192. 9/11: The War on Terror (Ep 6)
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What were the main questions introduced at the start of the episode?
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Could nine eleven have been prevented? And if so, who was to blame for the intelligence failure? And what is the enduring impact twenty-five years on of that awful day on September the eleventh, two thousand one? Well, welcome to the Rest is Classified. I'm Gordon Carrera. And I'm David McCloskey. And David, this is the final episode in our six-part series on 9-11. We've gone through the day itself last time, but this time we're going to look at this really Important And to some extent still argued over question, which is whether there was an intelligence failure and whether this could have been prevented. And then we're gonna look at the legacy, the impact of that day. But first a message from our sponsors, HP.
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Before we dive into some of the big questions we're gonna grapple with in this episode, I'm y you were covering security and intelligence matters on nine eleven and spent a lot of time interacting with people in the security service. I mean, what w what was the feeling? Inside CIA. In the immediate aftermath
of the attacks.
How do the hosts describe the nature of the intelligence failure before 9/11?
Well, there's always this question after any terrorist attack, actually, which is did it come out of nowhere? Were these people on the radar? Could it have been prevented? I mean, that is always the question. We've talked about it in the context of seven seven, the the London attacks and the fact Little bits were known about some of these attackers, and therefore could it should it have been stopped? So that question almost always comes up straight away. I think, though, what was different about 9-11 was just the scale of it and the scale of the shock and the the sense of what was at stake with that question, including politically for the Bush administration. What did they know? So it's always asked, but the intensity then was.
Enormous. And it's interesting. I was going back and I was looking and I made a documentary about, I think, five years after 9-11 about the CIA. And I went and talked to people who'd been in the CIA at 9-11. It was fascinating to look back now at some of their comments because there were there were different views. I mean, I spoke to um Kofa Black, who was the head of the counter-terrorism center, and his attitude was like After nine eleven I felt a like a junkyard dog which had been unleashed. And so his attitude was like, Now at last we go get them. Yeah. You know, and that was the kind of gung ho attitude. There was Mike Shawy. We've talked about him, who'd been head of Alex Station, the team after Bin Laden in the 90s.
I interviewed him and asked him, What did I feel like? And he could remember this moment. He'd moved on from that job. We'd had a call from a friend who was still working on Bin Laden and said, Turn on the television. And and his attitude was, Hell, we could have stopped this and we didn't. And we, the CIA, are going to take the blame when in his view.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What were the main questions introduced at the start of the episode?
0:03–2:44
2
How do the hosts describe the nature of the intelligence failure before 9/11?
2:44–10:54
3
What specific missed intelligence opportunities do they cite from 2000‑2001?
10:54–21:06
4
Could 9/11 have been prevented with better collection and covert action?
21:06–31:03
5
What were the immediate operational and managerial failures after the attacks?
31:03–40:51
6
How did the 9/11 attacks shape the U.S. war on terror and intelligence reforms?
40:51–52:54
7
What long‑term cultural, political and societal impacts did 9/11 have on America?
52:54–56:27