All language subtitles for THE26T~1

The video you are about to see has never
been seen by the public.

It was shot 20 years ago by FBI
Surveillance Specialist Rick Sutton from

25th floor of the Bureau's New York
headquarters.

The voices are those of Specialist
Sutton and other FBI personnel.

Look at the people waving the white
flag.

This is a fucking tragedy in the making.

No,

but they can't get down from there,
Rick.

Oh, man, the other one blew up.

Holy shit, another one. Oh, my God.

The other one blew

up.

I mean, it was a terrorist attack. It
had to be.

Holy shit. What, it just blew up? It
just blew up. Just like the first one.

Hey guys, how about getting out of here?

Guys,

maybe we should get out of here.

At this

point, Specialist Sutton is forced to

evacuate, along with the entire Bureau.

The FBI office at 26 Federal Plaza, the
largest in the nation, empty.

It is 9 .12 a .m.

Despite losing their command center and
virtually all their resources, these FBI

agents must mobilize.

Now.

September 11, 2001.

It's primary day in New York City.

Public schools are just starting a new
year.

The Yankees are on a roll and will host
the White Sox that night.

I was driving down through the city and
I was singing along to the radio.

I was just approaching to enter the
Lincoln Tunnel.

While I was sitting at my desk at 26
Federal Plaza, I heard a huge explosion.

My secretary started screaming, World
Trade Center.

I saw this black smoke billowing from
the North Tower.

They interrupted the music to say a
jetliner had just crashed into the World

Trade Center.

New York has seen nothing like this
since 1945, when a B -25 bomber

flew into the Empire State Building.

And it was like, hit the siren, throw
the light up on the roof, and jet down

Broadway.

My phone rang in the car.

It was my boss, Barry Maughan, who was
the assistant director of New York at

time. And he said, I'm going to the
scene, meet me there. So I made record

going down the West Side Highway, red
lights and siren.

The streets are teeming with panic and
people evacuating. It's a very chaotic

scene.

My purpose was to get into the lobby of
Tower One because that's where I was

told the police department and the fire
department were meeting as the kind of

initial mustering point.

I grabbed the first police officer I
could.

I remember saying to him, hey, guy,
where's the mobilization point? He said,

pal, I have no fucking idea.

One note of concern here at the FBI
already. Their field office in New York

located very, very close to the World
Trade Center.

I saw a huge Ryder yellow rental truck
parked in front of the building.

I said, oh, my God. And we know the
history of rider rental trucks when it

to truck bombs and, you know, IEDs.

It was a rider truck that exploded in
the underground garage of the World

Center eight years earlier.

26th Federal Plaza is not safe at this
time.

They didn't know if it was a target, if
it was being targeted.

We all had the same goal, and that is to
get out.

Everyone in the FBI office is
immediately forced to abandon their

behind computers, files, secure phone
lines, virtually every tool they have to

do their jobs.

And

all the agents

are unnerved.

What did we miss?

Could we have prevented this?

And from all directions were your peers,
your FBI colleagues.

It was at that point we were instructed
to go to the playground in Chinatown,

and that was our rally point for
headcount.

The FBI has only a loose contingency
plan for disasters.

And the New York office is already
facing huge demands.

Locate and organize its agents, rescue
as many people as possible from the

towers, and launch what they know will
become a massive investigation.

But as they try to do all three
simultaneously,

minutes are ticking by.

And the building was groaning louder and
louder.

It was like the building was crying.

As you looked at it, it kind of rumbled,
rumbled, rumbled, rumbled after it made

its left sway, right sway.

And it got louder and louder and the
ground was moving.

And it made a slight, like, heave up,
almost as if it was taking its last

breath.

And all of a sudden you can just hear
this huge kaboom.

And I could

just hear each floor dropping.

The ground just began to shake.

If the New York office hadn't done a
roll call that took the time it had,

the agents easily could have been inside
the crash

area, if not inside the tower itself.

I just

remember

staring at it and all I could say was...

Oh, the World Trade Center's gone.

