[1066AD]

O'Neill and his FBI colleagues were onto them, only to be frustrated by the secrecy and competitiveness of the CIA. Rival agents ended up shouting at each other at a meeting on June 11, exactly three months before the devastation. Incredibly, as the ruins smoked on September 12, an FBI agent was finally shown photographs of the plotters the CIA had known were in America for a year and a half.

Is this not the famous "wall" in action ? CIA & FBI forbidden to collaborate ?

[brityank]

Is this not the famous "wall" in action ? CIA & FBI forbidden to collaborate ?

Exactly. Thank you Democrats AND Republicans.

[Vigilanteman]

And 8 years of 'Toon as president, more interested in junkets to China, campaign cash, the thrill of controlling the levers of power and the adventures in the oral office.

And 8 months of a new administration more interested in making nice and "reaching out" with breads and circuses rather than the basic responsibilities of government-- protecting its borders and its citizens.

And too many holdovers from the previous administration who were incompetent or even fifth-columnists because the new administration was unwilling to clean house too much after a close election.

And airport security who thought Atta and his companion were suspicious but was afraid to stop and profile them due to the threat of ACLU lawsuits and ACLU appointees on the Supreme Court who would back them up.

[TomGuy]

National Geographic has a program on tonight called Triple Cross: Bin Laden's Spy in America (9:00 p.m EDT).

[I don't get NG Channel. It does sound interesting. It is about the spy who infiltrated the US Army, FBI and CIA and provided information to bin laden.]

[The Great RJ]

It is relatively easy to connect the historical dots knowing what actually happened on 9-11, but at the time no one could have put together what was going to happen. It is no different than the endless speculation about Pearl Harbor and whether Roosevelt, Churchill, military intelligence the code breakers etc. could have forewarned the Navy about December 7th.

[Sir Gawain]

Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian intellectual who is deemed the founder of radical Islam

BZZZZT. Wrong. That would be Mohammed.

[VOA]

Wright starts in post-war decolonisation, the seed-bed of Jihad, with
Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian intellectual who is deemed the founder of
radical Islam...

I can't recall the name of the documentary...
but I heard that two things really torqued Qutb during his stay
university days in Greeley, CO:

1. The clothing that American women wore
2. Lawns.

Yep, American-style lawns set off this guy.

And the Leftists still refuse to call the Islamists evil.
Let alone insane in their worldview.

[7thson]

O'Neill was also deeply flawed. He abandoned his wife while maintaining simultaneous affairs with three mistresses, all of whom he promised to marry. They met for this first time at his funeral. If he had been less abrasive at work, where he was loathed, the various agencies just might have connected the dots in time.

Is this true? Should it be told? Why is there such a demand to destroy heros and people of action? This was reading pretty good until that last sentence. It is as there is some need to bring everyone down to the level of the Clintons and people like them. And if they cannot find some nugget of dirt on someone or some great individual, then they just make it up - like with Jesus and the whole Da Vinci code thing. I just cannot understand it.

[AJFavish]

Read these articles:

http://www.allanfavish.com/the_9_11_commission_report.htm

Read the books "1,000 Years for Revenge" and "Cover-up" at http://www.peterlance.com

[MNJohnnie]

an FBI agent was finally shown photographs of the plotters the CIA had known were in America for a year and a half

AKA 09-11 Commissioner Jamie Gorlick's Wall.

[jeffers]

Finally, someone else who recognizes that Bin Laden is so afraid of his own weapon that he closes his eyes when firing it, somebody else who recognizes that the "ultra-sophisticated" 9-11 plot was a poorly executed abortion that got lucky, someone else who recognizes that Ayman Al Zawahiri has taken advantage of an effeminate rich idiot in Osama Bin Laden and pulls the strings, perfectly content to let the 17th son of a rich guy's wife number four (the one that rish guys swap in and out for variety) who never got enough attention from his father because he was the son of a literal whore stand up front and take all the credit.

Now, if we could just deal with some of the other misinformation presented in this thread....high points:

1. Op-Plan Bojinka, the original roots of 9/11 as authored by Khalid Shiek Mohammed, planned to hijack numerous A/C and blow them up over the Pacific. A test run was executed, a small bomb left on-board one flight, a Japanese engineer was killed when it later detonated. KSM hinself was supposed to ride on hijacked a/c, rig it with explosives, land at a central US airport, make a speech to the press, then blow himself and the a/c up.

Osama Bin Laden (read Ayman al Zawahiri), revised the plan to use 4 or 5 a/c and drive them into buildings. A videotape of him discussing his pre-attack engineering calcualtions appeared well after the event.

I am aware of no pre-attack warnings or indicators with two exceptions, one fiction aiuthor Tom Clancy, and two, an abortive plot to fill a small private a/c with explosives and fly it into CIA HQ at Langley, circa 1993 if memory serves. This on the basis of extensive reserach into the subject, hazy memories may tie bits and pieces together when not warranted, but numerous texts do not support the conclusion that any plan of the attack was pre-published that I have seen to date. Citations to the contrary are welcomed, but highly unlikely.

2. There was good reason behind the "wall" between FBI and CIA, two of them in fact. One, the Fourth Amendment specifically provides for citizen's privacy, not to be infringed by government agencies. CIA was limited to overseas gathering, FBI, subject to much more stringent search and seizure regulation, was limited to domestic investigation.

Two, the FBI's mandate was to criminally charge and convict offenders, therefore evidence accumulated through CIA, not subject to strict evidenciary handling regulations would poison potential court cases.

That this "wall" created a loophole for terrorists to attack us is not in any doubt what-so-ever, but there was good reason for the wall to begin with, we all just made a mistake. Itr does little good for the 9/11 victims, but that loophole has been addressed, to some apparant success, now.

3. Bush didn't ignore Afghanistan and Al Qaeda for the first 8 months of his Administration, he took the wisest course of action possible.

Recognizig that Bill Clinton had no, zero, did not exist, policy for Afghanistan, the nation-state that supported Al Qaeda (or vice versa), he delegated his NSC to formulate one. The principle's seconds did so, and arrived at a policy to support the Northern Alliance in efforts to topple the Taliban and open the road to extraditing or assassinating Osama Bin Laden.

This policy was not thrown together in a few days, it was carefully researched and formulated and ready for presentation and signature on September 10th, 2001. Due to scheduling issues ot was postponed, and later formed the backbone of the plan which eventually reduced the Taliban militarily and freed Afghanistan.

[The KG9 Kid]

"... Is this not the famous "wall" in action ? CIA & FBI forbidden to collaborate?"

Yes. Jamie Gorelick's 'wall of seperation'. It was her baby.

That's the reason she sat on the investigator's side of the table in the 9/11 hearings. It kept her from being sat down in the hot seat.