And remember the 9/11 commission found many weaknesses that allowed 911 to happen to include.
- Intelligence community: The CIA failed to add two al-Qaeda suspects to the State Department's watch list, and did not alert the FBI about their identities. They identified poor communication between agencies as a major problem..
- Military: There were a lack of military options to deal with the terrorist threat. We were clearly not prepared in training, equipment and doctrine.
- Borders and immigration: Borders and immigration controls were permeable. It was noted that the Terrorist had no problem getting into the country or in getting flying lessons for that matter.
- Aviation security: Aviation security was permeable. Lack of security procedures and personel at airports and on the airplanes themselves facilitated the attacks.
- Terrorist financing: It was difficult to track the financing of the terrorists. Our intellegence agencies dropped the ball in tracking known terrorist groups and their funding. We had fallen asleep to the threat.
- Homeland defense: Homeland defense was weak or non-existant.
- Congressional committee: Congress uterally failed in their oversight role of the agencies responsible for keeping us safe. We also failed to fund some of what had needed done.
We were weak and the terrorist exploited it. Today I question if we are much better than we were in 2001.