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Why No More 9/11s?An interactive inquiry about why America hasn't been attacked again.

By Timothy NoahUpdated Friday, Sept. 11, 2009, at 7:07 AM ET

Today marks eight years since the last large-scale terrorist attack on the United States. Why did the follow-on attacks that everyone predicted after 9/11 never occur? This past winter, Slate senior writer Timothy Noah examined that question in an eight-part series, "Why No More 9/11s?" The introduction to his series is reprinted below. Click on the "worry beads" to read the different theories. In three follow-ups ("Water-Bored," "More Library Tower Nonsense," and "Cheney Refuted"), Noah disputed former Vice President Dick Cheney's claim that the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" techniques made the difference. But in a fourth ("CIA Switcheroo!"), Noah reported that one of the Central Intelligence Agency documents that Cheney said would support this claim was never released.

Firefighters on Sept. 11Amid the many uncertainties loosed by the al-Qaida attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, one forecast seemed beyond doubt: Islamist terrorists would strike the United States again—and soon. "Ninety days at the most," said counterterrorism expert Juval Aviv. On Oct. 5, 2001, an unnamed senior intelligence official told Congress, in a private briefing, that there was a "100 percent" chance of another terrorist attack should the U.S. invade Afghanistan, as it did two days later. "An attack is predictable now whether we retaliate against Afghanistan or not," reasoned House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., agreed: "You can just about bet on it."

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When no second terrorist attack occurred in 2001, experts adjusted their time horizons. "If we get through the summer without some sort of attack, we'll be pretty fortunate," said George Vinson, a security adviser to then-California Gov. Gray Davis, in June 2002. In February 2003, Tom Ridge, the nation's first secretary of homeland defense, publicly estimated an 80 percent likelihood that terrorists would attack the United States within the next few days. In August 2003, the World Markets Research Center said it was "highly likely" that terrorists would attack the United States within the next 12 months. In June 2006, unnamed U.S. officials told CBS News they'd be surprised if the United States weren't hit by a terrorist attack by the end of that year. In December 2008, the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism said it was "more likely than not" that by the end of 2013, terrorists would attack somewhere in the world using a chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon. In a Feb. 4 interview with Politico, former Vice President Dick Cheney said there was "a high probability of such an attempt." He didn't say when.

It didn't happen—or, rather, it hasn't happened yet. Islamist terrorists struck Bali, Madrid, London, Mumbai, and many places in and around the Mideast, but they haven't struck the United States. Why not? The question is impossible to answer with certainty. But given that the "war on terrorism" was (for good or ill) the defining pursuit of George W. Bush's presidency, anyone seeking to understand the previous eight years of American political history must ask it. More urgently, our new president, Barack Obama, is surely pondering this question as he assesses the present risk of a terrorist attack on the United States and how best to address it.

I spent the Obama transition asking various terrorism experts why the dire predictions of a 9/11 sequel proved untrue and reviewing the literature on this question. The answers boiled down to eight prevailing theories whose implications range from fairly reassuring to deeply worrying. To explore them, click on the worry beads in the illustration above. If you prefer instead to print out this introduction together with all eight essays, click here.

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

Photograph of firefighters on Sept. 11 by Mario Tama/Getty Images.

COMMENTS

Part of the problem is that along with the explosions of planes hitting the Twin Towers there was an explosion of the number of "experts" on terrorism, and even the long term experts were operating very short on intelligence. Thus, people without real knowledge (either psuedo-experts or 'real' experts who still can't operate without data/intel) were throwing out predictions that had more to do with "group think" and CYA (cover your a**) than any actual analysis.

Most of these groups made what I used to be heard called "donkey tails" when I worked in the "community." A "donkey tail" was a report akin to the tail in a game of "pin the tail on the donkey." Put a map of the world on a wall, close your eyes and randomly stick a pin in it. Then predict that some "key event" will happen there or near there. You will almost always be right. Akin to the "small world problem" (like 'six degrees of separation') once *something* happens you can always 'pin' it to something else (or some other region) in only a few steps --- as a result your analysis can in retrospect be made to look positively genius. At least to most people who don't do that kind of thing for a living. Like Congressional budget masters or the general public.

The more fuzzy you are, the more likely your prediction will be "correct." Parse a sentence like "An attack" "is likely" "within the continental United States" "in the future." (I recall seeing that reported in the paper). This is what intelligence agencies do when they don't really know what is going on - or are intentionally trying to skew debate for political/bureaucratic reasons.

Why weren't there more attacks? Now we know that Al Qaida was never as large or well organized as we feared in those first instants. They could not stand up to the pressure put on them once they had set themselves apart from dozens of other 'would be' organizations. They succeeded in one brilliantly audacious plan and folded like a "one trick pony". However, as I recall an old general once saying "Never admit you got punched by a mouse." If a major attack were carried out, then naturally it HAD to be from an enormous powerful foe who was poised to strike again, and even worse. Once again, in an absence of 'hard data' intelligence tends to reflect the producer's mentality more than 'reality.' If we were a superpower with vast military powers and an incredible intelligence operation -- then think of how powerful/secretive/capable some group must be to carry off such an attack! The possibility that we were "sucker punched" in a vulnerable spot by some 'run of the mill' fundamentalist group would not have sold well in those early days.

The absence of further attacks makes one wonder --- Is there really a huge "Muslim threat" of such attacks in the future? We" (to use the royal we) based many of our early predictions on a supposed 'rising tide' of "Islamic Fundamentalism" that was hell-bent on killing us in our beds and going to heaven for virgins. Perhaps this is another of the fundamental assumptions that we made incorrectly in the heat of the moment.

-- fozzy
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