Former Prosecutor Talks About The Warning Signs Of The September 11th Attacks

Former Prosecutor Talks About The Warning Signs Of The September 11th Attacks

by Chris Hansen and Maria Shriver
Dateline NBC
September 23, 2001

Announcer: Here now is Stone Phillips.

STONE PHILLIPS: They hit it before in 1993, and last week they hit it again, this time taking the World Trade Center down. In the aftermath of last week's devastating attacks, pieces of the puzzle are beginning to come together. How did the terrorist plot go undetected? Were warning signs missed? Should we have known more? Here's Chris Hansen, a member of the NBC News terrorism task force.

Mr. MICHAEL CHERKASKY: God gave us the chance to understand what our enemies were trying to do to us. Unfortunately, unfortunately, we didn't adequately learn the lesson.

CHRIS HANSEN reporting: (Voiceover) And Michael Cherkasky should know. As a New York City prosecutor, he was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing investigation. These days, Cherkasky runs one of the world's best known security and investigative firms, Kroll, Inc., a firm that's done everything from track down Saddam Hussein's hidden riches to help ensure that the mob doesn't regain control of New York's garbage business. It even advised the World Trade Center on security matters.

(Michael Cherkasky; Kroll, Inc. sign; Saddam Hussein; New York streets; World Trade Center before attack)

HANSEN: At how many levels did security or intelligence fail here along the way?

Mr. CHERKASKY: I think that--that we failed in every level.

HANSEN: Every level.

Mr. CHERKASKY: Every level.

HANSEN: (Voiceover) Every level, Cherkasky says, from intelligence to surveillance, to not having the will to take down Osama bin Laden long before September 11th. First off, Cherkasky says, we should have known that the World Trade Center continued to be a target. Just listen to what Ramsey Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing, told FBI agent William Gavett after his arrest as they flew into Manhattan.

(World Trade Center on fire; video of Osama bin Laden; New York skyline before attack; video of 1993 bombing of World Trade Center; photo of Ramsey Yousef)

Mr. WILLIAM GAVETT: I pointed out the windshield, and I said to Ramsey, 'You see the Trade Centers down there? They're still standing, aren't they?' And his comment was, 'They wouldn't be if I had enough money and enough explosives.'

HANSEN: (Voiceover) Bin Laden himself said in June that he was preparing a hard hit against US interests across the globe. In August, another warning of an unprecedented attack sent to an Arabic newspaper, says editor Abdel Bari Atwan.

(Video of bin Laden; terrorists training; video of bin Laden; Abdel Bari Atwan)

Mr. ABDEL BARI ATWAN: Like other Arabic newspapers, we receive warning and information, people over the phone and saying that, 'Look, there is something big will happen and take place.'

Mr. CHERKASKY: I believe that we had sufficient specific information to say we were at enormous risk during the year 2000-2001 of having a very, very serious incident here.

HANSEN: You had the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

Mr. CHERKASKY: Right.

HANSEN: The embassy bombings in Africa.

Mr. CHERKASKY: Then we had--then we had the attack on the Cole. So we had a series of--of very serious incidents across the world.

HANSEN: (Voiceover) All the more reason, Cherkasky says, to be on the look out for even the smallest hint of a terrorist attack, such as this: Just two weeks before the suicide attacks, a radio station in the Cayman Islands received an unsigned letter claiming that three Afghans, who had entered the country illegally, were agents of Osama bin Laden. The anonymous author warned that they, 'Are organizing a major terrorist attack against the US via an airline or airlines.' On September 6th, the letter was forwarded to a Cayman government official and sat on his desk until after the September 11th attack.

(People walking; Cayman Islands sign; letter; quote from letter; Cayman government building)

Unidentified Man #1: The letter was treated as merely speculation on the part of the writer.

HANSEN: (Voiceover) Where did the writer get his information? He now says it came to him as a premonition of sorts, but US officials have gone to the island to investigate.

But how do you know what to take seriously? Two years ago, Diane and John Albritton say they called the CIA to report suspicious activity, odd comings and goings at a neighbor's home, a home where at least one of the suspected suicide pilots is now believed to have lived.

(Photo of an unidentified man; Diane and John Albritton walking; neighborhood street)

Ms. DIANE ALBRITTON: I don't feel that they took it seriously, but maybe I didn't provide the kind of information they wanted.

HANSEN: (Voiceover) And there have even been reports that some of the hijackers were bragging in bars just days before the attacks.

(Bar)

Unidentified Man #2: A gentleman actually making the statement, 'Well, America's going to see blood and wait until tomorrow.'

Mr. CHERKASKY: You have to look back at the whole system of collection of information, what we were able to do with that information, how we, in fact, analyzed that information, to make determinations about how you're going to prevent this in the future.

HANSEN: (Voiceover) Especially when you consider that the hijackers didn't fit the profile for a fanatic suicide bomber. They were older, educated and able to blend in with society.

(World Trade Center on fire)

Mr. CHERKASKY: And that's what makes it so difficult. When a doctor sees a disease for the first time, that he--that he has never--he or she has never seen before, it's hard to diagnose it.

HANSEN: We now know that the CIA was already looking for two of the suspected hijackers in the weeks before the attacks. The agency had warned immigration agents and the FBI to be on the lookout for the pair at all US borders, but it was too late. They had already entered the country.

It turns out that the FBI had the names of two of the hijackers weeks before this happened. They didn't have an address, they didn't have any Social Security numbers, they had names.

Mr. CHERKASKY: Right. We have to make sure that the timeliness of the intelligence information from the CIA is, in fact, disseminated to the people domestically, who are going to be able to follow those--up those leads. So, the timeliness, the coordination is critical.

HANSEN: To be fair, though, I mean, it would seem impossible for anybody even the FBI or the CIA to predict that somebody would actually hijack a commercial jetliner and fly it into the World Trade Center.

Mr. CHERKASKY: As a former prosecutor, it's not our jobs to be fair about this. They had to get this right. We had to get this right as a country. We have an obligation to our citizens to protect them, and we didn't get it right. We got it terribly, terribly wrong.

PHILLIPS: When we return, a husband and father who joined the band of heroes on United Flight 93.

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