started watching the new Mini series on Hulu called “The Looming Tower” based on the book of the same name, so far it is pretty good but frustrating seeing the missed opportunities and the infighting between the CIA and FBI that led to 9-11
FBI misses a lot...
9-11 Warnings:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/18/us/traces-of-terrorism-the-warnings-fbi-knew-for-years-about-terror-pilot-training.html
TRACES OF TERRORISM: THE WARNINGS; F.B.I. Knew for Years About Terror Pilot Training
The F.B.I. knew by 1996 of a specific threat that terrorists in Al Qaeda, Mr. bin Laden’s network, might use a plane in a suicide attack against the headquarters of the C.I.A. or another large federal building in the Washington area, the law enforcement officials acknowledged.
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/oct/14/news/mn-57084
Haunted by Years of Missed Warnings
As suspected terrorists traversed the U.S. over a decade, signs pointing to their plans went unheeded until after the attacks were carried out.
Federal authorities also knew that Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center, later planned to blow up 12 United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines jumbo jets over the Pacific Ocean. After the plot was uncovered in 1995, a co-conspirator, Abdul Hakim Murad, told police in the Philippines that he had hoped to hijack a passenger plane and crash it into CIA headquarters outside Washington. Murad had attended four U.S. flight schools.
Yet no surveillance was in place to scrutinize aspiring pilots or to raise a warning flag when the men who would eventually hijack four jetliners Sept. 11 trained at flight schools around the country.
Orlando Shooting:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/06/13/vennochi/MyMQCrKJ4JpasZhgHNPGiO/story.html
FBI missed the warning signs again
The FBI, under director James Comey, knew about Omar Mateen.
FROM BOSTON, IT sounds very familiar.
Omar Mateen slipped through the hands of federal law enforcement authorities just like Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Boston Marathon Bombing:
https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/06/fbi-knew-earlier-of-boston-bombing-suspect-166313
Deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to the attention of the FBI on at least two occasions prior to a Russian government warning in March 2011 that said he appeared to be radicalizing, FBI Director Robert Mueller said in Congressional testimony this week.
The earlier references have led some lawmakers to question whether the FBI acted too quickly in closing an assessment of Tsarnaev’s potential ties to terrorism done in response to the Russian request.
Nairobi Embassy Bombing:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/23/world/nairobi-embassy-received-warning-of-coming-attack.html
NAIROBI EMBASSY RECEIVED WARNING OF COMING ATTACK
Nine months before the attack on the American Embassy here, United States intelligence officials received a detailed warning that Islamic radicals were plotting to blow up the building, according to Kenyan and American officials.
The warning forecast the Aug. 7 bombing in several particulars, the officials said. It came from an Egyptian man who American officials now believe was involved in the simultaneous terrorist assaults on the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The Egyptian, Mustafa Mahmoud Said Ahmed, is now in jail in Tanzania, charged by local prosecutors with bombing the embassy there.
Cole Bombing:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/01/31/cole.intelligence/index.html
Pentagon panel unaware of 1998 warning of ship attack in Yemen.
FBI heard of plot to attack U.S. ship before USS Cole bombing
The Pentagon commission that declared there was no intelligence glitch that left the USS Cole open to attack was unaware that a suspected terrorist had warned the FBI of a plot to attack a U.S. warship in Yemen years before the bombing.
Pentagon officials continued Wednesday to downplay the significance of the warning, noting it was two years old and came from a suspect being questioned in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Kenya who was seeking to make a deal with U.S. authorities.
Parkland Shooting:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/06/politics/fbi-tip-congress-parkland-shooting-florida/index.html
FBI tells House members tips missed ahead of Parkland shooting
Bowdich told lawmakers in a private briefing Tuesday that the FBI had received two tips — one last September and one in January — about the threat that Nikolas Cruz posed to his community in Parkland, Florida, according two sources familiar with the matter. The first tip came following a YouTube post that asserted that Cruz wanted to be a school shooter, something that was directed to a field office in Jackson, Mississippi. The agent in charge of the matter investigated the issue, but that agent was unable to make any headway in the investigation, failing to determine who Cruz was.