Was 9/11 Really Necessary?

 

Let’s get this straight from the get-go: the people who died, or were injured or were the heroes that worked the sites should forever be remembered and respected for their sacrifices.

But a larger question looms over the disaster of 9/11: could it have been prevented? Evidence is growing that it could have been prevented and that the White House knew the threat was imminent and chose to believe a different scenario. The battle was between the CIA and the neocons like Wolfowitz and Pearl and their ilk. Below is a small quote from a piece by Kurt Eichenwald (1) that begins to unravel the past. And it puts then President Bush and his crowd in a very bad light.

“The direct warnings to Bush, he writes, date back to the spring of 2001. On May 1, the CIA told the White House that there was “a group presently in the United States” that was planning an attack. On June 22, a daily briefing described the attack as eminent. Administration officials, however, dismissed the warnings, saying that Osama bin Laden was merely feigning an attack to distract the U.S. from efforts against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

“Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day,” Eichenwald wrote. “In response, the CIA prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.” (1)

So here we see direct evidence that the White House ignored the CIA in favor of the neocon perspective. One that turned out to be disastrously wrong. Mistakes are made in all presidencies, and some have disastrous consequences. Playing the “blame game” goes nowhere, but uncovering the truth and learning from it is very valuable. Current conservatives will probably cry foul asserting that blaming Bush for 9/11 is a ploy to distract. I disagree. Truth should never be considered a distraction; rather it should be viewed as a clear example. Yesterday I wrote about the road not taken, and in the months before 9/11 just such a divergence of paths were approached, one taken, the other not. There is no benefit in whining and gnashing teeth over the one not taken, but for heaven’s sake, can’t we at least agree to learn from it?

1. http://news.yahoo.com/report-documents-disclose-9-11-warnings-081156564--politics.html

Image: http://media.wnyc.org/media/photologue/images/e7/cache/9.11_Memorial_pools_storyslide_image.jpg