Of course not, because it wasn't Madeleine who said it. <Did you say the same thing about Madeline Albright?>
The CIA was busy having lunch, attending conferences, having a lot of fun, writing lots of government reports, keeping a low profile, lobbying for more staff, pay increases and new computers, and so on:<What do you suppose the CIA had been doing for the previous 8 years? >
My opinion of government employees, whether they have the word "intelligence" in their name or not, is that the outcome is not at all intelligent. Which is not to say they don't have many very intelligent people working there, but I have been involved with and associated with enough government and corporate entities to see how intelligence is overwhelmed by the lowest common denominator.
While the CIA was going on about WMDs in Iraq, I was saying that the chance of there being any WMDs of consequence in Iraq was near zero and I was shown to be correct. Some say the WMDs escaped to Syria, but the whole point of having WMDs is to at least defend oneself if not make a pre-emptive attack. Their purpose is NOT to be sent to another country while their owner is caught and hung by the neck until he's dead. The owner lets them rip rather than be taken prisoner or killed.
Perhaps somebody in the CIA did figure out that it would be a doddle to hijack an aircraft and use it to crash into something, just as I did, and Osama's gang did, but Condoleezza couldn't imagine. If they did, then they were unable to get the message through to the people who should have done something about it.
For a decade I raved about lead in petrol, but was unable to the attention of anyone who mattered and the harm from lead in petrol was a LOT more than the harm from the 911 attack. So it's not uncommon for people to have their ideas about hazards and outright damage squashed, suppressed and ignored. There are several other things I have warned about, while being ignored. So I suppose there were people in the CIA who were very concerned indeed about aircraft being used as flying bombs.
Condoleezza was the one where the buck stopped and was ignored. The buck stopped there, the airliners stopped in Washington and New York.
King George II and Condoleezza ignored the warnings they got from the outgoing guy. They gave it a lower priority than it deserved - a MUCH lower priority.
It would have been a simple matter of saying "All cockpit doors shall be locked in flight. Aircrew should fight back against hijackers and passengers should do too". The idea of complying with criminals is losing ground around the world and resistance is becoming more normal.
That seems an odd idea: <they created a 'wall' ...the CIA couldn't know nor interface with the FBI..>
Anyway, it's not the government's fault. The people running the airlines should have been able to figure out that having large deranged primates on the loose on an aircraft with nothing between them and the control systems was not a good idea. Self preservation would suggest that the simple expedient of locking the cockpit door was a good idea.
It's only very recently that it became illegal to light fires on aircraft and carry litres of highly flammable liquids in glass bottles. Airlines were happy for people to do so until the government made it illegal. It used to be very annoying to me to have people lighting fires in the row next to me, blowing smoke all over the place. They could easily smash a few litres of super proof booze and light a pretty good fire and use the broken bottles as reasonable weapons. Now, they finally figured out that that wasn't a good thing to allow but they go berserk and ban Granny from carrying her toothpicks and nail varnish.
It's called shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Mqurice |