Both of them are gone. It was empty
space.

When it settled, you could hear in the
background the chirping that was so loud

from the World Trade Center.

It's almost like cicadas in the summer.

except with a mechanical pitch.

It was the trackers on the firemen.

It's the sound that the protection gear
makes when the fireman stops moving.

The world is in shock. New York is
paralyzed.

And the FBI, whose mission has only
become more urgent, is in disarray.

Agents are unable to communicate with or
even locate each other.

Instinctively, it turned and started
running up P .C. Street, and I ran to

my office was.

My secretary, I don't think she
recognized me. It was like everyone

looked like zombies with all the white
dust on us.

I went into the bathroom and cleared my
airways and tried to clean up my face

and hands as best I could.

A group of FBI agents had commandeered a
brokerage. I think it was Morgan

Stanley or somebody had an office across
the street from the Trade Center.

I recognized the technology then,
telecommunication technology, was much

different. There was a phone bank of
like six or seven pay phones.

I had a cop stand by the phone so no one
used them.

And we opened up lines.

I'm talking to Washington, and I said,
what's going on there? And they had the

bad report that the Supreme Court had
just been hit.

It is becoming apparent no one,
anywhere, knows what's happening. The

that's clear is the New York office of
the FBI must find out who did this.

Debris is falling from the sky.

All of the buildings in the immediate
area were being evacuated.

You have to have a nerve center. We had
to have a location.

And we had to have one very quickly.

So I was given the assignment to find a
suitable forward command post.

We're not going to go any place which is
identifiable as being law enforcement

or the FBI.

And I said it had to be large enough to
house a lot of people.

I want it secured, and I want it fairly
close to ground zero.

The agents, they reluctantly said, well,
we could go to the 26th Street Garage.

At first, I was actually thinking, how
the hell is this going to work? I was a

little bit skeptical. It's not going to
be ideal.

The 26th Street Garage is the greatest
untold story.

of 9 -11.

We made the decision to walk to the 26th
Street garage.

And as we're walking over there, we're
still seeing hundreds, if not thousands

of people still moving their way north.

But also we saw hundreds of boats coming
from New Jersey over towards Manhattan,

trying to help people get off.

And it looked like Dunkirk.

That's when we first started hearing the
military jet. I knew that it was war.

When we first got there, SWAT was
setting up command and control and

the area with razor wire.

They were arming those of us that were
outside to set up a perimeter. We were

given long arms, so shotguns and MP5s
and MP10s, which looks like a little

machine gun.

I remember walking up the ramp.

You know, you could smell oil and smell
brake fluid. Opening the door to just a

massive space.

It wasn't so much the smells that
bothered you, it was the visual.

The garage, where the cars are, where
you get your oil changed, where the

is hanging off, where you get the side
light replaced.

It's hard to imagine that this was going
to be the epicenter of the

investigation.

As agents arrive on foot by the
hundreds, FBI logistics teams make space

towing out 500 cars.

It was a grease monkey location, but,
you know, ugly's okay.

No one's looking for, you know, the
Waldorf Astoria in the middle of a

FBI teams are scouring the city for
office equipment and even buying it on

own credit cards.

People trying to put tables up so people
would have somewhere to work, get

computers in there.

They had a number of tables lined up
with folding chairs.

They set up the computers. They ran the
lines.

Banks and telephones.

Miles and miles of wire.

And it actually looked like a big haul
of spaghetti.

I mean, there were wires hanging from
all over the place, but they were

necessary because regular phones weren't
working.

It was just logistically an overwhelming
undertaking.

As we were now seeing the 26th Street
garage take its form, it was almost like

an FBI baby being made in the womb
because everything...

That the full -grown FBI mechanism had
downtown was now coming to form. It was

getting legs, it was getting arms, it
was breathing, it was starting to

out. There were different areas for the
bosses to sit, for management to sit,

for the case agents to sit.

Incredibly, within just a few hours, the
garage begins to function as an FBI

command post.

