Spies, strategies and missed opportunities: How the lessons of 9/11 are still being learnt

No one can question that 9/11 was a colossal intelligence failure, or to be more specific, a failure of imagination in the US intelligence community. At the time both the CIA and the FBI were in possession of information which, if shared properly, could have prevented what happened.The 9/11 Commission Report that followed blamed "failures of imagination, policy, capabilities and management" on the US government. The CIA and FBI, the report concluded, failed to properly assess intelligence and share information with each other and take sufficient steps to disrupt the plot.This most basic of lessons has since been largely – although not completely – learnt, and sharing between Western intelligence agencies is infinitely better than it was in 2001. The old rivalries between say, MI5 and Police Counter Terrorism have dissolved, first with regional 'fusion centres' dotted around the UK and now, most recently, with the establishment of the high-security Counter Terrorism Operations Centre in London. Here MI5 intelligence officers might find themselves sitting literally right next to police officers whose job it is to take the executive action to stop a terrorist plot. Equally, they might...