Book Review | 1000 Years for Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI--The Untold Story

CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence

Studies in Intelligence, 2004

1000 Years for Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI--The Untold Story

Peter Lance. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. 539 pages, endnotes, appendix, photos, index.

Reviewed by Hayden B. Peake, curator of the CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection

The 9/11 attacks could have been prevented, writes Peter Lance, lawyer, novelist, and investigative reporter. He makes this position clear at the outset and then provides extensive documentation to support his conclusion. He tells the story around the lives of three participants: FBI special agent Nancy Floyd, whose persistence in trying to alert the FBI to a terrorist cell in New York City ruined her career; New York fire marshall-investigator Ronnie Bucca, who lost his life on 9/11; and Ramzi Yousef, the bomb-making terrorist and principal player in both World Trade Center attacks. Of course there were many others involved, so many in fact, that Lance included a 32-page color chronological insert with their pictures and notes on their roles.

While "each of the nation's spy agencies was responsible in part," writes Lance, the evidence collected during his 18-month investigation "shows that the FBI in particular had multiple opportunities to stop the devastation of 9/11 and simply failed to follow through." (p. 4) To make his case, Lance analyzes the first WTC bombing showing the links between al-Qa`ida, the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, Ramzi Yousef, and his helpers. When one tower did not collapse into the other, the seeds for 9/11 were planted, and Yousef went to the Philippines to nurture them. There, working with family members and trusted colleagues, he drafted a plan to attack the WTC with aircraft. Soon, suicide pilots began training in the United States. He also conceived Operation Bojinka, a plan to blow up several airliners in flight. It failed only because Yousef accidentally blew up his bomb factory, and he had to escape to Pakistan. It is there that he is captured by the DSS. Yousef was in a supermax prison on 9/11.

Lance analyzes clues to 9/11 developed by a wide variety of skilled collectors. For example, FBI agent Nancy Floyd recruited an Arab associate of the blind Sheikh Rahman the old fashioned way—after careful development; but in the end her efforts were dismissed by her superior. Fireman Ronnie Bucca spotted a mole in the Fire Department who had stolen plans to the World Trade Center, but he could not convince the brass he was right. The statement by the FBI director six days after 9/11 that there were "no warning signs" of the attacks caused Coleen Rowley in the FBI office in Minneapolis to write a 13-page letter containing evidence that he was mistaken. Another memo, this time from FBI special agent Ken Williams, in Phoenix asked for background checks on eight Middle Eastern men studying at local flight schools; no action was taken. Later James Hauswirth, also in the Phoenix field office, wrote to point out that al-Qa`ida members had been reported training there in 1994. Reports from Philippine intelligence linked al-Qa`ida to the Bojinka plot and Usama Bin Laden were noticed, but no action was taken. There is much more, including possible al-Qa`ida links to Timothy McVeigh and the explosion of TWA flight 800 over Long Island Sound.

Despite a very complex story with a large cast of unfamiliar names, many only pseudonyms and all dedicated to the destruction of Western society, 1000 Years For Revenge avoids reading like conspiracy theory. Lance finds widespread fault and is pessimistic about improvements, even from the congressional commissions. He is currently working on a sequel that examines the post 9/11 corrective actions and their long range implications.