This article just made me sick. At the inaction of the Bush administration, that is. If Bush had just given the word to airport security to be on alert - THAT'S ALL HE WOULD HAVE HAD TO DO - in response to the 8/6/01 PDB, he would have, in all likelihood, STOPPED 9/11 from happening.
The man who checked in Mohamed Atta on the first leg of his journey to doom (a quick flight from Maine to Boston) tells us how:
He talks now about the anger. About all he learned in the years after. About a briefing to the president on August 6, 2001. "It was all there," Tuohey says. "Osama bin Laden. Hijackings. Buildings in New York City. These weren't dots they had to connect. These were potholes. If just those words -- hijackings, terrorists -- had come down to us, we'd have gone to level 3 security. Now here I am. I have two young Arabic men in front of me. One-way tickets, checking in just minutes before departure. At level 3, I would have been required to notify security. Their bags would have been opened. What we saw would have set off suspicions: a pilot's uniform, a video on flying jets. Airline pilots do not buy $2,400 first-class tickets. Airline pilots are the cheapest people on earth. Right there, we would have known something was wrong. This was preventable."
Full article at
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/thisissue/features/fiveyears911.php