|
http://billmon.org/archives/001300.htmlDamfacrats links to a pre-9/11 -- September 2000, in fact --article in Government Executive magazine that takes a look at what the FBI and the CIA were doing to fight terrorism in general, an Al Qaeda in particular, under the supposedly "asleep at the switch" Clinton Administration:
(FBI agent Dale) Watson also credits close FBI-CIA collaboration in the investigation into the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. This joint effort quickly traced the attacks back to the terrorist network of bin Laden. Within 21 days of the bombings, the first suspects were behind bars. Since July 1998, FBI-CIA counterterrorism operations have apprehended and prosecuted more than two dozen suspected terrorists, more than half of whom are associates of bin Laden's organization. Bin Laden's complicity is also suspected in the Y2K terrorist operation, which was thwarted by what FBI and CIA officials consider perhaps the most successful pre-emptive counterterrorism operation to date. First alerted to the planned attacks last September, both agencies cooperated with foreign intelligence and police services to disrupt terrorist cells in eight countries, with arrests made in the United States, Jordan, Pakistan, and Canada.
"I can guarantee you that the millennium operation was an example where the cooperative counterterrorism system now in place was directly responsible for saving hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of American lives," said a senior CIA counterterrorism expert. "Several tons of explosives were confiscated, as were well-designed plans with specific targets identified to kill the maximum number of Americans in as bloody and high-profile fashion as possible for the sake of the CNN cameras. This was an operation designed to shock the United States away from its geopolitical goals in the Middle East."----more----
|