Exact knowledge of targets and timing were not required. All the administration had to do was protect against the hijacking of commercial aircraft just that one thing. This would have meant doing such things as screening passengers, hardening cockpit doors, deploying air marshals and training air crews to resist takeover. Any one of these actions could have disrupted the attacks or acted as a deterrent.
The Commission's chapter, The System is Blinking Red, concluded that the number and severity of reported threats was unparalleled and that many officials knew something terrible was planned. This meant that a major catastrophe was about to befall our nation and, therefore, to cope with it would require immediate presidential action. To comply with its statutory mandate, the Commission had no alternative but to assess White House preparedness for the attacks.
An approaching presidential election should not have interfered with the Commission"s legal and moral obligation to assess U.S. preparedness. The Commission had two options. The first was for the Chairman to hold regular face to face meetings with opposing political sides to review the facts, allow each side to present their views and work toward a sustainable position. If these Chairman-arranged meetings did not reconcile the differences, the second option was to go ahead with a unified position on the remaining portions of the report and issue a minority report on the unresolved presidential issue. Commission minority reports are not an uncommon occurrence.
(Note: The author was personally involved in such a major conflict near the end of a Commission investigation. Under the Chairman's personal direction and active participation, the two sides met frequently, went over the facts and exchanged views. Critical differences were eventually resolved, making a minority report unnecessary.)
To this day, we do not know why our leaders left us so unprepared. Many will wonder why the President never warned the public. We may never know for sure. A major factor might have been the fear of slowing down an already troubled economy the one thing that cost Bush's father his second term. Soon after the attacks the President did call on the American people to "go shopping".
To help prevent the catastrophe, the people of the United States had to be highly aware, observant, and proactive. There had to be public and government-wide awareness as to the possibility of domestic attacks, as there was at the turn of the century under the Clinton administration. Leadership from both the President and agency heads would have stimulated a new level of energy, creativity, and cooperation within and among federal and local agencies. These actions surely would have surfaced important information from the bowels of the operating agencies and commercial flying schools, encouraged sharing of information and permitted the public to assist in averting or disrupting the attacks. With a reenergized government and public participation, the country would have been far better prepared to avert the horrible tragedy. Even the Commission recognized that "extra vigilance might have turned up an opportunity to disrupt the plot."
To illustrate, some people within government had important information, but did not know or appreciate its relevance. Uninformed as to the advanced warnings, these people were unable or too preoccupied to connect the dots. The outcome of the following two cases would surely have been different if the President had alerted the public to the threat and asked agency heads to give the matter their personal attention.
à ‚¬ An FBI field agent analysis in July suggested a Bin Laden scheme to send students to U.S. aviation schools to prepare them for future terrorist attacks. His curiosity had been aroused by the inordinate number of Muslims in training at Arizona flight schools and his fear that they would use explosives to destroy a plane in flight. No one at FBI headquarters connected the dots and the field memo died.
à ‚¬ A Muslim (named Moussaoui) was attending a flying school and stood out because with little knowledge of flying, he was interested only in learning in a few days how to take off and land a Boeing 747. The FBI field people took him into custody in August for a visa violation, but they actually wanted headquarters' approval to inspect his laptop computer and discover why he was in flying school with a large sum of unexplained cash. Again, no one at headquarters connected the dots and would not approve the computer inspection. The FBI field person protested this decision to headquarters, saying that the suspect might be planning to hijack a plane and crash it "into the World Trade Center." Headquarters still did not approve computer inspection.
It is especially important to recognize that the United States at this very time was virtually in a state of war with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Offensive action was more than justified by Bin Laden's earlier declaration of war, his previous attacks on this country and repeated warnings of new ones involving mass casualties. As the CIA Director had said, it surely was just a matter of time before he would strike again. The President should have called his National Security Council together, approved the CIA request for covert action against Bin Laden and asked the Joint Chiefs for military options. In addition, no response to the USS Cole attack showed U.S. weakness and was a horrible mistake. Bin Laden was emboldened to strike once more.
In short, the existing circumstances clearly called for two immediate actions by the President one offensive and the other defensive. An offensive action that made a lot of sense were the proposals of the previous administration and current CIA Director to use covert authority and elite military Special Forces to dispose of al-Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan and capture or kill Bin Laden. The unmanned Predator was available to search out al-Qaeda training camps and Bin Laden's whereabouts. The obvious defensive action was for the President to alert the public and all agency heads to the danger and take immediate steps to protect commercial aviation.
ADDENDUM
On August 23, two and a half weeks before 9/11, the FBI did finally brief CIA Director Tenet about the extremist Muslim (Moussaoui) learning to "take off and land" a Boeing 747. The briefing was titled "Islamic Extremist Learns To Fly." A day later, the CIA Director reportedly went to Crawford, Texas to brief the President. The Director declined to acknowledge this visit, but the Office of the Press Secretary report of Bush activities at Crawford confirms it. The President was briefed again by the CIA Director on August 31. Mr. Moussaoui was found guilty as the 20th hijacker and is now in an American prison for life.
LESSONS LEARNED
CONSEQUENCES OF IGNORING THREAT AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Failure of the Presidentand Vice-President to defend against the upcoming attacks caused untold damage to the U.S. and huge loss of precious human life. It made Osama bin Laden a world hero among Muslims, attracted many recruits to his cause and provided an excuse for the war inIraq. It gave Bin Laden hope that he could eventually bleed us into bankruptcy, a possibility that still exists.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
