Alright, it's been a while since we've had a thread, so tonight I'm going to tell you the story of John P. O'Neill, the man who (sort of) predicted 9/11. Some of you may know this story, others may have never head of O'Neill before.
What follows will be a thread.
What follows will be a thread.
If you asked a child in the 1960s what their favorite TV program was, they might say Bonanza or Gunsmoke, but for John P. O'Neill, his appointment television program was The FBI, a show that followed a trio of FBI Agents and included J. Edgar Hoover as a consultant.
The's show is a pretty good example of the 'copaganda' shows that have been a fixture of television since basically the beginning, which you can read more about here:
The FBI's notable contribution? Real 'Most Wanted' pictures at the end of the episode.
The FBI's notable contribution? Real 'Most Wanted' pictures at the end of the episode.
From a young age, O'Neill knew what he wanted to be when he grew up: An FBI Agent. After he graduated high school he attended American University, and when he wasn't taking classes he was already working for the FBI as a fingerprint clerk and a tour guide.
He was hired as an Agent in 1976, and quickly rose through the ranks, becoming Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office by 1991. While there he spearheaded projects to promote inter-agency cooperation, years before that became a common process.
In 1995 he returned to the Washington DC office, to head up the counter-terrorism unit. On his first day back he got a call from Richard Clarke (yes, that Richard Clarke) telling him that Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had been found.
O'Neill was able to successfully orchestrate the capture and extradition of Yousef, and then dove headfirst into further research of the 1993 bombing. He became convinced that fundamental Islamic terrorism was becoming a major threat, and they were determined to attack on US soil
Indeed, he specifically cited former Afghan rebels, who had been trained and armed by U.S. troops as a high risk for the US. In 1997 O'Neill was promoted again, this time to New York City where he became Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's National Security Division.
While there O'Neill became focused on a single threat more than others: al-Qaeda and their leader Osama bin Ladin. He installed a desk devoted to that threat in the office.
After a pair of embassy bombings in 1998, O'Neill created the template for how those investigations would be conducted going forward. He basically wrote the book on investigating terrorist attacks.
For as much foresight as O'Neill had in the world of counter-terrorism; however, his personal and professional life lacked the careful planning and insight his counter-terrorism work displayed. His FBI career stalled shortly thereafter due to a series of errors.
However, even as his career was stalling, O'Neill had enough power to get one of his associates installed at the Bin Ladin issue station in Langley. The station found two Bin Ladin associates were headed to the US with visas. Those men? Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar.
O'Neill was never informed of this information, the station chief had blocked the message from being sent to O'Neill. al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were two of the terrorists onboard American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11.
The CIA had plenty of reasons to distrust O'Neill. He was separated from his wife and kids and was dating three different women, none of whom knew he was married and all of whom he had showered with gifts and told them he intended to marry them.
He had also lost or misused FBI assets on multiple occasions, and was widely regarded as being difficult to work with--abrasive and thick-headed. As a result, after investigating the bombing of the USS Cole, a story about O'Neill misplacing a briefcase was leaked to the press.
O'Neill, having always dreamed of being an FBI Agent resigned from the Bureau in August 2001 to take a better paying job elsewhere.
That job?
Chief of Security.
At the World Trade Center.
That job?
Chief of Security.
At the World Trade Center.
According to @lawrence_wright, when O'Neill told a friend he was taking the job at the World Trade Center, his friend said "At least they’re not going to bomb it again.”
O’Neill replied: “They’ll probably try to finish the job.”
O’Neill replied: “They’ll probably try to finish the job.”
It should be noted here that Wright's "The Looming Tower" is probably the best book on the subject of the pre-9/11 counter-intelligence investigations into al-Qaeda, and in that book O'Neill plays a major role. It was one of the major sources for this thread.
O'Neill was one of the 2,606 people killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11. He had been on the job less than a month.
