4 Dots American Intelligence Failed To Connect

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Frenchman Zacarias Moussaoui begins training at a Minneapolis flight school after writing instructors that he wants to learn how to fly jumbo jets. His teachers discover he has almost no flight knowledge but wants to train on the 747 simulator. The manager reports Moussaoui's suspicious behavior to the local FBI office. Agents question Moussaoui and then have the INS arrest him for staying too long without a visa.

WHAT HAPPENED?

--Convinced Moussaoui is plotting to seize control of an airplane, Minnesota FBI agents seek a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to search his belongings. French sources tell agents Moussaoui has ties to Islamist militants, but FBI headquarters does not believe that justifies a FISA warrant.

--After the FBI contacts the CIA about the case, CIA chief George Tenet gets a briefing titled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly."

--An agent at FBI headquarters complains to a Minnesota agent on Aug. 27 that he is getting people "spun up" about Moussaoui. The agent replies that he is worried Moussaoui will "take control of a plane and fly it into the World Trade Center."

WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED?

--Had the FISA warrant been approved, as it would be today under a proposed change in rules, agents would have found in Moussaoui's belongings a letter signed by Sufaat, who the CIA knew was the host of the 2000 Kuala Lumpur meetings that al-Midhar and al-Hazmi attended. They would have also discovered a notebook containing the name Ahad Sabet, the alias of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who wired money to Moussaoui and was a roommate of 9/11 pilots Atta, al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. That might have enabled agents to speculate about a plot involving aircraft and to bar the three pilots from all flights.