The purpose of the garage is not only
just to act as a communications channel,

but to digest all the information coming
in.

The manifests for the planes, they were
obtained fairly quickly from the

airlines and started to be vetted out
both through agency files, FBI files,

getting multiple hits on the subjects.

On 9 -11, one of the passports of one of
the hijackers was found, a block or so

from one of the towers, in the debris,
and that was brought into the command

center. So you were fairly early on,
were identifying who the hijackers were,

but you wanted everyone else.

You know, we photographed everything,
including aerial mapping, photographs of

all of Ground Zero.

All of that information was funneled
back to the garage.

I was involved with a lead group. Any
information that they found in the

investigation, whether it be the
passport, the flight manifest, any

that the lead investigators wanted
followed up on or needed, the lead desk

pass out a packet.

You know, like Mission Impossible, you
open it up and there's a picture of an

individual. And in it would be how they
were associated with the case.

They could have been in Muhammad Atta's
address book.

Or it could have been, this is a number
that one of the hijackers called 15

times in the first week.

So we would go out and pay a visit to
that location.

The Boston office had found a briefcase
at the airport.

some information as to what they were
going to do.

A handwritten letter was contained in
Muhammad Adar's briefcase that was

basically a declaration of we who are
about to die for the cause remain strong

and resolved.

It was that type of rhetoric to
sacrifice their own lives for the

freeing up the Arabic world from the
great Satan.

the United States.

And that same letter was recovered in
Shanksville during the crime scene

and it was a third copy of that same
letter found. So that was really a key

piece of evidence that, you know, linked
all of them together as well.

Clues are coming in, names are going up,
charts are being made, whiteboards are

being drawn, lines are being connected.

And so that was broken down initially in
a handwritten whiteboard, but then as

information was refined and identified
more specifically, then it was

memorialized in writing in charts, which
served a very useful purpose in terms

of comparison of one flight against
another, you know, who was together, who

wasn't together. Once we had the
connection between the actual hijackers,

begin the process of doing a complete
vertical.

a dissection, if you will, of that human
being, their entire life, you know,

where they were born, where they were
raised, where they went to school, when

did they come to the United States,
where did they stay, pulling reams and

and reams of phone records and financial
records.

How did they operate here in the United
States? How long were they here?

You were able to see the fruits of your
labor. You were able to see all the

information that you were bringing
actually come to fruition and form. You

seeing links being made based on work
you had done.

The 9 -11 investigation is already
becoming the largest and most complex in

Bureau's history.

It's all hands on deck, around the
clock.

At the same time, the New York office is
also responsible for thousands of other

cases.

And they can't be dropped.

It didn't matter if you were on a
Russian organized crime squad or working

Gambino family or you were following
Russian spies.

You had undercovers out there whose
lives were on the line that you had to

about. You had handlers that needed to
be talked to.

You had victims that needed justice.

It's very hard to tell an FBI agent, you
need to switch this other thing off.

My shift, for example, was 6 a .m. to 6
p .m.

Nobody got days off. There was no days
off.

We had a job to do. We were going to do
it.

You didn't want to leave.

First, you wanted to just never pause
from the work that you were doing. And

got the greatest comfort from being
around literally hundreds and hundreds

people who felt the same way and were
doing the same thing with that level of

commitment.

After an 18 -hour day, I had a lot of
difficulty falling to sleep.

That is when I would stop and think of
what had occurred, what the losses were

to firemen, police, and that caused me a
lot of anxiety,

stress, just thinking about all that.

It's not the kind of work you can walk
away from.

A lot of people for a time were working
day and night because the stakes were

high on both sides.

As agents frantically begin to unravel
the 9 -11 plot, another major threat

emerges. The second wave of attacks may
be coming.

You're thinking, we've got to solve this
case.

That synapse is firing, years of habit.

That's what they'd been raised to do.

But it was also crystal clear that they
had to stop the next thing.

What was the next thing?

Where would the next thing be?

Is it possible that it could be bigger
or worse?

We're all concerned.

Was this the tip of the iceberg?

