Narrator / Host (Tucker Carlson Show producer/narrator)

military and the CIA agreed this was the best opportunity they could hope for to kill bin Laden.

They had at least three opportunities to strike, but they never did.

Somebody got wet feet?

Scheuer was removed from his role running Alex Station in 1999.

He was replaced with a figure called Richard Blee, who barely comes up in the 9-11 commission report.

On October 12th, 2000, the failure to act in bin Laden caught up to the agency and with our country when the USS Cole, a destroyer anchored in Aden, Yemen, was attacked by a suicide bomber.

17 American servicemen died.

But this time, the government didn't strike anyone or anything in retaliation.

The official reason given by the report for the lack of action was that the administration lacked definitive proof that al-Qaeda was responsible for the terror attack.

In this case, the 9-11 Commission offers excuses for Clinton, citing an absurd blame game with Clinton administration officials who claimed they were waiting for the legal go ahead from the CIA and the FBI.

But at the same time, then CIA Director George Tenet is reported to have said that he was surprised to hear the White House was awaiting a conclusion from him on responsibility for the coal attack.

Everyone already knew who did it.

It took Bill Clinton just 13 days to respond to the embassy bombings.

But for some reason, a reason that has never been explained, he had no response at all to the attack on the USS Cole.

Even more bizarre and telling is the Bush administration's explanation for why it didn't respond.

It was most clearly articulated by the neocon number two at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz.

He described the Cole bombing as stale by the time Bush took office.

It was just five months after the terror attacks.

Wolfowitz wanted something bigger to respond to, and soon he got it.

If you want to understand why and how 9-11 happened, the years to look at most closely are 1999 to 2001.