Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Report: FAA Warned About Hijacking Pre-9/11
Phil's Observations
Before you read this article, I want to share my reaction with you first. The bottom line is that I am dissapointed. There are many things about the events leading to 9/11 that I am dissapointed with. But before I blow my top, I remind myself that hindsight is 20/20. Yeah, if we only knew yeaterday what we know today. The benefit of hindsight is that it provides us with an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. It is up to us to learn from our mistakes. IT IS VITAL that we do not let opportunities like these slip by us. We must take the responsibility and accountability to learn from what we have done wrong in the past. IF WE DO NOT, we will repeat the same mistake again.
Courtesy of
NEW YORK — Federal aviation officials received dozens of warnings before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks about Usama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, including some that mentioned airline hijackings or homicide attacks, The New York Times reported.
In its Thursday editions, the Times said a previously undisclosed report by the commission that investigated the airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon detailed 52 warnings given to leaders of the Federal Aviation Administration from April to Sept. 10, 2001, about the radical Islamic terrorist group and its leader.
The commission report, written last August, said the warnings came from the FAA's own security branch. The paper said five security warnings mentioned Al Qaeda's training for hijackings and two reports concerned homicide operations not connected to aviation.
The Times said that a classified version and a partially declassified version of the 120-page report were given to the National Archives two weeks ago. The Times story cited the declassified version of the document.
Al Felzenberg, former spokesman for the 9/11 commission, which went out of business last summer, said the government had not completed review of the report for declassification purposes until recently. He said the Justice Department delivered the two versions of the document to the Archives.
An Archives spokeswoman said Wednesday night the unclassified version of the document would not be available to the public until Thursday morning.
The Times gave these highlights from the commission report:
Aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security" and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/ll did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures."
It takes the FAA to task for not expanding the use of in-flight air marshals or tightening airport screening for weapons. It said FAA officials were more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays and easing air carriers' financial problems than thwarting a terrorist attack.
Information in this report was available to members of the 9/11 commission when they issued their public report last summer. That report itself contained criticisms of FAA operations.
Before you read this article, I want to share my reaction with you first. The bottom line is that I am dissapointed. There are many things about the events leading to 9/11 that I am dissapointed with. But before I blow my top, I remind myself that hindsight is 20/20. Yeah, if we only knew yeaterday what we know today. The benefit of hindsight is that it provides us with an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. It is up to us to learn from our mistakes. IT IS VITAL that we do not let opportunities like these slip by us. We must take the responsibility and accountability to learn from what we have done wrong in the past. IF WE DO NOT, we will repeat the same mistake again.
Courtesy of
NEW YORK — Federal aviation officials received dozens of warnings before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks about Usama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, including some that mentioned airline hijackings or homicide attacks, The New York Times reported.
In its Thursday editions, the Times said a previously undisclosed report by the commission that investigated the airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon detailed 52 warnings given to leaders of the Federal Aviation Administration from April to Sept. 10, 2001, about the radical Islamic terrorist group and its leader.
The commission report, written last August, said the warnings came from the FAA's own security branch. The paper said five security warnings mentioned Al Qaeda's training for hijackings and two reports concerned homicide operations not connected to aviation.
The Times said that a classified version and a partially declassified version of the 120-page report were given to the National Archives two weeks ago. The Times story cited the declassified version of the document.
Al Felzenberg, former spokesman for the 9/11 commission, which went out of business last summer, said the government had not completed review of the report for declassification purposes until recently. He said the Justice Department delivered the two versions of the document to the Archives.
An Archives spokeswoman said Wednesday night the unclassified version of the document would not be available to the public until Thursday morning.
The Times gave these highlights from the commission report:
Aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security" and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/ll did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures."
It takes the FAA to task for not expanding the use of in-flight air marshals or tightening airport screening for weapons. It said FAA officials were more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays and easing air carriers' financial problems than thwarting a terrorist attack.
Information in this report was available to members of the 9/11 commission when they issued their public report last summer. That report itself contained criticisms of FAA operations.
Kicknit 2/09/2005