Who could have anticipated the attack?

[Nic Name]

Al-Qaida's expected retaliation for the U.S. cruise missile attack against al-Qaida's training facilities in Afghanistan on August 20, 1998, could take several forms of terrorist attack in the nation's capital. Al-Qaida could detonate a Chechen-type building-buster bomb at a federal building. Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House. Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the CIA headquarters.

THE SOCIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF TERRORISM:

WHO BECOMES A TERRORIST AND WHY?

A Report Prepared under an Interagency Agreement

by the Federal Research Division,

Library of Congress

September 1999

Author: Rex A. Hudson
Editor: Marilyn Majeska
Project Managers: Andrea M. Savada
Helen C. Metz

Read the report here

[tw]

First, we long knew the WTC was going to be attacked again. The first attack almost succeded to crash one tower into the other. The man who lead the investigation into the 1993 attack later became head of security for the WTC because, in part, he knew where the action would be. He also died in the second attack.

Second, al Qaeda has previously attempted the same thing in Paris against the Eiffel Tower. Their mistake was no trained pilots. The pilot and co-pilot jumped out of cockpit windows leaving hijackers trapped on the tarmac. Did we think they would just give up. Of course not. The WTC destruction is directly traceable to mistakes learned from previous plane hijackings such as learning how to fly, wait for the plane to first take off, and don't burn down your room while planning the attacks.

We did not know who would be attacking nor exactly what their target was, nor the attack date. But we knew from history and from previous attempts what the primary tool of attacks would be and what kinds of targets would be attack (definitely not the Liberty Bell).

Before 11 Sept, we had read this all too familiar fact. The FAA has a graveyard mentality. There was no real security at airports. Their solution to reporters who tested and discovered no security - make it illegal to perform such reports rather than install real security or even basic security standards.

We had every reason to believe hijacks to crash planes would be attempted. And yet even weapons illegal in any county courthouse were legal on airplanes.

The Paris hijacking to crash into the Eiffel Tower - why is that not on everyone's lips first thing when we talk about whether government should have known.

[Undertoad]

It was extremely cheap to load a raft with explosives and send it out to try to sink the USS Cole. The Coast Guard is hurting for funds and can't possibly guard the coast. There are a ton of interesting targets along the coast. A hole in an oil tanker at a port city would be enough to cause a big ecological problem, and might even have a geopolitical impact as well.

There, now we have to guard then entire skies AND the entire coast. Geez, this is gonna be expensive.

[tw]

In Chapter 1, a captured terrorist tires of his interrogation. He invents a mythical attack on the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty. It earns him a break from his interrogation.

In Chapter 2, an MBA discovers, after the fact, that his organization is disfunctional and under major mismanagment. The facts of what happened were learned immediately. So he claims to be underfunded, demands more money, and denies anyone could have known in advance. His stockholders believe he is a great manager because they didn't know the boss knew things were that bad long ago, did nothing, and rewarded those failing managers with bigger budgets.

In Chapter 3, the newspapers learn how totally mismanaged the entire organization was and how top management lied then and now about what and when they knew. But because top management has claimed to be onto of the event, then most people ignore answers to, "What did he know and when did he know it" while a coverup in the guise of security continues by hyping events in Chapter 1.

This is not an Enron story. It is the story of George Jr's administration during and after 11 September. We are now going to ask, "What did he know and when did he know it" as every decent American should be doing because it is a story of lies, mismanagement, and coverup.

