"Boy, do I feel dumb."
You should pat yourself on the back.
The events in NYC and DC did not begin the morning of 9/11. It began with the high-level assassination in Afghanistan of Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban, anti-AQ resistance on 9/9/01.
From over here, that sounds like a footnote. But after the 9/11 Report, it seems evident the new administration was planning to go after AQ in a way the previous one had not. Massoud was key to the ongoing efforts to eliminate AQ leadership. There was no greater enemy they faced pre-9/11.
9+9+1=19
stepping back in time to 2004:
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=888252004
email article
"British targets in al-Qaeda bombing plot "
JAMES KIRKUP POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Key points
• British security forces on alert for al-Qaeda attacks
• Alarm comes after terror group member is interrogated
• US also increases vigilance
Key quote
This is not the usual chatter. This is multiple sources that involve extraordinary detail. Everyone that has reviewed the sources has concluded this was as reliable a group of sources as we have ever seen before." - Tom Ridge, US homeland security secretary
Story in full BRITAIN’S security forces were yesterday put on "heightened readiness" for a potential terrorist attack, after detailed al-Qaeda plans to attack UK targets were uncovered.
The plans, discovered by Pakistani and CIA intelligence officers interrogating an al-Qaeda member in Pakistan, were considered credible enough for the US authorities to step up their threat warnings and reinforce security around banks and financial institutions in New York and Washington.
In a sign of the gravity of the threat, US officials took the unusual step of revealing the names of the companies and organisations that could be targeted.
Among them was Citigroup, a US investment bank with offices in Edinburgh and London. A company spokeswoman confirmed yesterday that the bank’s British staff had been "made aware" of increased security precautions following the threat.
Another bank listed as a potential target, Prudential Financial, also has subsidiaries based in London.
The warning yesterday was the culmination of what intelligence experts say are growing signs of another major al-Qaeda strike, perhaps on the scale of the 11 September attacks.
Magnus Ranstorp, the director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism at St Andrews University, compared the level of anxiety in the intelligence community to that in summer 2001."