O'Neill had always harbored two aspirations?to become a deputy director of the bureau in Washington or to take over the New York office. Freeh was retiring in June, so there were likely to be some vacancies at the top, but the investigation into the briefcase incident would likely block any promotion in the bureau. O'Neill viewed Clarke's job as, in many ways, a perfect fit for him. But he was financially pressed, and Clarke's job paid no more than he was making at the F.B.I. Throughout the summer, O'Neill refused to commit himself to Clarke's offer. He talked about it with a number of friends but became alarmed when he thought that headquarters might hear of it. "He called me in a worked-up state," Clarke recalled. "He said that people in the C.I.A. and elsewhere know you are considering recommending me for your job. You have to tell them it's not true." Clarke dutifully called a friend in the agency, even though O'Neill still wanted to be a candidate for the position.
In July, O'Neill heard of a job opening in the private sector which would pay more than twice his government salary?that of chief of security for the World Trade Center. Although the Justice Department dropped its inquiry into the briefcase incident, the bureau was conducting an internal investigation of its own. O'Neill was aware that the Times was preparing a story about the affair, and he learned that the reporters also knew about the incident in New Jersey involving James and had classified information that probably came from the bureau's investigative files.The leak seemed to be timed to destroy O'Neill's chance of being confirmed for the N.S.C. job. He decided to retire.
O'Neill suspected that the source of the information was either Tom Pickard or Dale Watson. The antagonism between him and Pickard was well known. "I've got a pretty good Irish temper and so did John," Pickard, who retired last November, told me. But he insisted that their differences were professional, not personal. The leak was "somebody being pretty vicious to John," but Pickard maintained that he did not do it. "I'd take a polygraph to it," he said. Watson told me, "If you're asking me who leaks F.B.I. information, I have no idea. I know I don't, and I know that Tom Pickard doesn't, and I know that the director doesn't." For all the talk about polygraphs, the bureau ruled out an investigation into the source of the leak, despite an official request by Barry Mawn, in New York.
Meanwhile, intelligence had been streaming in concerning a likely Al Qaeda attack. "It all came together in the third week in June," Clarke said. "The C.I.A.'s view was that a major terrorist attack was coming in the next several weeks." On July 5th, Clarke summoned all the domestic security agencies?the Federal Aviation Administration, the Coast Guard, Customs, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the F.B.I.?and told them to increase their security in light of an impending attack.On August 19th, the Times ran an article about the briefcase incident and O'Neill's forthcoming retirement, which was to take place three days later. There was a little gathering for coffee as he packed up his office.
When O'Neill told ABC's Isham of his decision to work at the Trade Center, Isham had said jokingly, "At least they're not going to bomb it again." O'Neill had replied, "They'll probably try to finish the job." On the day he started at the Trade Center?August 23rd?the C.I.A. sent a cable to the F.B.I. saying that two suspected Al Qaeda terrorists were already in the country. The bureau tried to track them down, but the addresses they had given when they entered the country proved to be false, and the men were never located.
At 8:46 A.M., when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower, John P. O'Neill, Jr., was on a train to New York, to install some computer equipment and visit his father's new office. From the window of the train he saw smoke coming from the Trade Center. He called his father on his cell phone. "He said he was O.K. He was on his way out to assess the damage," John, Jr., recalled.
Valerie James was arranging flowers in her office when "the phones started ringing off the hook." A second airliner had just hit the south tower. "At nine-seventeen, John calls," James remembered. He said, "Honey, I want you to know I'm O.K. My God, Val, it's terrible. There are body parts everywhere. Are you crying?" he asked. She was. Then he said, "Val, I think my employers are dead. I can't lose this job."
"They're going to need you more than ever," she told him.
At nine-twenty-five, Anna DiBattista, who was driving to Philadelphia on business, received a call from O'Neill. "The connection was good at the beginning," she recalled. "He was safe and outside. He said he was O.K. I said, 'Are you sure you're out of the building?' He told me he loved me. I knew he was going to go back in."
Wesley Wong, an F.B.I. agent who had known O'Neill for more than twenty years, raced over to the north tower to help set up a command center. "John arrived on the scene," Wong recalled. "He asked me if there was any information I could divulge. I knew he was now basically an outsider. One of the questions he asked was 'Is it true the Pentagon has been hit?' I said, 'Gee, John, I don't know. Let me try to find out.' At one point, he was on his cell phone and he was having trouble with the reception and started walking away. I said, 'I'll catch up with you later.' "
Wong last saw O'Neill walking toward the tunnel leading to the second tower.
So what if Bush changed the policy from containing AQ to eliminating it. Prior to 9/11nothing substantial was done to accomplish either. I want to see an accounting of that supposedly five fold increase of funding to fight AQ, and why it was so ineffective prior to 9/11. If the money was spent, where did it go, since the taxpayer paid 5 fold to see nothing done.
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