LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Sept. 11 Commission report runs to more than 500 pages, examining nearly every aspect of the deadliest attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor.
But one tantalizing question is never answered: Why did 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and several of his co-conspirators come to Las Vegas, sometimes repeatedly, in the months leading up to the attack?
Theories abound: It was a last hurrah on the part of men who knew they would soon be dead. It was to blend into an international city so as to plan the Sept. 11 attacks. It was to scout the city for a future terrorist attack.
But, 25 years later, theories are all that we have, and answers are frustratingly scarce.
Walt Stowe, the former assistant special agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI office, had just retired from the bureau from his final posting in Chicago when Sept. 11 happened. But he says his former colleagues and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department left no stone unturned in their quest to find out why the terrorists came here.
"I think that what leads me to believe that the theory that says that they were just in Las Vegas for a last lark, that to me is a more credible theory, and the reason is because of the amount of work that the Las Vegas FBI did trying to tie these guys into something nefarious," Stowe told Channel 13 in an interview.
"If I had to bet money on it, I would bet on the theory that they just were in Las Vegas knowing they were going to die, and you know, enjoying some last-minute fun before they did what they did."
That theory is buttressed by the fact that some of the hijackers were reportedly seen at the Olympic Garden strip club on Las Vegas Boulevard, which now is known as the Peppermint Hippo.
WATCH | Why did the 9/11 terrorists visit Las Vegas?
Dori Koren, an assistant sheriff at Metro Police, has worked in counterterrorism during his police career, and says the terrorist visits forever link Las Vegas to 9/11.
"I think the one thing it tells us is that 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in history, that changed the fabric of America, has a very close connection to Las Vegas, and that's something that's lost amongst our community sometimes," he said. "They don't realize how close a connection there is."
During their visits, the terrorists rented a car and used a now-closed cyber cafe near UNLV, reportedly to check on plane flights that they would later turn into missiles to attack the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia.
"So, no doubt, all of that activity indicates there is a connection here," Koren said. "If you ask me my opinion, I would go as far as to tell you I don't believe it was coincidence that they happened to have a connection to Vegas and that they were here at different times leading up to 9/11. But I also don't think that that means they were targeting Las Vegas."
There have been attacks in the years since Sept. 11, but nothing on the scale of those attacks, including in Las Vegas. Any intelligence gathered in 2001 would be virtually useless more than two decades later, given the changes in security, counterterrorism procedures and even the architecture of the Strip itself.
"Las Vegas has changed. It's not what it was 25 years ago," Koren said.
But he also says that Las Vegas can't let its guard down, because there are people out there who want to do harm to the United States.
"If you go back to the 9/11 commission report, they identified a lack of imagination, that was the biggest failure," Koren said. "Yes, information sharing, bureaucracy, all kinds of other issues, but it was a lack of imagination for those that worked in that space and for us as a society to understand that something like that can happen. And I think that is probably one of the most important lessons today, 25 years after 9/11, we have to have the imagination of what can happen and that's the only way to stay ahead of it."
COMING FRIDAY: How the job of first responders has changed since Sept. 11