Was there more to follow?

You had the Pentagon attack, and of
course...

The plane that went down in Shanksville,
Flight 93. So that's four major, major

attacks all in one. What's it say? There
aren't five, six, ten, twelve.

We have to find out whatever there is
that one can find out so that if there

another plot on the way, whether today,
tomorrow, next week, next month, we stop

it.

The clear assumption by federal lawmen
is that these terrorists had help from

accomplices who may still be in the
United States. What is not as clear is

whether those accomplices were only bit
players in this historic assault or

whether they may still have still -to
-be -launched terrorist plans of their

own. The dust was still rising.

There were two different mindsets.

There was a brand -new FBI director.

His name was Robert Mueller, and he was
a very exacting manager.

He asked a million questions.

Right after the World Trade Center
attack, Robert Mueller came to the

to see me. First to you, the director of
the FBI, who will subsequently

introduce the attorney general, but...

We are all very pleased and honored to
have the director of the FBI, Bob

Mueller, here. A morning meeting with
Director Mueller in the days after 9 -11

was not just a morning meeting. It was a
cross -examination.

This is a group that you can see turn
this parking garage into a huge command

post. So when you kind of think of that
personality, the ability to run that

case from headquarters for somebody who
wanted to be that hands -on was the way

he was leaning. You should know this is
a great... Hardworking group have been

doing it every day without a day off,
working 12 to 16 hours. And he

said that he was going to take the
investigation back to Washington. With

ladies and gentlemen, the director of
the FBI.

Despite the fact that thousands of leads
are coming into the garage.

And agents are working them as fast as
they can.

Three weeks ago, we were all doing
something else. The entire operation is

administrative decision away from being
shut down. And within 24 hours, we all

pulled together, 28 agencies.

I argued against that. I said, Director,
you cannot.

Run an investigation at Washington.

You don't have investigators.

This disaster has produced any number of
heroes. He said, I am aware of that, so

I'm going to take half of your people
down to Washington, D .C., which I

against. So many heroes out there that
we ought to applaud.

But he was the director.

He was my boss. And he said, that's the
way it's going to happen.

He made that decision despite our best
effort to convince him not to. And we

will, we will bring these individuals to
justice. Now let me introduce the

Attorney General of the United States,
John Ashcroft.

New York had real strong feelings about
this.

There were too many people dead.

There was too much history.

And there had to be an element of we
feel responsible for this as well, and

need to make it right.

When you think of the New York office of
the FBI, we did the World Trade Center

bomb.

We did the case of the blind shake.

We prevented all these other attacks.

We know all these players. We've
prosecuted them in court. We've obtained

conviction. They're all doing life.

And we don't want something this
important to be handed off to a bunch of

at headquarters.

By the morning of September 13th, the
garage is fighting two battles, one

against the terrorists, another to keep
control of the investigation.

And it's determined to win both.

They couldn't get together between Fort
Meade and Langley and the J. Edgar

Hoover building.

But then when you went into that space
at the garage, Who was there?

NSA, CIA, FBI, NYPD, the Defense
Department, men and women from

16 intelligence agencies, and all the
information was on the table. They could

literally yell it across the room to the
next guy.

All there, doing it the way they were
supposed to do. They couldn't get it

together in Washington, but they could
get it together in that garage.

More than 25 agencies begin working
together.

They are outrunning Washington and
determined to keep going. So many others

to thank you for the extraordinary
response to this extraordinary act of

FBI Director Robert Mueller concedes the
team in New York will continue to be a

major driver in what is becoming an all
-consuming investigation.

Now, let me introduce the attorney
general. I was pretty...

when I first saw the building with the
new occupancy.

Martha Stewart's studio and test
kitchens are on the ninth floor.

There was the razor wire.

I remember looking up and seeing guns
hanging over the rooftop.

You could see the guns clearly over the
parapets. This was warfare.

I thought, well, either we are a target
or we are protected.

And it was terrifying and yet comforting
at the same time.

You knew who they were when they got in
the elevator.

