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Atta known to Pentagon before 9/11September 28, 2005 | By John Crewdson and Andrew Zajac, Washington Bureau.

- Investigations into Sept. 11 paid much attention to the CIA's failure to tell the FBI that one of the Sept. 11hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar, had apparently moved to the U.S., where he was taking flying lessons withanother hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, in San Diego.

3. JAN. 31, 2000

DUBAI ARREST

- One of the most promising leads came from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where in January 2000authorities detained Sept. 11 hijack pilot Ziad Jarrah as he was returning to Hamburg from a twomonthsojourn with Mohamed Atta and fellow hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi in Osama bin Laden's Afghan trainingcamps.

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It was during those two months that bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed decided that Atta and hisfriends were the ideal candidates to conduct the operation, according to the Sept. 11 commission report.

As Jarrah was questioned by the Dubai airport police, he knew the general outlines of the plot, though thedate and targets would not be decided for more than a year.

According to a senior UAE official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, while Jarrah was incustody the Dubai police informed the American Embassy that a young Lebanese student had beendetained on his way back to Europe from Afghanistan. The embassy contact, the official said, asked thatJarrah be arrested.

When the Dubai police explained they had no grounds for an arrest, the embassy contact replied that thepolice should let Jarrah go.

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Jarrah flew from Dubai to Amsterdam and then to Hamburg, where he reconnected with Atta, al-Shehhiand Ramzi Binalshibh.

U.S. officials dispute the UAE official's account, saying they never learned of the Jarrah airport stop untilSept. 18, 2001.

4. JULY 5, 2001

THE "PHOENIX MEMO"

- What has become known as "the Phoenix memo" was written in July 2001 by an FBI agent in that city whotook notice of the number of Middle Eastern students enrolling in Arizona flight schools and wonderedwhether some of them might be terrorists.

The agent suggested the FBI compile visa information on foreigners applying to flight schools, althoughsuch an effort would have missed the Sept. 11 hijackers, who had graduated from flight school monthsbefore.

5. AUG. 15, 2001

MOUSSAOUI'S ARREST

- Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges in Minneapolis three weeks before Sept. 11 afterhe raised the suspicions of a flight school instructor by paying for his lessons in cash and demanding tolearn to fly a Boeing 747.

When Minneapolis FBI agents asked FBI headquarters in Washington for permission to see what was onMoussaoui's laptop, they were denied. In fact, Moussaoui had been sent to the U.S. by Al Qaeda to undergoflight training, and aides to bin Laden had arranged for Moussaoui to receive at least $15,000, according tothe Sept. 11 commission report.

When the laptop was finally searched in the wake of Sept. 11, it contained nothing linking Moussaoui to theplot.

6. SEPT. 10, 2001

SATELLITE CALLS

- Investigators have made much of two satellite telephone calls between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia,monitored and recorded the day before the hijackings by the U.S. National Security Agency.

In one conversation, a party in Afghanistan announces that "The match begins tomorrow." In the secondconversation, a different person warns that "Tomorrow is zero hour."

The conversations, in Arabic, weren't translated by the NSA until Sept. 12, but were probably too general tohave led investigators to the plot.

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jcrewdson@tribune.com

azajac@tribune.com

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