VTR
2008-05-12 07:53:19 UTC
9/11 Contradictions: Mohamed Atta’s Mitsubishi and His Luggage
by Prof. David Ray Griffin
May 9, 2008
At the core of the official story about 9/11 is the claim that the four airliners that crashed
that day had been taken over by a band of al-Qaeda hijackers led by Mohamed Atta. No proof was
ever provided for this claim. But various kinds of evidence have been offered, the most
important of which was reportedly found in Atta’s luggage after the attacks. The materials in
this luggage were said to confirm the suspicion that the planes had been hijacked by Atta and
fellow Muslims. As Joel Achenbach wrote in a Washington Post story on September 16, 2001:
Atta is thought to have piloted American Airlines Flight 11, the first to slam into the World
Trade Center. A letter written by Atta, left in his luggage at Boston's Logan Airport, said he
planned to kill himself so he could go to heaven as a martyr. It also contained a Saudi
passport, an international driver's license, instructional videos for flying Boeing airliners
and an Islamic prayer schedule. (“’You Never Imagine’ A Hijacker Next Door.”)
This discovery was clearly very helpful in making the case against Atta and al-Qaeda.
But why was Atta’s luggage there to be discovered? Achenbach said: “Officials believe
that Atta and [Abdul] Alomari rented a car in Boston, drove to Portland, Maine, and took a room
Monday night at the Comfort Inn . . . . They then flew on a short flight Tuesday morning from
Portland to Boston, changing to Flight 11.”
But why did Atta’s luggage not make it on to Flight 11? A 9/11 staff statement suggested
that it was a tight connection, saying: “The Portland detour almost prevented Atta and Omari
from making Flight 11 out of Boston. In fact, the luggage they checked in Portland failed to
make it onto the plane” (Staff Statement No. 16, June 16, 2004). When The 9/11 Commission
Report appeared the following month, however, this suggestion was missing. Indeed, the
Commission, after saying that “Atta and Omari arrived in Boston at 6:45,” added that “American
Airlines Flight 11 [was] scheduled to depart at 7:45” (9/11 Commission Report [henceforth
9/11CR], 1-2).
If there was almost an hour for the luggage to be transferred, why was it left behind?
We might suppose that the ground crew was careless. American Airlines reported, however, that
“Atta was the only passenger among the 81 aboard American Flight 11 whose luggage didn't make
the flight” (Paul Sperry, WorldNetDaily.com, September 11, 2002).
There was, moreover, even a bigger mystery: Why did Atta, if he was already in Boston on
September 10, take the trip to Portland and stay overnight, thereby necessitating the early
morning commuter flight? If the commuter flight had been delayed by an hour, Atta and al-Omari
would have missed the connection. There would have been only three hijackers to take control of
Flight 11. Atta, moreover, was reportedly the designated pilot for this flight and also the
ringleader of the whole operation, which, after years of planning, he might have had to call off.
Why he would have made such a risky trip has never been explained. A year after the
attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller, testifying to the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11,
said:
[T]he day before the attacks, Mohamed Atta . . . picked up Abdul Aziz . . . and drove to
Portland, Maine. They checked into the Comfort Inn in South Portland. . . . [T]heir reason for
going there, to date, remains unclear. (“Statement for the Record,” Joint Intelligence
Committee Inquiry, Sept. 26, 2002)
Two years later, the 9/11 Commission wrote: “No physical, documentary, or analytical evidence
provides a convincing explanation of why Atta and Omari drove to Portland, Maine, from Boston
on the morning of September 10, only to return to Logan on Flight 5930 on the morning of
September 11” (9/11CR 451n1).
We have, therefore, two mysteries. Why would Atta have risked the trip to Portland? And
why did his luggage fail to get loaded onto Flight 11? My book, 9/11 Contradictions, is about
contradictions, not mysteries. Clues to these mysteries, however, can be found by exploring a
full-fledged contradiction: the fact that the Atta-to-Portland story contradicts stories that
appeared in the press in the first days after 9/11.
The Original Story: Boston and the Bukharis
According to the official account, as we have seen, Atta drove to Portland in a blue Nissan
Altima, then flew on the morning of September 11 from Portland to the Boston airport, where the
incriminating materials were found in his luggage later that day. In the first few days after
9/11, however, the story was very different.
On September 12, a CNN report distinguished between Atta and the men who flew from
Portland to Boston.
Law enforcement sources say that two of the suspected hijackers . . . are brothers that lived
[in Vero Beach, Florida]. . . . One of them is Adnan Bukhari. We have a photograph of him. . .
. Also living in Vero Beach, Bukhari's brother, Ameer. . . . Law enforcement sources . . . tell
CNN that the Bukhari brothers were believed to have been on one of the two flights out of
Boston . . . . Also we can report to you that a car impounded in Portland, Maine, according to
law enforcement authorities, was rented at Boston Logan Airport and driven to Portland, Maine.
Now the Maine state police confirm that two of the suspected hijackers were on a U.S. Air
flight out of [the Portland airport.]. . . The FBI is also looking at two more suspected
hijackers . . . , Mohammad Atta and Marwan Yusef Alshehhi.” (“America Under Attack: How Could
It Happen?” Although the reporter, Susan Candiotti, said “Logan Airport,” the information she
received had to have referred to the Portland airport, from which the U.S. Airways flight
originated, and about which the Maine state police would have had information.)
Another CNN report that same day stated that the incriminating materials were found in a car at
the Boston airport and, while discussing the Nissan found at the Portland airport, did not
connect it to Atta:
Law enforcement officials confirmed that a car was seized at Boston's Logan International
Airport and that suspicious materials were found. The Boston Herald said there were Arabic
language flight training manuals in the car. . . . Meanwhile, in Portland, Maine, police said
that two individuals who traveled by plane from that city to Boston were under investigation. .
. . Maine authorities said a car---a rented silver Nissan Altima with Massachusetts
plates---was seized from the Portland airport Tuesday evening. (“US Says It Has Identified
Hijackers”)
On the next day, September 13, CNN named the Bukharis as the renters of the Nissan and said
that the car found at Boston, now identified as a Mitsubishi, was rented by Atta:
"Two of the men were brothers, . . . Adnan Bukhari and Ameer Abbas Bukhari. . . . The two
rented a car, a silver-blue Nissan Altima, from an Alamo car rental at Boston's Logan Airport
and drove to an airport in Portland, Maine, where they got on US Airways Flight 5930 at 6 AM
Tuesday headed back to Boston. . . . A Mitsubishi sedan impounded at Logan Airport was rented
by [Mohamed] Atta, sources said. The car contained materials, including flight manuals, written
in Arabic that law enforcement sources called “helpful” to the investigation." (“Two Brothers
among Hijackers”)
Another CNN report that same day said that law enforcement authorities were led to the Bukhari
brothers by documents connected to the Nissan (“Hijack Suspect Detained, Cooperating with FBI”).
A Problem Emerges
However, that same day (September 13), CNN issued a correction (“Feds Think They’ve Identified
Some Hijackers”), pointing out that neither of the Bukharis had died on 9/11: Ameer had died
the year before and Adnan was still alive. CNN apologized for the “misinformation,” which had
been “[b]ased on information from multiple law enforcement sources.”
However, this discovery did not immediately lead to a complete change of story. For
example, the next day (September 14), CNN said: “A Mitsubishi sedan [Atta] rented was found at
Boston's Logan Airport. Arabic language materials were found in the car” (Mike Fish, “Fla.
Flight Schools May Have Trained Hijackers”).
The Emergence of the Final Story
That same day, however, the story began to change more drastically. An Associated Press report,
referring to “two suspects in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center,” said:
One of the two suspects who boarded a flight in Portland was Mohamed Atta, 33. . . . The 2001
Nissan Altima used by the men came from the same Boston rental location as another car used by
additional suspects that contained incriminating materials when it was seized at Boston's Logan
Airport.
