FBI AND 9/11

FBI's inability in 9/11 attacks



FBI Intelligence Management

Introduction

It is common knowledge that the intelligence services in the USA are fighting hard to contribution selective information that they possess with some other intelligence services. Intelligence agencies even find it to be difficult to act on the information provided by other intelligence agencies. It is completely coherent to perceive these intelligence agencies are facing the same amount of problems, as compared to other organizations, which are working in the same field of management of security in the country like different law enforcement agencies, since the last stage of the treatment of crime is intelligence. On 11 September 2001, nineteen terrorists had hijacked four commercial planes in the process of an interconnected attack of terrorism against America. This act of terrorism was clearly an act of failure of intelligence from the side on intelligence agencies of America (Jones 2007) (Shachar, 2010).

The problem

After the terrorist attack on the twin towers, people from all over the country had raised a number of questions regarding the working and the efficiency of the FBI. Amongst the most important and fascinating information that was circulating among the masses after the terrorist attacks were how much information did the FBI regarding any possible attack before 9/11. It had become public knowledge that the FBI had information regarding a possible terrorist attack through aircraft, from the Phoenix electronic communication memo. They had failed to act on the information that their intelligence sources had provided them (Shachar, 2010).

The electronic communication memo from the Phoenix was a memorandum, which an FBI agent, who was in the Phoenix office, in July 2001, had sent to Headquarters of FBI and to the New York Field Office of FBI. That electronic memo from the FBI agent in Phoenix office had delineated the theory of that FBI agent that Osama bin laden was making managing an organized endeavor to make a terrorist attack on USA. In the process, Osama had sent a few students to get educated in the civil aviation universities and colleges in America, obtain the necessary knowledge regarding aviation so that they can join the aviation industry of USA, and conduct acts of terrorism. In the memo, the agent had made a recommendation that the headquarters of the FBI should alert all field officers and ask them to get identification forms from different students studying aviation, and request the US Department of State to provide assistance to them in this regard by providing them visa information of these students. However, the FBI headquarters had failed to take any major action in response to this memo. In this report, we will discuss that how The FBI's inability to handle and process the July 10, 2001 Phoenix Electronic Communication Memo had assisted the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, the possible causes behind this act of FBI, and implications for Homeland security (National Commission of Terrorist Attacks 2010) (Shamir, 2010).

Overview of the problem

Causes behind the problem

First, it is important to ...