Letters to the Editor
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The other country was Yemen
The phone that called Pentagon hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi in the US (there was more than one call) was registered to a guy named Ahmed al-Hada, his phone number was 9671200578, and he was involved in the 1998 embassy bombing attacks and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
Exploitation of the calls could clearly have prevented 9/11, as, if the NSA, which intercepted the calls, had tipped off the FBI, the FBI would have placed the two hijackers (who were already known to the US intelligence community at this point) under surveillance and picked up the other hijackers when they entered the US and met Almihdhar and Alhazmi.
The calls are mentioned in both the 9/11 Commission report (two cryptic references on pages 87-88 and 222) and in the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry report (pages 155-7). On page 157 it says: "In early 2000, NSA analyzed communications involving Khaled and a suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East linked to al-Qa’ida activities directed against U.S. interests. The FBI determined, based on toll records it obtained after September 11, that Khaled had been in the United States at the time." That's what Mukasey is talking about.
The calls were also mentioned by authors Ron Suskind, Lawrence Wright and Terry McDermott, as well as the LA Times, MSNBC and US News and World Report.
Some simple questions for the NSA: you had the legal authority to trace the calls, but did not - why? How many were there? Where is the inspector general's report on the NSA's failings before 9/11? Were you getting information about the calls' destination from somewhere else (like GCHQ)?