Friday, March 7, 2008
The Huffington Post weighs in; readers in Oz; viewers in D.C.
There's a splendid review of the book on the Huffington Post by the novelist Elizabeth Benedict, and she has also posted a q-and-a that she conducted with me about the organization of the book and about my views of Condoleezza Rice. The Huffington Post review is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-benedict/philip-shenons-commi_b_90481.html. Secretary Rice is also the focus of a long excerpt from the book that is being published this weekend by the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. Here's that link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/they-knew-but-did-nothing/2008/03/07/1204780065676.html. The Herald's excerpt is timed to publication of the book in Australia by Little Brown, which has also just published the book in the U.K. So far, no word on an Australian book tour, unfortunately. My C-SPAN interview with Michael Duffy of Time magazine airs the first time tomorrow night -- and then repeats and repeats, I'm pleased to report. Phil Shenon
1 Comments:
On July 10, 2001 CIA Director Tenet, CTC Director Black and 'Rich' (Chief of Alec Station, name classified) gave NSA Rice an urgent briefing because the terrorist threat level was so high. Deputy NSA Hadley and (former) counterterrorism czar Clarke were also at the meeting. Where was the FBI? The FBI has jurisdiction in the US, thus it is logical to think that other agencies would make sure intelligence was shared with the FBI. Why weren't acting FBI Director Pickard, Watson (head of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division), Middleton (head of the FBI's UBLU) or Frasca (head of the FBI's RFU) at this meeting?
According to the executive summary of the CIA IG internal review report, 50 to 60 agents read cables which apparently indicated that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar had US visas. The knowledge that two al Qaeda operatives with links to the African embassy bombings and the Cole attack were in the US wasn't a minor detail that would filed away in a 'rainy day' filing cabinet. It would have been a very, very big deal.
Am I forgetting the so called turf battle? Not at all. Rice, Hadley and Clarke weren't CIA. In fact, they were coordinators to a degree. They were supposed to make sure different agencies were sharing intel. If the FBI wasn't in the loop how on earth did CIA expect a terrorist attack to be prevented? Invasion of Afghanistan was a strategic goal. Sharing intelligence with the FBI so they could surveil and arrest al Qaeda operatives was a tactical goal. Many defenders of the Bush administration suggest that before 9/11 there wasn't sufficient public support for strategic efforts. Fine. No argument there. That explanation does not account for the tactical failures. The tactical failures were bizarre. We are talking about failures to follow standard procedure.
We have also never learned why both CIA and the FBI failed to put al Qaeda operatives on the FAA's no fly list. Claudio Manno (head of the FAA Intelligence Division at the time) told the Joint Inquiry that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar would have been picked up in the reservation process. One wonders why the FBI tasked an agent to do a physical search for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar yet evidently nobody thought of calling the FAA. The FAA received 52 warnings related to al Qaeda in the lead up to 9/11. Thus, this failure was bizarre.
IMO, the circumstantial evidence does not support the notion of incompetence or systemic failures. It seems something more sinister took place.
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