911

MSNBC/Slate: Did the Media Misreport Zacarias Moussaoui's Suspicious Activities?

In the last week, Time, USA Today, and CNN all reported that accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui asked his Minnesota flight instructors to teach him how to steer a 747 but not take off or land. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd repeated the claim last Sunday. Is it fact or urban myth?

Urban myth. The facts are just the opposite: Moussaoui told his Eagan, Minn., instructors he wanted to learn only how to take off and land.


American newspapers began reporting the false story—usually sourced to anonymous government and intelligence officials—on Sept. 17. FBI Director Robert Mueller set the record straight at a Nov. 14 meeting with federal prosecutors, covered by the Associated Press and the Washington Post, and again in a Nov. 15 meeting with reporters, covered by the New York Times. An assistant director of the FBI reiterated Mueller's correction in his Feb. 6 statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee

SLATE: What You Think You Know About Sept. 11 …

The Saudi government paid off al-Qaida in exchange for immunity from terror attacks. Saudi princes knew in advance about the Sept. 11 attacks. Most of the Saudi officials who assisted al-Qaida all died mysteriously soon thereafter. The revelations in Gerald Posner's new book Why America Slept are an astonishing reminder of just how much we still don't know about Sept. 11 and its planning.


But there is also plenty that we think we know but don't. I'm not talking about shoddy conspiracy theories (that Jews were warned not to show up for work at the World Trade Center, for example) believed by the ignorant and the paranoid, but widespread misconceptions held by everyday Americans. Here are six of the most common: