John oneil

The Man Who Knew

What if the FBI would have listened to John O'Neil, would the September 11 attacks have happened? What if John O'Neil had been able to go back to Yemen to finish out what he started on his investigation, could he have prevented the hijackers from hijacking the airplanes? If the FBI would have backed him up and not have left personal issues intervene, what more information could O'Neil have found out that he already did not know? Do you think if they would've listened, john O'Neil could've prevented all the pain and suffering that came over our nation? All of these questions are never going to be answered because O'Neil never got a chance to finish what he started. He never got a chance to show what he knew and most of all O'Neil didn't have the backup he needed to succeed. If anything his own agency did not want to see him shine.

People often criticized O'Neil and said that he pushed to hard and often made fun of him. O'Neil took his business beyond the work hours and was considered too flashy because he was always dressed so nicely and was always freshly polished. Some referred to him as the prince of darkness. Many say that O'Neil made enemies within his agency and rumors of his personal life came to play and that is why he was never able to succeed in sharing his knowledge and becoming on seen commander in big cases of terrorism. People said that his unique lifestyle is what gave him enemies but at the same time he gained allies. Whatever O'Neil did in his personal time was his business. There should have never been any reason on why they used his personal life against him or better yet that should have not been a reason for him to gain enemies. If his work was outstanding and his work could have prevented the terrorist attack then they should have listened to what he knew about the cases and better yet they should have backed him up in his investigations. Everything was personal and it could have been a possibility that just because of those personal issues, the whole nation suffered and is still suffering today.

It was said that O'Neil was not liked by the higher bosses because they felt threatened by him and used any excuse to keep him from getting to the top. For example O'Neil was going to be on scene commander in Kenya but they took him out. He called his attorney and they told him to call a person who they thought could help him but turned out to be other wise. The person he spoke to was one of freeh's friend or co worker ( freeh is one of the higher bosses who was said not to like O'Neil and was said to have him to retire) and was not able to be the on scene commander. O'Neil knew a lot about this case and could have been a great help.

O'Neil made people realize that Al Qaeda was here in the United States and that the FBI needed to change some things in order to protect the country from terrorism. One day his car broke down and he took a car from the FBI and they called it illegal and used it against him and because of this O'Neil was not able to be on scene commander in New York to figure out what Al Qaeda had planned to do. In 2000, Al Qaeda strikes and again for the third time O'Neil wants to be on scene commander and this time he was not rejected. But it was a fight. O'Neil arrived to Yemen and realized how impossible his task was going to be because of work and sleeping conditions. Barbara Bodine was upset with many of O'Neil's decisions and because there were hundreds of FBI agents. Bodine wanted a bond with Yemen and O'Neil wanted to stop terrorism which caused conflict between the two. This was making O'neils work a little bit harder because he needed all the help he could get. He didn't need any more enemies than what he already had in his own agency.

People in Yemen came to trust O'Neil and informed him of many things including files and helped him find out more information about bin laden, who he has always been so obsessed