Daily Kos: Why 9/11 happened: Bush curtailed Operation CATCHERS MITT

by leveymg
Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 07:51:17 AM PDT

The Bush Administration cancelled or cut back Operation CATCHERS MITT, the highly classified ongoing CIA and FBI operation that tracked al-Qaeda operatives known to be inside the U.S. during the summer of 2001. This was done without notifying the existing counter-terrorism policy board in Washington, then headed by Richard Clarke, a Clinton holdover.

This fatal decision by Bush's national security staff was part of the planned revamping of the Clinton counter-terrorism program, and ongoing operations were put on hold or cut off entirely while Rice and Hadley worked with CIA Director Tenet on the Administration's new al-Qaeda strategy.