They were packing a weapon.

They were extremely serious about their
jobs. There were lots of people on

that floor.

very busy with computers and telephones
ringing, and you can imagine what they

had to try to, they were trying to
figure out who the heck did this.

The volume of leads coming in, you know,
the trite expression, drinking from a

fire hose.

We were drinking from fire hoses from
every fire department in the nation, it

felt like. It was a flow that would not
stop.

Keep in mind it was coming in not only
from New York, but all over the country,

all over the world.

I thought, God, these poor people
working round the clock.

And I felt so sorry for them because
there was no place to buy food. New York

was basically shut down for a while
after 9 -11.

I thought, well, maybe they'll allow me
to bring down everything that we make in

the test kitchen. Why not give it to
these hardworking people who are

living on the second floor?

So one day, Martha Stewart is coming up
the ramp.

And she said, I just want you guys to
have something. It was a standard size,

you know, round birthday type of cake,
layer cake.

And she said, I just really appreciate
all you people, what you're doing.

So we would take down food and see the
smiles and the weariness

of the workers there on that floor.

Everybody thanked her.

And she didn't try to decorate the
garage either.

I would have loved to have made over
that garage.

I probably would have made them some
lounges where they could have some

where they could eat.

I would have probably put better
lighting in there. It was a pretty dingy

You have to have some humor to get you
through these awful events.

They keep you sane, you know. So Martha
Stewart was very, very nice.

As we were finding out about all of the
skyjackers, our thought at the time is

we have to identify all of them and
their links.

So part of the installation at the
garage was these secure classified phone

lines, and they proved to be vital.

It would ring several times a day, and
I'd be on the phone with Ali Soufan, one

of the agents who was assigned over in
Yemen.

On 9 -11, I was in the embassy in Sana
'a investigating the USS Cole.

Less than a year before 9 -11, the USS
Cole, an American destroyer, is

refueling in Yemen.

The bomb was carried by a small boat
that helped the destroyer moor in the

harbor. A tiny fishing boat, the men on
board waving and smiling, pulls up

beside the destroyer and explodes.

The bomb rips a hole in the side of the
warship.

killing 17 American sailors and nearly
sinking the coal.

You see the attack on the USS Cole.

This is critical because you start to
see a picture come into richer focus.

Who are the people who blew up the coal?

Oh, there's another one. Another plane
just hit.

Oh, my God. Another plane has just hit
another building.

trying to call headquarters and see
what's going on in New York. And they

basically said, you need to stay.

And I was really annoyed. I mean, you
want us to stay? The USS Cole can wait.

You know, we're under attack.

And the answer from headquarters was, it
is not about the USS Cole. It's about

what just happened here.

You go to the embassy and so -and -so
will give you what you need to know.

We started to identify a number of the
individuals that were on the various

planes.

As we developed that, we were able to
send those names over to Ali Soufan, who

was dealing with jailed extremists.

I went with my CIA colleague in his car
back to the embassy. We go to his

office, and he gave me a manila
envelope.

And I opened it, and I could not
believe.

What I was seeing, Khaled Mehdar and
Nawaf Hazem, who were connected to

who were involved in the USS Cole, had
been in the United States.

They were identified as hijackers. Two
people who were on the planes.

We're looking for them in Yemen.

Our government knew that they were in
San Diego.

What Ali Soufan has just learned but no
one in the garage yet knows is that the

CIA has been tracking two of the
hijackers for nearly a year.

The CIA, however, had yet to process the
information and so failed to share it

with the FBI in time to locate the
hijackers.

I just threw the file back on his desk.

The only thing I can do is just...

Get out of his office, straight to the
bathroom across the hall, and puking my

guts out until one of my colleagues came
in and said, but are you okay?

And I remember I just looked at him and
said, they knew.

They knew everything.

The CIA would also acknowledge failing
to put the al -Qaeda operative on the

terrorist watch list sooner.

Days after the attacks, the Yemenis
reveal that they are hiding something

extraordinary.

