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Moderated Legitimate 9/11 Questions

T.A.M.

Penultimate Amazing
T
Joined
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Messages
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Ok, so before you all get your knickers in a knot, I have not suddenly lost my mind and converted to trutherism.

This thread was inspired by the need/desire to find some common ground with at least a small part of those who question the events of 9/11.

There is a misconception that all debunkers are steadfast Bush/Cheney apologists/supporters, hellbent on defending them on all things 9/11. This is simply not true. I for one (and I know of many more here) have several questions concerning not only the attacks, but also the national (USA) and international politics around them. I also have many questions about who knew what, and what they knew, in the weeks and months leading up to the attacks. Who didn't want to know. Who should have known. I also have some concerns about the politics of the 9/11 commission, and what influence this may have had on who got the blame, and how much (or lack there of) blame they were allocated...

So with the above in mind, here are a few questions I have. Please feel free to either (A) educate me on the answers and/or (B) add in your own questions.

Please note, this is not a place for MIHOP questions, however, i think we can TOLERATE some LIHOP angles if presented well.

------------

1. Did John Ashcroft's expressed request to "not hear any more about Al Qaeda" amount to gross negligence, incompetence, or simply poor judgment leading up to 9/11?

2. Did Zelikow prevent the provision of any piece of evidence that might have placed proper blame for not preventing the attacks on any element of the USG? If so, who do you feel he was protecting?

3. Do documents exist implicating elements of Saudi and Pakistani Intelligence in supporting, or at the very least, turning a blind eye to the 9/11 plot and plotters?

4. Were there any international agencies that had some form of warning, or inside information that might have helped? If so, what agencies, what did they know, and what proof do we have of this?

TAM:)
 
5. Where did the money for the operation come from?
 
Alt+F4 said:
5. Where did the money for the operation come from?
Click to expand...

A very good question, interlinked to mine on the Saudi/Pakistani Connection. The commission was vague in this area. I do, to a degree, understand their rationale (that no one single source was responsible, neither with enough influence to be singled out), but I am not satisfied with it.

TAM:)
 
T.A.M. said:
Ok, so before you all get your knickers in a knot, I have not suddenly lost my mind and converted to trutherism.

This thread was inspired by the need/desire to find some common ground with at least a small part of those who question the events of 9/11.

There is a misconception that all debunkers are steadfast Bush/Cheney apologists/supporters, hellbent on defending them on all things 9/11. This is simply not true. I for one (and I know of many more here) have several questions concerning not only the attacks, but also the national (USA) and international politics around them. I also have many questions about who knew what, and what they knew, in the weeks and months leading up to the attacks. Who didn't want to know. Who should have known. I also have some concerns about the politics of the 9/11 commission, and what influence this may have had on who got the blame, and how much (or lack there of) blame they were allocated...

So with the above in mind, here are a few questions I have. Please feel free to either (A) educate me on the answers and/or (B) add in your own questions.

Please note, this is not a place for MIHOP questions, however, i think we can TOLERATE some LIHOP angles if presented well.

------------

1. Did John Ashcroft's expressed request to "not hear any more about Al Qaeda" amount to gross negligence, incompetence, or simply poor judgment leading up to 9/11?

2. Did Zelikow prevent the provision of any piece of evidence that might have placed proper blame for not preventing the attacks on any element of the USG? If so, who do you feel he was protecting?

3. Do documents exist implicating elements of Saudi and Pakistani Intelligence in supporting, or at the very least, turning a blind eye to the 9/11 plot and plotters?

4. Were there any international agencies that had some form of warning, or inside information that might have helped? If so, what agencies, what did they know, and what proof do we have of this?

TAM:)
Click to expand...

I could probably contribute to all 4 categories but thing would change the basic story.

For (4), there were so many warnings (50+) in the spring and summer of about some attack planning that I have to assume that come of the warnings fit your criteria. As documented in the 9/11 Commission report, the Bush administration was asleep at the switch for these warnings and the lead agency, the FBI, was working 12 cases that if combined would allow law enforcement to disrupt or block the hijackings. The FBI was organizationally and by corporate culture incapable of preventing crime, only catching crooks after the fact. (Source: Spying Blind Amy Zegart . )

Note that the Commission that the Twoofers love to hate supports their allegation of malfeasance in the Bush administration.

