24 July 2003, David Corn, The Nation
The attacks of September 11 might have been prevented had the US intelligence community been more competent. And the Bush Administration is refusing to tell the public what intelligence the President saw before 9/11 about the threat posed by Al Qaeda. These are two findings contained in the long-awaited, 800-page final report of the 9/11 joint inquiry conducted by the Senate and House intelligence committees, which was released on July 24. As is traditional in Washington, the contents of the report were selectively leaked before it was officially unveiled. And several news outfits noted that the report contained "no smoking guns" and concluded, as the Associated Press put it, that "no evidence surfaced in the probe...to show that the government could have prevented the attacks." Those reports were wrong--and probably based on information parceled out by sources looking to protect the government and the intelligence community.
In the report's first finding, the committees note that the intelligence community did not have information on the "time, place and specific nature" of the 9/11 attacks, but that it had "amassed a great deal of valuable intelligence regarding Osama bin Laden and his terrorist activities," and that this information could have been used to thwart the assault. "Within the huge volume of intelligence reporting that was available prior to September 11," the report says, "there were various threads and pieces of information that, at least in retrospect, are both relevant and significant. The degree to which the [intelligence] community was or was not able to build on that information to discern the bigger picture successfully is a critical part of the context for the September 11 attacks." One Congressional source familiar with the report observes, "We couldn't say, 'Yes, the intelligence community had all the specifics ahead of time.' But that is not the same as saying this attack could not have been prevented."
full article
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
