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 ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - An aviation security officer testified Wednesday that numerous measures could have been instituted to thwart suicide hijackers had officials known in August 2001 that Zacarias Moussaoui was an al-Qaida member plotting to fly jetliners into U.S. buildings.
Robert Cammaroto, who was in charge of issuing federal security directives to airlines in 2001, said the Federal Aviation Administration could have moved its just-under-three dozen armed federal air marshals from foreign to domestic flights, tightened security checkpoints and directed flight crews to resist rather than cooperate with hijackers. And he said most of these steps could have been ordered by FAA within a matter of hours and remained in effect indefinitely.
In 2001, "we believed airplane bombings would not involve suicide," Cammaroto told a U.S. District Court jury which must decide whether Moussaoui is executed or imprisoned for life.
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