LAT: Missed Opportunities Shadow 9/11 Attacks

[RamboLiberal]

Last week's hearings on the Sept. 11 attacks were like rewinding a movie with a hauntingly tragic ending. Again and again, commissioners backed up the tape and hit pause at critical passages, always with a single question in mind: If this sequence or that had taken an alternate turn, could the ending have been different?

And although almost every high-powered witness called before the Sept. 11 commission said they did not think so, the hearings brought years of U.S. counterterrorism efforts into a sharper focus that suggested a more complicated answer.

Testimony detailed unfulfilled efforts and opportunities to kill Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden; to launch Predator aircraft into the skies of Afghanistan; and, in the final months before the attacks, to mobilize intelligence across the federal government in an urgent search for clues.

Each episode was a turning point in the war on terrorism before many Americans even knew there was such a war. Each was an opportunity to deliver a blow to Al Qaeda or roll up cells whose intentions were unclear. In hindsight, they also represented chances to bump the Sept. 11 plot off its course.

[gbwarming]

1. Thoughtful summary by LAT.

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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[Cannabian]

2. Is there a link, or is it dead tree only?

Search of LA Times and Google come up empty.

[gbwarming]

3. link

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror28mar28,1,4157836.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Cannabian]

4. Thanks

Interesting that it didn't hit on the search.

[RamboLiberal]

5. Thanks for filling in link for me

Glad you caught my goof.

[Cannabian]

6. I try hard to not wear a tinfoil hat but,

I used to think that the Bushies were LIHOP. There is a ton of evidence that points in that direction. Some have suggested that they were MIHOP - hard to fathom unless you believe they are truly evil. I am now of the opinion that GW was TSTSIC (too stupid to see it coming), along with his entire administration. They reverted back to the (unresolved) issues from 1992 and completely ignored the geo-political changes since then.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. I like TSTSIC -- let's add it to the DU lexicon --

[Dover]

8. Was O'Neill mentioned once?

WHY did they brush him aside? Because they didn't WANT his intelligence on bin Laden in circulation.

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Guess I'm in a downer mood today, but as I read this article,

which appears to sum up the 9/11 Commission's findings, I'm afraid it will be easier for the public to understand Clinton's missing opportunities to take out Bin Laden, than to understand Bush & Co. completely dropping the ball -- especially with the tv news media pounding Clinton, as it seems never to miss an opportunity to do.

[dbt]

10. "No way the attacks could have been stopped."

This phrase is really starting to piss me off. When it is trotted out, the first question that needs to be asked is:

Where were the interceptors when those passenger jets went off course and did not respond?

:freak:
dbt