“9-11 was clearly an intelligence failure at the tactical level, since the intelligence agencies were unable to tell us when, where, how or who was going to attack us. In short they provided me with no actionable intelligence, nothing to utilize to preempt the attack”, said Clarke. Pictured here a desperate man flings himself out of the towers on 9-11-2001 rather than burn to death in the incredible heat.
Richard Clarke in his book “Your Government Failed You – Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters”, doesn’t have much good to say about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the fight against terrorism. More specifically he faults the CIA for its failures in preventing the 9-11-2001 attacks, where 2996 people died and over 6000 were injured.
Not including the 8000-12000 “first responders and volunteers” who were sickened cleaning up the mess and retrieving the dead bodies of victims after the attack.
For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Richard Clarke served in the Pentagon, the State Department, the Intelligence Community and the National Security Council for over 30 years (under three different presidents).
He is a man who would be in a position to definitely recognize an intelligence failure when he sees it.
Here is some of what he had to say about the CIA in pg 116 of his book:
“The National Security Adviser repeatedly asked the CIA four questions about al-Qaeda in the later 19990’s. What was the size of its budget (how much did it cost to be al-Qaeda)? Where did it get its money? Where did it keep its money? How did it move its money? The CIA was unable to answer any of those questions?”
On page 119 he says:
“9-11 was clearly an intelligence failure at the tactical level, since the intelligence agencies were unable to tell us when, where, how or who was going to attack us. In short they provided me with no actionable intelligence, nothing to utilize to preempt the attack. CIA officials explained to the (9-11) commission that getting that kind of information was very difficult if not impossible, and implied that no one should expect them to be that good. At the same time, CIA officials claimed to have stopped many other attacks. And, as we now know, CIA did actually have some of the who, what, and where answers. They just didn’t tell anybody for months, until it was too late. That was a failure.”
See video: Richard Clarke – “We failed you, I failed you!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTCMB-twie8
See website: Richard Clarke Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters http://www.amazon.com/Your-Government-Failed-You-Disasters/dp/0061474622