In a message dated 7/23/2003 11:57:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time, netkita@earthlink.net writes: This I feel is very unfair. While I do think that the Fbi and Secret Service could be closed and their tasks combined and given over to the NSA ,Marines and other law enforcement agencies, I think that overall the agencies did the best they could. This is utter bullshit. The US knew that Bin Laden was a threat and had been conducting covert operations with NSA against him for some number of years prior to 9/11. NSA was erasing the various bank databases that Bin Laden's funds were in and they were messing around with his wire transfers. Hell, Intel was even playing taped conversations of Bin Laden with his mother to impress Congress all prior to 9/11. Bin Laden choose the WTC as a symbol of American financial imperialism and as a punishment to our screwing with him...The failure IMHO is that rather than in engaging in largely harassing techniques-We should have gone after him in much as the same fashion as we are today-It isn't like we didn't have ample warning. What I'm saying for the hearing impaired is that our Intel agencies made the threat worse by playing games that enraged the attacker (Bin Laden) rather than neutralizing the threat. Regards, Matt Gaylor-