How our government failed us on 9.11

Especially for those of us who live in New York and who witnessed the attacks first-hand, this new report does little to comfort us. In fact, it only confirms our strongest suspicions, that the FBI missed at least five opportunities to uncover the terrorist plots months before. This is now just being admitted in a Justice Department report, made public on Thursday after being kept secret for a year.

One of these missed chances was not following up on an agent's theory that Osama bin Laden was sending students to U.S. flight training schools. The agent's theory turned out to be precisely what bin Laden did. In another instance, an agent assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency wanted to pass on information to the FBI about the two men in early 2000, 19 months before the attacks, but was blocked by a CIA supervisor and did not aggressively follow up. The report concluded that when the bureau did discover the presence of hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar in the United States shortly before the attacks, "the FBI's investigation then was conducted without much urgency or priority."

The main concern is the secrecy and lies that surround this entire thing. "Shortly after the attacks, the FBI indicated that it did not have any information warning of the attacks," the report said. "However, information was soon discovered that had been in the possession of the FBI and the intelligence community before Sept.. 11 that related to the hijacking of airplanes by extremists or that involved the terrorists who committed the Sept.. 11 attacks." (Remember Condoleezza's memo, Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S. dated August 6, 2001)

But, as with all these amazing new developments, we will let it pass and think nothing more of it. Most Americans have already forgotten September 11th. Sure they wave their little flags and plaster silly yellow ribbons to their cars, but they don't really care. If they did, they would have already been outraged by the fact that the government now admits that we went to war (with the wrong country!) under the false pretense of weapons of mass destruction. [see Still Wondering about those WMDs?] Yet, Osama bin Laden is running around free somewhere...