The Looming Tower
National Book Award FinalistA Time, Newsweek, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and New York Times Book Review Best Book of the YearA gripping narrative that spans five decades, The Looming Tower explains in unprecedented detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Lawrence Wright re-creates firsthand the transformation of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri from incompetent and idealistic soldiers in Afghanistan to leaders of the most successful terrorist group in history. He follows FBI counterterrorism chief John O'Neill as he uncovers the emerging danger from al-Qaeda in the 1990s and struggles to track this new threat. Packed with new information and a deep historical perspective, The Looming Tower is the definitive history of the long road to September 11.From the Trade Paperback edition.
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What Hacker News says
- It was, and did. The FBI and CIA both knew pieces of the 9/11 plot before it was executed. That's not conspiracy, it's plain fact. Intelligence agencies have a very hard time working together. The domestic unit tasked with tracking Al Qaeda did not know agents were on American soil, when the CIA and NSA (foreign intelligence) did.
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright is a great book about this, and the TV show by the same name (a Hulu original) is also fantastic and largely accurate to the true story. Rare gem for Hulu.
- The Looming Tower is the modern classic[1]. It's about the people behind the attacks and some of the dysfunction that caused the Bush Administration to fail to stop them.
The aftermath of the attacks is much more complex and, in my opinion, important. I don't have a recommendation on what to read, but the US response to the attacks (including multiple major wars) is a historical failure that seemingly every generation must re-learn in painful ways.
- For anyone interested, The Looming Tower provides excellent insight into the events leading up to 9/11.
https://www.amazon.com/Looming-Tower-Al-Qaeda-Road-11/dp/037...
- It was a lot worse than that. This would’ve been a credible threat that various intelligence agencies in the US were aware of.
Al-Queda was already involved in other terrorist attacks and was known to US intelligence.
All the different agencies had info on a lot of the hijackers but they all kept it to themselves or the info wasn’t passed up the ladder.
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright is one of the best books on this topic and goes further into it. But I’m sure you can find other references, including the 9/11 Report.
This was a massive failure by the US intelligence community.
---- Edit:
I'll add some references so my comment is a little more contributory besides just "read this book."
https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/...
This special report goes into it. Here is a quote from the report:
"The intelligence led to a surveillance operation in Malaysia in which it was discovered that Mihdhar had a valid multiple-entry U.S. visa and photographs of Mihdhar meeting with other al Qaeda operatives were taken."
The CIA had this information and should've passed it on to the FBI. (CIA operates outside the US, FBI operates inside the US.)
The report continues:
"We reviewed whether this information was in fact passed to the FBI by the CIA, and based on the evidence, concluded that while the CIA passed some of the information about Mihdhar to the FBI, it did not contemporaneously pass the information about Mihdhar’s U.S. visa to the FBI. We concluded it was not disclosed by the CIA until late August 2001, shortly before the September 11 terrorist attacks. We also reviewed whether FBI detailees to the CIA contemporaneously acquired this information and what action, if any, they took with respect to this information."
Then there's the FAA-related stuff, which is what brought on the TSA. This is from the 9/11 Report:
"The next aviation security layer was passenger prescreening. The FAA directed air carriers not to fly individuals known to pose a “direct” threat to civil aviation. But as of 9/11, the FAA’s “no-fly” list contained the names of just 12 terrorist suspects (including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), even though government watchlists contained the names of many thousands of known and suspected terrorists."
A few paragraphs down, the report explains why the known hijackers were still allowed to fly:
"Although the algorithm included hijacker profile data, at that time only pas- sengers checking bags were eligible to be selected by CAPPS for additional scrutiny. Selection entailed only having one’s checked baggage screened for explosives or held off the airplane until one had boarded. Primarily because of concern regarding potential discrimination and the impact on passenger throughput, “selectees” were no longer required to undergo extraordinary screening of their carry-on baggage as had been the case before the system was computerized in 1997. This policy change also reflected the perception that nonsuicide sabotage was the primary threat to civil aviation."
This is just two examples I wanted to quickly dig up. There's an entire list of failures you can find if you read the reports or the book I mentioned earlier. It's quite good reading, I promise! Understanding the failures also gets you to understand the changes that came after 9/11. This includes things like the PATRIOT act, TSA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), etc. DHS is meant to force the intelligence communities to share intel with each other rather than "compete" for it.
- The show "The Looming Tower" on Hulu documents this well, would recommend checking it out if you want to learn more. It also documents how the CIA and NSA basically froze the FBI out of key intel. What I find super ironic is this freezing is a large reason why the attackers were not stopped earlier, but rather than solve this issue, Cheney and his lawyers gave way more power to the NSA to surveil Americans without encrypting their names or any details, further creating a siloing between the intelligence communities.
- Obligatory reading: The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Looming_Tower
Important name in this event in Ali Soufan.
The amount of conspiracy theories here are surprising.
