Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11

The story of the years leading up to 9/11 is the story of what might have been, and also serves as a call to the defense of America’s future. Since 9/11, one important question has persisted: What was really going on behind the scenes with intelligence services and government leaders during the time preceding the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks?

After an eighteen-month investigation that uncovered explosive new evidence through interviews and in classified documents, Gerald Posner reveals much previously undisclosed information:

• the identity of two countries that might have had foreknowledge that a terrorist attack was scheduled for September 11 on U.S. soil
• a startling account of the interrogation of a leading al Qaeda captive
• facts about a series of deaths that point to an ongoing conspiracy by some governments to hide the extent of their earlier relationships with al Qaeda
• how the U.S. government missed several chances to kill or capture bin Laden
• evidence that German intelligence may have protected an informant who was involved with many of the 9/11 plotters
• how the CIA tracked—and then lost—two of the hijackers when they entered the United States more than twenty months before the attacks
• the devastating consequences of the crippling rivalry between the CIA and FBI as the United States moved unwittingly toward 9/11

In a dramatic narrative, Why America Slept exposes the frequent mistakes made by law enforcement and government agencies, and demonstrates how the failures to prevent 9/11 were tragically not an exception but typical. Along theway, by delving into terror financing, the links between far-flung terror organizations, and how the United States responded over the years to other attacks, Posner also makes a damning case that 9/11 could have been prevented.

Why America Slept lays to rest two years of conjecture about what led up to the worst terror attacks in America’s history. This breakthrough book presents an infuriating review of how incompetence and misplaced priorities made America an easy target for terrorists.

Gerald Posner, a former Wall Street lawyer, is an award-winning author of eight books on subjects ranging from Nazi war criminals, to assassinations, to the careers of politicians. A regular panelist on the History Channel’s HistoryCENTER, he has also written for many national publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and U.S. News & World Report. He lives in Miami and New York City with his wife, the author Trisha Posner. More information is available at www.posner.com.