Memo in focus

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A July 2001 memo by an FBI agent warning that Osama bin Laden might send terrorists to the United States for flight training was disregarded by headquarters, which was unaware officials previously tried to identify Middle Eastern flight students in this country, a congressional investigator said Tuesday.

The investigator said the failure to connect the so-called Phoenix memo with the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui a month later -- and a general increase of terrorist alerts -- represented major intelligence failings before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"No one will ever know whether a greater focus on the connection between these events would have led to the unraveling of the Sept. 11 plot," said Eleanor Hill, staff director for the inquiry by the House and Senate intelligence committees into the attacks.