Once in Maine, the suspects spent the night at the Comfort Inn in South Portland before
boarding the plane the next morning. (“Portland Police Eye Local Ties”)
Suddenly, the Nissan Altima had been driven to Portland by Atta and his companion, who had then
flown back to Boston the next morning. But the transition to what would become the accepted
narrative was not yet complete. The incriminating materials were still found in a rental car
left at Logan---although this car was now said to have been rented by unnamed “additional
suspects,” not by Atta.
The complete transition was made on September 16, in the aforementioned Washington Post
article by Joel Achenbach, which had the incriminating evidence found in Atta’s luggage.
This new story was soon fleshed out with various details, including physical evidence
that Atta and al-Omari had been in Portland the night before the attacks. One article said:
The FBI released a detailed chronology Thursday [October 4] showing that two of the
suspected hijackers in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center spent their final hours in
Greater Portland. . . . After checking in at the motel, Atta and Alomari were seen . . .
[b]etween 8 and 9 PM . . . at Pizza Hut; at 8:31 PM, they were videotaped by a KeyBank
automatic teller machine, and videotaped again at 8:41 PM at a Fast Green ATM next to Pizzeria
Uno. . . . At . . . 9:22 PM, Atta was caught on videotape in the Wal-Mart in Scarborough. (“The
Night Before Terror,” Portland Press Herald, October 5, 2001)
The Mysteries and the Contradiction
This new story solved a problem created by the discovery that the Bukharis had not died on
9/11---how to explain why a rental car left at the Portland airport could have led authorities
to two of the hijackers. This solution, however, created the mystery of why Atta would have
taken this trip plus the problem of explaining the well-reported fact that incriminating
materials had been found at Logan Airport. This latter problem was solved by saying that they
were found in Atta’s luggage, which did not make it onto Flight 11. But this solution created,
in turn, the mystery as to why Atta’s luggage failed to make the flight. The main problem
facing the new story, however, is simply the fact that it is a new story, which radically
contradicts what the authorities had said the first few days.
Congress and the press need to ask why this contradiction exists and why the 9/11 Commission
ignored it. This essay is an abbreviated version of Chapter 16 of Dr. Griffin's 9/11
Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (Northampton: Olive Branch, March, 2008).
by Prof. David Ray Griffin
May 9, 2008
At the core of the official story about 9/11 is the claim that the four airliners that crashed
that day had been taken over by a band of al-Qaeda hijackers led by Mohamed Atta. No proof was
ever provided for this claim. But various kinds of evidence have been offered, the most
important of which was reportedly found in Atta’s luggage after the attacks. The materials in
this luggage were said to confirm the suspicion that the planes had been hijacked by Atta and
fellow Muslims. As Joel Achenbach wrote in a Washington Post story on September 16, 2001:
Atta is thought to have piloted American Airlines Flight 11, the first to slam into the World
Trade Center. A letter written by Atta, left in his luggage at Boston's Logan Airport, said he
planned to kill himself so he could go to heaven as a martyr. It also contained a Saudi
passport, an international driver's license, instructional videos for flying Boeing airliners
and an Islamic prayer schedule. (“’You Never Imagine’ A Hijacker Next Door.”)
This discovery was clearly very helpful in making the case against Atta and al-Qaeda.
But why was Atta’s luggage there to be discovered? Achenbach said: “Officials believe
that Atta and [Abdul] Alomari rented a car in Boston, drove to Portland, Maine, and took a room
Monday night at the Comfort Inn . . . . They then flew on a short flight Tuesday morning from
Portland to Boston, changing to Flight 11.”
But why did Atta’s luggage not make it on to Flight 11? A 9/11 staff statement suggested
that it was a tight connection, saying: “The Portland detour almost prevented Atta and Omari
from making Flight 11 out of Boston. In fact, the luggage they checked in Portland failed to
make it onto the plane” (Staff Statement No. 16, June 16, 2004). When The 9/11 Commission
Report appeared the following month, however, this suggestion was missing. Indeed, the
Commission, after saying that “Atta and Omari arrived in Boston at 6:45,” added that “American
Airlines Flight 11 [was] scheduled to depart at 7:45” (9/11 Commission Report [henceforth
9/11CR], 1-2).
