Missed Signals
The Roadmap to 9/11
Introduction: Questions for Everyone
Why the U.S. Didn't Hear the Terrorist WarningsBy Matthew J. Malone
In the decades leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government often responded to terrorism like an old farmer trying to clear weeds with a dull scythe. Blunted by political agendas, bureaucratic inefficiency and lack of resolve, government institutions — from the INS and FAA to Congress and the intelligence community — faltered at critical moments and demonstrated varying degrees of effort to address the threat posed by terrorism. As former U.S. senator Chuck Robb said in 1998 when he heard warnings about terrorist activity from an anti-Taliban politician from Afghanistan: "We have always suffered from a degree of attention deficit disorder." Full Story
"The Hay in the Haystack"
America's Intelligence Failure Was in the Details
By Matthew J. Malone
Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the question of an "intelligence failure" has been tossed around like a muddy football, dirtying the hands of policymakers, the military, national security agencies, law enforcement and presidential administrations. It is as much a political question as a procedural one; for better or worse, the performance and ability of institutions charged with national security is inextricably linked to the wisdom and whim of policymakers. As such, the suggestion that more than 3,000 deaths might have been prevented rightly troubles Americans. It shakes the country's faith in its leaders, its sense of security, its unspoken allegiance to manifest destiny; it awakens citizens to their civic apathy; and it requires an uncomfortable level of national introspection.
Many signposts exist on the road to Sept. 11. News of car bombs and hijackings has appeared in the black ink of newspapers for decades. Americans have heard the vituperation of their enemies on the radio, seen their flag torched and leaders burned in effigy on the evening news. But they never fully read the signs. They never heard the footsteps on Main Street. They never saw the enemy arriving in their backyard. Full Story
Wake Up Calls
The U.S. Got a Look at the Future from the 1990s Terrorism Trials
By Emily Fancher
Some politicians, law enforcement officials and pundits have said that Sept. 11 constituted a failure of the American imagination. But the attack possibly reflected a failure of much more. Interviews with law enforcement sources and an examination of trial transcripts in the Razmi Ahmed Yousef case and other terrorist cases in the mid-1990s show that the intelligence community may have mishandled terrorist investigations. Yousef's plan to topple the towers revealed the symbolic importance and vulnerability of the buildings. Abdul Hakim Murad's plan—it sounded like the plot of a bad movie—to fly a plane into CIA headquarters foretold of terrorists using aircraft as suicide bombs to destroy significant American structures.
Had the intelligence community and the U.S. government heeded the chilling words of these men, could they have prevented Sept. 11? Had they listened more intently to all the tapes, interviews and testimony in this trial as well as several others would things be different now? Had they analyzed the material, dissected it and dug deeper into it, would thousands of lives have been lost? Full Story
"A Sense of What Was Coming"
What the Embassy Bombing Trial Told America About the Terrorist Threat
By Leila Abboud
In hindsight, the embassy bombings trial was a signal, a detailed roadmap that led straight to Sept. 11. The government, in building the case and presenting it, amassed an amazing amount of information, all of which led to the question of why and how the disaster happened when so many people, from the FBI, the CIA and other intelligence agencies, knew so much.
During the trial, prosecutors laid out the entire history of al Qaeda from its roots during the Soviet war in Afghanistan to its relocation to the Sudan in 1991, and its progression to targeting American military interests and civilians by 1996. Two former al Qaeda operatives testified for seven days, describing terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, the group's leadership structure and how legitimate businesses in the Sudan funded terrorist attacks. In opening arguments, prosecutors described how the embassy bombings were planned and executed as part of al Qaeda's mission to target American military and civilian interests around the world. An exhibit was presented containing an al Qaeda training manual with 18 lessons on everything from how to evade notice at airport customs to how to survive in prison if arrested. Full Story
A Matter of Policy
In Search of a Strategy for Afghanistan
By Elizabeth Kramer
On October 8, 1998, Dr. Abdallah Abdallah, a representative from Afghanistan's northern faction fighting the Taliban, appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.
He was a frustrated man.
Addressing Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, he said, "I am
at loss regarding American policy. I have tried to be a friend of the United
States. I have tried to understand your interests. Every time a U.S. official
has visited northern Afghanistan I have welcomed him. I have cooperated in your
efforts to recover weapons used against the Soviet Union. But why did the U.S.
support Pakistan and the Taliban, who have allowed terrorists to operate from
their territory, and who have worked closely with terrorists? These terrorists
kill your citizens." Full Story
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