Former FBI special agent Coleen Rowley and FAA whistle-blower Bogdan Dzakovic argue in the Los Angeles Times that the much-maligned WikiLeaks might have prevented the 9/11 attacks. "There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages," they say, but the "ossified bureaucracies" failed to heed very specific warnings. If there had been a "quick, confidential way" to get around supervisors' "seeming indifference," it's very possible somebody could have connected the dots. Is their argument at all persuasive? (Watch a Fox News report about WikiLeaks and 9/11)
I don't buy it: A pre-9/11 WikiLeaks-style document dump might have forced a "public dog-and-pony show" about stepped-up anti-terrorism efforts, says Matthew Fleischer in Mediabistro. But preventing the attacks? Not likely. "When’s the last time you saw the Federal government take action and actually respond competently to public pressure on any issue?" But it certainly would have changed the aftermath — it's hard to imagine Bush being elected to a second term if warning had been made public.
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