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

• details about a secret deal between Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden

• 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 the way, 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.

"The book seems certain to kick up a political and diplomatic firestorm?For those who still wonder how the attacks two years ago could have happened, Posner's book provides a tidy set of answers. But it opens up more troubling questions about crucial U.S. allies that someone will now have to address. " Johanna McGeary, Time

In the end, the central question that remained was what did American intelligence and law enforcement know and what did they ignore? What mistakes were made along the way on the ground by police, FBI and CIA, and in Washington and state capitals by policy makers? While hunting for those answers, there were unexpected discoveries about some American allies, and what they might have known, and not told anyone, before 9/11. The result is a far more infuriating book than originally expected. The failure to have prevented 9/11 was a systematic one. It is not just that investigators failed to get a lucky break early on, nor is it really even dependent on a series of blunders in the immediate run-up to the attack. The seeds for failure were sown repeatedly in almost twenty years of fumbled investigations and misplaced priorities. After a while, the revelations of ineptitude presented in this book no longer cause surprise, but only anger.
—from Why America Slept

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 the way, 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.