Brian Friel reports that,
The failure of the federal government to catch the 9/11 hijackers before they could carry out their attacks has been blamed in part on an artificial barrier between intelligence agents and law enforcement officers and organizations — known as “the Wall.” Four and a half years later, the Wall is mostly gone, and it’s probably not a coincidence that there hasn’t been a terrorist attack since. A reorganization of the Justice Department offices overseeing terrorism and intelligence prosecutions is getting under way this spring, one of the last steps in eliminating the Wall.
Much of this change has been invisible from the outside, with even knowledgable observers like Tony Zinni claiming that we have done nothing but add additional layers of bureaucracy.
Still, Friel may well be going too far in attributing the lack of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil to the restructuring of the security bureaucracy which was, after all, not immediate. Fareed Zakaria credits our immigration policy. Others credit the war in Iraq. Others chalk it up to blind luck and claim it is only a matter of time before another 9/11-style attack–perhaps with a dirty bomb–happens.