The Commission report compares Clinton's response for the warnings leading to to Y2K and the Bush activities between January 2001 and Sept 10, 2001. The Clinton response was robust. The Bush actions, not so much. Nothing but some "lets have a meeting" memos.


At a local level, the accountability for the radios gets no press. Even before 9/11, I knew a retired FDNY communications engineer that said a well known mayor and occasional presidential candidate should be in prison for the selection of the contract for the radio system on his watch.
 
Thank you for starting thread this T.A.M. The trolling on this subforum is ridiculous. Now that chillzero's gone, I think Darat should consider closing it if things don't start improving.

As for the O.P. my biggest question is:

How were the hijackers able to breach the cockpit and why didn't the airlines and the FAA do more to prevent it?

If all 50 passengers on a flight wanted to breach the cockpit door, they should not be able to do so.
 
ULR:

I, of course, have no practical knowledge of rules/regulations/precautions wrt airline cockpit intrusions, however, I would say we need to examine the history of cockpit intrusions in the past.

Is there a history of cockpit intrusion, and if so for what purpose? Was it a common phenomenon, or something that was so rare as to not warrant any practical changes?

A good question...Do you think in a post 9/11 world, that the airlines have sufficiently addressed this issue?

TAM:)
 
Why was there a character assassination campaign towards Richard Clarke shortly after his testimony?
 
MarkyX said:
Why was there a character assassination campaign towards Richard Clarke shortly after his testimony?
Click to expand...

Well because he made Condi, and many others look bad. He provided proof, in his testimony, that the higher ups had been warned, many times, but seemed disinterested, to say the least.

TAM:)
 
BigAl said:
For (4), there were so many warnings (50+) in the spring and summer of about some attack planning that I have to assume that come of the warnings fit your criteria. As documented in the 9/11 Commission report, the Bush administration was asleep at the switch for these warnings and the lead agency, the FBI, was working 12 cases that if combined would allow law enforcement to disrupt or block the hijackings.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I'd subscribe to that - i.e. "asleep at the switch". If any administration had to act on every single threat that comes through its intelligence channels, whether HUMINT, ELINT, SIGINT, etc or any combination thereof, the intelligence agencies would never have enough people nor hours in a day. How do you balance out the actionable intelligence from the crap? Remember, as well, and please don't take this as a joke, but we had just come out of 8 years of Clinton's downgrading the capabilities of ALL the intelligence agencies and organizations (having been in the military all the years of the Clinton administration I can more than vouch for that). I think it amounted more to a "Perfect Storm" of events - poor intelligence, missed opportunities, lackadaisical attitudes, complacency, an eager and willing-to-die enemy and a security infrastructure (including airline security and border security) that had really, really sunk down to a depth that almost invited such terrorism - all coming together at an most inopportune time for the US.world.

Good thread, T.A.M.
 
T.A.M. said:
ULR:

I, of course, have no practical knowledge of rules/regulations/precautions wrt airline cockpit intrusions, however, I would say we need to examine the history of cockpit intrusions in the past.

Is there a history of cockpit intrusion, and if so for what purpose? Was it a common phenomenon, or something that was so rare as to not warrant any practical changes?

A good question...Do you think in a post 9/11 world, that the airlines have sufficiently addressed this issue?

TAM:)
Click to expand...

After the 1993 bombing, Clinton finded two bipartisan commissions on future terrorism. One of them was about aviation security and was delivered at th end of the Clinton administration. It recommended locking cockpit doors. The industry fought it and the FAA waffled.

NEW TOPIC: Properly studied and learned from, the BCCI case would have prevented much of the bad things that have happened since 1990.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_International
 
i am trying my best, but I can't think of any really good questions about 9-11.

though, how about:

-can we see all the photographs of the recovered pieces of the plane at Shanksville?

and thats about it.
 
T.A.M. said:
ULR:

I, of course, have no practical knowledge of rules/regulations/precautions wrt airline cockpit intrusions, however, I would say we need to examine the history of cockpit intrusions in the past.

