Who could have anticipated the attack?

[tw]

In Chapter 1, a captured terrorist tires of his interrogation. He invents a mythical attack on the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty. It earns him a break from his interrogation.

In Chapter 2, an MBA discovers, after the fact, that his organization is disfunctional and under major mismanagment. The facts of what happened were learned immediately. So he claims to be underfunded, demands more money, and denies anyone could have known in advance. His stockholders believe he is a great manager because they didn't know the boss knew things were that bad long ago, did nothing, and rewarded those failing managers with bigger budgets.

In Chapter 3, the newspapers learn how totally mismanaged the entire organization was and how top management lied then and now about what and when they knew. But because top management has claimed to be onto of the event, then most people ignore answers to, "What did he know and when did he know it" while a coverup in the guise of security continues by hyping events in Chapter 1.

This is not an Enron story. It is the story of George Jr's administration during and after 11 September. We are now going to ask, "What did he know and when did he know it" as every decent American should be doing because it is a story of lies, mismanagement, and coverup.

From The Economist of 25 May 2002
According to his national security adviser .. George Bush was told in his daily briefing on August 6th that Osama bin Landen might use terrorist hijackings to attack the Unites States. ... Last week, for instance, Ms Rice claimed that "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would ... use an airplane as a missile." America's spies surely could have done so, given that at least two terrorist plots to do exactly that had been foiled before [as have been reported here previously and also Tom Clancy's best selling novels demonstrated] ... according to the Washington Post, the August 6th briefing was called "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US". Indeed, it had been commissioned by Mr Bush because so much intelligence had been focused - wrongly - on al-Qaeda's operations abroad. [A WTC type attack was predicted but the administration repeatedly denies that fact.]
Even more questionable statments were made after September 11th. On Sept 17th, Mr Mueller [Director of the FBI] said that "there were no warning signs that I'm aware of that would indicate this type of operation in this country." Now his officials say that both he and perhaps the attorney-general wree told soon after the attacks about the report written in July from the FBI office in Phoenix [the Phoenix memo]. ...
More generally, the Bush adminstration seems culpable of a broad libel against Bill Clinton. Ever since September 11th, Republicans have repeatedly claimed that the former administration was less diligent in guarding America against such attacks than Mr Bush. Spies who reported to both White Houses say privately that this is rubbish. People like Ms Rice were much more concerned about missile treaties [Star Wars II, et al] than obscure Afghans. The new revelations add to that picture.
... (It also adds to the suspicion that one reason why Mr Bush kept George Tenet, the CIA's director, in his job after the worst intellience failure since Pearl Harbor was because Mr Tenet could have pointed out that Mr Bush was no better than Mr Clinton.) ...
Heads have not rolled at either the CIA or the FBI; the only "punishment" has been a lot more money.

That from a conservative and relatively friendly publication?

Neither Directors of the CIA nor FBI have been repremanded nor replaced. Even when Moussaoui, already suspected by FBI in MN of planning a well understood act of 'hijacking a plane to use as a bomb', was repeatedly identified by the French before 11 Sept as an al-Qaeda operative, then instead management in George Jr's Washington outrightly ignored those obvious facts.

But it gets worse. Knowing for most of the last 6 months of major administrative incompetence, instead top adminstration officials all repeatedly deny the incompetence, any knowledge of that incompetance, while trying to coverup that incompetance as if plugging security leaks. Even worse, George Jr does what any good MBA does. He creates more bureaucracy - Office of Homeland Security - and throws more money at a repeatedly exposed to be incompetent FBI. (Crime lab is a mess, mob investigations were finally solved by competent DAs, the anti spy unit is run a spy for the enemy, ...)Even worse, his adminstration creates increased security so that even the press will not know how mismanaged those organisations are. This way, the public erroneously would believe Geroge Jr addressed the problems when he first learned of them. All the while, that FBI incompetence festers.

First we have anti-spy incompetence. Now we have anti-terrorism incompetence. Then the solution is another cabinet officer? How worse can solutions be?

Exactly why we want everyone in the press to ask, "what did he know and when did he know it". George Jr's administration is, at minimum, guilty of coverup.