When American 11 struck the World Trade Center at 8:46, no one in the White House or traveling with the President knew that it had been hijacked. While that information circulated within the FAA, we found no evidence that the hijacking was reported to any other agency in Washington before 8:46. Most federal agencies learned about the crash in New York from CNN. Within the FAA, the administrator, Jane Garvey, and her acting deputy, Monte Belger, had not been told of a confirmed hijacking before they learned from television that a plane had crashed. Others in the agency were aware of it, as we explained earlier in this chapter. Inside the National Military Command Center, the deputy director of operations and his assistant began notifying senior Pentagon officials of the incident. At about 9:00, the senior NMCC operations officer reached out to the FAA operations center for information. Although the NMCC was advised of the hijacking of American 11, the scrambling of jets was not discussed. In Sarasota, Florida, the presidential motorcade was arriving at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School, where President Bush was to read to a class and talk about education. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told us he was standing with the President outside the classroom when Senior Advisor to the President Karl Rove first informed them that a small, twin-engine plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. The President's reaction was that the incident must have been caused by pilot error. At 8:55, before entering the classroom, the President spoke to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who was at the White House. She recalled first telling the President it was a twin-engine aircraft-and then a commercial aircraft-that had struck the World Trade Center, adding "that's all we know right now, Mr. President." At the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney had just sat down for a meeting when his assistant told him to turn on his television because a plane had struck the NorthTower of the World Trade Center. The Vice President was wondering "How the hell could a plane hit the World Trade Center" when he saw the second aircraft strike the South Tower. Elsewhere in the White House, a series of 9:00 meetings was about to begin. In the absence of information that the crash was anything other than an accident, the White House staff monitored the news as they went ahead with their regular schedules.

Question: "What was the White House response to the initial reports of the crash?"

Answer: "That the crash was terrorism"

Response: no

The inhabited history of the Las Vegas Valley stretches to 23,000 b.c. , when much of the area was covered by a prehistoric lake. During this period, the indigenous people lived in caves, hunting the mammals that gathered at the shoreline. The landscape of the valley changed dramatically over the next 200 centuries. The glaciers feeding the lake melted away and the lake evaporated. Fossils tell an obscure story of man's slow and sporadic development. Around 3000 b.c. , native Archaic Indians began to develop a lasting hunting and gathering culture. By this time, the valley was in much the same geographic state as it exists in today, with one exceptionthe presence of artesian springs that bubbled to the surface in several areas. These springs fed a network of streams draining through the Las Vegas Wash to the Colorado River. The areas surrounding the springs were desert oases: sprawling collections of grasses, trees, and wildlife. Many springs lay in areas that would eventually become the center of the modern Las Vegas metropolis. For about 4000 years, the Archaics thrived in a culture that included many signs of early civilization. Signs of even more advancement appeared halfway through the first millennium a.d. , when the Anasazi Indians inhabited the valley. Far more progressive than the Archaics, the Anasazi utilized such formal agricultural techniques as irrigation to assist their harvest. This permitted the Anasazi to achieve a benchmark of advanced societythe ability to live in permanent shelters year-round without need to follow wildlife. Mysteriously, the Anasazi vanished from the valley around a.d.

Question: "What permitted the Anasazi to achieve a benchmark of advanced society?"

Answer: "Formal agricultural techniques"

Response: yes

Bin Laden reportedly discussed the planes operation with KSM and Atef in a series of meetings in the spring of 1999 at the al Matar complex near Kandahar. KSM's original concept of using one of the hijacked planes to make a media statement was scrapped, but Bin Laden considered the basic idea feasible. Bin Laden, Atef, and KSM developed an initial list of targets. These included the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center. According to KSM, Bin Laden wanted to destroy the White House and the Pentagon, KSM wanted to strike the World Trade Center, and all of them wanted to hit the Capitol. No one else was involved in the initial selection of targets. Bin Laden also soon selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives: Khalid al Mihdhar, Nawaf al Hazmi, Khallad, and Abu Bara al Yemeni. During the al Matar meetings, Bin Laden told KSM that Mihdhar and Hazmi were so eager to participate in an operation against the United States that they had already obtained U.S. visas. KSM states that they had done so on their own after the suicide of their friend Azzam (Nashiri's cousin) in carrying out the Nairobi bombing. KSM had not met them. His only guidance from Bin Laden was that the two should eventually go to the United States for pilot training. Hazmi and Mihdhar were Saudi nationals, born in Mecca. Like the others in this initial group of selectees, they were already experienced mujahideen. They had traveled together to fight in Bosnia in a group that journeyed to the Balkans in 1995. By the time Hazmi and Mihdhar were assigned to the planes operation in early 1999, they had visited Afghanistan on several occasions. Khallad was another veteran mujahid, like much of his family. His father had been expelled from Yemen because of his extremist views. Khallad had grown up in Saudi Arabia, where his father knew Bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and Omar Abdel Rahman (the "Blind Sheikh").

Question: "Who was involved in the initial selection of targets?"

Answer: "KSM, Yemini, and Nashiri"

Response: no

Once upon a time I had a dog named Toodles. He was black and white and had long floppy ears. He also had very short legs, but really big paws. Every Saturday we would go to the park and play Toodles' favorite game. Toodles loved playing fetch. One Saturday, Toodles ran over to the pond because he saw ducks swimming there. He ran all around the pond, barking at the ducks. The ducks ignored him, and kept swimming. Toodles wasn't having it! He jumped into the pond and started swimming toward the ducks, chasing around his new playmates. One of the ducks, braver than the others, poked Toodles with his beak - and then bit him right on one of his floppy ears! Toodles barked and ran out of the pond because the duck hurt his ear. Soaking wet, he ran toward where I was eating a sandwich on the grass and curled right up in my lap so I could make him feel better. After that, whenever he would see a duck, Toodles would run the other way.

Question: "What was the narrator doing when the duck bit Toodles' ear?"

Answer: "Playing guitar"

Response:
no