost overwhelming. They had arrived at the airport by a Bay State Taxi, angering the driver with just a fifteen-cent tip. From there, they had entered into Terminal C and walked directly to Jawahir’s station.

“I wish purchase ticket,” Ahmed said.

Already, Jawahir knew this was going to be difficult—the man’s English was terrible.

“Checking in or buying a ticket?” she asked.

“Purchase ticket.”

Jawahir noticed that the man was holding a United Airlines envelope with an itinerary. He had an e-ticket.

“Sir, you don’t need to buy a ticket. You already have a ticket. You can head right over to the check-in area.”

The two walked off to another line. They were sent back, apparently still confused.

“I need buy ticket,” Ahmed again said to Jawahir.

She decided to guide the two men through the check-in process and asked for their itinerary. They were booked for United 175. She saw they were both named al-Ghamdi and were seated next to each other in row nine.

Jawahir requested their identification; Ahmed handed her a Florida driver’s license, while Hamza gave her one from Virginia. She asked the usual security questions—
Did you pack your own baggage? Has it been out of your sight?
—but had to keep repeating them until the men could answer.

Each checked a bag and had a carry-on. Jawahir printed out their boarding passes.

“Would it be okay if I put both of these in one envelope?” she asked. The men seemed uncertain what she meant, but agreed anyway.

Jawahir circled the gate number to make sure that they could figure out where to go. Then she slid the boarding passes into the envelope and handed it to them.

“Now, you need to go through security,” she said, pointing them in the proper direction.

The two men took the envelope without a word. They walked calmly through security, then headed toward Gate 19 to board the awaiting plane.

•  •  •  

The attacks were over in less than three hours. But it was the eighteen months after 9/11 that set America on the course that it pursued for more than a decade.

Decisions that only weeks before the hijackings would have been inconceivable tore through the White House in a desperate race to armor the United States against unseen enemies. Each perceived threat—al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Iraq, biological attacks, and other weapons of mass destruction—fueled revisions in the long-held philosophies of America’s leaders.

Secret relationships were established with foes like Syria and Libya; past disputes with any nation, any organization, and any individual were set aside in search of supporters for the new American cause. Suspected terrorists were delivered into the hands of foreign torturers, allies were threatened with devastation, wars were fought by unprecedented means. Detention, intelligence collection, the treatment of citizens—each piece of the national security puzzle was reexamined and revised, at times setting American against American in a furious debate about what was right, what was pragmatic, what was counterproductive, and what was wrong.

The struggle during that period of just over five hundred days played out on a global stage, from the White House to the Kremlin, from the grandeur of the British Parliament to the dusty caves of Afghanistan. Decisions emanating from every level of the American government rippled around the world, transforming the nature not only of allies and enemies, but of the United States itself.

This, then, is more than a recounting of events in an age of terror. Rather, it is the narrative of a wrenching transformation of international allies and enemies in a period of unprecedented tumult. It is a tale of triumph and fiasco, of choices born from necessity, fear, and misplaced conviction. In the end, it is a portrait of an America struggling to find its way, torn between the needs for security and the hopes for an uncertain future.

A WAR OF UNKNOWN WARRIORS