How did 9/11 happen?The Bush administration is giving three main excuses for failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks. First, they're claiming that while they knew Al Qaeda was planning something, they had no specifics Second, they're claiming that there was a legal firewall between the intelligence agencies, especially the FBI and the CIA. Third ... well, let's mention the third excuse later.
Let's take these excuses in order.
The first excuse is that they didn't have specific information. President Bush himself had said repeatedly that if he had known Al Qaeda was going to hijack planes and fly them into buildings he would have done something to stop it. This sounds like a schoolchild complaining that he failed his math test because "the teacher didn't tell us that '3 + 4' would be one of the problems." It is the President's job to know what threats exist. It is his job, and the job of his security advisors, to put the pieces together.
One result of this excuse is that we're inundated with reports of "nonspecific" threats, which may or may not be "corroborated". The Department of Homeland Security no longer bothers to bounce the "threat level" between yellow and orange (as if the difference mattered), but they keep spewing out reports.
Another result is that Americans have no reason to believe anything the Bush administration says, since they don't have "specific information" to support their statements. And we can't afford to have a country where, on major issues of national security, we can't believe our President.
The second excuse is that different agencies couldn't share information. The beginning of the truth behind this excuse is that agencies such as the FBI and the CIA are forbidden from sharing much of what they know. The rest of the truth is that the National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, receives reports from both of these agencies, as well as many others, and she and her staff can certainly compare information. In fact, it's their job.
And they failed.
But these excuses, and the incompetence behind them, are not why 9/11 happened.
The third excuse came as part of Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission. She testified that President Bush said he was "tired of swatting flies." She was then asked what Bush defined as "swatting flies". She didn't answer the question.
Perhaps she didn't answer because she knew it was the wrong question. Perhaps she didn't answer because she was afraid that by answering the wrong question she might open the door to the right question. Because the right question is, "Was President Bush deliberately waiting until something large happened, so he could invade Iraq?"
In other words, did George W. Bush invite, or at least allow, the 9/11 attacks, as President Roosevelt was accused of inviting the attack on Pearl Harbor in order to get the U.S. into World War II?
We know that George W. Bush started looking for an excuse to invade Iraq within days of taking office. We know that as soon as he got around to listening to the reports of the 9/11 attacks he demanded a way to blame Iraq. We know that he invented a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda - a connection that the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, appointed by George W. Bush himself, says never existed. We know that he pretended that Hussein had programs to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. We know he lied to Congress, we know he lied to the American people, and we know he lied to the world.
It is clear that George W. Bush desperately wanted to remove Saddam Hussein from power. It is also clear that he was willing to use any excuse he could get - or invent - to achieve his goal.
And it is also clear that there were plenty of warning signs prior to 9/11, signs that George W. Bush refused to look at.
Copyright 2004, Dan Jacoby
For a PDF version of this document, click here.
To contact Dan Jacoby, click here.
Return to the Main Menu