Excuse me? Who was president in 1999 and 2000? Does this guy have a head injury?
If you can put up with an old fart telling "war stories" for a minute or two, I believe I can show you all the warnings in the world would have made no difference !
In the early 70's, I was involved with a private security agency ( which I'll call SPWGDA - Self-Proclaimed World's Greatest Detective Agency ), which had been approached to bid on an airline security contract at a major NYC area airport. To this end, we met with the Airport Security Director ( a high-level former NYC cop ),Airport Management, and somebody from the FAA.
Certain things were obvious from the git-go : Airport Mgt. wanted no part of additional security, but was being forced to set up a program by the FAA.The Airport Managers felt it was a gross imposition to have to pay for a program that would require them to invest money in equipment, and that might slow down the orderly flow of passengers ( and contraband ) through the airport.
( Yes, Virginia: drugs were being smuggled almost openly, laundered money was flowing smoothly to its intended beneficiaries, and Mob Wannabees were dipping their greedy little beaks into the Air Freight and Baggage, and had a good lock on the airport unions. Airport Management was well aware of the problems, but more than willing to overlook them for the sake of labor peace...and a small percentage of the action. )
The Airport Security Manager was sort of in the middle : he had to do something to keep the FAA happy, but, if he wanted to keep receiving those big paychecks, and profit sharing bonusses, he had to keep Airport Management a hell of a lot happier.
The "Security Plan" drawn up had all the bells and whistles the FAA needed, but was almost totally cosmetic. I remember we all looked at one another, sort of shrugged, and started to work up manpower costs. Knowing the sort of troops I had to work with, I was enormously relieved when another Security agency put in a lower bid !
The agency that won the bid lost it in less than a year, when somebody came in with a lower bid; and it was obvious the Guards were strictly minimum wage-and under-supervised to boot... but that's what the Airlines really wanted: warm bodies to go through the motions; the primary function of their Supervisors being to make sure they kept the passenger lines moving !
That's essentially the type of "security" the Airlines had on 9/11/01; and the proof of that statement is the hideously bad quality of security after 9/11.
People are still managing to board airplanes with weapons...though fingernail clippers and eye tweezers and Congressional Medals of Honor are being intercepted.When people are stopped, it's usually because they somehow annoyed or confused the Screeners: most of whom are still inept Rent-a-Cops. Has there been even one week since 9/11 in which planes were not evacuated, and people forced to undergo re-screening...because some Screener was earning a little pin-money by turning the machines off ?
Given the quality of Airline Security available,Bin Laden and his Merry Men could have sent promotional flyers, describing in excruciating detail what they planned to do,and when-with zero change in the outcome.
And, by the way, Hillary: in case you were wondering : I knew this a long time ago,and you did too.