9/11, THE “NEW PEARL HARBOR,” AND THE WARS THAT FOLLOWED
Was 9/11 only an intelligence failure, or were warnings ignored? Weeks before the attacks, FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley urged the Bureau to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui over fears of a terrorist plot involving commercial aircraft. FBI headquarters blocked the effort, a failure Rowley later exposed.
Rowley reveals how 9/11 became the pretext for the Iraq War and the Global War on Terror: invasions, regime-change operations, mass surveillance, and military intervention across Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and the Middle East.
The Project for the New American Century’s 2000 paper called for preserving U.S. global military dominance and described a “catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor” as a possible accelerator for that agenda.
Twenty-five years later, the question reaches beyond what intelligence agencies knew before 9/11. How were the attacks used to remake U.S. foreign policy, fuel decades of war, and help create the conditions for today’s conflict with Iran?
Coleen Rowley explains why more Americans are challenging the official story, the wars that followed, and the expansion of power built in 9/11’s name.