Yes, and for a jetliner to have crashed into a skyscraper under perfect conditions could only lead to one conclusion, which mirrors the alert flashed by the NY fireman that this was a "direct attack."

Administration and intelligence officials have been working overtime to distance themselves from - and to classify - the many pre-9/11 assessments, appreciations, and direct warnings that terrorists might - or were planning to - used hijacked jetliners on suicide missions against high priority targets, and somebody still has to explain in convincing fashion how the attack on the Pentagon could have been successful given the events in lower Manhatten.

To sum up, there was abundant intelligence that hijacked airliners were a potential weapon for terrorists, there was ample precedent that the WTC was a high-priority terrorist target, there were recovered plans for a terrorist attack on the Pentagon, White House, CIA HQs and the like (Project Bojinka), all of which directly contradict claims by the various responsible officials that these attacks came as a complete surprise.

Finally, as you note, Tom Clancy used this attack scenario in a novel.

Official claims that 9/11 caught us by surprise are - in a word - unbelievable.

S