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Presidents regularly mount the podium but FBI directors have kept rather quiet on September 11. Last year, Christopher Wray delivered remarks that prove enlightening.
“It’s fitting that we mark this anniversary here, at the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC),” Wray said, “because the TSC is a prime example of the strides we made following the attacks—developing new capabilities and working in concert with our partners to keep people safe. It demonstrates the ingenuity, the dedication, and the spirit of collaboration we’ve brought—as a collective law enforcement and intelligence community—to the fight against terrorism.”
The Terrorist Screening Center, in Vienna Virginia, was established in 2003 to “consolidate the government’s approach to terrorism,” The TSC is administered by the FBI, with support from the Intelligence Community, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Department of Treasury, and Department of Defense.
The impact of 9/11, Wray explained, “profoundly shaped the way we do our jobs, the way we collaborate and communicate with partners, and the way we tackle challenges. Really, it all comes down to one thing—keeping people we will never know, and families we will never meet, safe from harm.” Wray did not put a number to “the people who died that day,” and the only casualties he named were two FBI agents.
“Because of that terrible day, we’ve transformed the bureau in ways that have made us stronger and better, and our country safer. Those transformations have proven critical over the past 21 years—and will remain critical in the face of a continuously evolving terrorist threat. As we carry on this mission to protect Americans from terrorism, we bring to our work the same sense of purpose and resolve that we felt on 9/11 and in the days that followed.”
And so on, with a few significant omissions. The FBI failed to prevent the attack of September 11, 2001, and also slipped up on the prequel.
In 1993, the FBI failed to prevent Islamic terrorists from bombing the World Trade Center, which claimed six victims. The lessons went unlearned. For all its money, power and resources, the FBI failed to prevent terrorists from hijacking airliners and crashing them into the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
“Domestic agencies” such as the FBI “never mobilized in response to the threat,” The 9/11 Commission Report concluded. “They didn’t have a plan,” and “the public was not warned.” The FBI Inspector General contributed to the report, so FBI incompetence was doubtless worse than indicated. No word about any FBI bosses being disciplined, demoted or discharged over the failure, which continued.
The FBI’s Terrorism Screening Center established “one federal terrorism watchlist” with “information on people reasonably suspected to be involved in terrorism (or related activities).” One of them was U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan.
The FBI knew Hasan was communicating with al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki about killing Americans. Even so, the FBI’s Washington office judged that Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities and dropped surveillance on the officer. On November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas, Hasan shot dead 13 Americans and wounded more than 30 others.
For the composite character president David Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, it was “workplace violence,” not terrorism or even gun violence. In his fundamental transformation of the United States, the composite character ignored Islamic terrorism and targeted his domestic opposition.
In 2012, the Department of Homeland Security, a partner with the Terrorist Screening Center, released Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1979-2008. This study classified persons judged to be “suspicious of centralized federal authority” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing terrorists.”
In 2013, Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right, from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, warned about the “anti-federalist movement.” Members of this movement “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights.” That same year marked another FBI failure.
Russian intelligence warned the FBI about Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who managed to escape the efforts of the Terrorist Screening Center. On April 15, 2013, the Tsarnaevs bombed the Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding more than 260. Local police, not the FBI, killed Tamerlan and captured Dzhokhar.
The Terrorist Screening Center also failed to flag Islamic terrorists Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. On December 2, 2015, the jihadists gunned down 14 people in San Bernardino California, wounding many others. San Bernardino police, not the FBI, took down the terrorists with no loss of innocent life.
If the Terrorist Screening Center picked up Islamic State supporter Omar Mateen, the FBI did nothing about the deadly threat he posed. On June 12, 2016, Mateen shot dead 49 people and wounded more than 50 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. As CNN noted, it was “the nation’s worst terror attack since 9/11.” As in Boston and San Bernardino, local police, not the FBI, took down the mass murderer.
For Christopher Wray, the Terrorist Screening Center is “a prime example of the strides we made following the attacks, developing new capabilities and working in concert with our partners to keep people safe. It demonstrates the ingenuity, the dedication, and the spirit of collaboration we’ve brought—as a collective law enforcement and intelligence community—to the fight against terrorism.” Evidence of those strides at Fort Hood, Boston, San Bernardino and Orlando is hard to find.
The Terrorist Screening Center is like a screen door on a submarine. The FBI does not protect the people and does not keep the nation safe from terrorism. The struggle against FBI failure is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
The FBI is real good at screening “terrorists” like parents, Catholics, and pro-lifers.
The FBI had a chance to stop the chickenshit Tsarnaev brothers, but seemed more worried about “islamaphobia”.