Is there a history of cockpit intrusion, and if so for what purpose? Was it a common phenomenon, or something that was so rare as to not warrant any practical changes?

A good question...Do you think in a post 9/11 world, that the airlines have sufficiently addressed this issue?

TAM:)
Click to expand...

Yes, there were some attempts of cockpit intrustion before 9/11. One on Southwest when one man attempted to breach the door but was subdued and killed by passengers. I don't know exactly what a 767 cockpit door looked like before 9/11 but I'm sure they weren't too hard to breach. Boeing should've made the cockpit impenetrable.

And I don't think airlines have sufficiently addressed the issue. I think if there's another attempt at a hijacking, they're gonna rely on the passengers rathern than their own brilliant safety measures.
 
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parky76 said:
i am trying my best, but I can't think of any really good questions about 9-11.

though, how about:

-can we see all the photographs of the recovered pieces of the plane at Shanksville?

and thats about it.
Click to expand...

Come on Parky, really? You think all the questions have been answered?

As for the photos of the parts at shanksville, I am unsure whether you are serious or not. I think that is the way a lot of the truthers would want it, and even a step further they would want to be taken to the hanger to examine the parts themselves.

TAM:)
 
Pinch said:
I'm not sure I'd subscribe to that - i.e. "asleep at the switch". If any administration had to act on every single threat that comes through its intelligence channels, whether HUMINT, ELINT, SIGINT, etc or any combination thereof, the intelligence agencies would never have enough people nor hours in a day.
Click to expand...

I highly recommend reading Spying Blind. It's like citing the Pentagon Firefighter book to Ultima1, there is far far too much information to type here.

Also, read the Commission report (chapter 6) that shows what Clinton and Bush did or didn't do to make sure that all agencies were away to the warnings that the other agencies were seeing and folowwing up on.

the NSA had an "It's my ball" thing going and refused to share. If they had shared in the summer '01, things might have worked out different but that's a little what-if-ish. IMO, the FBI all by itself could have capture most of the perps of 9/11 while they were still alive. Convictions might have been problematical but that's my point, FBI culture is all about convictions, not prevention.
 
UNLoVedRebel said:
Yes, there were some attempts of cockpit intrustion before 9/11. One on Southwest when one man attempted to breach the door but was subdued and killed by passengers. I don't know exactly what a 767 cockpit door looked like before 9/11 but I'm sure they weren't too hard to breach. Boeing should've made the cockpit impenetrable.

And I don't think airlines have sufficiently addressed the issue. I think if there's another attempt at a hijacking, they're gonna rely on the passengers rathern than their own brilliant safety measures.
Click to expand...

OT:

They killed the guy? really? I never heard of the case. Got a link, or something I can read on it? That is horrible.

TAM:)
 
BigAl said:
I highly recommend reading Spying Blind. It's like citing the Pentagon Firefighter book to Ultima1, there is far far too much information to type here.

Also, read the Commission report (chapter 6) that shows what Clinton and Bush did or didn't do to make sure that all agencies were away to the warnings that the other agencies were seeing and folowwing up on.

the NSA had an "It's my ball" thing going and refused to share. If they had shared in the summer '01, things might have worked out different but that's a little what-if-ish. IMO, the FBI all by itself could have capture most of the perps of 9/11 while they were still alive. Convictions might have been problematical but that's my point, FBI culture is all about convictions, not prevention.
Click to expand...

The Shenon Book, "Commission" has a paragraph or two in it concerning this, and the opinion is identical to your comment. Prior to 9/11, agents placed on counterterrorism, and al-qaeda were openly mocked by their colleagues, and treated like "The guy you send to get coffee". It was all about captures and convictions, rather than prevention.

TAM:)
 
T.A.M. said:
I, of course, have no practical knowledge of rules/regulations/precautions wrt airline cockpit intrusions, however, I would say we need to examine the history of cockpit intrusions in the past.

Is there a history of cockpit intrusion, and if so for what purpose? Was it a common phenomenon, or something that was so rare as to not warrant any practical changes?

