A Review Of The Fbi S Handling Of Intelligence Information Related To The September 11 Attacks

A review of the FBI's handling of intelligence information related to the September 11 attacks

In this explosive, controversial, and profoundly alarming insider’s report, Senator Bob Graham reveals faults in America’s national security network severe enough to raise fundamental questions about the competence and honesty of public officials in the CIA, the FBI, and the White House. For ten years, Senator Graham served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he had access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Graham co-chaired a historic joint House-Senate inquiry into the intelligence community’s failures. From that investigation and his own personal fact-finding, Graham discovered disturbing evidence of terrorist activity and a web of complicity: • At one point, a terrorist support network conducted some of its operations through Saudi Arabia’s U.S. embassy–and a funding chain for terrorism led to the Saudi royal family. • In February 2002, only four months after combat began in Afghanistan, the Bush administration ordered General Tommy Franks to move vital military resources out of Afghanistan for an operation against Iraq–despite Franks’s privately stated belief that there was a job to finish in Afghanistan, and that the war on terrorism should focus next on terrorist targets in Somalia and Yemen. • Throughout 2002, President Bush directed the FBI to limit its investigations of Saudi Arabia, which supported some and possibly all of the September 11 hijackers. • The White House was so uncooperative with the bipartisan inquiry that its behavior bore all the hallmarks of a cover-up. • The FBI had an informant who was extremely close to two of the September 11 hijackers, and actually housed one of them, yet the existence of this informant and the scope of his contacts with the hijackers were covered up. • There were twelve instances when the September 11 plot could have been discovered and potentially foiled. • Days after 9/11, U.S. authorities allowed some Saudis to fly, despite a complete civil aviation ban, after which the government expedited the departure of more than one hundred Saudis from the United States. • Foreign leaders throughout the Middle East warned President Bush of exactly what would happen in a postwar Iraq, and those warnings went either ignored or unheeded. As a result of his Senate work, Graham has become convinced that the attacks of September 11 could have been avoided, and that the Bush administration’s war on terrorism has failed to address the immediate danger posed by al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. His book is a disturbing reminder that at the highest levels of national security, now more than ever, intelligence matters.

How can the United States avoid a future surprise attack on the scale of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, in an era when such devastating attacks can come not only from nation states, but also from terrorist groups or cyber enemies? Intelligence and Surprise Attack examines why surprise attacks often succeed even though, in most cases, warnings had been available beforehand. Erik J. Dahl challenges the conventional wisdom about intelligence failure, which holds that attacks succeed because important warnings get lost amid noise or because intelligence officials lack the imagination and collaboration to “connect the dots” of available information. Comparing cases of intelligence failure with intelligence success, Dahl finds that the key to success is not more imagination or better analysis, but better acquisition of precise, tactical-level intelligence combined with the presence of decision makers who are willing to listen to and act on the warnings they receive from their intelligence staff. The book offers a new understanding of classic cases of conventional and terrorist attacks such as Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, and the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The book also presents a comprehensive analysis of the intelligence picture before the 9/11 attacks, making use of new information available since the publication of the 9/11 Commission Report and challenging some of that report’s findings.

The Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It was prepared by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States The commission interviewed over 1,200 people in 10 countries and reviewed over two and a half million pages of documents, including some closely guarded classified national security documents. Before it was released by the commission, the final public report was screened for any potentially classified information and edited as necessary. A Factual Overview of the September 11 Border Story The September 11 Travel Operation – a Chronology Terrorist Entry and Embedding Tactics, 1993-2001 The Redbook Terrorist Travel Tactics by Plot Al Qaeda's Organizational Structure for Travel and Travel Tactics Immigration and Border Security Evolve, 1993 to 2001 The Intelligence Community The State Department The Immigration and Naturalization Service Planning and Executing Entry for the 9/11 Plot The State Department The Immigration and Naturalization Service Finding a Fair Verdict Crisis Management and Response Post-September 11 The Intelligence Community The Department of State The Department of Justice Response at the Borders, 9/11-9/20, 2001 The Department of Homeland Security

It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one. Contents: A Factual Overview of the September 11 Border Story The September 11 Travel Operation – a Chronology Terrorist Entry and Embedding Tactics, 1993-2001 The Redbook Terrorist Travel Tactics by Plot Al Qaeda's Organizational Structure for Travel and Travel Tactics Immigration and Border Security Evolve, 1993 to 2001 The Intelligence Community The State Department The Immigration and Naturalization Service Planning and Executing Entry for the 9/11 Plot The State Department The Immigration and Naturalization Service Finding a Fair Verdict Crisis Management and Response Post-September 11 The Intelligence Community The Department of State The Department of Justice Response at the Borders, 9/11-9/20, 2001 The Department of Homeland Security