Although the FBI received the credit , Diplomatic Security Service ( DSS ) special agents actually found and arrested Ramzi Ahmed Yousef , the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing . Special Agents Bill Miller and Jeff Riner were given a tip by an associate of Ramzi Yousef about his location . In coordination with the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence ( ISI ) , DSS arrested Yousef . After his arrest , Ramzi Yousef is alleged to have said to investigators " this is only the beginning . " In October 2001 in a PBS interview , former CIA Director James Woolsey claimed that Ramzi Yousef worked for Iraqi intelligence . He suggested the grand jury investigation turned up evidence pointing to Iraq that the Justice Department " brushed aside . " But Neil Herman , who headed the FBI investigation , noted " The one glaring connection that ca n't be overlooked is Yasin . We pursued that on every level , traced him to a relative and a location , and we made overtures to get him back . " However , Herman says that Yasin 's presence in Baghdad does not mean Iraq sponsored the attack : " We looked at that rather extensively . There were no ties to the Iraqi government . " CNN terrorism reporter Peter L. Bergen writes , " In sum , by the mid - '90s , the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York , the F.B.I. , the U.S. Attorney 's office in the Southern District of New York , the C.I.A. , the N.S.C. , and the State Department had all found no evidence implicating the Iraqi government in the first Trade Center attack . " Claims of direct Iraqi involvement come from Dr. Laurie Mylroie of the American Enterprise Institute and former associate professor of the U.S. Naval War College , with the claims rejected by others . CNN reporter Peter Bergen has called her a " crackpot " who claimed that " Saddam was not only behind the '93 Trade Center attack , but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade , from the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to the leveling of the federal building in Oklahoma City bombing to September 11 itself . " Daniel Benjamin , a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies , writes : " The most knowledgeable analysts and investigators at the CIA and at the FBI believe that their work conclusively disproves Mylroie 's claims . " Dr. Robert Leiken of the Nixon Center comments on the lack of evidence in her work : " Laurie has discovered Saddam 's hand in every major attack on US interests since the Persian Gulf War , including U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and even the federal building in Oklahoma City . These allegations have all been definitively refuted by the FBI , the National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB ) and other investigatory bodies .... " In March 2008 , the Pentagon released its study of some 600,000 documents captured in Iraq after the 2003 invasion ( see 2008 Pentagon Report ) . The study " found no ' smoking gun ' ( i.e. , direct connection ) between Saddam 's Iraq and al Qaeda . " Among the documents released by the Pentagon was a captured audio file of Saddam Hussein speculating that the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center had been carried out by Israel or American intelligence , or perhaps a Saudi or Egyptian faction . Saddam said that he did not trust the bomber Yasin , who was in Iraqi custody , because his testimony was too " organized . " The Pentagon study found that Yasin " was a prisoner , and not a guest , in Iraq . " Mylroie denied that this was proof of Saddam 's non-involvement , claiming that " one common purpose of such meetings was to develop cover stories for whatever Iraq sought to conceal . " In the wake of the bombing and the chaotic evacuation which followed , the World Trade Center and many of the firms inside of it revamped emergency procedures , particularly with regard to evacuation of the towers . The New York Port Authority was to govern as the main security for the World Trade buildings . All packages were scanned at various checkpoints then sent up to the proper addressee . These policies played a role in evacuating the building during the September 11 attacks , which destroyed the towers
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
1993 World Trade Center bombing