When he walked to the room, he won't
even look at me. He literally took his

chair and turned it towards the wall.

Ali Soufan is brought to meet a secret
prisoner, a terrorist whose alias is Abu

Jandal. He won't even recognize that I'm
a Muslim. He didn't believe me.

But a little bit by a little bit, the
relationship was a little bit better.

He started lecturing us a lot about
Islam, about the world, about bin Laden,

about revolutions.

The reason the Yemenis have been hiding
Abu Jandal, he is Osama bin Laden's

bodyguard.

Soufan shows Abu Jandal photos of the
World Trade Center attacks.

But he adds a lie that hundreds of
Muslim Yemenis died in the towers.

Those people were on the planes that hit
the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon.

Those people murdered all the Yemenis.

So he was totally taken back.

He put his head.

between his hands, and he started
shaking, and he said, I need five

So we went out the room.

We left him in the room, and I walked in
again.

And then he said, I think the shake went
crazy.

What do you want to know?

I said, we have a photo book.

Some people probably you know, some
people I'm sure you don't know.

He identified Mohammed Atta. He
identified about seven people who later

identified all as hijackers, giving us
their nationality, their aliases,

and a lot of details about them.

That was significant.

This is the evidence we needed.

Bin Laden's bodyguard has now given the
FBI absolute proof.

connecting al -Qaeda to the World Trade
Center attack.

We understand that it's really important
to pass this information to New York.

Kenny, it's bin Laden, 100%. When those

first clues in Yemen and Abu Jandal's
revelations to Ali Zuban come

into the garage,

You know, the people who are piecing
together everything from everywhere say,

OK, this is big.

This has meaning.

Seven of the hijackers were identified
as Qaeda operatives by the bodyguard.

The breakthroughs that occurred in those
interviews was really putting the key

into the lock of the secrets of 9 -11
and turning it.

Abu Jandal was that.

Turning to what's now a sprawling
criminal investigation of the

suicide attacks, investigators have made
quick work of identifying the

skyjackers. So Abu Jandal was
identifying people left and right, and

information was coming straight to New
York, and New York were acting upon this

information, putting wanted posters for
some individuals that we identified, and

following on a lot of the leads that we
were generating.

The board became a lot more refined as
time went on, as more information came

that we could permanently affix up there
in terms of a flowchart.

You wanted to get back after you did
your lease and write up your

and document it so that the case squad
could have that information as soon as

possible. Because something you're
holding may be a missing piece, and you

know it.

You don't know what you have. They know
what they need.

This grind went on for like 60 days
before a day off, which is, you know, it

okay for me because I was in the zone.

I wanted to be with my peers. I wanted
to be with other FBI agents.

The leads from 9 -11, which is opening
entire new books into al -Qaeda that had

never been cracked before, including the
recruitment of English -speaking people

to come to flight school.

In terms of, you know, connecting the
dots, who are these people who flew the

planes in? How did they learn to fly?

With whom were they associated when they
were in the country?

We realized pretty quickly there's an
awful lot of flight schools that can

you to fly a commercial airliner.

And of those flight schools, a lot of
them had a lot of Mideastern males as

students. We need to know what else is
happening.

Who else is involved?

Who else is a sleeper cell somewhere
waiting for the instructions to attack?

The

thing

that struck me so odd when I went into
the garage was that I smelled like gas

and oil and rubber and all the things
that we typically find in a garage.

And you're among, you know.

All these computer terminals and FBI
people setting leads and covering leads.

Leads are pouring in from all over the
world.

But one of the most critical comes from
inside the FBI itself.

We had been pushing to our management in
Minneapolis to let New York know we had

a subject who had to be connected to the
attacks.

When I got to New York, I immediately
went to the garage ready to brief agents

and prosecutors on Mr. Moussaoui.

Zacharias Moussaoui is a French citizen.

He has been in flight school in
Minnesota until weeks before 9 -11.

When the FBI is alerted to his strange
behavior, agents arrest him on

immigration charges.