If there was almost an hour for the luggage to be transferred, why was it left behind?
We might suppose that the ground crew was careless. American Airlines reported, however, that
“Atta was the only passenger among the 81 aboard American Flight 11 whose luggage didn't make
the flight” (Paul Sperry, WorldNetDaily.com, September 11, 2002).
There was, moreover, even a bigger mystery: Why did Atta, if he was already in Boston on
September 10, take the trip to Portland and stay overnight, thereby necessitating the early
morning commuter flight? If the commuter flight had been delayed by an hour, Atta and al-Omari
would have missed the connection. There would have been only three hijackers to take control of
Flight 11. Atta, moreover, was reportedly the designated pilot for this flight and also the
ringleader of the whole operation, which, after years of planning, he might have had to call off.
Why he would have made such a risky trip has never been explained. A year after the
attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller, testifying to the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11,
said:
[T]he day before the attacks, Mohamed Atta . . . picked up Abdul Aziz . . . and drove to
Portland, Maine. They checked into the Comfort Inn in South Portland. . . . [T]heir reason for
going there, to date, remains unclear. (“Statement for the Record,” Joint Intelligence
Committee Inquiry, Sept. 26, 2002)
Two years later, the 9/11 Commission wrote: “No physical, documentary, or analytical evidence
provides a convincing explanation of why Atta and Omari drove to Portland, Maine, from Boston
on the morning of September 10, only to return to Logan on Flight 5930 on the morning of
September 11” (9/11CR 451n1).
We have, therefore, two mysteries. Why would Atta have risked the trip to Portland? And
why did his luggage fail to get loaded onto Flight 11? My book, 9/11 Contradictions, is about
contradictions, not mysteries. Clues to these mysteries, however, can be found by exploring a
full-fledged contradiction: the fact that the Atta-to-Portland story contradicts stories that
appeared in the press in the first days after 9/11.
The Original Story: Boston and the Bukharis
According to the official account, as we have seen, Atta drove to Portland in a blue Nissan
Altima, then flew on the morning of September 11 from Portland to the Boston airport, where the
incriminating materials were found in his luggage later that day. In the first few days after
9/11, however, the story was very different.
On September 12, a CNN report distinguished between Atta and the men who flew from
Portland to Boston.
Law enforcement sources say that two of the suspected hijackers . . . are brothers that lived
[in Vero Beach, Florida]. . . . One of them is Adnan Bukhari. We have a photograph of him. . .
. Also living in Vero Beach, Bukhari's brother, Ameer. . . . Law enforcement sources . . . tell
CNN that the Bukhari brothers were believed to have been on one of the two flights out of
Boston . . . . Also we can report to you that a car impounded in Portland, Maine, according to
law enforcement authorities, was rented at Boston Logan Airport and driven to Portland, Maine.
Now the Maine state police confirm that two of the suspected hijackers were on a U.S. Air
flight out of [the Portland airport.]. . . The FBI is also looking at two more suspected
hijackers . . . , Mohammad Atta and Marwan Yusef Alshehhi.” (“America Under Attack: How Could
It Happen?” Although the reporter, Susan Candiotti, said “Logan Airport,” the information she
received had to have referred to the Portland airport, from which the U.S. Airways flight
originated, and about which the Maine state police would have had information.)
Another CNN report that same day stated that the incriminating materials were found in a car at
the Boston airport and, while discussing the Nissan found at the Portland airport, did not
connect it to Atta:
Law enforcement officials confirmed that a car was seized at Boston's Logan International
Airport and that suspicious materials were found. The Boston Herald said there were Arabic
language flight training manuals in the car. . . . Meanwhile, in Portland, Maine, police said
that two individuals who traveled by plane from that city to Boston were under investigation. .
