Four moments when 9/11 might have been stopped

Besides the lack of communication, there were follow-through issues as well. In May 2001, for example, there was a huge uptick in "chatter," intelligence jargon for intercepted communications warning of an impending attack. A CIA official who had been assigned to work with FBI agents in their international terrorism department began to speculate about where such an Al Qaeda strike might take place.

The 9/11 commission calls this man John. He, too, recalled the January 2000 Kuala Lumpur meeting and decided to plumb the CIA's databases for more information. In mid-May, John and another CIA official examined several agency cables - the reports officers in the field send back to headquarters. He saw that Midhar had a US visa and that Hazmi had arrived in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2000.

John then held a lengthy back-and-forth with a CIA analyst to evaluate the cables. John saw the connections between the Khallads and concluded that "something bad was definitely up."

But, according to the report, he focused on Malaysia. This, the staff report concludes, is indicative of the way the two different cultures operate and why it is so difficult for them to marry up. The CIA was focused more broadly on overseas threats, while the FBI was busy trying to build a case against one person.

"The CIA's zone defense concentrated on where, not who," the staff report says. "Had its information been shared with the FBI, a combination of the CIA's zone defense and the FBI's man-to-man approach might have been far more productive."

One final opportunity to impede the 9/11 attackers arose in the summer of 2001. John, the CIA official who'd been detailed to the FBI, asked a counterpart, called Mary, from the FBI who'd been assigned to the CIA to review the Kuala Lumpur material.

Mary began reviewing that cable traffic on July 24. She soon discovered a cable reporting that Midhar, too, had a US visa. A week later she found one reporting that Midhar's visa application listed New York City as his destination. Then, on Aug. 21, she found the March 2000 cable that "noted with interest" that Hazmi had flown to Los Angeles in January 2000. "She grasped the significance of this information," the staff report says.

Mary worked with another FBI analyst on the case, referred to as Jane. Together they met with an immigration official on Aug. 22, who told them that Midhar arrived in the US on Jan. 15, 2000, and again on July 4, 2001. They also learned there was no record that Hazmi had left since January 2001. The two decided that if the men were in the US, they must be found. They divided up the work: Mary worked with the CIA to place the two names on international watch lists, and Jane assumed responsibility for the hunt inside the US. Jane drafted a memo outlining why these two men should be found and questioned by the FBI's field office in New York, and called an agent there to give him a heads up. But her memo wasn't sent until Aug. 28, and it was labeled "routine."

The agents opened a case, but what ensued is tragic. Agents didn't share information because of "the wall" between criminal and intelligence cases.

"The result," the staff report says, "was that criminal agents who were knowledgeable about the Cole and experienced with criminal investigative techniques, including finding suspects and possible criminal charges, were excluded from the search."

The report wraps up the segment on these three missed opportunities with gut-wrenching conclusions. "Both Hazmi and Midhar could have been held for immigration violations or as material witnesses in the Cole bombing case," it concludes. "Investigation or interrogation of these individuals, and their travel and financial activities, also may have yielded evidence of connections to other participants in the 9/11 plot."

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