Why America Failed to Stop the 9/11 Terror Attacks

On the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Newsweek is publishing a detailed account of the events that led to the worst terrorist assault on American soil. In this series of articles, the sequence of occurrences from President George W. Bush's first alert on August 6 until the tragic Tuesday of September 11 is meticulously recounted.

By the time the attacks unfolded, 19 men of Middle Eastern descent had managed to carry out their malicious plan, avoiding detection by any authorities or intelligence agencies. Intelligence organizations were aware of an impending event, though the attacks were not methodical. Despite numerous indicators of terrorist plotting and preparations, the CIA failed to connect the various pieces of information.

The FBI and other agencies also mishandled their resources and tools, resulting in an uncoordinated response. In the months leading up to 9/11, there were numerous opportunities for intervention, but the government remained indifferent, with key officials on leave and personnel unable to collaborate effectively. The aftermath of the attacks saw intense blame-shifting among various agencies, including criticism of President Bush and the White House, as well as the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the Pentagon for their failures.

The government then embarked on a massive overhaul of its intelligence apparatus, granting unprecedented domestic surveillance powers and embarking on an ongoing war. The reconstruction of the events that led to 9/11 reveals the preventability of much of the subsequent chaos. The panic and errors during the initial days were grounded in the belief that further attacks and even the use of weapons of mass destruction were imminent, a notion based on flawed intelligence and the government's inability to perceive the bigger picture.

When FBI agents arrested Zacarias Moussaoui on August 16, a man who was attempting to learn how to fly Boeing 747s and who the FBI deemed a radical Muslim, they had ample cause for concern. However, the Bureau chose not to launch a criminal investigation, as they believed no laws or policies would prevent them from searching his computer and belongings.

While FBI offices disputed each other's approach to Moussaoui, no one outside the Bureau could hinder their actions. At the CIA, intelligence on two individuals, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who were known al-Qaeda operatives residing in the U.S. since early 2000, was finally reviewed. One of these individuals had even visited the Middle East before returning to New York on July 4.

Both men were subsequently added to watch-lists, with the FBI notified to monitor them. Yet, the CIA failed to properly analyze the intelligence at their disposal, specifically that these two men had been to Malaysia before their arrival in the U.S. and had stayed with Moussaoui's former employer. Consequently, the CIA missed the connection that Moussaoui had received financial support from Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, another al-Qaeda insider and the brother of Mohammed Atta, the mastermind behind the 9/11 hijackers.

The intelligence community received numerous intercepts from NSA and other allied agencies, hinting at general plotting and warnings of an imminent attack. However, the agency failed to decipher these intercepts before the attacks. Their focus was on collecting as much data as possible rather than targeting what was crucial. Post 9/11, the most shocking and tragic error emerged—knowledge of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the mastermind behind the airplane operations, was not discovered until high-ranking al-Qaeda leaders were apprehended in 2002.

Intelligence had received reports in the final days of individuals known as "Mukhtar" and Abdulrahman al-Ghamdi, who were in fact KSM, recruiting and sending terrorists to America for flight training. KSM, who had been indicted in 1996 for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to hijack airplanes, had been on the watch-list and was even subjected to an FBI-CIA kidnapping attempt that failed.

Yet, the intelligence community appeared to forget about KSM's existence. The reconstruction also uncovers other significant failures, including the Department of the Treasury's failure to notice tens of thousands of dollars sent to the hijackers while they were in the U.S.