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Intelligence Matters: The Cia, the Fbi, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America's War on Terror
In this explosive, controversial, and profoundly alarming insider's report, Senator Bob Graham reveals faults in America's national security network severe enough to raise fundamental questions about the competence and honesty of public officials in the CIA, the FBI, and the White House. For ten years, Senator Graham served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he had access to some of the nation's most closely guarded secrets. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Graham co-chaired a historic joint House-Senate inquiry into the intelligence community's failures. From that investigation and his own personal fact-finding, Graham discovered disturbing evidence of terrorist activity and a web of At one point, a terrorist support network conducted some of its operations through Saudi Arabia's U.S. embassy—and a funding chain for terrorism led to the Saudi royal family. In February 2002, only four months after combat began in Afghanistan, the Bush administration ordered General Tommy Franks to move vital military resources out of Afghanistan for an operation against Iraq—despite Franks's privately stated belief that there was a job to finish in Afghanistan, and that the war on terrorism should focus next on terrorist targets in Somalia and Yemen. Throughout 2002, President Bush directed the FBI to limit its investigations of Saudi Arabia, which supported some and possibly all of the September 11 hijackers. The White House was so uncooperative with the bipartisan inquiry that its behavior bore all the hallmarks of a cover-up. The FBI had an informant who was extremely close to two of the September 11 hijackers, and actually housed one of them, yet the existence of this informant and the scope of his contacts with the hijackers were covered up. There were twelve instances when the September 11 plot could have been discovered and potentially foiled. Days after 9/11, U.S. authorities allowed some Saudis to fly, despite a complete civil aviation ban, after which the government expedited the departure of more than one hundred Saudis from the United States. Foreign leaders throughout the Middle East warned President Bush of exactly what would happen in a postwar Iraq, and those warnings went either ignored or unheeded. As a result of his Senate work, Graham has become convinced that the attacks of September 11 could have been avoided, and that the Bush administration's war on terrorism has failed to address the immediate danger posed by al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. His book is a disturbing reminder that at the highest levels of national security, now more than ever, intelligence matters.
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First published January 1, 2004
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About the author
Bob Graham
13 books6 followersDaniel Robert "Bob" Graham (born November 9, 1936) is an American politician and author. He was the 38th Governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States Senator from that state from 1987 to 2005.
Graham tried unsuccessfully to run for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, but dropped out of the race on October 6, 2003. He announced his retirement from the Senate on November 3 of that year.
Graham is now concentrating his efforts on the newly established Bob Graham Center for Public Service at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Florida. He served as Chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD proliferation and terrorism. Through the WMD policy center he advocates for the recommendations in the Commission report, World at Risk.
Graham also served as co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling and a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the CIA External Advisory Board.
In 2011, Graham published his first novel, the thriller The Keys to the Kingdom. Graham has written three non-fiction books. Workdays-Finding Florida on the Job; Intelligence Matters and America: The Owners Manual.
Source: Wikipedia.
Graham tried unsuccessfully to run for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, but dropped out of the race on October 6, 2003. He announced his retirement from the Senate on November 3 of that year.
Graham is now concentrating his efforts on the newly established Bob Graham Center for Public Service at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Florida. He served as Chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD proliferation and terrorism. Through the WMD policy center he advocates for the recommendations in the Commission report, World at Risk.
Graham also served as co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling and a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the CIA External Advisory Board.
In 2011, Graham published his first novel, the thriller The Keys to the Kingdom. Graham has written three non-fiction books. Workdays-Finding Florida on the Job; Intelligence Matters and America: The Owners Manual.
Source: Wikipedia.
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July 30, 2019
A scathing indictment
This is a scathing indictment of not only the intelligence community which failed to prevent the very preventable 9/11 attacks, but more incisively the Bush administration itself which is losing the war on terror through stupidity and incompetence.
Written by Senator Bob Graham with help from speech writer Jeff Nussbaum this book details in a clear and readable manner twelve intelligence and governmental failures that allowed the September 11th attacks to take place. Graham's point is that had any one of the failures been instead successes, 9/11 would likely never have happened.
