The one thing that so many people have missed about CIA and 9/11, including the 9/11 Commission, so far as I could tell, is that it was personal with us. Fighting terrorism is what we do; it's in our blood. In the months and years leading up to 9/11, we had worked this ground every day. To thwart the terrorists we disrupted attacks, we saved lives. We sacrificed our lives too, often figuratively and sometimes literally.
If the politicians and press and even the 9/11 Commission often failed to understand this, our global partners in the intelligence business had no doubt. We were still sorting out the details on 9/11 when Avi Dichter, the chief of Shin Bet, called from Israel to express his regrets and say that he and his people were with us, no matter what. This wasn't a bureaucratic call. Avi and I had lived through Arafat together and much more, but there was a connection through that phone call that went far beyond anything that had proceeded it. Be strong, Avi told me. Lead your people. He didn't have to say that he had seen hundreds of his own countrymen killed by terrorists, on his watch and I didn't have to add that I now understood what it was like to be the chief of the service when the same thing happened on my soil. All that was implicit, and stronger because it never had to be spoken. Several years later, though, in taping a farewell message for Avi's retirement ceremony, I put into words what I felt so strongly about 9/11: "We all became Israelis on that day," I told Avi.
George Tenet, "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA"
