Would the CIA have uncovered September 11th if...

I recently read this essay on the failure of US counterintelligence to uncover and thwart known members of al-Qaeda in their preparations for 9/11. From what I got, the CIA just wasn't interested in al-Qaeda's plans, not suspecting they were planning attacks against America. Malaysian security forces surveilled an al-Qaeda gathering in Kuala Lumpur on behalf of the CIA in Jan. 2000 where plotters discussed what would become the USS Cole bombing and September 11th attacks. Yet the CIA requested no info on the content of the meeting itself and got only photographs of certain attendees. One of them was hijacker-in-training Khalid al-Mihdhar, whom the CIA knew to have a US visa. They did not convey this to the FBI and thus, once he entered America a week later with another hijacker, Mindhar went uninvestigated. Being in contact with others in the 9/11 cell, his exposure could have foiled the entire plot.

So, had the CIA been alerted somehow to the danger al-Qaeda posed at home, would the plot have been uncovered early?
 
It'd have been a little more likely but the failure to spot 9/11 was far more endemic and wide-spread amongst numerous agencies that would require a lot more prodding to make an effort to stop the attack
 
Worst case is clear evidence emerges & a FBI mid level manager dismisses it as a fake or diversion & places investigation at a very low priority.
 

jahenders

Banned
In 20-20 hindsight it's always easy to find things that COULD have tipped someone off if looked at correctly. The CIA was looking hard at what they considered the biggest threats. As far as working with the FBI, keep in mind that this was after Clinton/Reno built a "wall" between Intelligence and Law Enforcement, so I'm sure CIA wasn't too quick to involve the FBI.
 
Richard Clarke was a member of the National Security Council and chairman of the Counter Intelligence Group. He was screaming bloody murder throughout 2001 and the Bush Admin ignored him. All you need is Bush, Cheney, or Rice to take him seriously and suddenly both the CIA and FBI are all over it, competing to be the ones to uncover it.
 
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