Kristen Breitweiser

But then the USS Cole happens.

In 2000, 17 sailors were killed.

Again, that information flew through the Al-Hada switchboard.

And the CIA still at that point doesn't go in and shut it down and stop it.

I believe that if the Al-Hada switchboard was shut down, it would have at the very least delayed the 9-11 attacks.

And perhaps my husband would be alive today.

Well, because first of all, the embassy bombing happened and I know it was only, you know, like 13 Americans or something like that.

And mostly it happened in East Africa.

So most of the casualties were African.

And maybe they thought like, yeah, you're right.

The cost benefit analysis, like we'll just, you know, we lost 13 military, whatever.

But then the coal happens at 17 sailors.

Each one of those lives means everything in the world to their family.

And then 9-11 happens, 3,000 people are killed.

At some point, you need to hold the CIA accountable.

And instead of holding the CIA accountable, people like Kofor Black, George Tenet, we had George Tenet getting a Medal of Freedom, but more disturbing to me,

was that you took the same director of the CIA that had so utterly failed before 9-11, utterly failed with the USS Cole, and you relied on him to give you intelligence for the WMD in Iraq.

And somehow you thought it was going to be credible and worthwhile.

It's inconceivable to me why President Bush would have done that, right?

But he did and we relied on it and it turned out to be a lie, okay?