Despite what the Bush Administration wants us to believe, the failures that led up to the events of 9/11 weren’t a problem with the gathering of intelligence, but rather the analysis of evidence that had already been gathered. Although the investigation of these failures has begun, it is being criminally underfunded. The $3 million allocated may seem like a lot, but it’s nothing compared to the $50 million probe into the space shuttle disaster or the $65 million to probe Bill Clinton’s marital problems. Testimony only begun a couple weeks ago, but already fingers are being pointed at the the FAA, NORAD, the INS, and the SEC :

On the Chicago Board Options Exchange during the week before September 11, put options were purchased on American and United Airlines, the two airlines involved in the attacks. The investors who placed these orders were gambling that, in the short term, the stock prices of both airlines would plummet. Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least $5 million after the September 11 attacks.

But the FBI and CIA aren’t in the clear either. There were countless warnings that were ignored prior to 9/11. The sensible thing to do in a situation like this would be to admit there were intelligence failures and launch a massive independent investigation to find out the weaknesses in the system. Instead we got Tom Ridge’s color chart, PATRIOT Act’s 1 & (possibly) 2, and the wars in Iraq & (possibly) Syria. Am I the only one who’s been wondering how things would be if (as Robin Cook put it) “the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way”?