In the decade before the 9/11 attacks, several incidences could have been used by the intelligence community to predict and prevent the attacks. One was the increasing aggression of Al-Qaeda attacks. In 1996, Al-Qaeda declared war against the US and stated the intention of launching an attack. However, the US intelligence community ignored this threat since they could not understand how a group that is located deep in the Afghanistan mountains could successfully launch attacks against the US. Later on, Al-Qaeda successfully carried out bombings in Kenya and Tanzania against US interests. Despite this, US intelligence agencies failed to take these attacks as a sign of threats in the future (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004) . If the intelligence agencies had investigated these attacks and how they had been planned, they could have gained more understanding into the organization of Al-Qaeda, its capabilities, vast resources, and followers around the world.
Throughout 2001, there was constant chatter in intelligence circles around the world, relating to a possible attack in the US. Most of the information was by intelligence agencies of other nations, but US-based agencies also received these details. Examples of these include a speech on April 2001 by Ahmad Shah Massoud, who informed the EU parliament of an impending attack in the US. In June the same year, British intelligence also told their US counterparts of planned attacks against the US. When most of these reports were received by senior US government officials, such as the National Security Advisor, they were pushed aside (Dahl, 2013) . One month to the attacks, the intelligence community reported the presence of suspicious activity to the National Security Advisor, and the response received was that the threats were not specific. After receiving such feedback from senior government officials, the intelligence community focused on other threats. It is these series of oversights that provided an opportunity for Al-Qaeda to prepare and carry out the 9/11 attacks without any interruption.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
References
Dahl, E. J. (2013). Intelligence and surprise attack: Failure and success from Pearl Harbor to 9/11 and beyond .
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. (2004). The 9/11 Commission
report: Final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States . New York: Norton.
