"hundreds" of Americans. He did not write "thousands."
The Case of Aircraft as Weapons
Imagination is not a gift usually associated with bureaucracies. For example,
before Pearl Harbor the U.S. government had excellent intelligence that a
Japanese attack was coming, especially after peace talks stalemated at the end
of November 1941. These were days, one historian notes, of "excruciating
uncertainty." The most likely targets were judged to be in Southeast Asia. An
attack was coming,"but officials were at a loss to know where the blow would
fall or what more might be done to prevent it."
another historian observes,"in the face of a clear warning, alert measures bowed
to routine."
imagine that aircraft could be used as weapons. Indeed, since al Qaeda and other
groups had already used suicide vehicles, namely truck bombs, the leap to the use
of other vehicles such as boats (the Cole attack) or planes is not far-fetched.
dent Clinton created a commission under Vice President Al Gore to report on
shortcomings in aviation security in the United States.The Gore Commission's
report, having thoroughly canvassed available expertise in and outside of gov-
ernment, did not mention suicide hijackings or the use of aircraft as weapons.
It focused mainly on the danger of placing bombs onto aircraft--the approach
of the Manila air plot. The Gore Commission did call attention, however, to
lax screening of passengers and what they carried onto planes.
in chapter 4), brought the focus back to more traditional hostage taking; it
reported Bin Ladin's involvement in planning a hijack operation to free prison-
ers such as the "Blind Sheikh," Omar Abdel Rahman. Had the contents of this
PDB been brought to the attention of a wider group, including key members
of Congress, it might have brought much more attention to the need for per-
manent changes in domestic airport and airline security procedures.
explosives-laden aircraft into a U.S. city. This report, circulated in September
1998, originated from a source who had walked into an American consulate
in East Asia. In August of the same year, the intelligence community had
received information that a group of Libyans hoped to crash a plane into the