The FBI might have been able to stop some of the September 11th hijackers if it had more aggressively pursued an investigation of alleged 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, who was in custody for more than three weeks prior to the attacks, this according to Minnesota FBI agent Coleen Rowley in a blistering and highly unusual letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller. Rowley is particularly critical of a supervisory special agent at FBI headquarters, whom she accused of “consistently, almost deliberately, thwarting the Minnesota FBI efforts.” The letter says, even on the morning of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the Washington supervisor instructed Rowley and her colleagues to hold off on action against Moussaoui, arguing his arrest after suspicious behavior at a flight school was probably a coincidence. Rowley also accuses FBI Director Mueller of covering up the FBI’s mistakes.

Meanwhile, a new Time-CNN poll has found that more than one-half of those surveyed feel the FBI, CIA and President Bush’s top advisers bear at least some responsibility for not preventing the September 11th attacks. Nearly one-half say Bush himself is very or somewhat responsible for a lack of action to stop the attacks.