Matt Bevan
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Appearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
But Chris Isham and John O'Neill shared a growing interest in this old uncle in the Pakistani wilderness, who during the interview seemed pretty harmless.
Bin Laden's handlers wouldn't allow anyone to translate the Sheikh's answers.
It was only when the interview was finished and the producers sent the tapes back to be translated that they learned what this seemingly harmless man was saying.
Hmm, maybe not as harmless as he seems.
When he saw this interview, John O'Neill became fixated on Bin Laden.
He was sure that after a number of failed attacks on American sites, that the US was due for another domestic attack and that Osama Bin Laden would be the person to do it.
He tried hard to raise the alarm within the FBI, but because Bin Laden was an international threat, it was outside his remit.
Chris Isham said that John started getting frustrated that he wasn't being taken seriously enough.
The problem was John didn't have all the marbles.
He could only access the information the FBI was gathering domestically, not the stuff the CIA was gathering in the Middle East.
His frustration began to compound.
In the FBI jar, which John had access to, there were a couple of concerning marbles.
One was that a man with known connections with extremist groups had recently been arrested by the FBI while attending a flight training school in Minnesota.
Another suggested a coordinated effort may be underway by bin Laden to send people to the United States to obtain flight training after a number of suspicious people were seen attending flight schools in Arizona.
Two interesting marbles in the FBI jar, but not enough to get the full picture.
Unbeknownst to John, over in the CIA's jar, they had more data points.
The CIA knew that a number of high-profile al-Qaeda operatives were attending planning meetings in Malaysia and intended to travel to the United States.
John O'Neill was never across that information.
In mid-2001, he left the FBI, partially out of frustration, and took a high-paid job in the private sector.