The failure of the intelligence community is now well known and well documented. Mainly it has been a case of not so much incompetence (although there was plenty of that) but of (believe it or not) "a failure to communicate." That is, the CIA would not tell the FBI what it knew and vice-versa, and neither would tell other law enforcement and intelligence agencies what they knew. The reason: mainly turf control. Institutionally, the CIA never wants to tell anybody anything since any revelation may have the effect of revealing sources or methods, which would tend to lessen their ability to gather information in the future. The FBI on the other hand wants to arrest people and have them prosecuted--although of course they don't want to make an arrest if they think they can get somebody higher up. Furthermore, government agencies tend to withhold information to keep hidden incompetence or failure. The Bush administration is notorious for this tactic; indeed the Bush administration does not share with the American people one iota of information unless it has to, or unless, in the rare instance, such information is entirely flattering to the White House.
The failure of the Bush administration is unfortunately not so well known or understood as is that of the intelligence community. Part of the problem is a failure not emphasized in this book, that is, the failure of the press to report the news as it is rather than as the White House would have it. I'll skip the failure of the Fourth Estate for now, as Graham has, and concentrate on the most massive of all failures reported in this book, the failure to engage the enemy in the war on terror. As Graham makes clear, what Bush has done with his invasion of Iraq is divert resources from the war on terror, using our military and hundreds of billions of our dollars in an exercise in utter futility, an exercise in shock and awe, full of sound and fury, signifying exactly, as Shakespeare had it, nothing. Instead of going after Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda when we had them on the run in Afghanistan, Bush let bid Laden escape and instead went after the bogeyman Saddam Hussein. The direct result has not only been that the terrorists who actually were responsible for the murders of 9/11 are still free to direct more acts of terror. In Iraq, Bush has created "a laboratory for terrorists" (p. 222) and "a giant recruiting poster for radicalized Islamists" (p. 219)
To put it bluntly, the Bush administration in effect is helping the terrorists. Why? The obvious reason is just sheer stupidity, ignorance and incompetence, but it is increasingly being hinted that George W. Bush is so much under the thrall of the Saudi princes who have the ability to one day make George W. a really, really rich man (instead of just a run of the mill millionaire) that he continues to allow them to financially support terror and does nothing about it. Graham of course does not say this, but it is only a step or two from what he does say to this conclusion.
Here's what Graham does say. Noting that "...a section of the report [from a declassified CIA report on terrorism] related to the Saudi government and the assistance that government gave to some and possibly all of the September 11 terrorists" had been blacked out, he writes, "Again, it was as if the President's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety." (pp. 215-216)
One also recalls, as Graham notes on page 106 that immediately following the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration allowed "more than 140 Saudis--including members of the bin Laden family" to be flown out of the United States. This despite the fact that the FAA had ordered all (other) private flights grounded, and despite the fact that none of the Saudis was interviewed by the FBI. Most of them were no doubt not involved in the attacks, but nonetheless they might have had information that would have helped the investigation. I'm sure the reader does not have to be reminded that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
I want to make two other points: One, if the Bush administration and the administrations that follow do not use America's resources wisely in combating terrorism (instead of increasing it), we will almost inevitably experience a nuclear attack on one of our cities, most likely Washington D.C. or New York. It is not enough to throw bodies and money at some perceived evil in the Middle East as if to puff out our chests in a macho manner. Fighting terrorism requires skill, knowledge, hard work and dedication. Bombs and troops on the wrong ground will not get it done.
Finally, why, oh why, have we not heard any more about who planted the anthrax in the mail immediately following the September 11th attacks? Graham reports only that "no connection has been established between the anthrax attacks and the terrorist attacks of September 11." (p. 134) I think he knows a lot more than he is letting on, and that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the anthrax attacks that is being covered up, perhaps so as not to alarm the public. See Cole, Leonard A. The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story (2003) for more details. [Note: Since the FBI has confidently identified the sole culprit as Bruce Edwards Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008, this now seems dubious.]
