The financier is suspected of providing money for the Sept. 11 plot and other operations.

Let's say that 50 years from now, some low-level participants in the Sept. 11 terrorist plot are caught.

Financial safeguards also failed to detect the money trail behind the Sept. 11 plot.

The Americans credit the information with helping piece together aspects of the Sept. 11 plot.

Mr. Moussaoui's significance and whether he had a role in the Sept. 11 plot remain under investigation.

But he has also said he was not part of the Sept. 11 plot and does not deserve or want to be executed.

But law enforcement officials say there is no evidence either man had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot.

Investigators say they are still interested in both men, but they are not certain that they had anything to do with the Sept. 11 plot.

Yet no one has made an adequate case that our intelligence agencies failed to detect the Sept. 11 plot because we lacked surveillance power.

Other officials are reluctant to play down the continuing threat of another extensive Sept. 11-type plot.