Zachariah Massawi was taking flying
lessons, but raised

concern by the instructor is that he
just wanted to know how to fly.

He really didn't want to learn
everything there was about manning an

This revelation about Massawi is
conveyed to Ali Soufan over in Yemen.

Soufan runs it past bin Laden's
bodyguard.

Abu Jandal identified Massawi.

Basically, he gave us a lot of things
about him. He's involved in al -Qaeda,

alias in al -Qaeda. Now we know that
this person wasn't only a crazy guy who

said, I want to learn how to fly, but I
just want to take off. I don't care

about landing.

This guy is actually a member of al
-Qaeda.

and worked for Osama bin Laden in
Afghanistan.

Realizing the terrorist network in the U
.S. is larger than anyone imagined, the

FBI puts even more pressure on
Moussaoui.

Mr. Moussaoui was hostile.

We could tell he didn't like us.

We were going to go for broke on this
interview.

And so we said, we're aware that you're
a member of a group.

When he heard the word group, that
really concerned him, Sally. His eyes

got wide, his jaw dropped.

That also fed our concern as to, were
there others out there, potential

hijackers and or potential support
elements that

would create a second wave?

or create other incidents.

I said, Mr. Moussaoui, you're here with
us in custody, and you're going to

remain in custody, but your friends who
are out there who are going to carry out

this attack, they're not.

And if people are hurt, you are going to
be held accountable by the United

States government.

Everyone was in a high state of alert.

When's the next attack?

Obviously we didn't prevent this one,
but can we prevent the next one?

The urgency for sure wasn't identifying
co -conspirators. It wasn't identifying

anybody who might have been working with
Moussaoui to do the same thing, who

might have been financing him, who might
have trained him.

Was Muthawi going to be used in a
terrorist plot after that? I am sure he

They didn't send him here for tourism,
right? They sent him for terrorism.

But, again, he was arrested before that
happened.

That was very, very important in terms
of establishing a real concrete

connection between bin Laden, al -Qaeda,
and the hijackers as well. We're

working day and night. We're
interviewing people left and right.

We're getting...

significant amount of information.

It's very important to pass it to New
York.

However, some of this intelligence is
difficult to interpret.

In particular, the agents struggle with
intercepted Al -Qaeda phone calls about

a mysterious figure linked to the
attacks, but still at large.

And there was all this chatter.

And part of the chatter was this guy
Mukhtar, which was believed to be

that was involved, but didn't know who
he was.

To chase down this lead, Ali Soufan
flies to a secret prison in Thailand.

He interrogates a captured bin Laden
associate named Abu Zubaydah.

We're hearing about this Mukhtar, the
one who...

All the time, I'm like, who is this guy
whose brain flew away?

Maybe he's bin Laden because he went
crazy after 9 -11 doing something like

this. Soufan shows Zubaydah photos of
known terrorists trying to trace the al

-Qaeda network from the bottom up.

But Zubaydah is stunned.

So he said, please, brother, don't play
games with me.

This is...

Mukhtar. This is the one who did the
plane operation.

The FBI analysts have been mishearing
the name.

Lee Mukhtar is actually Mukhtar.

And Mukhtar is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Someone the FBI thought they knew well.

I was like, whoa.

I was totally shocked.

Totally shocked, because honestly, at
that time, we didn't even know that he

a member of Al -Qaeda.

In an instant, Soufan makes a stunning
connection.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the uncle of
Ramzi Yousaf, the mastermind of the

World Trade Center attack in 1993.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, before joining
al -Qaeda, came to Abu Zubaydah and he

wanted to do an operation in the United
States targeting the World Trade Center

to follow up with what Ramzi Youssef
started, destroying the buildings.

And his plot was to rent Cessna planes
and fly

them into the two buildings.

Abu Zubaydah's response was like,

So you break some windows, at least fill
these Cessna planes with explosives so

they can do some damage.

So KFM liked the idea.

It was a way to tell him that the only
person who will have a capability like

this is Osama bin Laden.

What he had done is he had taken all of
Ramzi's plans and kind of...

