It could have been a lot worse...

At least, that's the take at a number of newsrooms. One network reports, aside from the 19 al Qaeda suspects involved in the September 11th attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, several other Osama bin Laden loyalists tried unsuccessfully to get into the country. Had they made it, ABC reports they would have tried to hijack more than the four aircraft involved in the attacks.

ABC News quotes Roger Cressey, the former director for counterterrorism for the National Security Council, as saying, "Our assumption at the White House at the time was that there were more attacks planned. Maybe not on 9/11 but certainly afterward. [Osama] bin Laden and his people think strategically."

One document used by prosecutors in the Zacarious Moussaoui case and only recently declassified says "as late as August 2001 al Qaeda was still trying to insert new hijackers into the September 11th attacks."

The identities of those who tried but failed to expand the attacks were discovered in caves during the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The names were compared to a list of visa applications from people who wanted to come to America.

Some of the terrorists have been captured. Others have been killed. But one is still on the loose and officials are worried he may still be in the United States. 

As Many As Ten Jets Were Planned For Takeover

The theory by law enforcement is corroborated to some extent by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. He's the 9/11 mastermind arrested last March in Pakistan. He's reportedly been cooperating ever since. ABC reports Mohammad told investigators up to ten passenger jets were targeted for take-over, including five flights originating in Los Angeles International and San Francisco.

But al Qaeda ringleader Osama bin Laden reportedly trimmed that plan because it was getting too complicated.

FMI: www.tsa.gov