If Congressional oversight of the US intelligence community had not deteriorated in the 1990s, the 9/11 attacks may not have occurred. Even now, congressional oversight of the intelligence community is partisan, unprofessional, and ineffective. So argues Marvin Ott, a professor at the National Defense University and a former CIA analyst. 

Ott, who was a senior staffer on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in the 1980s argues that if the Congress had effectively exercised its oversight of the intelligence community, then members and staff personnel on the intelligence committees would have recognized the danger signals presented by the first bombing of the World Trade Center, the attacks and the bombings on the embassies in East Africa and then the attack on the USS. Cole, all conducted by Al Qaeda. 

Congressional staffers assigned to intelligence committees frequently have intelligence backgrounds, but are not part of a single intelligence organization such as the CIA or FBI. As a result, Ott argues, they would have been more likely to cut through the stovepipes that result in intelligence agencies not sharing information and connect the dots regarding the true threat posed by Al Qaeda.

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