A good question...Do you think in a post 9/11 world, that the airlines have sufficiently addressed this issue?

TAM:)
Click to expand...

No, there is no significant history of cockpit intrusion. Some aircraft in use at the time could not be easily modified to be secure. More importantly, there was no impetus to do this in the first place.

Airlines traditionally resist FAA mandated modifications for monetary reasons, unless it is something that would also cause problems with their Unions or something that might be considered a "no brainer".

Even with a secure cockpit who is to say the hijackers may have killed or threatened to kill a Flight Attendant who might have denied them entry into the cockpit. All sorts of scenarios are possible where even a secure cockpit might have done no good.

Even if there had been a decision to beef up cockpits in the summer of 2001 when the intelligence reports were coming in, it would not have happened in time to prevent 9/11.

Today, not only are cockpits more secure, but there is a WHOLE different mindset regarding someones' entry into the cockpit. Quite frankly, I don't think today's passengers would sit idly while someone tried to hijack an aircraft.

A reminder to everyone. In order to examine these issue that have been brought up you also have to put yourself into the pre-9/11 mindset. There was a prevailing arrogant mindset that the US was invulnerable to attack and this was not just within the Bush Administration, it was a prevailing attitude among most Americans. As has been stated over and over again, the threats received were not ignored, they were misinterpreted. It was the general attitude that the threat would be directed toward International assets, not in the US.

It was a surprise attack and if anyone is to blame we all are.....
 
Reheat said:
A reminder to everyone. In order to examine these issue that have been brought up you also have to put yourself into the pre-9/11 mindset. There was a prevailing arrogant mindset that the US was invulnerable to attack and this was not just within the Bush Administration, it was a prevailing attitude among most Americans. As has been stated over and over again, the threats received were not ignored, they were misinterpreted. It was the general attitude that the threat would be directed toward International assets, not in the US.

It was a surprise attack and if anyone is to blame we all are.....
Click to expand...

QFT.

20/20 hindsight makes it all to easy to find fault. That said, it is also the only way to determine not only culpability, but to improve.

TAM:)
 
Pinch said:
I'm not sure I'd subscribe to that - i.e. "asleep at the switch". If any administration had to act on every single threat that comes through its intelligence channels, whether HUMINT, ELINT, SIGINT, etc or any combination thereof, the intelligence agencies would never have enough people nor hours in a day. How do you balance out the actionable intelligence from the crap? Remember, as well, and please don't take this as a joke, but we had just come out of 8 years of Clinton's downgrading the capabilities of ALL the intelligence agencies and organizations (having been in the military all the years of the Clinton administration I can more than vouch for that). I think it amounted more to a "Perfect Storm" of events - poor intelligence, missed opportunities, lackadaisical attitudes, complacency, an eager and willing-to-die enemy and a security infrastructure (including airline security and border security) that had really, really sunk down to a depth that almost invited such terrorism - all coming together at an most inopportune time for the US.world.

Good thread, T.A.M.
Click to expand...

True words, Pinch. How many of you have ever seen a REAL Intelligence Report? I suspect, not many. There is a ton of information that comes in "across the wires" and some of it is quite scary. It has to be ACTIONABLE or it's just taken as a "ho hum" by virtually everyone. It's not an easy job by any means and looking for a "scapegoat" is counter productive, IMHO.
 
How did the FBI establish who the hijackers were so quickly, and how many of the hijackers were known to be using fake id, if any?
 
If the FBI and the CIA were able to be on the same page, there would have been no attacks, end of story. "Perfect Soldiers" and "The Looming Tower" are important reads. Hindsight is 20/20, and I agree with Reheat that the feeling at the time is that it could never happen, so security was not on its toes at the airports, etc.

Improvements and lessons have been learned, and thankfully, knock on wood, the US has not been attacked since.
 
Ragnarok said:
How did the FBI establish who the hijackers were so quickly, and how many of the hijackers were known to be using fake id, if any?
Click to expand...

The FBI, the CIA and the NSA had leads on many of them in the summer of 2001. Read Spying Blind and Amy Zegart. In the summer of 2002 I heard a presentation by a private investigator with good connections to the Three-Letter-Agencies who described how they broke the case in minutes from the credit cards used to buy the tickets and expanded the case very quickly from there.

