Aviation officials in the US received as many as 52 intelligence warnings that aircraft might be hijacked, in the six months prior to the September 11 attacks.
A commission set up to investigate the attacks states that the threats received by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not lead to increased security – but added that the information could not have prevented the attacks.
The BBC quotes an FAA spokesman as saying: “We had no specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any counter measures.”
The BBC News website says the report said that there was a “striking false sense of security at the FAA”, adding: “Intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to September 11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures.”
Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad Ltd
