Reply #1: Thoughtful summary by LAT. [View All]

[gbwarming]

Most of the news outlets skipped the analysis and just reported the 'couldn't have stopped it' soundbites.

The LAT finds the nugget here. Despite massive warnings, Bush* didn't shake the tree, didn't make it a priority. Let it happen.


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Meanwhile, the summer of 2001 was marked by such a spike in intelligence traffic that counterterrorism officials were in a state of panic. Clarke said he pushed for an all-out effort by an array of government agencies to scrub their databases for clues to threats to U.S. targets.

Such an effort had played a big part in disrupting a wave of attacks Al Qaeda was planning for the millennium, leading to roll-ups of suspected cells in Brooklyn, Boston and Montreal, as well as disruptions of plots in Jordan and other nations, authorities said.

Had such a push been ordered in the summer of 2001, authorities might have discovered a collection of unconnected dots, including the so-called Phoenix memo — an e-mail warning from an FBI agent that terrorists might be enrolled in U.S. flight schools — as well as the information on Alhazmi and Almihdhar, according to investigators.
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