. . Maine authorities said a car---a rented silver Nissan Altima with Massachusetts
plates---was seized from the Portland airport Tuesday evening. (“US Says It Has Identified
Hijackers”)
On the next day, September 13, CNN named the Bukharis as the renters of the Nissan and said
that the car found at Boston, now identified as a Mitsubishi, was rented by Atta:
"Two of the men were brothers, . . . Adnan Bukhari and Ameer Abbas Bukhari. . . . The two
rented a car, a silver-blue Nissan Altima, from an Alamo car rental at Boston's Logan Airport
and drove to an airport in Portland, Maine, where they got on US Airways Flight 5930 at 6 AM
Tuesday headed back to Boston. . . . A Mitsubishi sedan impounded at Logan Airport was rented
by [Mohamed] Atta, sources said. The car contained materials, including flight manuals, written
in Arabic that law enforcement sources called “helpful” to the investigation." (“Two Brothers
among Hijackers”)
Another CNN report that same day said that law enforcement authorities were led to the Bukhari
brothers by documents connected to the Nissan (“Hijack Suspect Detained, Cooperating with FBI”).
A Problem Emerges
However, that same day (September 13), CNN issued a correction (“Feds Think They’ve Identified
Some Hijackers”), pointing out that neither of the Bukharis had died on 9/11: Ameer had died
the year before and Adnan was still alive. CNN apologized for the “misinformation,” which had
been “[b]ased on information from multiple law enforcement sources.”
However, this discovery did not immediately lead to a complete change of story. For
example, the next day (September 14), CNN said: “A Mitsubishi sedan [Atta] rented was found at
Boston's Logan Airport. Arabic language materials were found in the car” (Mike Fish, “Fla.
Flight Schools May Have Trained Hijackers”).
The Emergence of the Final Story
That same day, however, the story began to change more drastically. An Associated Press report,
referring to “two suspects in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center,” said:
One of the two suspects who boarded a flight in Portland was Mohamed Atta, 33. . . . The 2001
Nissan Altima used by the men came from the same Boston rental location as another car used by
additional suspects that contained incriminating materials when it was seized at Boston's Logan
Airport.
Once in Maine, the suspects spent the night at the Comfort Inn in South Portland before
boarding the plane the next morning. (“Portland Police Eye Local Ties”)
Suddenly, the Nissan Altima had been driven to Portland by Atta and his companion, who had then
flown back to Boston the next morning. But the transition to what would become the accepted
narrative was not yet complete. The incriminating materials were still found in a rental car
left at Logan---although this car was now said to have been rented by unnamed “additional
suspects,” not by Atta.
The complete transition was made on September 16, in the aforementioned Washington Post
article by Joel Achenbach, which had the incriminating evidence found in Atta’s luggage.
This new story was soon fleshed out with various details, including physical evidence
that Atta and al-Omari had been in Portland the night before the attacks. One article said:
The FBI released a detailed chronology Thursday [October 4] showing that two of the
suspected hijackers in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center spent their final hours in
Greater Portland. . . . After checking in at the motel, Atta and Alomari were seen . . .
[b]etween 8 and 9 PM . . . at Pizza Hut; at 8:31 PM, they were videotaped by a KeyBank
automatic teller machine, and videotaped again at 8:41 PM at a Fast Green ATM next to Pizzeria
Uno. . . . At . . . 9:22 PM, Atta was caught on videotape in the Wal-Mart in Scarborough. (“The
Night Before Terror,” Portland Press Herald, October 5, 2001)
The Mysteries and the Contradiction
This new story solved a problem created by the discovery that the Bukharis had not died on
9/11---how to explain why a rental car left at the Portland airport could have led authorities
to two of the hijackers. This solution, however, created the mystery of why Atta would have
taken this trip plus the problem of explaining the well-reported fact that incriminating
materials had been found at Logan Airport. This latter problem was solved by saying that they
were found in Atta’s luggage, which did not make it onto Flight 11. But this solution created,
in turn, the mystery as to why Atta’s luggage failed to make the flight. The main problem
facing the new story, however, is simply the fact that it is a new story, which radically
contradicts what the authorities had said the first few days.
Congress and the press need to ask why this contradiction exists and why the 9/11 Commission
ignored it. This essay is an abbreviated version of Chapter 16 of Dr. Griffin's 9/11
Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (Northampton: Olive Branch, March, 2008).