"Well, our position, and our chairman has talked about this extensively, is that we had a lot of intelligence prior to 9/11. We knew that two al Qaeda operatives who ultimately participated in the 9/11 disaster were in the United States. We didn't find them"

This quote by Richard Ben-Veniste is describing the intelligence that the United States had previous to the 9/11 attacks. He states that the United States knew that 2 al Qaeda operatives who were involved in the 9/11 catastrophe remained in the United States, but they were unable to discover them. This suggests that the United States had some understanding of the upcoming attack, but were unable to act on it in time to prevent it. This quote highlights the need for much better intelligence gathering and analysis in order to avoid future attacks. It likewise works as a suggestion of the importance of acting upon intelligence in a timely manner in order to prevent tragedies such as 9/11 from taking place.