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
This is a scathing indictment of not only the intelligence community which failed to prevent the very preventable 9/11 attacks, but more incisively the Bush administration itself which is losing the war on terror through stupidity and incompetence.
Written by Senator Bob Graham with help from speech writer Jeff Nussbaum this book details in a clear and readable manner twelve intelligence and governmental failures that allowed the September 11th attacks to take place. Graham's point is that had any one of the failures been instead successes, 9/11 would likely never have happened.
The failure of the intelligence community is now well known and well documented. Mainly it has been a case of not so much incompetence (although there was plenty of that) but of (believe it or not) "a failure to communicate." That is, the CIA would not tell the FBI what it knew and vice-versa, and neither would tell other law enforcement and intelligence agencies what they knew. The reason: mainly turf control. Institutionally, the CIA never wants to tell anybody anything since any revelation may have the effect of revealing sources or methods, which would tend to lessen their ability to gather information in the future. The FBI on the other hand wants to arrest people and have them prosecuted--although of course they don't want to make an arrest if they think they can get somebody higher up. Furthermore, government agencies tend to withhold information to keep hidden incompetence or failure. The Bush administration is notorious for this tactic; indeed the Bush administration does not share with the American people one iota of information unless it has to, or unless, in the rare instance, such information is entirely flattering to the White House.
The failure of the Bush administration is unfortunately not so well known or understood as is that of the intelligence community. Part of the problem is a failure not emphasized in this book, that is, the failure of the press to report the news as it is rather than as the White House would have it. I'll skip the failure of the Fourth Estate for now, as Graham has, and concentrate on the most massive of all failures reported in this book, the failure to engage the enemy in the war on terror. As Graham makes clear, what Bush has done with his invasion of Iraq is divert resources from the war on terror, using our military and hundreds of billions of our dollars in an exercise in utter futility, an exercise in shock and awe, full of sound and fury, signifying exactly, as Shakespeare had it, nothing. Instead of going after Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda when we had them on the run in Afghanistan, Bush let bid Laden escape and instead went after the bogeyman Saddam Hussein. The direct result has not only been that the terrorists who actually were responsible for the murders of 9/11 are still free to direct more acts of terror. In Iraq, Bush has created "a laboratory for terrorists" (p. 222) and "a giant recruiting poster for radicalized Islamists" (p. 219)
To put it bluntly, the Bush administration in effect is helping the terrorists. Why? The obvious reason is just sheer stupidity, ignorance and incompetence, but it is increasingly being hinted that George W. Bush is so much under the thrall of the Saudi princes who have the ability to one day make George W. a really, really rich man (instead of just a run of the mill millionaire) that he continues to allow them to financially support terror and does nothing about it. Graham of course does not say this, but it is only a step or two from what he does say to this conclusion.
Here's what Graham does say. Noting that "...a section of the report [from a declassified CIA report on terrorism] related to the Saudi government and the assistance that government gave to some and possibly all of the September 11 terrorists" had been blacked out, he writes, "Again, it was as if the President's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety." (pp. 215-216)
One also recalls, as Graham notes on page 106 that immediately following the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration allowed "more than 140 Saudis--including members of the bin Laden family" to be flown out of the United States. This despite the fact that the FAA had ordered all (other) private flights grounded, and despite the fact that none of the Saudis was interviewed by the FBI. Most of them were no doubt not involved in the attacks, but nonetheless they might have had information that would have helped the investigation. I'm sure the reader does not have to be reminded that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
I want to make two other points: One, if the Bush administration and the administrations that follow do not use America's resources wisely in combating terrorism (instead of increasing it), we will almost inevitably experience a nuclear attack on one of our cities, most likely Washington D.C. or New York. It is not enough to throw bodies and money at some perceived evil in the Middle East as if to puff out our chests in a macho manner. Fighting terrorism requires skill, knowledge, hard work and dedication. Bombs and troops on the wrong ground will not get it done.
