I’ve posted  of a review in four parts on that link of this web site  about the excellent book, “The Looming Tower, al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11” by Lawrence Wright. The book describes how U.S. intelligence agencies failed to share information after they finally understood the risks presented by al Qaeda. That failure was created by government actions and decrees. According to an MSNBC report, Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick of the Clinton administration issued a memo in 1995 that gave detailed instructions to “…more clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from…criminal investigations.” That memo resulted in what Attorney General Ashcroft later described as “…a snarled web of requirements, restrictions, and regulations… (that) prevented decisive action by our men and women in the field.” Ashcroft was testifying to the 9/11 Commission, and Jamie Gorelick, the author of the memo, was a member of that Commission. Ashcroft also told the Commission, “Government erected this wall. Government buttressed this wall. And before September 11, government was blinded by this wall.”

The CIA knew twenty months before 9/11 that there were at least two al Qaeda operatives in California and never told the FBI, perhaps because of the “wall” that had been built by the  Gorelick memo. Absent this artificial and strictly bureaucratic “wall” the CIA could have alerted the FBI that they knew al Qaeda members were in the United States and some were learning to fly planes. Absent the Gorelick memo, perhaps more attention would have been given to an e-mail from an FBI agent in Phoenix suggesting that Osama bin Laden was sending al Qaeda members to flight schools in Arizona. There also was a memo from FBI agents in Minneapolis focusing on activities of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person indicted as part of the 9/11 conspiracy. Perhaps communication between the CIA and FBI, if it had been allowed by law and not been prohibited by the Gorelick memo, would have allowed agents from the two agencies to “connect the dots” and prevent al Qaeda from flying planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Regardless of what might have been if the agencies had been allowed to act responsibly
instead of according to government rules, Osama bin Laden died not knowing that he had succeeded at killing two CIA employees along with several others during the al Qaeda bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. He had said the embassy was targeted because it was a CIA station. Tom Shah and Molly Huckaby Hardy were working undercover for the CIA in the embassy. Tom Shah was the son of an Indian immigrant father and an American mother.  He had received his doctorate in music from Ball State in Indiana. He was fluent in several languages including Hindi, Arabic, and Russian. He joined the government under the cover of being a diplomat, but was immediately sent for training to become a spy. He had been dispatched to Kenya with the assignment to determine theauthenticity of a senior member of Saddam Hussein’s regime, who had said he wanted to defect. Tom walked to a window at the embassy when he heard shooting, and was killed by shredding glass when the bomb exploded.

Hardy was the other CIA agent killed by the bombing. She was a 51 year old divorced mom who had travelled to Asia, South America, and Africa. She handled finances, including handing out money used to pay sources. She was looking forward to a trip to meet a new grandchild when the bomb killed her.  She and Hardy were listed as State Department employees, but sources said they received private memorial services at CIA headquarters. Leon Panetta said after the death of bin Laden, “Throughout the effort to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda, our fallen colleagues have been with us in memory and in spirit. With their strength and determination as our guide, we achieved a great victory three weeks ago.”