Intelligence Matters

Intelligence Matters Sen. Bob Graham with Jeff Nussbaum Date: 07 September, 2004   —   $15.72   —   Book product page Rating:

This book turned out to be a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. First of all, while it is seriously critical of President Bush's handling of counter-terrorism and homeland security, it's not partisan. No really. Senator Graham has a lot of good things to say about his colleagues on the other side of the isle, and it's clear he has a lot of respect for smart people no matter where they fall on the political spectrum.

Graham headed up the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House-Senate Joint Inquiry into 9/11. He wrote this book because he felt Americans needed to know much of what the administration had redacted from the Joint Inquiry's report.

The book is written in techno-thriller style with several threads eventually coming together on September 11, 2001. It follows the actions of two of the hijackers, the President, and Graham up to the point the hijackers kill all those thousands of men and women. Graham then documents the way the Bush administration stonewalls and squelches the subsequent investigation.

Graham documents how the investigation turned up direct evidence of Saudi financial and operational support for at least two of the hijackers, and the evidence he saw leads him to believe that al Qaeda has sympathizers and a support system operating in the United States numbering in the thousands.

The FBI knows who helped the hijackers, but, through bureaucratic incompetence, let them flee the US. Graham says the FBI is now covering up their failure, which precludes further investigation into the matter. Graham also cites the reluctance of the Bush administration to pursue any line of investigation that might involve Saudi Arabia.

Graham goes on to relate how the administration not only failed to do enough to stop the hijackings based on the information they had, but actually failed to do anything at all. It's possible the attacks couldn't have been stopped, but he details twelve instances where the plot could have been unraveled before 9/11.

Graham also reveals how the White House diverted intelligence and combat assets from Afghanistan to Iraq, and thereby allowed al Qaeda to regroup and resume operations in 60 different countries - including the US - in a way that's even more distributed and difficult to deter and destroy.

At the end of the book, Graham presents eleven impeachable offenses against President Bush - all of which had more fatal consequences than a little hanky-panky in the oval office. That's me being partisan, by the way. As I mentioned, Graham avoids anything like that because our situation is so serious. Graham also appends the Joint Inquiry's recommendations for intelligence reform, as well as his own personal recommendations.

This was a very informative and lively read - far better than I expected and well worth the time taken. "...in an age when a victory against terror can be as simple as a red "denied" stamp on a visa application," intelligence matters.