They asked the Tsarnaevs if they were jihadists, they denied it, and with that simple denial, the case was closed. (Maybe if the Tsarnaevs had been linked with Tea Party patriots, the FBI might have been more aggressive.)
That is an actual pattern with the grotesquely overpaid and fat pensioned fbi.
It’s time to demolish and build a new org from scratch.
“No word about any FBI bosses being disciplined, demoted or discharged over the failure, which continued.”
I would wager that their government handbook talks extensively about “accountability” whilst holding nobody to account.
The”Terrorists”(who took”Flying Lessons”),only wanted to learn how to”Steer”the aircraft;they didn’t want to know anything about”Taking Off and Lamding”.This should have Really”Raised Some EyeBrows”????
Great article. We keep seeing articles like this one by Billingsley, but nothing changes. We are living in a time of incompetence and/or tyranny.
Tyranny, definately. Our FBI went after Roger Stone, Gerome Corsi, and Trump with guns drawn like they were drug lords or something. They’re also good at killing disabled veterans in wheelchairs for their online posts. Or a woman in a doorway with a baby in her arms because she didn’t trust the government. Real safe, we are…
The fbi is too lost to be allowed to continue its pathetic existence and with its record.
Not being able to discern real terrorists from parents at school board meetings, catholic church members, decent citizens praying with no violence or even any hinderance across the street from abortion clinics, show how confused the fbi has become. Further, the father of the underwear bomber tried multiple times to advise US authorities about his terrorist son but each attempt fell on deaf ears. Further yet, the fbi using foreign intelligence agencies to spy on stateside legal citizens is beyond tolerable. The fbi needs to be tossed. And then we have some 17 intelligence agencies with only one that is really trustworthy by the military agency working with the China spy boss here. That agency did not have confidence in the other 16 to let them know about the work. This in and of itself should be sufficient to toss the 16 deemed nontrustworthy by the military unit. Why pay richly for 16 agencies that leak and mostly function as chair warmers? And then we have the corrupted, politicized DOJ. Hopefully, on day ONE, a decent Prez and AG will can it and build a true justice department out of the ashes of the doj destroyed, politicized by Obama and Biden.
Has it occurred to you that our modern FBI, DHS, ODNI, and DOJ are really not protecting us from our enemies but protecting themselves from us?
IT’S MUCH WORSE THAN ANY OF US COULD HAVE IMAGINED!
JOE’S 10 MILLION INVASION AND NOT ONE VETTED.
Both political sides know the DoJ is corrupt. However, while one side timidly admits it, the other vehemently denies it. The Dems are lying because they like the DoJ playing on their team, but they’re losing the narrative battle (53 percent of the public thinks the FBI is Joe Biden’s Gestapo). The Republicans are sick of their base being demonized, but lack the political power to do anything about it. Donald Trump challenged the DoJ and FBI. Look how that turned out for him. JOHN GREEN
Biden once spoke of being a strict enforcer of immigration laws. Now he essentially supports open borders, which greatly harm blacks and other minorities along with all U.S. citizens…Joe Biden once spoke about jailing employers who hire “illegals,” said sanctuary cities shouldn’t be allowed to violate federal law, and argued a fence was needed stop “tons” of drugs coming into the country from “corrupt Mexico. JACK HELLNER
Biden’s DHS Leaves Miles of Border Wide Open as Migrant Crossings Spike
With more than 22,000 migrants being held in custody, a source within U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the Border Patrol is being forced to cut routine patrols along the border. In some areas, highway inspection checkpoints have been closed to accommodate another increase in the number of migrant crossings. On Monday alone, the agency apprehended more than 7,700 migrants nationwide.
Jamie Gorelick.
I haven’t read this article yet, and only skimmed some of the comments. But as I recall, Ann Coulter was one of the first to cry foul over the 9/11 report. Saying that it was as if President Bush were trying to prevent the committee from getting to the bottom of 9/11, by loading it with Bill Clinton cronies heII bent on protecting Bill’s image.
And if one were to add, and protect President Bush’s image as well, near as I can tell, that is when you get called a 9/11 truther. Me, I am not a 9/11 truther. The two towers came down because two jet airliners kamikazed into them alright. But we still don’t know what really happened on 9/11. Bush made sure of it.
November 4th 1990 El Sayyid Nosair assasinated Rabbi Kahane Z:”L in front of 50 witnesses . 5 hours later law enforcement agencies declared he was a lone gunman with no accomplices . He was sent to prison for but not for murder. In the basement of his house was the plan to blow up the World Trade Center. which the FBI had but didn’t bother to examine or translate. That caused the first World Trade Center Bombing and then in 911 the Muslim Terrorists finished the job. because of the FBI inaction