Phoenix memo redux: The FBI admitted today that it ignored one of its own pilots who expressed concerns in 1998 about Arab men seeking flight training in Oklahoma.
The FBI pilot told his supervisor in Oklahoma City "that he has observed large numbers of Middle Eastern males receiving flight training at Oklahoma airports in recent months," according to the memo. The pilot warned that "this is a recent phenomenon and may be related to planned terrorist activity." He "speculates that light planes would be an ideal means of spreading chemical or biological agents."
The FBI memo, dated May 18, 1998, was marked "routine" and never forwarded to headquarters.
FBI Director Robert Mueller also disclosed a second clue today that he said might be relevant to the investigation into the September hijackings: A Middle Eastern country where U.S. shipments are restricted sought unsuccessfully before Sept. 11 to buy a commercial flight simulator.
The FBI refused to identify the country but claimed it was not one publicly connected to Sept. 11. It said the information came from another U.S. agency that it would not identify.
Asked whether investigators might discover more clues already in their possession hinting at suicide hijackings, Mueller said, "There may be others out there."
He expressed regret about FBI headquarters bungling a warning from its Phoenix office about the large number of Arabs seeking pilot, security and airport operations training at a U.S. flight school. He said midlevel FBI bureaucrats should have immediately given the memo to top officials.
"There were a number of things that organizationally should have happened," Mueller said.
He said he did not learn about that memo until after Sept. 14, when he asserted at a news conference: "The fact that there were a number of individuals that happened to have received training at flight schools is news, quite obviously. If we had understood that to be the case, we would have - perhaps one could have averted this."
Meanwhile, the State Department is wasting $500,000 to bring even more foreign Muslims into the country.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Homeland/Civil Defense
War on Terrorism
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