“What did he know and when did he know it.” Everyone in my generation recognizes that as one of the important questions that brought down the Nixon presidency. Now the same question is being asked of President Bush with regard to the events of 11 September 2001.
In this article in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh—the journalist who broke the Vietnam My Lai massacre story—provides the best overview of the disturbing answers to the question:
“It is now clear that the White House, for its own reasons, chose to keep secret the extent of the intelligence that was available before and immediately after September 11th. In addition to the August briefing, there was a prescient memorandum sent in July to F.B.I. headquarters from the Phoenix office warning of the danger posed by Middle Eastern students at American flight schools (Robert Mueller, the F.B.I. director, did not see the memo until a few days after September 11th), and there was what Condoleezza Rice, the President’s national-security adviser, called ‘a lot of chatter in the system.’ Congressional hearings will almost certainly take place in the next few months, given the conviction of Democratic Party leaders that they finally have a viable political issue.”
Hersch contends that what President Bush knew and when he knew it may not be the relevant question. “The more useful question,” he writes, “concerns the degree to which Al Qaeda owed its success to the weakness of the F.B.I. and the agency’s chronic inability to synthesize intelligence reports, draw conclusions, and work with other agencies.”
This is an excellent piece of mainstream journalism and a scathing indictment of the FBI’s communicative incompetence. Highly recommended.
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