Quote from Trader5287:
By who? Exactly who? We had an new admin in chaos - it's always that way with a change in power. They'd won in the Supreme Court 6 months before - Bush was just getting into it - I don't even know if his wife was there full time yet. Then August was vacation. And probably 50-75% of nominated positions in the gummint were unfillled.
Did they blow it? Maybe the FBI did. The last clear chance was probably there if there was a chance to stop it. Planned it? No way. And if it was a conspiracy, why are you all fighting about aeronautical engineering crap and not producing likely participants?
imho the qualitative conditions are fairly damning. the administration is known to have been eager to go into iraq beforehand, then ended up going in on several arbitrary 911 related premises. a large part of his cabinet collaborated on the pnac shit that specified a new pearl harbor event as a potential catalyst for their desired process of change. the admin was being warned by all kinds of sources, even saudi princes are talking about that now.. all kinds of shit... ashcroft stopped flying commercial. it just wasn't anything close to a surprise.
bush said he saw the first plane on tv twice, which would have been impossible.
i don't know. i just don't buy it. i understand that a catastrophe can be convenient for an administration's foreign policy goals and economic affiliations, and still not be conspiratorial, but the warnings were pretty specific and ample. it just stinks to me. especially norad's response. it's too sloppy and convenient at the same time