Morell Says He Told Bush on 9/11 Al Qaeda Was Behind 3 Attacks
Updated
Updated · ABC News · Sep 12
Morell Says He Told Bush on 9/11 Al Qaeda Was Behind 3 Attacks
3 articles · Updated · ABC News · Sep 12
Summary
Michael Morell said he told President George W. Bush aboard Air Force One on September 11, 2001, that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were the most likely perpetrators after the three hijacked-plane attacks.
Two commercial jets hitting the World Trade Center and a third crashing into the Pentagon quickly convinced Morell the strikes were terrorism, even though he said terrorism had not come up in his 8 a.m. intelligence briefing.
CIA analysts separately reached the same conclusion within hours by matching flight manifests against terrorist databases and finding links to Al Qaeda, Morell said.
Bush was rushed from a Florida elementary school to Air Force One, then to bases in Louisiana and Nebraska, before returning to Washington under F-16 escort as the Secret Service warned the capital might still be unsafe.
Morell, who later became CIA deputy director, said 9/11 remained a broad U.S. failure of intelligence, policy and oversight that reshaped how agencies viewed preventing another mass-casualty attack.