Finally, why, oh why, have we not heard any more about who planted the anthrax in the mail immediately following the September 11th attacks? Graham reports only that "no connection has been established between the anthrax attacks and the terrorist attacks of September 11." (p. 134) I think he knows a lot more than he is letting on, and that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the anthrax attacks that is being covered up, perhaps so as not to alarm the public. See Cole, Leonard A. The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story (2003) for more details. [Note: Since the FBI has confidently identified the sole culprit as Bruce Edwards Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008, this now seems dubious.]
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
September 10, 2020
My threshold for books about the Trump era has risen in the last year, perhaps because I’m taking anti-depressants. My threshold for books about the Bush era and 9/11 remains low (nineteen years ago tomorrow). The effects of it are still felt today and call back to that awful day and the awfulness my country put itself through in the ensuing years.
That could’ve been why I didn’t really glom to Bob Graham’s book, although I find its existence fascinating. A sitting Senator wrote about serving on a bicameral congressional investigative committee into the intelligence failures of 9/11. The book is well-detailed and thorough, even if it was written in a dry manner.
I think it’s both the conclusions Graham comes to and the structure itself that bother me. The first part of it is devoted to documenting how the hijackers got into the country and functioned within. The detail is meticulous and Graham uses this opportunity to talk about the shortcomings of US intelligence. The problem is, most of his solutions came to pass, minus the efficiency he proposed. The lives of brown-skinned Muslims became heavily scrutinized in this country. Effectiveness at targeting only suspected terrorists would have maybe helped but I’m not sure Graham’s plan is much better than what the Bush administration proposed (though it could hardly be worse).
The second part is devoted to life on the committee itself and here, we learn the juicy tidbits of how the Bush administration obstructed the investigation, ostensibly to shield its connections to Saudi Arabia and force a ridiculous war with neutral Iraq. My stomach churned at the turn of events, seeing the familiar parade of bad actors in their roles. Even Robert Mueller, lantern jawed honest man of the Trump investigation, doesn’t come off great here.
Graham builds a solid, if clunky case at how the Bush administration not only obstructed justice but lied us into a war. It’s one you’ve heard countless times but again, I found it compelling to hear from someone who had a front row seat to the carnage.
At any rate, this probably won’t tell you much of what you already knew but given the source, it’s still worth a read, even if it’s not especially readable.
That could’ve been why I didn’t really glom to Bob Graham’s book, although I find its existence fascinating. A sitting Senator wrote about serving on a bicameral congressional investigative committee into the intelligence failures of 9/11. The book is well-detailed and thorough, even if it was written in a dry manner.
I think it’s both the conclusions Graham comes to and the structure itself that bother me. The first part of it is devoted to documenting how the hijackers got into the country and functioned within. The detail is meticulous and Graham uses this opportunity to talk about the shortcomings of US intelligence. The problem is, most of his solutions came to pass, minus the efficiency he proposed. The lives of brown-skinned Muslims became heavily scrutinized in this country. Effectiveness at targeting only suspected terrorists would have maybe helped but I’m not sure Graham’s plan is much better than what the Bush administration proposed (though it could hardly be worse).
The second part is devoted to life on the committee itself and here, we learn the juicy tidbits of how the Bush administration obstructed the investigation, ostensibly to shield its connections to Saudi Arabia and force a ridiculous war with neutral Iraq. My stomach churned at the turn of events, seeing the familiar parade of bad actors in their roles. Even Robert Mueller, lantern jawed honest man of the Trump investigation, doesn’t come off great here.
Graham builds a solid, if clunky case at how the Bush administration not only obstructed justice but lied us into a war. It’s one you’ve heard countless times but again, I found it compelling to hear from someone who had a front row seat to the carnage.
At any rate, this probably won’t tell you much of what you already knew but given the source, it’s still worth a read, even if it’s not especially readable.
November 4, 2016
Senator Bob Graham in this book highlights a lot of the intelligence failures that have been reviewed from the 9/11 commission report but he adds some other pieces to the mix that I did not know a lot of which was no released to the public for fear of embarrassing the respective interested parties.
