From Newsday:
...On 52 occasions, from April 1, 2001, to Sept. 10, 2001, the FAA's own daily intelligence briefings contained references to the al-Qaida terror network and its leader, Osama bin Laden, mostly in regard to overseas threats.The data points were out there, but no one had assembled them in a manner which raised big red flags.The [9/11] commission was clear on one point: It found no evidence that the FAA had any information that terrorists planned to hijack airplanes in the United States and use them as weapons.
The agency "received numerous threat assessments from the U.S. intelligence community in the spring and summer of 2001," FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said in a statement Thursday. "However, the FAA received no specific information before 9/11 about terrorist means or methods directed at aviation in the U.S. that would have indicated specific countermeasures."
Lee Hamilton, former vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, said in an interview that because the FAA did not provide a direct warning about the new threats, "what you have here is a pattern, which was a pattern of complacency."
The New York Times has additional details:
The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking, the report said. Previous commission documents have quoted the CD's reassurance that "fortunately, we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction."The Seattle Post Intelligencer with extra sharp 20/20 hindsight sees conspiracy......Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden, the report said.
Still, the 9/11 commission concluded that aviation officials did not direct adequate resources or attention to the problem.
"Throughout 2001, the senior leadership of the F.A.A. was focused on congestion and delays within the system and the ever-present issue of safety, but they were not as focused on security," the report said.
It's difficult to decide which is more outrageous -- federal aviation officials' failure to follow through on intelligence reports before Sept. 11, 2001, that warned of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden using airliner hijackings and suicide operations, or the Bush administration's refusal to let the American public know about it before the November election.Now they're just reaching...
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Comments (6)
The data points were out... (Below threshold)1. Posted by McGehee | February 11, 2005 11:50 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
The data points were out there, but no one had assembled them in a manner which raised big red flags.
That's pretty much it. And since I distinctly recollect the same things having been said in October 2001, I'm not exactly sure what the fuss is about.
Looks like another trip to a well that was sucked dry years ago. Kind of like "October Surprise" or "Bush AWOL."
1. Posted by McGehee | February 11, 2005 11:50 AM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 11, 2005 11:50
2. Posted by Oyster | February 11, 2005 2:10 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Do we have to tell them again? The FAA received "numerous" reports about the dangers of a highjacking for the last 15 years! Which one was supposed to be the real one? Cripes.
2. Posted by Oyster | February 11, 2005 2:10 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 11, 2005 14:10
3. Posted by Thomas Hazlewood | February 11, 2005 6:11 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
There really oughta be an investigation into why it took Einstein to determine that light was affected by gravity and that Relativity and E=MC2, etc, were relevant or even possible. After all, all the features had been there for centuries, yet, no one had ever put the facts together cohesively and drawn the proper conclusions.
This points to significant failures on the parts of generations of scientists..... or, maybe it just takes a particular kind of thinking to re-define the Universe or to contemplate mass murder.
Mind, I'm just guessing cuz I'm neither a genius nor a terrorist...
3. Posted by Thomas Hazlewood | February 11, 2005 6:11 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 11, 2005 18:11
4. Posted by Big Bang Hunter | February 11, 2005 11:56 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
- Ok....so lets say that back in '93 after the first attack on the WTC, and in the wake of several other terrorist attacks all over the world, including various hijackings of aircraft, what exactly was any of the federal agencies supposed to do about it. all of these Bush admin hatchet pieces like to ignore the fact that no one, including the vaunted Clinton and his Democratic minions, were about to try to put forward a plan that would interupt all things commerce and cost us trillions of dollars. they would have been laughed at......
- Taking things out of context is a perfect example of liberal bias.....
4. Posted by Big Bang Hunter | February 11, 2005 11:56 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 11, 2005 23:56
5. Posted by Arne Langsetmo | February 12, 2005 5:54 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
The data points were out there, but no one had assembled them in a manner which raised big red flags.
But then there's Condi: No one could have imagined...." Nice to see that this mental midget (or liar extraordinaire) is claiming to speak for us all. I'd say liar is most likely here, because there's plenty of proof that quite a number of people had in fact not only "imagined" such (e.g. Tom Clancy), but also put out warnings about such.
Cheers,
5. Posted by Arne Langsetmo | February 12, 2005 5:54 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 12, 2005 17:54
6. Posted by Arne Langsetmo | February 12, 2005 6:08 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Thomas Hazlewood:
Actually, Einstein didn't come up with "e=mc2". That is actually a direct result of algebraic manipulation of the Lorentz transforms, which predated his 1905 theory of special relativity. And while Einstein was quite bright, he was also working with stuff that was bothering others at the time as well; it's no surprise he was first, but others would have found it as well, I'm sure.
As for the "facts" being there (WRT relativity), nonsense. The "facts", as they were know previously (non-relativistic motion) supported the old theories, and as new facts came in, they troubled -- and piqued investigation by -- physicists at the time, who didn't just ignore the dissonances building and the warnings of those that were seeing issues, and didn't put off for Sept. 4th even starting to hold meetings to look into the problems that were suggested.
Cheers,
6. Posted by Arne Langsetmo | February 12, 2005 6:08 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on February 12, 2005 18:08