The most daring (but also most unlikely) theory claims that it was a conspiracy in reverse. Some departments of American intelligence knew about the September 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers but favored it (or at least let it happen) to justify the retaliatory reactions that would come. Excessive.
In fact, the “parliamentary commission of inquiry into the attacks”, chaired by former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, in December 2002 (so in record time) published an 832-page report with the conclusion that it was a question of poor organization of the various security institutes and of information managed with culpable superficiality. Not premeditation but inefficiency.
“Friendly” officials from Malaysian and Thai intelligence services had shared with the CIA a series of reports regarding a meeting that had taken place in Kuala Lumpur. The al-Qaeda terrorists’ top brass had participated to plan “a decisive action.” They also managed to intercept a large part of the conversation and thus ascertained that “something huge” was being prepared. The final decision would be made at a subsequent meeting scheduled in Bangkok.
At the end of June, the head of American counterterrorism Richard Clarke and the director of the CIA George Tenet they were convinced of the imminence of an attack “even of significant proportions” but – who knows why – they believed that the theater would be Saudi Arabia, Israel or Somalia. The last thought was that they could be threatened in their own home.
In fact, they gave orders to put themselves on “delta” alert (the highest) but with particular reference to the embassies in the so-called “at risk” countries. A fairly generic invitation. For example, they did not disclose the names of the people who were hustling around the eastern cities to “light the big fire.” Some had US visas, but customs and border officials were not informed. The fact that three of them had enrolled in a school to take flying lessons therefore went unnoticed – a fact that was far from negligible.
Worse: In mid-August, a Minnesota aviation school informed the FBI that Zacarias Moussaoui asked “suspicious questions.” They discovered that he professed radical ideologies, had lived in Pakistan for a long time and had been arrested by the French police. But what problem could someone who wanted to learn to fly a plane cause? The request to put him under surveillance was rejected because the signs of dangerousness seemed weak.
Also ignored was a report from the Authority on stock market operations which revealed absolutely anomalous movements on Wall Street where in 48 hours – between Thursday 6th September and Friday 7th – capital for one billion and 400 million dollars was moved. With a single financial direction, shares of companies whose management was hosted in offices in the Twin Towers had been sold to move them to the markets of Singapore and Shanghai. The message arrived on the investigators’ desks and ended up buried under half a kilo of other more or less relevant communications.
Rather, it was “at least three Saudi Arabian embassy officials” who, with full awareness, gave cover to the terrorists and favored them. For this conclusion, a more complicated investigation was necessary (entrusted to Dana Lesemann and Michael Jacobson) whose results were published in 2016, by the administration of the then president Barack Obama.
In detail, they found that, with funds from the Saudi embassy in Washington, officials financed the stay of two terrorists who lived in the US under the pretext of studying. And for a “simulation” of the attack, they paid for the plane ticket to Phoenix, Arizona.
During the flight, the two repeatedly attempted to enter the cockpit with the aim (in hindsight) of testing its safety. But even this circumstance, alarming in itself, was dismissed as an ordinary occurrence. Therefore, the plan for the attack was able to proceed, in a distracted context and excessively convinced of being protected within the walls of their home.
The responsibility for being the “masterminds” of the attack was attributed to the top of al-Qaeda: in particular to the “prince of terror” Osama bin Ladenwho came from a Saudi family with immense financial resources; to the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahirialso the heir of a noble family, son and grandson of doctors and brother of an oncologist; and the Afghan Mohammed Omar, able to use about fifty identities even if, being blind in his right eye, he found it difficult to camouflage himself easily.
The planning of the assault took place in Amsterdam at the initiative of Khalid Shaykh Muhammed, Pakistani by origin, although he lived mainly in Kuwait and North Carolina where he graduated in mechanical engineering. Then with three brothers he moved to Afghanistan to fight the Russians but, in the end, he became convinced that the real enemy was the Americans. At first with approximate objectives and methods then (from 1999) with the arrival in Holland of Mohammed Atta with more defined contours. To be part of the commando they chose young people who spoke English fluently and were accustomed to Western clothes and customs. One of them, the Saudi Hani Hasan Hanjour, had obtained a pilot’s license. A determining factor in developing the plan: hijack an airliner and crash it into a target defined as strategic.
To amplify the consequences – as if it were a matter of acting in photocopy – they imagined multiplying the matrix of the attack. They thought of doubling the size of the commando, then tripling it and, finally, having kamikaze men, of moving with four hijackings.
The Saudi embassy in the US provided them with false passports and gave them false identities. It took two years of exercises to make the movements completely automatic and to become familiar with the tools to be used.
Finally, the executive phase.
The attack, in its temporal development, proposed an almost elementary dynamic. What could be simpler than a commando of motivated men who seize an airplane and direct it to the previously chosen target? Surprise and unpredictability would have guaranteed the success of the blitz.
In fact, every step was carried out according to plan. The terrorists boarded scheduled flights without the controls finding anything to complain about. They chose not to sit next to each other in order to be able to check the other passengers from different points of view and moved with coordinated movements.
The hijackers were 19 and managed to take command of four Boeings that took off from Boston, Newark and Washington-Dulles.. Three were headed to Los Angeles and one to San Francisco. They purposely chose long flights because the tanks had to be fully loaded with fuel. The kidnapping and probably killing of the crew members a few minutes after takeoff.
Two planes were flown to crash into the two Towers. A third headed for the Pentagon while the fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after a clash with the passengers who rebelled and agreed to sacrifice themselves to avoid worse consequences. In all likelihood, that plane had as its target the Capitol indicated, in code as “the law school”.
The horrifying toll: 2,977 victims in addition to the hijackers and 6,000 wounded. As if it were the outcome of a pitched battle. The televisions remained glued to the images of the Towers in flames that the uncertainty of the causes and the indeterminacy of the end have made gloomy and indelible from the collective memory.
What were once symbols of modern architecture became a glass hell. Tens of millions around the world watched live as bodies of people jumped from the fiftieth floor to escape the torment of the fire. They heard live messages to their families. They listened to their voices broken by emotion and the certainty that it was over. The two buildings collapsed and fell in a cloud of dust that covered Manhattan entirely.
In the heart of New York a hole opened up and the world of certainties we thought we lived in collapsed. Because that was the moment that marked the dividing line between before and after.
The millennium did not begin on January 1st but on September 11th. From there the anti-terrorism campaign began, which initially focused on Afghanistan, which protected and hosted Osama bin Laden and to the closest collaborators. The conquest of that area all ravines and rocks was difficult and even impervious to pacify it.
The coalition soldiers who, under American leadership, agreed to be part of the war contingents (first) and peace (later) have gradually decreased in number to finally withdraw. In this way the Taliban who never gave up but were squeezed into marginal positions, have regained control.
Twenty years for nothing. The clock of history has completed its full circle and returned to its starting position.
From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
