Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
This book is about missed opportunities. People in the loop, like Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, talks about at least eight golden opportunities. The 9/11 report cites two opportunities to get bin Laden himself that were called off. That nobody could have imagined an attack like 9/11, as claimed in the 9/11 Commission Report, is far-fetched.
And Peter Lance’s book, Cover Up.
This book is about missed opportunities. It has two main concepts – the conspiracy theories and the missed opportunities. Ever since 9/11 happened so many people have said that America did it to itself, and no matter what evidence is presented to them they still think it. Unlike Thierry Meyssan’s book on the conspiracies (9/11: The Big Lie), this book is more about the missed opportunities and it concludes that there might have been a cover-up. People in the loop, like Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, talks about at least eight golden opportunities they missed. The 9/11 report cites two opportunities to get bin Laden himself, but that were called off. Peter Lance tries to deal with the conspiracy theories and substantiates why they are unconvincing. He poses interesting questions about what was going on on the day itself. Why were there military exercises done that same day in which some planes were acting as hi-jacked? Who ordered the exercises and how were they scheduled? He mentions the memo from the CIA that was included in the daily briefing to Bush six weeks before 9/11, clearly saying that bin Laden was determined to strike inside America, mentioning cells active in the US. Lance compiles the missed opportunities and is trying to get someone to be accountable.
In my opinion the 9/11 Commission Report is a disgrace. There has never been a proper investigation into what happened. The Report is a nicely written account, but it blames failure of imagination for the fact that it took the country by surprise. This is not true. President Bush himself, when he was at the G8 in Genoa that May, had intelligence leaked by the Russian and Egyptian security services that caused the air space over the summit to be closed. That nobody could have imagined an attack like 9/11 is a little bit far-fetched.
Are you saying that you think the American government let it happen in order to use it as an excuse to wage war, or merely that they were incompetent?
I don’t know. What I’m sure about is that al Qaeda wanted, planned, financed, recruited and went on in its way to execute what came later to be known as 9/11. Did anyone in America, or anywhere for that matter, know anything about that? If yes, who, when, where? Were they in a position to do something about it? Did they try to do something about it? If yes, what? If no, why not? And would what they did – or did not do – have helped in the way of preventing what happened? These are all crucial questions, especially in light of so many confirmed missed opportunities. One wonders why there hasn't been a serious investigation into this. This is what I mean when I say that the report produced by the 9/11 Commission (politically comprising five Democrats and five Republicans, with an army of researchers, nearly two years of time and unconditional resources) is a crime against all Americans, especially those who died and their relatives, an insult to our intelligence and a disgrace to humanity.
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Yosri Fouda was chief investigative reporter for Al Jazeera Arabic for many years. He remains the only person to have interviewed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, masterminds of the 9/11 attacks. He is the co-author of Masterminds of Terror: The Truth Behind the Most Devastating Attack The World Has Ever Seen. As Al Jazeera’s London Bureau Chief, Fouda broke the story on the ‘martyrdom video’ by 9/11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah. He is now based in Cairo and presents Last Word on ONTV.