From The Economist of 25 May 2002
According to his national security adviser .. George Bush was told in his daily briefing on August 6th that Osama bin Landen might use terrorist hijackings to attack the Unites States. ... Last week, for instance, Ms Rice claimed that "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would ... use an airplane as a missile." America's spies surely could have done so, given that at least two terrorist plots to do exactly that had been foiled before [as have been reported here previously and also Tom Clancy's best selling novels demonstrated] ... according to the Washington Post, the August 6th briefing was called "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US". Indeed, it had been commissioned by Mr Bush because so much intelligence had been focused - wrongly - on al-Qaeda's operations abroad. [A WTC type attack was predicted but the administration repeatedly denies that fact.]
Even more questionable statments were made after September 11th. On Sept 17th, Mr Mueller [Director of the FBI] said that "there were no warning signs that I'm aware of that would indicate this type of operation in this country." Now his officials say that both he and perhaps the attorney-general wree told soon after the attacks about the report written in July from the FBI office in Phoenix [the Phoenix memo]. ...
More generally, the Bush adminstration seems culpable of a broad libel against Bill Clinton. Ever since September 11th, Republicans have repeatedly claimed that the former administration was less diligent in guarding America against such attacks than Mr Bush. Spies who reported to both White Houses say privately that this is rubbish. People like Ms Rice were much more concerned about missile treaties [Star Wars II, et al] than obscure Afghans. The new revelations add to that picture.
... (It also adds to the suspicion that one reason why Mr Bush kept George Tenet, the CIA's director, in his job after the worst intellience failure since Pearl Harbor was because Mr Tenet could have pointed out that Mr Bush was no better than Mr Clinton.) ...
Heads have not rolled at either the CIA or the FBI; the only "punishment" has been a lot more money.

That from a conservative and relatively friendly publication?

Neither Directors of the CIA nor FBI have been repremanded nor replaced. Even when Moussaoui, already suspected by FBI in MN of planning a well understood act of 'hijacking a plane to use as a bomb', was repeatedly identified by the French before 11 Sept as an al-Qaeda operative, then instead management in George Jr's Washington outrightly ignored those obvious facts.

But it gets worse. Knowing for most of the last 6 months of major administrative incompetence, instead top adminstration officials all repeatedly deny the incompetence, any knowledge of that incompetance, while trying to coverup that incompetance as if plugging security leaks. Even worse, George Jr does what any good MBA does. He creates more bureaucracy - Office of Homeland Security - and throws more money at a repeatedly exposed to be incompetent FBI. (Crime lab is a mess, mob investigations were finally solved by competent DAs, the anti spy unit is run a spy for the enemy, ...)Even worse, his adminstration creates increased security so that even the press will not know how mismanaged those organisations are. This way, the public erroneously would believe Geroge Jr addressed the problems when he first learned of them. All the while, that FBI incompetence festers.

First we have anti-spy incompetence. Now we have anti-terrorism incompetence. Then the solution is another cabinet officer? How worse can solutions be?

Exactly why we want everyone in the press to ask, "what did he know and when did he know it". George Jr's administration is, at minimum, guilty of coverup.

[elSicomoro]

From yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer: Some PA National Guardsmen are saying that they were not allowed to carry loaded weapons at Philadelphia International Airport, while patrolling it post-9/11.

[tw]

Originally posted by sycamore
Some PA National Guardsmen are saying that they were not allowed to carry loaded weapons at Philadelphia International Airport, while patrolling it post-9/11.

Reminds me of marines guarding barracks in Beruit Lebanon some years back. They too, upon order from Washington, were not allowed to load their weapons.

But then terrorists were not going to storm a plane in a wild west, through the front door, guns blazing attack. Those National Guardsmen were not there to solve a security problem. An M-16 armed Guardsmen would not have stopped any previous hijackings even back to the 1960s.

But if that Guardsman stands there with an M-16, then some people actually felt government was addressing reasons for security breaches (and ignore the fiasco called National Airport). Too many will not, instead, read the above cited Economist article.

[Nic Name]

Would civilian airports be more or less secure if the National Guard were armed and dangerous?

[tw]

Originally posted by Nic Name
Would civilian airports be more or less secure if the National Guard were armed and dangerous?

Civilian airports never were a particularly dangerous place. Planes, however, were always at risk because there was no security due to the FAAs graveyard mentality. Now that enough people are dead, planes have been substantially safer, due to 11 Sept. Yet you can not tell that to an emotional person who has feared to fly for the last 6 months - facts be damned.

