I happened to catch a snippet of the 9/11 commission hearing today, by tuning in to the live feed that NPR was broadcasting online. I listed to a little of Secretary of State Powell's testimony before the commission. I wasn't paying very close attention, but this is what stuck out to my ears:

Commission member: Was there anything that could have been done to prevent the 9/11 attacks?
Powell: No, no there wasn't.

That is what my brain heard. Actually, that's not what was said. Here's what was actually said, text lifted from the WaPo transcript:

THOMPSON: Would more frequent principals meetings in that period or more small group meetings in that period have prevented 9/11?

POWELL: No, and I'm not quite sure I followed the rationale between more meetings and preventing 9/11. We met constantly. It wasn't always at principals level. But there was no lack of communication between the principals. There was no lack of exchange of information and data.

I was briefed every morning by my intelligence people. So were all of the other principals. The president got daily briefings from the director of Central Intelligence, and we consulted with each other about all of these issues. So I don't think it was a lack of meetings that resulted in 9/11, if that's the suggestion.

THOMPSON: In your opinion, would an invasion of Afghanistan, between February of '91, and September of '91, prevented 9/11?

POWELL: I can't answer that, but I can say that those who were perpetrators of 9/11, who were actually going to conduct the attacks of 9/11, already had their instructions, had their plans in place, and they were in the process of infiltrating themselves into the United States, or they were already here.

And invading Afghanistan and cutting off the head, if you succeeded in getting Osama bin Laden and disrupting al Qaeda at that point, I have no reason to believe that would have caused them to abort their plans.

I suppose that's a bit different than what my half-asleep brian heard. However, it will be interesting to see what the results of the commission will be. The main question the commission is trying to answer is "Why did 9/11 happen and could it have been prevented?" And stemming from that, how can we prevent further such acts? Hopefully, the answers will not be lost in a sea of defensive/partisan bickering.

On another note, a few days ago, the state department issued a new "worldwide caution" warning. Remember, there may be nothing we can do to prevent terrorism, but we can sure try to scare you with it.