Saudi Arabia in this book & most other dossiers I have read is nothing but bad news. But a lot of the revelations in here about Saudi Arabia should really piss off the average American. Some nuggets?
- 19 of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. But what you didn't know is that a member of the royal family (a wife of one of the ruling family) actually cut checks to two of the hijackers paying for both their rent & also their fees to attend you guessed it...flight schools in the US.
- One of the hijackers was actually flown into DC for an event at the Saudi consulate. Paid for again by the royal family.
- Two of the hijackers who were based in San Diego actually were staying at the home of a PAID FBI informant. The informant even though he had several discussions with the future hijackers & knew their activities mentioned nothing to the FBI.
- General Tommie Franks (who was running the Afghanistan war) went privately to see Graham to tell him that drones, special forces & other resources that were being used to hunt down & locate Bin Laden were being pulled to Iraq on direct orders from the White House.
Could government be anymore incompetent? Yes...
Saudi Arabia in this book & most other dossiers I have read is nothing but bad news. But a lot of the revelations in here about Saudi Arabia should really piss off the average American. Some nuggets?
- 19 of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. But what you didn't know is that a member of the royal family (a wife of one of the ruling family) actually cut checks to two of the hijackers paying for both their rent & also their fees to attend you guessed it...flight schools in the US.
- One of the hijackers was actually flown into DC for an event at the Saudi consulate. Paid for again by the royal family.
- Two of the hijackers who were based in San Diego actually were staying at the home of a PAID FBI informant. The informant even though he had several discussions with the future hijackers & knew their activities mentioned nothing to the FBI.
- General Tommie Franks (who was running the Afghanistan war) went privately to see Graham to tell him that drones, special forces & other resources that were being used to hunt down & locate Bin Laden were being pulled to Iraq on direct orders from the White House.
Could government be anymore incompetent? Yes...
December 11, 2020
This book is phenomenal. I would say it was extremely important in the ultimate declassification and release of 23 pages of the 9/11 report which criticized the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 operatives connection to Saudi agents.
August 14, 2024
Astonishing
I lost my naivete by reading this book. Now I know that the political matters shed a lot of useless shadow on what is realy important from an intelligence point of view. When will the American nation elect honest politicians, if such individuals exist.
I lost my naivete by reading this book. Now I know that the political matters shed a lot of useless shadow on what is realy important from an intelligence point of view. When will the American nation elect honest politicians, if such individuals exist.
December 5, 2020
Good Intelligence in the Hands of Dumb and Dumber
Written by Mandi Chestler on June 26th, 2006
Book Rating: 5/5
Senator Bob Graham presents an objective, factual evaluation of what we did and didn't know before 9/11, based on his work with the bi-partisan Senate Investigation Special Committee. He outlines 12 different instances where we could have foiled at least parts of the terrorists' plans for the attack on 9/11. Then he gives insider details on the administration's mishandling of events after the attack. Whether the Administration's mishaps were a result of incompetence, negligence or criminal obstruction is up for the listener to decide. However, one is left with the impression that our country's safety may have been in the hands of Dumb and Dumber. This CD is a must listen for anyone who wants to be informed about 9/11 and the War On Terrorism.
Written by Mandi Chestler on June 26th, 2006
Book Rating: 5/5
Senator Bob Graham presents an objective, factual evaluation of what we did and didn't know before 9/11, based on his work with the bi-partisan Senate Investigation Special Committee. He outlines 12 different instances where we could have foiled at least parts of the terrorists' plans for the attack on 9/11. Then he gives insider details on the administration's mishandling of events after the attack. Whether the Administration's mishaps were a result of incompetence, negligence or criminal obstruction is up for the listener to decide. However, one is left with the impression that our country's safety may have been in the hands of Dumb and Dumber. This CD is a must listen for anyone who wants to be informed about 9/11 and the War On Terrorism.
January 8, 2010
Former Florida Senator elaborates on the intelligence failures that allowed the events of 9/11
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