Allen773
Graduate Poster
...because if they had done so, the FBI would almost certainly have moved in to arrest them and have them prosecuted in the criminal justice system - just as they had already done so with Ramzi Yousef and most of the other men involved in the 1993 WTC bombing.
"But wait a second, Allen - wouldn't arresting and prosecuting known al Qaeda operatives in the US have unequivocally been a good thing?"
Well, you have to look at this from the perspective of the CIA from before 9/11 to understand why they might have failed to inform the FBI. See, the CIA is not legally allowed to operate within the United States; consequently, their mission exclusively deals with foreign affairs. In that respect, they overlap with the State Department. And both the CIA and the State Department, therefore, do their best to be very sensitive and careful (generally speaking) in regard to building and maintaining relationships with other countries - particularly countries with strong economic and military ties to the US. Countries like Saudi Arabia.
In contrast, the FBI's mission is to investigate and bring to justice people suspected or known to have committed federal crimes. Their jurisdiction is thus within the United States criminal justice system. They are naturally focused on domestic matters, in other words.
From the perspective of the CIA, therefore, even though known al Qaeda operatives entering the US undoubtedly would set of all kinds of alarm bells - and would certainly be seen as a scandalous failure (which after 9/11, obviously turned out to be the case), the FBI moving in to arrest and prosecute said operatives would have dangerously jeopardized the CIA's relationships with Saudi intelligence, as well as broader US-Saudi Arabia relations.
Remember, there is an alarming amount of evidence that at least some people within the Saudi intelligence and foreign affairs ministries - specifically, in the case of al-Hazmi and al-Midhar, the Saudi consulate in Los Los Angeles (if I recall correctly) - assisted the 9/11 hijackers and al-Qaeda more broadly. And the Kingdom's funding - both directly and indirectly - of the same kind of hard-line, violently intolerant form of Islam from which al-Qaeda (led by the prominent Saudi Osama bin Laden and consisting in large part of Saudi-born operatives, including 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers) sprung from is both infamous and extensively documented.
In light of all of this, the US government - and especially the CIA and the State Department - had to tread very carefully when it came to dealing with the Saudi government. And the CIA simply didn't trust the FBI to not jeopardize the entire relationship - including what little cooperation the Saudis were offering in the CIA's fight against al-Qaeda pre-9/11, as well as the potential for any cooperation in the future, for that matter.
Is a lot of this speculative and ultimately, not provable? Of course it is. But certainly no more so than any other of the 9/11 CT's, and I'd like to think that I have more real evidence to back up at least some of these speculations.
Obviously though, I don't know any of this for sure, and I'm perfectly OK with admitting that.
"But wait a second, Allen - wouldn't arresting and prosecuting known al Qaeda operatives in the US have unequivocally been a good thing?"
Well, you have to look at this from the perspective of the CIA from before 9/11 to understand why they might have failed to inform the FBI. See, the CIA is not legally allowed to operate within the United States; consequently, their mission exclusively deals with foreign affairs. In that respect, they overlap with the State Department. And both the CIA and the State Department, therefore, do their best to be very sensitive and careful (generally speaking) in regard to building and maintaining relationships with other countries - particularly countries with strong economic and military ties to the US. Countries like Saudi Arabia.
In contrast, the FBI's mission is to investigate and bring to justice people suspected or known to have committed federal crimes. Their jurisdiction is thus within the United States criminal justice system. They are naturally focused on domestic matters, in other words.
From the perspective of the CIA, therefore, even though known al Qaeda operatives entering the US undoubtedly would set of all kinds of alarm bells - and would certainly be seen as a scandalous failure (which after 9/11, obviously turned out to be the case), the FBI moving in to arrest and prosecute said operatives would have dangerously jeopardized the CIA's relationships with Saudi intelligence, as well as broader US-Saudi Arabia relations.
Remember, there is an alarming amount of evidence that at least some people within the Saudi intelligence and foreign affairs ministries - specifically, in the case of al-Hazmi and al-Midhar, the Saudi consulate in Los Los Angeles (if I recall correctly) - assisted the 9/11 hijackers and al-Qaeda more broadly. And the Kingdom's funding - both directly and indirectly - of the same kind of hard-line, violently intolerant form of Islam from which al-Qaeda (led by the prominent Saudi Osama bin Laden and consisting in large part of Saudi-born operatives, including 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers) sprung from is both infamous and extensively documented.
In light of all of this, the US government - and especially the CIA and the State Department - had to tread very carefully when it came to dealing with the Saudi government. And the CIA simply didn't trust the FBI to not jeopardize the entire relationship - including what little cooperation the Saudis were offering in the CIA's fight against al-Qaeda pre-9/11, as well as the potential for any cooperation in the future, for that matter.
Is a lot of this speculative and ultimately, not provable? Of course it is. But certainly no more so than any other of the 9/11 CT's, and I'd like to think that I have more real evidence to back up at least some of these speculations.
Obviously though, I don't know any of this for sure, and I'm perfectly OK with admitting that.
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