Did CIA Drop the Ball in Terrorism Fight?

I think it is too late to try the blame game. The attacks happened, we should make our national defense stronger, and move on.

Are you kidding? The CIA even paid for the flight school training. Osama and al Qaeda were on the protected list, and any vital information about the up coming attacks was promptly squelched. Those "hijackers" were tracked for years. One of the "informers" even roomed with one, and regularly went to prayer time together. All the info is in:

"Elite Sponsored Terrorism" by Paul Joseph Watson.

That would defiitely open a few eyes.

Good article.

I've read various accounts claiming the CIA was engaged in Iraq war planning as soon as Dubya took office and all activites were skewed toward that end. As such they were "unprepared" for Bin Laden. True? False? or most likely, half true?

Yes, I've also read reports (including in Tenet's book) saying that the Administration was looking at Iraq options long before 9/11. Tenet suggests he was trying to heighten awareness of bin Laden, but the WH wasn't all that interested. Frankly, it could all be just him covering his buttocks, so it's hard to say what was really the case.

I believe that, while Tenet left much to be desired as director of the CIA, he is another scapegoat in the administration's efforts to conceal it's preconceived bias toward an all-out attack of Iraq. Meanwhile, the Attorney General seems to be too stubborn to leave. The administration should be grateful that Tenet stepped down, so they didn't have the embarassment of having to fire him.

It's unbelievable to me that 19 allegedly amateur "pilots" would be able to maneuver jumbo jets in highly complex ways like circling around the Pentagon at low altitudes and high speeds.

How could these people possible evade the world's most advanced air defenses? Why didn't SAC (Strategic Air Command) respond? After all, there was no contact with the planes for a long time and they veered off course. There are many military installations in the NE and Midwest. The normal response to that is to scramble military jets and assess the situation!

James

Actually, the really wasn't a whole lot of maneuvering around of the airliners. They took flight lessons enough to steer, but obviously not to take off and land, which are the really tricky parts. Also, air defenses rely on radar, so flying low enough and turning off the transponders (which they did) can keep SAC guessing. And SAC did respond, but finding the right targets out of several thousand commercial airliners isn't the easiest thing to do. Military jets were scrambled, but you really can't expect them to shoot down commercial airliners at random. It really was a rather unique event and there were a lot of people second guessing themselves in those couple of hours.

The report itself looked at whether enough was done before 9/11 and concluded there was not enough done. Seems to be a foregone conclusion, since we obviously didn't stop the events of that day. But could we have done more?

I think these reports are little more than people covering their asses. Enough CIA personnel resigned to suggest that there was a great deal of dissatisfaction among the rank and file in the CIA. Two sources stated that the Bush administration was obsessed with Iraq prior to 9/11. Paul O'Neil and Richard Clark both reported this independently. Officials from the Clinton administration stated that the Bush administration was warned that bin Laden and Al Qaeda was the most important threat.

This adminstration has demonstrated great capability in ignoring facts in pursuit of an agenda. We see the same thing today.

I hope to read the link tomorrow and maybe comment then, too sleepy now ...

I have now read it and will suffice to say that I go along with Steve B. on that.

I will not here go into the more intuitive and spiritual view I hold about all of that, but it does explain the fundamental thinking going on and where that may well take us all if we do not seek the deeper truths.

Steve and Jerry,

Yes, the report is rehashing old news (it was published two years ago and just declassified and released this year). A lot of cya going on as all parties try to create their version of history.

Clearly we didn't do enough to identify and stop 9/11. The question remains: Could we have?

If Al Gore had paid attention when the Iran Contral Scandal was going on a couple decades ago, Oliver North, warned then of an upcoming terrorists, who even scared Ollie North, Gore laughed, at North, this is according to a documentary that I watched, Interesting enough, no one really has a right to put fingers at the Bush administration, when the USA taught him (Bin Laden) how to fight and even suppied him and his buddies supplies to fight the Russians, then Bin Laden turned against us, and caused death and destruction for years, but the US didnt pay much attention to him. So if there is any finger pointing to be done, we need to blame the administrations before Bush , there was alot of neglect towards capturing him, now we have a monster on our hands. If he was taken out several years ago, there wouldnt be all of these crazy fanatics, suicide bombers, etc. running around, trying to kill anyone who does not think and worship as they do. While Clinton was in office, Bin Laden ,was in their sights a couple of times. One time, there was supposed to been children there, so they didnt kill him, another time , Clintons lawyers supposidely said , not to do this at this time. I have never put much stock into anything the Clintons have said, so I guess, the old blame my lawyer said no, could be another way of the Clintons placing the blame on someone else. Bin Laden seems to live a charmed life, he is untouchable and I wonder what the reason, is behind this...maybe, there is another conspiracy to this... whats wrong with you 9/11 conspiracy people, why , havent you come up with one for Bin Laden not being captured, surely, you wont look at the facts and go far enough back to find out how many times, he could of been captured, but wasnt , you will start with Bush and blame him for this too.

Thanks Vickey

There definitely is a lot of "woulda, coulda, shoulda" to go around. It's embarrassing to have to watch everyone clamoring over each other to lay blame on someone else. Perhaps we could have done things differently, but pointing fingers isn't going to make us any better at stopping the next try.

Perhaps we should start by making it clear to our represenatives that they should be watching out for our interests rather than their own.