How many people would have to cover up Ignored Intelligence?

[Trakar]

In Lawrence Wright's excellent The Looming Tower and numerous other places, we read about dedicated CIA and FBI agents named Michael Scheuer, John O'Neill, and Dan Coleman among others. These folks were focused on bin Laden, long before the rest of us were. They ultimately couldn't figure out what was going on in time, not having access to all of the evidence they would have needed. But they were perhaps closer than anyone, at least closer than anyone that I've read about.

We also accept that the intelligence services of the United States don't work terribly well. This is no reflection on the individuals therein. Any bureaucracy runs at a fraction of its theoretical potential. The Government, in general, is a clumsy, stinky beast. Everyone knows this. Plato knew this.

Suppose LIHOP is true. That would mean that someone in power knew much more than these agents did.

This would seem to be dependent upon what you mean by LIHOP.

If those in charge merely defunded and defocussed the defenses, they certainly wouldn't have been able to predict precisely what came of their efforts, but they could be fairly certain (given the available warnings and evidence) that anything that did happen would be of a nature that could be used to push a much more aggressive foreign policy of adventurism while distracting away from domestic failures and promoting authoritarian agenda.