As of 2:20 PM. 9/12/01 By Kelly
Rayburn
Daily Bruin Senior Staff White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher
said during a 1 p.m. Washington, D.C. press conference today that
United States intelligence agencies have “real and credible
information” that the plane that crashed into the Pentagon
Tuesday was headed for the White House. Fleisher said there is also
evidence that Air Force One was a terrorist target. For security
purposes, Fleisher would not detail how this information was
collected. In an earlier press briefing, Attorney General John
Ashcroft said the four planes that crashed Tuesday were hijacked by
four to six individuals per plane. The hijackers wielded knives and
box cutters. Bomb threats were made in at least one case, he added.
Some of the hijackers were trained as pilots in the United States,
Ashcroft said. Addressing the press after Ashcroft, Federal Bureau
of Investigation Director Bob Mueller said, “We will leave no
stone unturned in our quest to find those responsible and bring
those individuals to justice.” Four thousand FBI special
agents and 3,000 support personnel agents are stationed on command
posts in the cities where the planes crashed and in the cities from
which the planes departed.
With reports from Daily Bruin wire services.