What does it take to thwart a terrorist plot? If Bush had, as soon the Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US briefing ended, gotten on the red phone to "shake the tree", would he have been able to connect any of the so-called "unconnected dots" in the five weeks remaining until 9/11? If he'd ordered the alphabet agency heads to forward all al Qaeda-related material to National Security Advisor Rice? If he'd called John O'Neill, whom he had shut down immediately upon taking office?

If Bush had ordered additional reviews of the the outgoing administration's counterrorism reports; convened brainstorming sessions with terrorism experts; demanded updates on the 70 current, terror-related FBI investigations; asked for more detail on the 23 warnings of impending, spectacular attack IN AUGUST ALONE; examined all visa and passport violations/anomalies, for starters...
would anyone, anywhere, been able to connect any of these dots (as previously, these are just a select sample; see sidebar links for hundreds more)?

• A 1999 National Intelligence Council report warned that terrorists associated with bin Laden might hijack an airplane and crash it into the Pentagon, White House or CIA headquarters.
• FBI Special Agent John O'Neill, who had captured the WTC bombing mastermind and helped foil the 1995 Project Bojinka (the plot to hijack and crash a dozen U.S. airliners in the South Pacific), is on the bad side of FBI brass by his continued insistence that the agency is not paying enough attention to UBL and al Qaeda.
  O'Neill's agents, investigating the 1998 US African embassy bombings, discover an al Qaeda training manual that details bin Laden's plans to send hundreds of martyrs to the U.S. for flying lessons. A computer found in a safe house raid lists hundreds of approved, high-value strike targets, including the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the White House.
• In January 2001, an Arizona flight school, JetTech, alerts the FAA about eventual 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour. They tell the FAA that Hanjour lacks both the English and flying skills necessary for the commercial pilot’s license he has already somehow obtained. The flight school will alert the FAA four more times about about Hanjour.
• Four defendants in the US embassy bombings are tried and convicted in NYC. Trial testimony reveals that at least two bin Laden operatives had taken flying lessons in Texas and Oklahoma.
  One of the defendants becomes a government witness and gives the FBI detailed information about a pilot training scheme developed by al Qaeda.
• John O'Neill’s investigation into the USS Cole bombing, though hampered by Yemeni officials and the US Ambassador, reveals a web of al-Qaeda operatives that includes future 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Almihdhar. The CIA is informed when the two enter the US in March 2000, but neither of the men are placed on the CIA watch list.
• In January, 2001, INS documents show two Mohamed Attas arriving in Miami on January 10, each offering INS agents different destination addresses. Atta is admitted, despite the condradiction and despite having overstayed his previous visa by a month.
• Immigration inspectors record that Atta, in the U.S. on tourist visa, says he is taking flying lessons in the U.S., which requires an M-1 student visa.
• In March 2001, Italian intelligence records a wiretapped conversation between two al Qaeda operatives in Milan. One asks, "Will these work for the brothers who are going to the United States?” The other responds angrily, "Don’t ever say those words again, not even joking! ... If it’s necessary ... whatever place we may be, come up and talk in my ear, because these are very important things. You must know ... that this plan is very, very secret, as if you were protecting the security of the state.” This is only one of many clues from the Italian wiretaps passed on to US intelligence in 2001.
• Future hijacker Hani Hanjour, subject of five flight school alerts to the FAA, moves with a friend to Falls Church, VA. They live only blocks away from two bin Laden nephews already under surveillance. All attend the Dar al Hijrah mosque.
  Imam Anwar Al Aulaqi, investigated by the FBI for his connections with Islamic militant groups in early 2000, moves to Falls Church in January 2001. The hijackers attend his sermons at the Dar al Hijrah mosque, just as they had when they lived (with future hijacker Khalid Almihdhar) in San Diego the year before. The FBI has documented multiple closed door meetings between the hijackers and Aulaqi in 2000.
• David Schippers, the House Judiciary Committee’s chief investigator in the Clinton impeachment trial, learns from an FBI client that US intelligence had "established the sources of the money flow of bin Laden” as early as 1996. He also receives information in May 2001 about a potential al Qaeda attack in lower Manhattan, and makes repeated attempts to warn intelligence committee members. "I couldn't get anyone to talk to me" he claims later.
• On July 10, 2001, Arizona FBI agent Ken Williams pens the Phoenix Meme memo. He warns his Washington supervisors of "...a coordinated effort by Usama bin Laden (UBL) to send students to the U.S. to attend civil aviation universities and colleges. Phoenix has observed an inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest... The inordinate number of these individuals... gives reason to believe that a coordinated effort is underway to establish a cadre of individuals who... will be in postition in the future to conduct terror activity against civil aviation targets."
  Williams makes a number of action recommendations, and further declares: "Phoenix believes that it is more than a coincidences that...supporters of UBL are attending civil aviation universities/colleges in the State of Arizona. As receiving offices are aware, Phoenic has had significant UBL associates/operatives living in the State of Arizona and conducting activity in support of UBL."
• Half of the FAA’s daily intelligence summaries in 2001 mention bin Laden, al-Qaeda, or both. While most of the references are in regard to overseas threats, at least five of them mention al-Qaeda’s training for hijackings, and two reports specify the threat of suicide operations.
• Hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi is stopped for speeding by an Oklahoma cop. The CIA has known since March 2000 that Alhazmi is an al Qaeda operative possibly living in the US, and he has been in the country illegally since January 2001, but he is issued a ticket and released.
• Hijacker Hani Hanjour starts instruction at an aviation school in NJ. He flies the Hudson Corridor, a low-altitude flight lane that passes New York landmarks like the World Trade Center, but is considered to have poor piloting skills. He switches to another air academy outside lower Manhattan, from which he rents small aircraft under his own name.
• FBI translators Sibel Edmonds and Behrooz Sarshar forward warnings from a reliable, longtime, on-the-payroll informant that Afghani sources have heard of an al Qaeda plot to attack the US and Europe in a suicide mission involving airplanes. Al Qaeda agents, already in place inside the US, are being trained as pilots. By some accounts, the specific US cities are mentioned.
  Edmonds will later testify that "there was specific information about use of airplanes, that an attack was on the way two or three months beforehand, and that several people were already in the country by May of 2001."
• An al Qaeda source speculates that "bin Laden would be interested in commercial pilots as potential terrorists." The source warns that al Qaeda is seeking "spectacular and traumatic" attacks like the '93 WTC bombing.
• Mohamed Atta is stopped at a random inspection in Florida, and receives a citation for no driver’s license. He fails to show up for his May 28 court hearing, and a warrant is issued for his arrest on June 4. Atta continues to fly across the US under his real name, and even flies to Spain and back in July.
• Atta visits a small airport in South Florida and asks detailed questions about crop-dusters. People there easily recall him because he was so persistent in his desire to pilot one Atta is told he is not skilled enough to fly a crop-duster.
• A neighbor of Imam Anwar Al Aulaqi claims that, in the first week of August 2001, Aulaqi tells him he is leaving for Kuwait, that "something very big was going to happen, and that he had to be out of the country when it happened.”
• Mohamed Atta is with the small group of Middle Eastern men who visit the crop dusting firm South Florida Crop Care nearly every weekend for six or eight weeks before 9/11. One employee recalls, "I recognized him because he stayed on my feet all the time. I just about had to push him away from me."
• Zacarias Moussaoui flies to the US. Three days later, he starts flight training in Oklahoma. He does not do well and drops out before getting a pilot’s license. His visa expires, but he doesn't attempt to renew it or get another one. He stays in Oklahoma, arranging new flight instruction.
• NSA reports "at least 33 communications indicating a possible, imminent terrorist attack" over a two-month period. The reports are widely disseminated. Some of the chatter picked up in spring and summer: "There will be attacks in the near future... Unbelievable news coming in weeks... A big event... there will be a very, very, very, very big uproar..." [NOTE: Rice later claims that all of the warnings were red herrings]
• From April to September 10, 2001, nearly half the FAA’s daily intelligence summaries mention bin Laden or al Qaeda.
• Longtime US intelligence informant Randy Glass has dinner, at Robert DiNero's Tribeca Grill, with an operative of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service. They are discussing lillegal arms shipments. Eavesdropping on the two are a dozen undercover FBI and CIA, whom Glass is working for. At the end of the dinner, Glass' companion points to the Twin Towers and quips, "And those are coming down, very soon."
• Glass acqires more info on a plot to destroy the WTC, and makes numerous calls to the State Dept and FBI. In addition, his pre-9/11 warnings to Florida Senator Bob Graham and Florida Congressman Porter Goss are on public record, and were nationally broadcast after 9/11.
• In May 2001, an Iranian immigrant, jailed in NYC, tells police of a plot to attack the World Trade Center. He tries to deal his way out of custody by offering information of the coming attack.
• The NSA intercepts telephone conversations between Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Mohamed Atta. The FBI has a $2 million reward for Mohammed at this time.
• During various cross-country flights in the summer of 2001, "Some of the hijackers were seen videotaping crews on their flights. Other times, they asked for cockpit tours. Two also rode in the cockpit of the planes of one national airline."
• Actor James Woods files a complaint with the FAA after an August 1, 2001 flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Woods says he was alarmed by the behavior of four Arab men in first class, and spoke to the crew about the possibility that they planned to hijack the planes. Those four men are later identified as four of the hijackers.
• "Some individuals within the intelligence community have suggested that the increase in threat reporting was unprecedented, at least in terms of their own experience." Two counterterrorism officials later describe the alerts of this summer as "the most urgent in decades."
• TIPOFF, the government’s main terrorist watch list, includes the names of at least two of the hijackers, before 9/11.
• On September 10, 2001, the NSA intercepts another communication between Mohammed Atta and Khalid Shaikh Muhammad. The communication states, "The match is about to begin."
• In March, 2001, Fox television airs the The Lone Gunmen, an X-Files spin-off. In the pilot episode, terrorists attempt to crash a remote-controlled commercial airliner into the WTC. The Lone Gunmen determine that "The terrorist group responsible was actually a faction of our own government. These malefactors were seeking to stimulate arms manufacturing, in the lean years following the end of the Cold War, by bringing down a plane in New York City and fomenting fears of terrorism." The show pulls good ratings.