<< ok, for all ya non-believers out there how do you explain the terriorist getting past airport security? >>
They didn't have anything with them that would seem threatening. Just some small knives, and even those were hidden. You were allowed before this incident to take small knives on the plane, such as a swiss army knife and the like. Why would security stop them when this is all they had and it was allowed?
<< how do you explain the fbi not picking up any leads before hand? >>
They did pick up some leads. But the FBI and the CIA gets THOUSANDS of potential "leads" on cases every year. They don't have the capacity to track down every single one at this point in time, so they try to go for the more credible ones. If someone said to them "hey, 19 terriorists are going to hijack 4 planes. Two of them are going to crash into and destroy the world trade center towers, 1 is going to crash into the pentagon and the other into the white house (or whatever the lasts intended target was)." You have to admit that seems pretty far fetched when you consider the large volume of false leads the the FBI and CIA get. Now of cource, you can say after the fact "Hey, why the fvck didn't they follow up that lead?!?!?" But this is after the fact and everything seems simple in retrospect, when in reality it isn't.