Blown the dust off them and brought them
to bin Laden and said, there's still

good plans.

We could still do bad things.

They just need the money behind them.

And that was the genesis of 9 -11.

I know New York will be very interested
in KSM. So I called on a secure line,

Kenny, and I said, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed was identified.

as the mastermind of 9 -11.

In brief, Barry just hung up with Ali
and here's what he's provided.

Those details were put up on the board.

The board is finally complete.

There is now a clear line from the
original World Trade Center bombing

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Osama bin
Laden and the 2

,978 murders on 9 -11.

Our enemies are about to face the
consequences.

On my orders, the United States military
has begun strikes against Al Qaeda

terror training camp and military
installations of the Taliban regime in

Afghanistan.

It was the best time.

that I ever saw where law enforcement
came together as one.

Good evening. It's three months to the
day since the murderous attack on

America, and a U .S. grand jury has
issued the first formal criminal charges

the case.

Attorney General John Ashcroft calls the
30 -page indictment of Zacharias

Massawi, quote, a chronicle of evil.
That humble little building on the West

Side Highway, was housing the most
complex, important, largest

FBI history.

An extraordinary confession from the
suspected mastermind of the 9 -11

According to the Pentagon, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed admitted responsibility for 9

-11 and for a string of attacks and
plots, including plans to kill

Clinton and Carter.

What was accomplished out of that garage
was nothing short of amazing.

Tonight... I can report to the American
people and to the world that the United

States has conducted an operation that
killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al

-Qaeda.

One by one, the United States dealt with
those responsible for 9 -11.

Zacharias Moussaoui pleaded guilty to
conspiring to kill Americans as part of

the attacks.

He is currently serving a life sentence
without parole.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind
of the attacks, remains at Guantanamo

Bay.

His trial has yet to happen.

What began as an improvised response to
an emergency evacuation

yielded extraordinary results.

And that was not just figuratively, but
also quite literally the start of

something. It was a new model.

The structure that evolved in the 26th
Street garage is known as the Joint

Operations Center.

In FBI parlance, the jock.

And it has become the template for
counterterrorism activities.

Agencies cooperate closely.

Intelligence is shared quickly, and
there is constant vigilance.

I look at that warehouse, and I realize
it's whispered role in history.

There's no sign.

And nobody really knows what happened in
there.

What went on after 9 -11, it should
forever be here that the largest

investigation in the history of U .S.
law enforcement, if not international

enforcement, was run from this very
rudimentary grease lid on

the floor.

Oil slick garage.

It's just an incredible feat. It really
is.

And all the memories of the garage, both
stressful but also enlightened, like

hopeful. It was all the best of
everybody was here in the garage. It was

investigators, support, the people.

And that's what was so great about, you
know, everything in the garage was just

work and trying to solve this, you know,
most heinous crime of ever, right? I

mean, it was just unspeakable, really.
But everybody just sort of put aside the

unspeakable and got it done.

Putting aside the unthinkable and
getting it done is what FBI agents are

to do.

Now, after two decades in Afghanistan,
American troops are out.

The threat based on history?

came true.

Government fell in an instant.

Taliban seized control.

We're never going to eliminate terrorism
in our lifetime, just like the FBI's

mission never ends.

They'll regroup, find new sources, and
stay ahead of the terrorists as they

for the past 20 years, preserving our
safety,

in an increasingly complicated world.

One Sunday, I was walking up the street
near my house. There was this little

church on the Upper East Side, and I
remember walking, and, you know, they

singing hymns.

And I was like, they're happy.

And they should be. It's okay to be
joyful and sing in church.

And I remember feeling like taking a
minute and sitting outside and

listening to the hymns.

Because it was, I think, the first time
I was reconnecting with New York.

First time I was seeing my fellow New
Yorkers, you know, being New Yorkers

and singing.

I am, you know.

And they were joyful inside the church.
So for me it was rewarding because it

was like, it's okay, you know, humanity
is here.

It's going to be okay.