Saudis say US could have prevented 9/11

Ex-Saudi Arabian Ambassador describes 9/11 as a major failure of U.S. Intelligence. The information was available to the U.S. Intelligence agencies to prevent 9/11. From CNN:

Speaking to the Arabic satellite network Al-Arabiya on Thursday, Bandar -- now Abdullah's national security adviser -- said Saudi intelligence was "actively following" most of the September 11, 2001, plotters "with precision."

"If U.S. security authorities had engaged their Saudi counterparts in a serious and credible manner, in my opinion, we would have avoided what happened," he said.

The hijackers were known, and they were under observation by the Saudi Arabians.

Cheney and Bush did not believe that terrorism was going to be a problem unless it was state-sponsored. This was in spite of repeated warnings by Clinton and Clinton's White House staff, and in spite of Clinton leaving Richard Clarke at the National Security Council to coordinate anti-terrorism activities.

Instead of listening to the warnings, the Bush White House downgraded Clarke and ignored him. Is it any surprise that the Intelligence agencies did not ask the Saudi Arabian Intelligence agencies what they knew?

The only question remaining unanswered about the Bush failure that permitted 9/11 is whether that failure was intentional or just simple stupidity. Since the Bush White House has demonstrated repeatedly that they are both nasty enough to permit 9/11 in order to justify their already-planned invasion of Iraq, and they they are sufficiently incompetent in running government to simply not know how to deal with a problem like terrorism, we need further evidence to determine if it was malice or stupidity.

[h/t to Laura Rozen.]