THE failure to follow up the Manchester man’s disclosure to the FBI in March 2000 that Al-Qaeda operatives were moving into America to hijack a plane and fly it into a building was one of a string of missed opportunities to avert the September 11 attacks. The US commission investigating 9/11 has said the FBI and CIA did not act on what can be seen as strong leads to an enemy that had long claimed to be preparing massive strikes.
This is partly because the FBI’s counterterrorism department was small and underfunded. Efforts were hampered by an antiquated computer system and rivalries between the FBI and CIA. When the CIA realised two Al-Qaeda operatives were in the country it did not tell the FBI for months and did so only 19 days before they flew a jet into the Pentagon. In May 2001 a caller to the American embassy in the United Arab Emirates said an Al-Qaeda cell was planning an onslaught.
In July 2001 a Phoenix FBI agent wrote that terrorists might be attending flight-training schools in America. His memo was dismissed.
