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'Why America Slept'
By Gerald Posner
Random House, $24.95.
Gerald Posner, author of "Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK" and "Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King," has a brilliant mind. He investigates historical events and gives the impression of complete objectivity. If the reader does not always agree with Posner, he is usually provoked to thought.
After an 18-month investigation including classified documents and interviews, Posner is convinced that America was woefully unprepared to deal with the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, in a number of ways. His conclusion is that had we been better prepared, 9/11 could have been prevented.
Posner puts it this way: "The result is a far more infuriating book than originally expected. The failure to have prevented 9/11 was a systemic one. Investigators did not get a lucky break early on, and there were many blunders in the...