Stella's Place

PBS’s Frontline used to put out some interesting documentaries. Here is one of them.

When the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001, among the thousands killed was the one man who may have known more about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda than any other person in America: John O’Neill.

This 2002 FRONTLINE documentary chronicles John O’Neill’s struggle to convince the FBI to pay attention to the threat posed by Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

John Patrick O’Neill was an American counter-terrorism expert who worked as a special agent and eventually a Special Agent in Charge in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He began to study the roots of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing after he assisted in the capture of Ramzi Yousef, who was the leader of that plot.¹ O’Neill investigated the bombing of the American embassies in Africa, the USS Cole in Yemen, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the first attack on the World Trade Center. He believed that America should kill Osama bin Laden before Al Qaeda launched a devastating attack, but his voice was often a lonely one.

For five years, he led the fight to track down and prosecute Al Qaeda operatives throughout the world. But he was a controversial figure inside the buttoned-down world of the FBI. O’Neill’s critics contend that his personal failings proved fatal to his FBI career. His supporters, however, believe his main failing was refusing to conform to the standard-issue FBI mold.

The irony is that this is where John O’Neill died on September 11, 2001. Continue reading →