attacks were actually planned out. The details of the "Planes Operation" were decided at an early January, 2000 al-Qaeda summit meeting convened in a condo off a golf course in Kuala Lumpur. In attendance were a dozen or so of the principle 9/11 hijackers and al-Qaeda leaders, including KSM, Abu Zubaydah, al-Nashiri, Ramzi bin Yusuf and the Flt. 77 hijackers, al-Midhar and al-Hazmi. The NSA had intercepted messages about the meeting, and the CIA tracked the latter two as they traveled to the meeting, videotaping the proceedings and the attendees.

On January 15, 2000, the Flt. 77 hijackers flew into LAX, and a warning cable was drafted at the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center (CIA/CTC), alerting the FBI of their arrival in the U.S. That cable and a subsequent communication to the FBI were withheld, however, at the direct order of CTC Assistant Director, "Rich B" (Richard Blee), presumably at the behest of CTC Director Cofer Black. While that assured that the FBI's National Security Unit in NY -- tasked with tracking al-Qaeda inside the U.S. -- never got the message, Director George Tenet received multiple briefings from Blee and Black about the goings on in Kuala Lumpur and the entry of al-Hazmi and al-Midhar. Tenet briefed President George W. Bush on multiple occasions, including a mid-August surprise trip to Crawford, TX, about multiple al-Qaeda attack cells known to be inside the US planning hijackings and attacks on landmark structures in NY and Washington, DC. But, for some reason that still has yet to be explained, Bush refused to issue the order to unleash the FBI to roll-up the al-Qaeda network.

So, you see, Afghanistan is really not central to the 9/11 attack. If you really wanted to use the military to prevent terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda, we should have invaded Langley, VA and Crawford, TX.