Planes and airports had been at greater risk for 10 years before 11 Sept. Cited is Yousaf Ramsey (I think it was) who was finishing a plan to bomb something like 14 jumbo jets simultaneously over the Pacific when he set his Phillippine room on fire. Other bombings simply went mostly unknown such as the Air France jumbo over Africa and an Air India jumbo off the east coast of Africa.

Security, exposed by the press as non-existent in so many airports and cited expressly by the FAA's own Inspector General as all but non-existent, is now being upgraded to status equal or exceeding the Montgomery County courthouse. National Guardsmen, armed or disarmed, are irrelevant. The greatest threat to plane passengers was the FAA's graveyard mentality which was still entrenched on 10 Sept and which was defined here repeatedly and previous to that date.

[jaguar]

It was extremely cheap to load a raft with explosives and send it out to try to sink the USS Cole. The Coast Guard is hurting for funds and can't possibly guard the coast. There are a ton of interesting targets along the coast. A hole in an oil tanker at a port city would be enough to cause a big ecological problem, and might even have a geopolitical impact as well.

I still think ships are the biggest risk, either blowing on up, particualry LPG or Oil tankers while in port or loading one with someing very nasty. SO much space, fly it under a flag of convenience and the acutal owner etc is virtually un identifiable.

[tw]

Originally posted by jaguar
I still think ships are the biggest risk, either blowing on up, particualry LPG or Oil tankers while in port or loading one with someing very nasty. SO much space, fly it under a flag of convenience and the acutal owner etc is virtually un identifiable.

No protection, detailed paperwork, or investigation into who runs the ships because that is what the United States wanted. For example, Liberia as a flag of convenience was proxy for US shipping interests. Then the US got laws to be voted on based upon tonnage registered. This gave the US Proxy, Liberia, major voting power. And so shipping laws were manipulated per the whims of the US. We have international shipping laws that WE wanted.

Previously the US only wanted everyone to know only of the Bill of Lading - therefore an international standard. Now the US wants to change the rules again - to demand full disclosure of all shipping companies and even their finances before ships are permitted 'reservations' in US ports.

In WWII, a Navy ammunition ship exploded in Halifax harbor damaging virtually the entire town. Shipping as a terrorist weapon is long understood. It was just another of a long list of reasons why the George Jr anti-ballistic missile system is the defensive system of mental midgets. It is while Turkey refuses to let oil from the Central Asian Replublics be shipped from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, in front of homes for 10 million people. It is why some ports have special 'clear the entire port' procedures when a LNG tanker arrives.

Currently one of the world's largest producers of Natural Gas is now a net importer of at least 1%. That number will increase sharply in the next decade meaning that American ports will be full of LNG tankers. Under to pre 11 Sept George Jr agenda, nothing special was required because terrorist would use incontinential ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads. (Sound like Reagan who never saw a technology he did not endorse).

Shipping has always been a major problem. Containers must be at their destination anywhere in the country within three days of arriving in a US port. The US government response has always been to ignore the problem but worry more about terrorist with intercontiential missiles, and illegal immigrants who both want to work and whose labor is desperately required by their employeers.

Even worse is a now almost daily hijacking of ships at sea. Certainly even Hollywood has a movie about hijacking a ship to be used as an attack weaspon. And yet, international navies have no effort to reduce this problem nor any known procedure to detect and intercept such crimes. Many hijacked ships are found deep uprivers in China or in S American ports. It is only a matter of time before a terrorist does same with a tanker.

Makes you wonder if it was just middle management that was really ignoring the Phoenix memo and was stifling investigators in MN. Ahh, but we must worry about a statue with a naked breast. That statue is a serious problem? A Coast Guard so underfunded that it cannot even maintain navigation buoys is not a problem? Maybe we could post Centurian artillery to protect American harbors - to justify the costs.

[Undertoad]

Did we call it?

NBC News reported last night that the FBI is investigating a group of five men of middle-eastern descent, in Florida, who purchased special "rebreather" scuba gear, special expensive gear that doesn't make bubbles while in use.