Not preventing at least some of the hijackings took a special kind of incompetency.
 
Ragnarok said:
How did the FBI establish who the hijackers were so quickly, and how many of the hijackers were known to be using fake id, if any?
Click to expand...
Trick question?
They flew on planes and were seen at the airport; they left a trail just like Tim McVeigh.

I saw them on an airport camera.

Are you serous? This is easy to do. The crew made phone calls and identified who the terrorist were. OOPS, that was a secret...

The FBI had thousand of agents working 911; do you think they can find people who boarded jets and left behind evidence of their existence. They figured it out quickly.

Not a good question.
 
Why did the 9/11 Commission allow George W. Bush to testify with Dick Cheney?
 
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Reheat said:
True words, Pinch. How many of you have ever seen a REAL Intelligence Report? I suspect, not many. There is a ton of information that comes in "across the wires" and some of it is quite scary. It has to be ACTIONABLE or it's just taken as a "ho hum" by virtually everyone. It's not an easy job by any means and looking for a "scapegoat" is counter productive, IMHO.
Click to expand...

True, but the FBI didn't even try. If one FBI analyst had looked at all 12 cases that were in files in 12 offices, it would have been obvious that someting important was in the works and FBI. NSA and CIA could have focused on it and probably prevented some of it.

It didn't happen.
 
MarkyX said:
Why was there a character assassination campaign towards Richard Clarke shortly after his testimony?
Click to expand...

He provided the first damning testimony. It was public and on live TV. It was a political blockbuster. He was the first one to say (to the 9/11 victims' families) "Your government failed you, I failed you." I think that was the memorable quote.

Rove's people then started spreading rumors that he was gay, an alcoholic, etc.
 
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When was the version of the PATRIOT act that was passed into law actually written?

I know somebody who drafted large parts of the original PATRIOT act, but that was totally replaced with a an entirely different law in a rather shady legislative move.
 
oldhat said:
Why did the 9/11 Commission allow George W. Bush to testify with Dick Cheney?
Click to expand...

"allow" is a tricky word here. Read Shenon's book. It is a real insight as to how the commission worked, didn't work, tried to work, was made not to work.

If the commission wanted to get either of them on the record, with no evoking of "Executive Privilege", then they had to do it that way. There was also tremendous pressure not to be seen as partisan either way in an election year, and setting the scope on Bush or Cheney would have been seen as such. As well, you had Zelikow working, to a degree, political interference.

Read the book...a real good read.

TAM:)
 
I just want to say that it's so nice to read a rational discussion in this forum. Thanks T.A.M. for starting this thread.
 
How do you keep this thread from drifting into the political forum?

If you find out how to solve 911 before it happen try to bottle that method and use it to prevent the next accident, robbery, murder, secret plot, or other things you can solve. That is the elixir which would earn the million dollar challenger right here on JREF.
 
T.A.M. said:
A very good question, interlinked to mine on the Saudi/Pakistani Connection. The commission was vague in this area. I do, to a degree, understand their rationale (that no one single source was responsible, neither with enough influence to be singled out), but I am not satisfied with it.

TAM:)
Click to expand...

I thought much of it was untraceable. If we presume that Bin Laden used the normal sources of funding that he did for his Afghanistan efforts, then as I recall from books like Wright's Looming Tower (you read that one too, as I recall) much of that dough came from Islamic charities, and many were undocumented. If I remember things correctly, that is; I admit, I may be confusing my books, plus many of them I've only read once.

Of course, there's also something to be said about covering up some sources to avoid embarassing certain people. Another thing I recall from various books was that a few (not all; certainly not the oldest) of the Bin Laden brothers were sympathetic with OBL's activities, and funnelled him some of their own money.

The truth is probably a mix. I'll bet that some sources are well enough known to take to court if they were in the US, while others are inferred at circimstantially but pretty solidly, and others yet are merely guessed at. I'm fully willing to bet that it's some mix of that.
 
T.A.M. said:
"allow" is a tricky word here. Read Shenon's book. It is a real insight as to how the commission worked, didn't work, tried to work, was made not to work.

