WASHINGTON -- An antiquated IT infrastructure and cultural turf battles among the FBI and various intelligence agencies resulted in a lack of information sharing and analysis that in turn contributed to the national security community's failure to head off the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the results of a congressional investigation.
The 900-page report of the long-awaited joint inquiry by the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence into the 9/11 attacks was released today.
It found that despite the collection of a massive amount of intelligence and clues that a major terrorist operation against the U.S. was under way, significant deficiencies in IT and political battles between the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) over which agency should control the use and development of certain technologies allowed critical clues to be overlooked.
Commenting on the report, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said he believes that, given the clues that were available, the attacks could have been prevented. "If people want to place blame, there is plenty of blame to go around," he said.
The report specifically blames the failure by government agencies, particularly the FBI and the NSA, to ensure that their agents had adequate IT support. It cited, for instance, the absence of a centralized counterterrorism database.
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