The Coast Guard had a post 9/11 ban on any coastal vessel going within 100 yards of a Navy ship; as of yesterday, they made the temporary ban a permanent one, punishable as a felony.

Of course this could easily just be circumstancial.

[tw]

Originally posted by Undertoad
NBC News reported last night that the FBI is investigating a group of five men of middle-eastern descent, in Florida, who purchased special "rebreather" scuba gear, special expensive gear that doesn't make bubbles while in use.

Take all those terrorists warnings current from the federal government with a major grain of salt. Start with the probably ficticious story from only one prisioner about attacks on the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty. Warnings released only after the press was asking questions - thank goodness - about what George Jr knew and when he knew it. Warnings released so you would (hopefully) forget about a major management problem only compounded by top officials who ignored the problem.

Six months and still the administration did not address a classic MBA type mismanagement in the FBI. Their only response to major managment failure has been more bureaucracy - in classic MBA style - the Office of Homeland Security. Only when the press starts asking questions about no response by top federal officials, then those officials start preaching all kinds of 'maybe' terrorist warnings. See these threats for what they most likely appear to be. Anything so you won't notice major management failure.

George Jr and company did nothing about that FBI management problem until the press finally embarrassed them into action. And what did they do? Throw more money and people at the problem rather than addressing what is probably too many layers of management and too much managment ignorance of how the work gets done. Too many layers of management is solved by MBA mentalities by making more layers of management, and by throwing money and people at the problem. How many managers in Washington, including the FBI director and his staff have actually worked in the field - or in a related function? If zero, then you know the entire top management is the problem - classic MBA disease. 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. Greater if same management did not address solutions.

We all but know the FBI operates with an MBA mentality. Field Offices are ignored. Scathing memos are quashed until the press recently forced their exposure. Agents in the field must get permission in Washington before following up on an investigation. Micromanagement excellcious - classic MBA disease. We can all but suspect those middle management officials who quashed facts of an impending WTC attack probably have little to zero field experience AND were still working their same jobs without change until the press recently exposed top management federal government failures. Suddenly memos are arrising everywhere from the field about Washington FBI incompetence. How many other agencies have the same problem - or do we have to wait for more press to find the whistle blowers. Whistle blowers are the enemy of MBA type management.

So instead we have numerous 'possible' terrorist attacks from an administration that would subvert all other law enforcement to promote their terrorism agenda - which centers on eventual unilateral attacks on Iraq, Iran, and N Korea. That axis of evil nonsense is the entire center of a George Jr foreign policy - even though terrorism is not the single major threat to the US.

[spinningfetus]

Originally posted by jaguar


I still think ships are the biggest risk, either blowing on up, particualry LPG or Oil tankers while in port or loading one with someing very nasty. SO much space, fly it under a flag of convenience and the acutal owner etc is virtually un identifiable.

Oil and LPG would be a showy boom but nothin beats nukes for lasting effect. Lake Ontairo is known as the Nuclear Lake due to the 13 or so nuclear powerplants built on its shores. Now taking the afore mentioned tanker and running it full steam into oh say the nine mile island facility which happens to have a Chernobyl style reactor (the control rods come up through the bottom) along with two other newer reactors would create truely devestating. If you're tryin to start a holy war, getting us to retailiate with nukes somewhere (it doesn't truely matter, throw a dart at the globe) will supply you with a ready made army. And people wondered why I didn't sleep up there. The problem with whomever is planning these little forays knows how to get and keep attentition at a minimum of start up cost. Whoever is supposed to be watching our collective backside had better get paranoid in a hurry. So our options are to: a) carry on like nothing is going to happen, b) lose sleep, c) do enough drugs that you either won't notice or at least die with a smile on your face. If anyone can think of a d or an e, I for one would lke to hear them.
-sf-

[Scred]

The Economist article doesn't read quite the way it was quoted above. It would be prudent to read the original source. it reads slightly different for me when unedited.


