For ten years, Senator Graham served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he had access to some of the nation's most closely guarded secrets. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Graham co-chaired a historic joint House-Senate inquiry into the intelligence community's failures. From that investigation and his own personal fact-finding, Graham discovered disturbing evidence of terrorist activity and a web of complicity:
<ul><li>At one point, a terrorist support network conducted some of its operations through Saudi Arabia's U.S. embassy—and a funding chain for terrorism led to the Saudi royal family.</li><li>In February 2002, only four months after combat began in Afghanistan, the Bush administration ordered General Tommy Franks to move vital military resources out of Afghanistan for an operation against Iraq—despite Franks's privately stated belief that there was a job to finish in Afghanistan, and that the war on terrorism should focus next on terrorist targets in Somalia and Yemen.</li><li>Throughout 2002, President Bush directed the FBI to limit its investigations of Saudi Arabia, which supported some and possibly all of the September 11 hijackers.</li><li>The White House was so uncooperative with the bipartisan inquiry that its behavior bore all the hallmarks of a cover-up.</li><li>The FBI had an informant who was extremely close to two of the September 11 hijackers, and actually housed one of them, yet the existence of this informant and the scope of his contacts with the hijackers were covered up.</li><li>There were twelve instances when the September 11 plot could have been discovered and potentially foiled.</li><li>Days after 9/11, U.S. authorities allowed some Saudis to fly, despite a complete civil aviation ban, after which the government expedited the departure of more than one hundred Saudis from the United States.</li><li>Foreign leaders throughout the Middle East warned President Bush of exactly what would happen in a postwar Iraq, and those warnings went either ignored or unheeded.</li></ul>As a result of his Senate work, Graham has become convinced that the attacks of September 11 could have been avoided, and that the Bush administration's war on terrorism has failed to address the immediate danger posed by al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. His book is a disturbing reminder that at the highest levels of national security, now more than ever, intelligence matters.
]]>For ten years, Senator Graham served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he had access to some of the nation's most closely guarded secrets. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Graham co-chaired a historic joint House-Senate inquiry into the intelligence community's failures. From that investigation and his own personal fact-finding, Graham discovered disturbing evidence of terrorist activity and a web of complicity:
<ul><li>At one point, a terrorist support network conducted some of its operations through Saudi Arabia's U.S. embassy—and a funding chain for terrorism led to the Saudi royal family.</li><li>In February 2002, only four months after combat began in Afghanistan, the Bush administration ordered General Tommy Franks to move vital military resources out of Afghanistan for an operation against Iraq—despite Franks's privately stated belief that there was a job to finish in Afghanistan, and that the war on terrorism should focus next on terrorist targets in Somalia and Yemen.</li><li>Throughout 2002, President Bush directed the FBI to limit its investigations of Saudi Arabia, which supported some and possibly all of the September 11 hijackers.</li><li>The White House was so uncooperative with the bipartisan inquiry that its behavior bore all the hallmarks of a cover-up.</li><li>The FBI had an informant who was extremely close to two of the September 11 hijackers, and actually housed one of them, yet the existence of this informant and the scope of his contacts with the hijackers were covered up.</li><li>There were twelve instances when the September 11 plot could have been discovered and potentially foiled.</li><li>Days after 9/11, U.S. authorities allowed some Saudis to fly, despite a complete civil aviation ban, after which the government expedited the departure of more than one hundred Saudis from the United States.</li><li>Foreign leaders throughout the Middle East warned President Bush of exactly what would happen in a postwar Iraq, and those warnings went either ignored or unheeded.</li></ul>As a result of his Senate work, Graham has become convinced that the attacks of September 11 could have been avoided, and that the Bush administration's war on terrorism has failed to address the immediate danger posed by al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. His book is a disturbing reminder that at the highest levels of national security, now more than ever, intelligence matters.
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The Joint Inquiry, co-chaired by Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), was the first and arguably most effective government body to investigate the horrendous 2001 attacks. Indeed, it helped compel a reluctant George W. Bush to establish the 9/11 Commission. But while both investigations sharply criticized the failures of our nation's intelligence establishment, only Graham's dared to challenge the Bush administration on a number of troubling points--especially the apparent complicity of Saudi officials in the events of 9/11, the subsequent protection provided by President Bush for a large number of Saudis (including members of the bin Laden family), and the run-up to the Iraq War, which Graham voted against.
The original work combined a compelling narrative of 9/11 with an insightful eyewitness chronicle of the Joint Inquiry's investigation, conclusions, and recommendations. Sharply critiquing the failures at the CIA, FBI, and the White House and detailing at least twelve occasions when the 9/11 plot could have been stopped, it concluded with a clear plan for overhauling our intelligence and national security establishment. For this paperback edition, Graham has added a substantial new preface and postscript that lucidly examine how effectively the nation has responded--or failed to respond--to the Joint Inquiry's recommendations.
This edition restores Intelligence Matters to its rightful place as one of the key texts on the subject of 9/11 and provides a grim reminder of the challenges that remain for us in the war on terror.
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