If the commission wanted to get either of them on the record, with no evoking of "Executive Privilege", then they had to do it that way. There was also tremendous pressure not to be seen as partisan either way in an election year, and setting the scope on Bush or Cheney would have been seen as such. As well, you had Zelikow working, to a degree, political interference.

Read the book...a real good read.

TAM:)
Click to expand...

Hi Tam,

Great thread! It's about time for this and a nice change.

I have to disagree with you to an extent regarding your above post. If the Commission was to push the issue to have W testify alone, he would have had to. Evoking his executive privilege in my opinion would have been political suicide. He would have been labeled as uncooperative.

He was questioned about this very subject at a press conference. If you haven't seen it, it is pretty comical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMQ62P45Abc

So yes, this too is one question that I feel has yet to be answered to my satisfaction. I am interested in the book and will put it on my list.
 
UNLoVedRebel said:
As for the O.P. my biggest question is:

How were the hijackers able to breach the cockpit and why didn't the airlines and the FAA do more to prevent it?

If all 50 passengers on a flight wanted to breach the cockpit door, they should not be able to do so.
Click to expand...

T.A.M. said:
ULR:

I, of course, have no practical knowledge of rules/regulations/precautions wrt airline cockpit intrusions, however, I would say we need to examine the history of cockpit intrusions in the past.

Is there a history of cockpit intrusion, and if so for what purpose? Was it a common phenomenon, or something that was so rare as to not warrant any practical changes?

A good question...Do you think in a post 9/11 world, that the airlines have sufficiently addressed this issue?

TAM:)
Click to expand...

UNLoVedRebel said:
Yes, there were some attempts of cockpit intrustion before 9/11. One on Southwest when one man attempted to breach the door but was subdued and killed by passengers. I don't know exactly what a 767 cockpit door looked like before 9/11 but I'm sure they weren't too hard to breach. Boeing should've made the cockpit impenetrable.

And I don't think airlines have sufficiently addressed the issue. I think if there's another attempt at a hijacking, they're gonna rely on the passengers rathern than their own brilliant safety measures.
Click to expand...


I thought Mary Schiavo had brought this exact issue up during the Regan administration. I'll try and find some past mention of her and this topic, but I could have sworn that she was campaigning for secure cockpit doors during the 80s when all those flights were in the news for being hijacked by Palestinians and sympathizers to their side of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.


Reheat said:
No, there is no significant history of cockpit intrusion. Some aircraft in use at the time could not be easily modified to be secure. More importantly, there was no impetus to do this in the first place.

Airlines traditionally resist FAA mandated modifications for monetary reasons, unless it is something that would also cause problems with their Unions or something that might be considered a "no brainer".
Click to expand...

True, it wasn't common, at least here in the US, but do we know what the mindset was for foreign carriers? I admit, that's somewhat drifting from topic, but I vaguely recall much heat verbally about airline safety against hijackings due to all those Middle Easterner-committed hijackings I mentioned above.

Also, again, I thought I recalled Schiavo excoriating the mindset of the industry and government at the time towards securing the cockpit. On the other hand, presuming I recall this correctly, I don't want to push a meme that she was right and everybody else was wrong; it'd be too easy but intellectually lazy for me to say that resistance to safety improvements was due to greed on the industry's part. There might - must, even - have been some legitimacy to whatever objections they raised.

And also, like you said:
Reheat said:
Even with a secure cockpit who is to say the hijackers may have killed or threatened to kill a Flight Attendant who might have denied them entry into the cockpit. All sorts of scenarios are possible where even a secure cockpit might have done no good.
Click to expand...

Exactly true. It's possibilities like this that should get everybody thinking about what constitutes good safety measures, and distinguish that from what merely sounds good. From what I understand, the prevailing attitude is less to secure the plane itself, but to make sure hijackers don't get on it in the first place.

Reheat said:
Even if there had been a decision to beef up cockpits in the summer of 2001 when the intelligence reports were coming in, it would not have happened in time to prevent 9/11.

