When the "wall" came down on 9/11
Put "The Looming Tower" on your list of books to read.
The story of John O’Neill is both inspiring and tragic. He formed the FBI task force to go after Osama bin Laden. He faced TOUGH opposition all the way and eventually left the bureau to become the head of security for the World Trade Centers. (That’s the very abridged version).
He died that day in a dark deep irony from the command of the man he had hunted for years.
As bits and pieces of the dead were extracted from the site, they were cataloged and identified, often using DNA that emergency workers had secured from family members who supplied strands of hair from a victim's brush, for instance. Each part of each body was given the same treatment, with one exception: When anyone of the more than four hundred deceased members of the uniformed services was discovered, there was a special protocol, which was accorded O'Neill. An American flag was draped over his body, and the New York City policemen and firemen who were digging through the rubble stood at attention as his body was carried to the ambulance.
The excerpt below references the "wall" that separated CIA intel from FBI knowledge. There were photos of the 9/11 hijackers held the CIA but not shared. The FBI had evidence of another piece to the puzzle. Had they shared this info, Sept 11th might have turned out to be very different.
After Sept 11th, the CIA shared the file. Here's what happened next.
The order from headquarters was to identify the hijackers "by any means necessary," a directive Soufan had never seen before. When they returned to the embassy, a fax came over a secure line with photos of the suspects. Then the CIA chief drew Soufan aside and handed him a manila envelope. Inside were three surveillance photos and a complete report about the Malaysia meeting- the very material Soufan had been asking for, which the CIA had denied him until now. The wall had come down.
When Soufan realized that the agency and some people in the bureau had known for more than a year and a half that two of the hijackers were in the country, he ran into the bathroom and retched.
I hope we never stop learning the lessons from that day.
Here’s Ali Soufon in his own words:
And yet they were able to find the fully intact passports of the hijackers. Suuuuure.
I was under the impression that "the wall" did not apply to non-citizens. Was I mistaken?