CIA Heavily Edits FBI Agent's 9/11 Book

After the FBI submitted a former agent's 600-page memoir about the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath to the CIA, the agency responded with a 181-page list of cuts it wanted to make. Author Ali Soufan—an Arabic-speaking counterterrorism agent who played a central role in many investigations—says the cuts are being demanded not for national security reasons, but because parts of his memoir reflect badly on the CIA, the New York Times finds.

His book, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al Qaeda, argues that the CIA, by withholding information from the FBI, missed a chance to prevent the attacks, and says the agency's move to harsh interrogation methods proved unnecessary and counterproductive. The information in the book that the CIA has labeled classified includes part of Soufan's testimony at open Congressional hearings—and even includes the use of the word "station" to describe the CIA's overseas offices. (More Ali Soufan stories.)