Seventeen years ago this month, an al-Qeada operatives, including Ramzi Yousef, executed a car bomb attack on the World Trade center with the intent of destroying the twin towers. The attack killed six and injured more than 100 people. The towers did not come down, though the powerful bomb extensively damaged the parking garage.

According to The Looming Tower  al-Qeada and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright, the F.B.I. agent most keenly aware of al-Qeada's desire to finish the job was John O'Neill. O'Neill tenaciously pursued the then little-known al-Qeada connection in his investigation of the USS Cole bombing.

Wright says this of O'Neill: "O'Neill was right about the threat of al-Qeada when few cared to believe it. Perhaps in the end his capacity for making enemies also helped al-Qeada by destroying the man who might have made a difference."

He felt strongly there was a pending attack with the onset of the millennium. No one else saw things the same way - at least not then F.B. I. Director Louis Freeh who "repeatedly stressed in White House meetings that al-Qeada no longer posed a threat. Bin Laden did not even make the F.B.I.'s most wanted list until June 1999."

Wright tackles a detailed and difficult subject in a compelling way and tells, among many other stories, the story of O'Neill's eventual retirement from the Bureau in the summer of 2001. As would be expected for a man of his tenure and skill, he had several offers for security work. The one he settled on was Chief of Security for - The World Trade Center. He retired knowing "they'll never stop trying to get those two buildings." He started the new position in the last week of August and was on his post when the 9/11 attacks occurred.

I don't know if ABC's The Pathway to 9/11 is available, but it followed Wright's book fairly well and portrayed the intelligence and diplomatic failures which contributed to the success of the endeavors of Bin Laden, to the chagrin of some of the key players who did not shine.