anyway, here's a wake up call for the deluded: daily intelligence briefings continuously warn of specific and non-specific attacks. if the president were to "do something about them" every time, then people start bitching about all the false warnings, and then nobody listens anymore. (as we are doing now when we're told the brooklyn bridge, formerly for sale, is now a target). prior to 9/11, *nobody* wanted to hear it. any president that started evacuating cities on every threat or calling press conferences would have been immediately labelled a "Ross Perot" and deemed paranoid and insane. even now, after 9/11, we still think every official who warns us about something is something of a dolt, apparently.

i worked in a facility in King of Prussia for about 5 years. After I had been there for about 3 years, I happened to be near the phones when a non-specific bomb threat was called in. Now, the facility had thousands of people in it, both civilians and employees. I thought, "oh hell, evacuate immediately." quite the contrary, there was no action taken. i was stunned. how could they just ignore a real threat? how stupid were they??

turns out it happened multiple times a week, sometimes every day. for 10 years. and there was no bomb

imagine trying to run, say, a retail establishment (or, a country) that got evacuated every day. would it stay in business? no it wouldn't. now, me, personally, i couldn't make that decision to not sound the alarm. i wouldn't want to. but someone has to. and as soon as a bomb goes off, it is very easy to point out how the person(s) responsible are clearly at fault.

Every government is at fault somewhere. Every person is at fault somewhere. Everything could have been done differently. Bush could have signed the already-prepared attack order for afghanistan in August. Clinton could have done something more than remotely blow up tents in response to the African embassy attacks. We could have stayed and finished our mission in mogadishu instead of running home to mommie and looking weak. we could have acted on intel multiple times to take the guy out. we didn't. and now it's clear that other options would have been better. hindsight is very convenient.

[tw]

Originally posted by Scred
we could have acted on intel multiple times to take the guy out. we didn't. and now it's clear that other options would have been better. hindsight is very convenient.

Which might explain why reading the original Economist article resulted in a response different from the above quote. The Economist article said more many things. Only quoted were the parts relevant to this thread.

These posts and the press's latest revelations have nothing to do with avoiding a WTC attack. Only those confused by the current administration ploy to deflect blame would care whether a WTC attack could have been avoided. The administration did little to solve obvious management problems and left field people stifled, until the press started asking "What did he know and when did he know it". Top administration officials even went so far at to claim total ignorance of things they were fully briefed on - so that we cannot accuse them of doing nothing.

To divert attention - to confuse the people: administration officials talk about having insufficient information to avoid a WTC attack. Irrelevant. The real question is why that information would not be available. How hindsight is suppose to be used. Instead adminstation cites a mythical attack on the Brooklyn Bridge and has others say government could not have known a WTC attack was coming. All so that we stop asking, "Why have they done nothing about management failures that obstruct the workers?"

Scred talks about not responding to a bomb threat in KoP. Irrelevant to how hindsight must be used. The administration knew, in hindsight, that the system was broken, and instead applied a rediculous solution - "Office of Homeland Security" - rather than addressing a top management disease in the FBI and maybe at higher levels.

We know that the administration was more concerned about Intercontinental missiles than about any 'Tom Clancy' (also called real world) attack. We now know the administration knew after WTC that the system was broken - and did nothing for six months.

Hindsight should correct managers that don't do their job. Hindsight is not about making excuses for failure to stop an attack. Hindsight is about fixing a system corrupted so that it could not detect or avoid future incidents - big difference.

Criticisms directed at the administration by a responsible press are about an administration that ignored managment problems. To avoid that criticism, the administration has many confused - talking about why the one attack could not have been detected. Even if the system worked, the attack still might not have been avoided. But we know the system is corrupted, that top George Jr people knew it was corrupted, and that the solution, instead, was an MBA type solutuion - more bureaucracy - Office of Homeland Security.

It is naive and irrelevant to say we could have avoided the attack or could have finished a flawed task in Mogadishu. An adminstration that has serious management failures wants us to talk about this nonsense. They don't want us to know why they ignored the real problems and why they created an MBA type bureaucracy - Office of Homeland Security - instead of empowering the workers and fixing the existing system.