Summary
IN 1929, the then US Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, ordered an end to all US government code-breaking activities against foreign countries, on the quaint grounds that "gentlemen do not read each other's letters". His naive attitude opened the door directly to Pearl Harbor. Of course, by 1941, America had resumed the dirty business of spying, but not with sufficient competence to uncover precise Japanese objectives in the Pacific or the hour of attack.
History has an uncanny knack of repeating itself. Thus, the chain of events leading up to the hideous attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September, 2001 - as now revealed in the official investigation report published yesterday - bears a ghostly resemblance to that of 60 years before. After two years of investigation, the 600-page report correctly sums up: "The 9/11 attacks were a shock, but they should not have come as a surprise."See the full content of this document
Extract
Leader: The Failures That Must Not Be Repeated
Indeed, there had already been an earlier attempt by supporters of Osama bin Laden to blow up the World Trade Centre in 1993. However, the Clinton administration, with a placidness worthy of Henry Stimson, did not hasten to respond to this obvious threat. Indeed, Clinton cut back on the CIA's stat...
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