What was the pre-9/11 A l-Qa ida strength & what did the U S know pre-911 & if they knew why didnt they act?

Answer 1

Part 1 .It was strong enough to plunge the world into a war. Part 2.Too much bickering and playing the 'blame game'
kept the US and other Western Nations from making the first move, Part 3. It was to be a bitter task and without a coalition
of other countries, the US would be branded a 'bad guy'
should they go it alone! So a lot of innocent people had give up their lfe to get anybody to go after the terrorists....That is
exactly what is in the near future again...we just can not learn from past mistakes!

Answer 2

Given the horrific events of 9/11 - America finally responded - and this administration has been castrated and maligned ever since.
It is not hard to imagine why the previous administrations did not wish to open this Pandora's Box based on the sporadic terror attacks against Americans previous to 9/11.
I believe the anti-war sentiment in this country has totally lost any interest in defending this nation - it seems their ideology of love and piece, live and let live - has over-ridden any realistic acceptance of real and present threats to this nation. Threats that require military action as evidenced, for example, in the recent Mosque takeover in Pakistan when the government's efforts at negotiations with the radicals proved a dismal failure - as has our attempts at diplomacy with these Islamic militants in the past.
In hindsight, we should probably have cleaned out alQaeda along the Afghan / Pakistan border years ago. But again, I doubt we would have had any support at all for such an undertaking at the time.

Answer 3

Our government was informed of an impending attack by a group of fanatics but felt that no one would ever follow though with such an action against one of the most powerful nations in the world. America had never dealt with terrorists on such a scale before, they couldn't accept such an idea as being probable. The government didn't know just what to do or where to start to stop this type of fighting, we have learned, lets hope we have learned well.