A brief but important NBC News report broadcast during the morning of 9/11 indicated how the FBI was rendered useless in its ability to respond to the kind of attacks that were taking place. Shortly after 10:00 a.m., correspondent Andrea Mitchell reported: "This very interesting information ... from the FBI: They have been operating a massive exercise from their hostage rescue unit. All of their top teams, about 50 personnel, helicopters, equipment, were in Monterey, California for the last two days, scheduled to fly back today commercially. So all of those people are out of place." She continued: "You've got all of their special experts on this stuck in Monterey, California, trying to get a military flight back because there are no longer commercial flights. So they are seriously out of pocket, and there is a real breakdown of the FBI anti-terror coordination team, which is of course the principal team that would lead any effort, and was so effective under Jim Kallstrom in New York City during the World Trade Center bombing and the TWA [Flight 800] explosion."

Despite the implications of this incredible information, only one newspaper covered it. In a report published that same day, USA Today briefly described: "The attack was so unexpected that a joint FBI/CIA anti-terrorist task force that specifically prepared for this type of disaster was on a training exercise in Monterey, Calif." The politics website Evote.com also mentioned the incident, concluding: "just as the worst terrorist act was being committed on American lives and property, the chief federal agency responsible for preventing such crimes was being AWOL." But, in the six years since, this information has been ignored, and no mention was made of it in the 9/11 Commission Report.

If the official theory about 9/11 is correct, and the attacks were indeed perpetrated by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, then the absence of the FBI's antiterrorist experts at the one time they were most needed must be a freak coincidence. However, if the official theory is wrong, then this could have been part of a deliberate attempt to 'stand down' normal lines of defense, so as to ensure that the attacks succeeded.

In her report, Mitchell also stated: "It's fair to say, according to sources that we've talked to here at NBC, that the FBI rescue operations and other FBI operations are really in chaos right now, because they can't reach their officials in New York, all of their phone lines are down." I have previously described evidence that communications may have been deliberately sabotaged on 9/11, particularly in the Washington, DC area. Key individuals, including government officials and members of the military, appear to have been affected. So when we hear a report about the FBI on 9/11, stating, "all of their phone lines are down," we must surely also wonder whether this was due to sabotage. A proper investigation of the 9/11 attacks is urgently needed to establish the truth.