Today, not only are cockpits more secure, but there is a WHOLE different mindset regarding someones' entry into the cockpit. Quite frankly, I don't think today's passengers would sit idly while someone tried to hijack an aircraft.
Click to expand...

Yes. I very distinctly recall that the prevailing mindset back then was to sit back and let the terrorists take you wherever they were going, because once they were done railing at the cameras and got their butts to their destination, they were finished with you. So true, there were indications of the upcoming attacks, but I know that if you would've gathered a focus group of 100 people prior to 9/11 and gave them a list of possibilities, a 9/11-style attack would have rated the scariest but among the least likely possibilties. We are ALL susceptible to interpreting past performances as indicating future results, whether in investments, gambling, or predicting tragedies, and that's exactly what we did prior to September 11th.

Reheat said:
A reminder to everyone. In order to examine these issue that have been brought up you also have to put yourself into the pre-9/11 mindset. There was a prevailing arrogant mindset that the US was invulnerable to attack and this was not just within the Bush Administration, it was a prevailing attitude among most Americans. As has been stated over and over again, the threats received were not ignored, they were misinterpreted. It was the general attitude that the threat would be directed toward International assets, not in the US.

It was a surprise attack and if anyone is to blame we all are.....
Click to expand...

I don't even know if I'd call it arrogant. More like overly comfortable. But, that's simply my opinion.
 
beachnut said:
How do you keep this thread from drifting into the political forum?

If you find out how to solve 911 before it happen try to bottle that method and use it to prevent the next accident, robbery, murder, secret plot, or other things you can solve. That is the elixir which would earn the million dollar challenger right here on JREF.
Click to expand...

I think that is the trap we want to avoid. This thread was not started in order to come up with the missing solution that would have 100% prevented the attack. I think it is a place to discuss legitimate questions over what areas were lacking, which people, IF ANY, dropped the ball in such a way as to make them culpable, at least in part, for the failure to prevent the attacks.

The one area I think RedIbis and I agree, is that many in the Bush admin. got off easy in terms of termination of position/employment. Despite all that we know now about who dropped the ball, let alone what we may not know, no one that I can recall, in the Bush Admin, was fired for 9/11. Is that fair...is that appropriate...I dunno, but I think unlike 95% of the crap that gets discussed here, these questions actually have some merit.

Was this the true 9/11 Conspiracy. A conspiracy to cover the asses of those in power at the time of the attacks?

TAM:)
 
Mr.Herbert said:
Hi Tam,

Great thread! It's about time for this and a nice change.

I have to disagree with you to an extent regarding your above post. If the Commission was to push the issue to have W testify alone, he would have had to. Evoking his executive privilege in my opinion would have been political suicide. He would have been labeled as uncooperative.

He was questioned about this very subject at a press conference. If you haven't seen it, it is pretty comical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMQ62P45Abc

So yes, this too is one question that I feel has yet to be answered to my satisfaction. I am interested in the book and will put it on my list.
Click to expand...

Yes, these thoughts (that you have expressed) were mentioned in Shenon's book as well, and I am sure in the end, the WH was thankful that the commission did not press the issue. I think it was a compromise that some were happy with (Kean, Hamilton, Zelikow, Bush Admin) and others less so (Goerlick, and many of the others).

TAM:)
 
Because of all of the vulnerabilities and varying scenarios, simply securing the cockpit prior to 9/11 without also implementing better security in other areas would have been pointless. Once someone was on an aircraft and determined to hijack it, getting into the cockpit pre-9/11 would likely have been successful no matter how secure it was.

The REAL problem with security was AIRPORT SECURITY or screening of passengers. It was a joke in the US!

Anyone who flew in either Europe or Asia in the pre-9/11 period knows exactly what I'm talking about. Security was much more realistic and much more thorough outside of the US.

Think about what the attitude of passengers would have been had REAL SECURITY been implemented in US Airports. People complain loudly (even now), so it's easy to imagine what the uproar would have been if stricter security measures had been implemented then.

As with any kind of security, it needs to be a multi-layered approach. Securing the cockpits was only one item out of many that needed to be done. Hopefully, it's a lot better now in all respects to ensure the safety of the flying public....
 
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